Finder's Shore (6 page)

A thin light wakes me, the smell that accompanies it — kelp and brine and damp, sandy earth — telling me where I am. Dawn is not far off, the sky above the hills already hazing from deep grey into pink. Ronan’s head is pillowed on his arm, his hair tangled, his mouth slightly open. He looks younger asleep.

Moving carefully to avoid disturbing him, I crawl from beneath the sailcloth, emerging from the dunes like an animal from its burrow.

With the light I can make out the alien shape of the cliff, the topmost section — and with it the old fishermen’s path that leads to Merryn’s farm on the headland — sheered away. There’s no way to tell whether time or Colm engineered the collapse. Even if he had no part in it, Colm must have been pleased by the results. With the tide running high up the sand, the cave mouth is unreachable. Closer, despite our efforts to disguise it, the dinghy lies like a signpost on the sand.

I cast my eyes towards the sea-path at the far end of 
Skellap Bay. If I could be sure that it’s still my family who live at Leewood, I might be able to convince Ronan to leave the dinghy where it is. Checking the farmyard will take only a few minutes.

The crust of sand crunches sweetly as I run across the bay, each step holding an echo of my childhood. Sloughing off my doubt at leaving Ronan alone, I let memories of long-ago stories and laughter, of Pa and Ty and Sophie, expand within me.

The path is overgrown, but I can make out its curves in the stunted pattern of the sea-grass. At its crest, the familiar stop-bank comes in sight. Scrambling across it, I hurry along the ditch to where it meets the field wall. The light is strengthening with dawn’s approach. Ducking low I follow the wall to the edge of the trees. The roof of the barn is visible above the rise, but nothing mars the stillness.

As I edge up the slope to where I can see into the yard, a sudden clatter makes me freeze. The mournful bleat of a goat reassures me. Cautiously I move on. The henhouse, the barn: beyond lies the house. I’m nearly within sight of it when the gentle snick of a latch makes me jump. A moment later there’s a rustle of breaking twigs as someone hurries through the trees.

Quietly as I can, I trail after the sounds. Over the crest of the hill there’s a clearing where we used to pick green shoots and hunt out summer berries. There, at last, I see who I’m following. Sophie stands with her face upturned to the first rays of light that come slanting through the branches. There’s only a token resemblance to the girl, 
still then a child, that I left behind on Dunnett.

I stand transfixed as she extends her arms and spins in a slow circle. Her shawl, woven in a cobweb of grey and green, billows like delicate wings from her spread arms. Her head is bare, her dark hair pulled into a braid that hangs smooth and straight down her back. As she turns to face me, my heart contracts. The years have added a fullness and promise to her prettiness: her straight nose, defined lips, fine pale skin. At fourteen — the age I was when I left Dunnett — Sophie is beautiful.

A branch cracks beneath my foot and she abruptly stops turning. Without pausing to consider, I step into the clearing’s pale light. Emotions run fleet across her face, alarm giving way to shocked recognition before her face smoothes.

My throat works against me. “Hello, Sophie.” The years stand like a wall between us. “You look well,” I manage at last.

Sophie raises her chin. “What are you doing here, Ness?”

Her coolness stings me. “I’ve missed you.” I take a step forward but Sophie doesn’t move. She seems more assured than her years. “I wanted to know how you were, and … and whether things had changed.”

She huffs a breath. “Oh, they’ve changed. They changed right away.”

I shy from the bitterness in her tone, and all it implies. I’m not ready to hear how I’ve hurt her. “You’re out early.”

“I was hoping to find mushrooms for my breakfast.” The lie slips easily from her tongue. 

“It’s the wrong time of year,” I say flatly.

Sophie’s smile is sharp. “You remember something of Dunnett then.”

“Going away didn’t stop me remembering. I had no choice, Sophie.”

“You had more than you left us.”

The last thing I expected from my cousin was resentment. I try not to let it overwhelm me. “How’s Ty?”

“He was apprenticed to a tanner in Dunn three years ago. I’ve not seen him since. It’s too far to visit, even if we were allowed.”

“A tanner? But surely —”

Anger sparks in her eyes. “When you left, did you even think about the chaos you left behind?”

“Sophie.” I reach for her hands but she tucks them behind her back.

“What is it that you want, Ness?” I can only gaze at her. She shrugs. “I have to get back.”

“Are Marn and Tilda well?”

Something shifts in her face. “No, Ness, they’re not. They’re neither as you might remember them. Nothing is. I’m mistress of Leewood now.” She rightly reads my confusion, and something in her stance softens. “Everything changed, Ness. Tilda lost her grip on reality. She seldom leaves the house.”

“And Marn?” My voice comes out squashed.

“He’s a tenant here now.”

“Of who? Not Colm Brewster!”

“Of course Colm.” She sighs. “Your defection nearly destroyed us, Ness. I’ve salvaged what I can.” 

I don’t understand her words, or the harshness behind them. “My defection.”

“After you left, the Council held a trial. We were all called as witnesses, along with the Barritts and Shehans — all our neighbours.”

“The Shehans spoke against me?”

She tosses her head impatiently. “It didn’t matter who spoke! There was only one possible outcome. And because you weren’t here to suffer the sentence passed against you, the farm was taken in forfeit.”

“Leewood is Marn’s farm! It has nothing to do with me.” Pity flickers across Sophie’s face, but I’m too consumed by my outrage to attend it. “So it’s come to that: Colm can take whatever he likes as his own and no one tries to stops him?”

Sophie looks suddenly weary. “It’s the way things are, Ness. Marn had either to accept it or be thrown off the farm. We’ve all had to live with the choices you made.”

The resignation in her voice cuts me as much as her allocation of blame. “Would you rather I’d stayed?”

We both know what it would mean if I had. She says nothing.

“Are you happy, Sophie?” I ask at last.

“Are you?” she demands.

Her question shakes me back to my purpose. “Sophie, what the Council says about there being nothing left beyond the island: it’s not true. There’s so much! Things couldn’t be more different: people and books and technology — new technology, only some of it from
old-teck
. We —” 

“I don’t care, Ness. I never did. I don’t want a world beyond Dunnett.” Her braid slaps against her back as she tosses her head. “I’m getting married next summer.”

My mouth gapes like a hungry nestling. “Married? You’re too young! Sophie, surely that’s not —” A sudden dark image looms from my memory. “Not to Jed? Sophie, they’re not making you marry Jed? To keep the farm, to —”

She cuts me off. “It could have been that way. Ton might have insisted, after the way you humiliated him. But no, not to Jed. Jed avoids me these days.”

It was Sophie, not me, who brought about Jed’s humiliation. “How was what I did so terrible?” I demand. “I saved Dev’s life, because it was the right thing to do. You helped me.”

Irritation flares in her eyes. “I did what you asked of me! I was young. I looked up to you. But you were wrong, Ness. Saving a stranger was wrong, just as running away was wrong.”

A branch snaps in the trees and we both spin about. “Go, Ness,” she hisses. “You’ve no call to be here. None!”

Then she’s gone, darting across the clearing and away through the trees. I turn back to the path that leads down the hill, my emotions in a tangle that twists and tears within me. I’ve barely gone five steps when a hand grips my arm. “Wha—”

Ronan motions me to silence. He tilts his head to our left. Pulling away from his grasp I search through the shadowy branches. Nothing. I’m about to speak when another branch cracks. Our eyes meet. Ronan turns and I hurry behind him through the trees, past the farmyard 
and ditch, back to the bay.

“Get the packs,” he says, as our feet reach the sand. “We need to move the dinghy.”

“It was probably nothing. A goat or —”

“We can’t risk it. If we lose the dinghy we’re trapped.” He doesn’t wait for an answer but runs across the sand, his movements abrupt as he begins casting our scant camouflage aside.

I collect the packs and sailcloth and join him. “I need to talk to Sophie again,” I say. “I hadn’t time to ask about the Council or Colm.”

“We’ll discuss it later.”

With the tide full in, we’ve not far to tow the little craft. While Ronan turns it to meet the waves I run back and scuff the trail the keel’s left. “Come on, Ness.” His impatience irks me.

As I splash into the water, the sun’s first rays slant over Cullin Hill, dappling the sea out beyond the cliff’s shadow. Ronan pushes us farther off shore, the boat tipping beneath his weight as he clambers over the side. I try to steady us with the oars but they feel awkward in my hands. A wave lifts us, sweeping us towards the rocks.

“I’ll do it,” Ronan says, the dinghy tilting wildly as he scrambles up beside me.

“I can manage.”

“Just get out of the way, Ness!”

I baulk at his tone, but it doesn’t seem the time to argue. Ronan proves his point by pulling us out of danger in several swift strokes. Moments later we’re beyond the first finger of rock and Skellap Bay has begun to slide 
from view. Another minute and all that remains is the far end of the dunes, then that, too, is gone, and with it the flash of movement I glimpsed at the last. Studying Ronan’s closed expression, I decide against mentioning it. It might have been no more than longing that led me to imagine a figure looking out from the path that leads to Leewood.

The island’s shadow falls chill across us as we round the headland, our progress hampered by the swell that breaks in against the cliff. “It might be easier if we go farther out,” I suggest.

For a moment I think Ronan plans not to answer. “Close in we can’t be seen from above,” he says finally.

I could tell him that no one but Merryn lives on the headland, but I don’t. I no longer trust what I once knew of Dunnett. What I once knew of Sophie. Something knots in my chest as I recall our exchange. Resentment I can understand, a little, though she knows better than anyone that I had no choice about leaving, but Sophie’s cool distance, as if she doesn’t care what became of me, leaves me winded.

“You shouldn’t have gone without me.”

Ronan’s tone is flat but I feel the sting of his accusation — mostly because I know that he’s right. I don’t blame him for being angry. “I was only meaning to check whether my family still lived there before I came back. 
Then I saw Sophie, and —”

“And whoever was watching saw you.”

“You don’t know that,” I snap, feeling stubborn and mutinous, as if being at Leewood has somehow returned me to childhood.

Ronan rows on in silence, while I try to swallow my pride, to make way for the apology I know full well he’s owed.

The shove of the waves slowly changes, coming more from behind. I gaze up at the cliff. “There’s an old fishing village above us,” I say, laying the words out as a peace offering. “It’s all ruins now, different to the ruins at Vidya. Older.” Ronan says nothing. My eyes follow a kittiwake, arcing in above our heads. “Maybe the world never stops changing.”

Ronan rests the oars in a horizontal line above the water, drops falling from their blades. His hair sticks damply to his forehead, his shirt showing patches of sweat. Fresh guilt joins the old. “Do you want me to row for a while?”

“How much farther to the inlet?”

I scan the rocky toe of the headland. “Not far, I think. Around that outcrop of rocks.”

“I’ll just rest for a minute.”

The sea sways us gently. “I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I shouldn’t have gone without you.”

Ronan nods and returns to the oars. We slide past a small cove nestled between rocky spurs then another that boasts a tiny pocket of sand.

“How long would it take to walk from Skellap Bay to the inlet?” 

“Two hours from Leewood to Merryn’s and another half hour at least from her farm. The old fishermen’s path up the cliff was quicker, but the top section has given way.” By natural means or not. Change comes in different forms.

“We can’t risk staying long: not more than an hour.”

I frown at his pessimism. “If there was someone in the trees, it was most likely Marn.”

The lift of his eyebrow is all the answer Ronan makes, and it’s enough. If it had been Marn, he’d have spoken out. “It could have been Jed,” I allow. “He always used to spy on us.” And the first place he’d think to look for me, after Skellap Bay, would be Merryn’s.

When the inlet comes in sight, its entrance marked by twin lines of waves that hump and curl on either side of a narrow band of flat water, Ronan shakes his head. “The tide’s turned,” he says. “We won’t get in till slack water.”

“Can’t we at least try?”

With a shrug, he pulls us closer to the channel entrance, the dinghy moving sluggishly against the thrust of the outgoing tide. Disappointment clags my throat. I can see that it’s hopeless. Ronan turns us with one oar and we’re swept back out to sea.

“We’ll wait at the cove we passed,” he says, as he rows back the way we’ve come.

I stare at the complex geometry of the waves where they crumple and rebound from the cliff’s jagged base.

The pocket of shore where he beaches the dinghy is no larger than the vegetable plot at Leewood, its coarse sand crunching loud as he scrambles out. I follow reluctantly. 
With the sun blocked off, the cove is cold and cheerless, walled about by sea and rock. There’s a pungent aroma and the cliff above is streaked with white.

“We’re below a rookery,” Ronan says, as if I can’t work that out for myself.

We tow the dinghy up the shore and Ronan stretches the kinks from his spine. “I could use something to eat.” He looks around. “There might be enough wood for a fire.” What little there is will be brittle and quick burning.

“The next slack tide won’t be till dusk,” I say. I can’t hide my impatience, or the skein of tension that the morning has woven about me. “Crossing the headland will take longer in the dark. We’ll be late for the rendezvous with
Explorer
.”

Ronan says nothing as he scours the cove, gathering half an armload of sea-bleached branches. “What did you find out from Sophie?” he asks as he stacks them near the cliff.

I toss a stick onto his meagre pile. “Only that Colm is still in charge, and greedier and more powerful than ever.”

“What about your family?”

His question pierces the carapace that hides my hurt. “Ty’s been sent away, apprenticed to a tanner.” He can’t help but hear what it costs me to say it. “Marn —” An image forms in my mind of the Council’s sham trial and the way Marn would have felt, losing Leewood. “Marn forfeited his farm because of me. He’s Colm’s tenant now.”

The smell of the rookery makes my eyes water. I turn to stare out to sea. 

“It’s not your fault, Ness.”

Ronan is beside me, his hand awkward on my shoulder. I take a shuddering breath. Now is no time to give way to tears. The sand on my fingers is gritty against my skin as I wipe them away. “I hadn’t time to find out enough. Sophie —” I stop, and shake my head. “Merryn will be able to tell us more.”

It occurs to me abruptly that I didn’t ask whether Merryn still farms her own land, or whether she, too, fell victim to Colm’s spite. It feels as if I can’t do anything right. Ronan’s hand lifts from my shoulder and I turn, regretting its loss, but he’s already walking away.

I bend to pick up a stick, worn smooth and grey by the sea. At the rear of the cove Ronan runs his hand across the cliff as if he’s testing its soundness. “My brothers and I used to climb for bird’s eggs on Ister’s northern cliffs,” he says.

It takes me a moment to grasp his meaning. He walks back to my side. “It’s not as bad as it looks, Ness.” He extends an arm. “The first section is the hardest. From the ledge, there, it gets easier and there are plenty of holds.”

I try to trace the path his finger picks out, but all I can see is the height of the cliff towering above us. “I —”

“We could leave most of our gear here.” He opens his pack. I scrutinise the rope, like a coiled serpent, that he drops on the sand. He offers me a slab of bread, but any hint of appetite I might have had has disappeared.

“The dinghy will be safer here than in the inlet,” he says. “And this way we’ll be at Merryn’s before anyone else has time to reach the headland. If they’re looking,” he adds, as he sorts our belongings into two piles. 

After a moment he notices my silence. He looks up. “It’ll save us half a day, as well as reducing the risk. And it’ll mean we can get off the island as soon as it’s dark.” He’s convinced himself, at least.

“I don’t know if I can do it.”

“You used to use that path up the cliff above the cave. It’s more or less the same.”

It’s not, I think. Ignoring my indecision, Ronan begins repacking our gear. I walk to the sea’s edge and sluice my face, welcoming the sting of salt in my eyes. Turning, I stare up at the cliff. Perhaps Ronan’s right: beyond the ledge he pointed out, the slope is less steep.

“I could go on my own,” he offers. “If you draw me a map I can —”

“No.” My mouth feels mealy and dry. I wipe my hands on my thighs.

Ronan swings the pack onto his shoulders. “All right. I’ll go first, with the rope. Don’t start till I reach the first ledge.” He ties a loop around my torso. “I’ll tug twice when I’m ready for you to come up.” Dread oozes thick as mud through my veins. “If you need more slack, give three quick tugs on the rope and I’ll loosen it off a fraction.”

Though I try, I can’t return his smile.

“It’ll be easier than you think, Ness.”

My palms are clammy as I wait, neck craned back till it aches, while Ronan inches upwards. The cliff seems to stretch to the sky. If I fall, Ronan surely won’t be able to hold me. More likely I’ll pull us both to our deaths.

The rope tightens between us then jumps twice in my 
hands. “Come up to the ledge,” he calls softly. “It’s not far.”

I curl my fingers around a rocky spur and lift my right foot to a jut. With my left I find a crack. Ronan is right: it’s easier than I expected, but the rock is sharp, the holds small and rough beneath the pads of my fingers. I’ve barely begun when the newly healed gash on my shin begins to ache.

“You’re doing well,” Ronan calls.

I grit my teeth. Easier to find purchase with fingers than toes. My knees keep getting in the way, and each time I search without finding a hold, my heart hammers so savagely it feels as if it alone might push me from the cliff. Ronan keeps the rope taut without unbalancing me, but still it sometimes tangles my arm or slaps at my chest. When his hand closes on my wrist I jerk in fright.

“Steady, Ness. Up you come.”

“How much farther?” I gasp, once I’m safely wedged beside him. The cove looks tiny below.

“About the same again.”

Liar, I think. From memory, I’d guess we’re at most a third of the way.

Ronan checks the coils of the rope then shuffles around till he’s facing the cliff. “Don’t look down,” he says. “If you tell yourself the ground’s right below, it takes the fear out of it.”

If my disbelief is apparent, he politely ignores it.

The second part of the climb comes easier. The last section is the worst. Kittiwakes, disturbed by our presence, swoop in around my head. One grazes my arm and I flinch, a cry winging from me as I slither back a 
pace. The rope pulls me up, cutting into my ribs, adding grazes to those I’ve already gained from the rock.

Ronan’s voice steadies me. “You’re fine, Ness.” His head hangs out above me. “You’re nearly there.”

I can’t spare the breath to answer. My vision smears with tears of relief as I haul myself up and over the lip of the guano-crusted ledge.

“You did it.” Ronan grins.

I don’t yet trust my voice. My palms feel raw. I rub them together, hoping the pressure will still their shaking. The noise of the rookery is deafening, angry birds swooping and darting around us, but for once I don’t mind their ceaseless clamour or their stench.

Ronan hands me a canteen and I drink gratefully. Minutes tick by. The sun, above us now, dries the sweat on my face. I wriggle to unstick my damp shirt.

“We’re probably too late in the season for eggs,” he says, and I peer at him blankly. “They’ll have hatched. Piers and I would eat the first dozen we found, as reward for the climb.”

It’s only the second time in the three years I’ve known him that Ronan has mentioned his brother. “We’d layer the eggs between moss to keep them safe for the climb back up. Piers dropped his pack once, when he had it almost full.”

“Did he lose it?”

He nods. “Mam was angry. She said we took too many risks.”

“She’d have been scared, thinking it could have been you or Piers that fell.” 

He doesn’t answer. “Is Ister much like Dunnett?” I ask.

Ronan picks at the side of his boot where a strip of leather has been scuffed away. “It’s smaller but just as rugged, the coastline especially. There are only a handful of places where you can land, besides Tarbet.” He coils the rope between his hands and stows it in the pack. “If you know what you’re doing, you can beach a boat below our farm at high tide, but you have to time it just right.”

The birds have begun to settle, accustomed now to our presence. Ronan scrambles up and extends his hand. “Do you think about it much?” I ask, as we stand face to face.

He shoves the canteen, half empty now, into the pack and cinches the straps. “My brothers,” he says. Our gaze holds for a heartbeat. “Come on.” He settles the pack on his back. “Your turn to lead the way.”

The quickest route to Merryn’s lies directly across the headland. We scramble south around the craggy limits of the rookery and up onto the sparsely tufted hill, my thoughts drifting to my flight three years ago, and Jed’s mocking face.

We see no one on the hillside. By the time we reach the copse, I’m edgy with tension. “It’s not far now.”

When the orchard comes in sight my breath catches like needles in my throat. I’ve missed Merryn, but it’s more than that: there’s guilt, as well, that I left her under suspicion when she had no part at all in the decisions I took. At the time I trusted that Marn would keep her safe, but after seeing Sophie I’m wondering whether Marn’s friendship might instead have worked against her. 

Beehives have been set out among the trees and relief pours through me like a tonic: no one I know but Merryn has the knack for keeping bees.

Alert for any sound, I lead Ronan past the orchard and honey shed, through the shelter belt and around to the back of the barn. My eyes skim the yard. The house is quiet, but within the barn I hear an animal snort, and the clank of a bucket. Motioning for Ronan to wait, I peer cautiously around the door. The interior is dark and the smell of livestock wraps soothingly around me. For a moment I’m my five-year-old self, sitting straight and eager on the stool by Merryn’s side, her fingers feathered around mine as she teaches me to milk.

The barn is as familiar to me as Leewood’s. With just the tips of my fingers resting on the wood I slip inside. A cow stands quietly chewing in a stall near the door. A nanny goat rests on the straw of a pen while another, with a pair of kids, stamps her foot at my intrusion. Merryn sits with her back to the door, a bucket between her knees, her hands busy milking.

“Hello?” My voice comes out hesitant and warped.

“I’ll be with you in a moment,” she calls over her shoulder.

The sound of milk against the pail loses its sharp ring as the bucket fills. Finally she sets it aside, running her hand along the goat’s knobbed spine before she turns.