I see glimpses.
Rough hands, shoving us aboard.
Shouting.
A woman crying: she wants to get on this boat with her partner but they tell her no. No more room. Get in the other boat. She won’t go.
‘Leave her,’ one of the men says. ‘It’s her choice.’
Then one of them takes my rucksack and someone else’s and throws them back onto the beach and then pulls the woman onto the boat.
‘No!’ All the things Dad carefully packed for us. Our paper birds. My notebook. All gone. I try to get up, to jump out, but we’re too tightly packed and my head spins so much I nearly black out and they can’t hear me. ‘I need that!’
‘They’ll put them on the other boat,’ a woman next to me says, but I know she just wants me not to make a fuss.
‘Make sure your life jacket is done up properly,’ I croak to Billie, my throat stinging and raw. Mine is too big but I pull the strap as tight as I can.
We’re crammed in together, too many for this small boat, people packed all around me, pressing too intimately.
‘Think of being on the Tube,’ I say to Billie. ‘It’s kind of like that really.’
I see under my closed, hot eyelids a crammed carriage, feel the heat, my slipping fingers clinging to a rail already damp with someone else’s sweat. Sometimes, clattering through the dusty tunnels, you’d remember, just for a second, the weight above you of all the dark, underground, unseen things, the sewers and wires and pipes and bones and the foundations of buildings, and you wouldn’t want to think of how it was all pressing down on you and in around you. But even that seemed a million times safer than this journey, this floating, untethered but unable to move, into the night, being held precariously above all those other, unseen things in the dark of the sea.
Everyone’s quiet, edgy. The woman next to me looks like she’s praying, her lips moving silently. Billie holds my hand.
I close my eyes. My eyelids feel hot and sore.
The boat vibrates loudly.
We start to move.
Now it’s cold. It’s dark. The sky is dark, no stars. The sea is dark.
‘We should sleep,’ I say to Billie, knowing it’s impossible.
The smell – of other people, the strange stale smell of the boat, the salt wind, seaweed, a petrol aroma – catches in my throat. The thrum of the engine vibrates through me. My head throbs with it.
Panic rises, and nausea. My eyes won’t focus so I squeeze them shut tight.
‘Where’s Grandpa?’ I say to Billie.
‘He’s over there,’ she says.
Now we’re floating in blackness, the engines silent, the crash of the waves all around.
‘What’s happening?’ I say, panic rising. ‘What’s happening?’
‘Shhhh,’ the man next to us hisses. ‘Shut up.’
‘It’s the patrols,’ a woman says. ‘They’ve cut the engines so they don’t hear us. We’re drifting.’
We’re drifting.
Impossible and possible are not what I thought.
I sleep, or slip in and out of something like sleep, at first in blank, black scraps then in disjointed, unnerving visions like old movie reels.
Grandpa says, ‘You should have put coins in your mouth, to pay the boatman.’
Of course. How could I have forgotten that this was the way to get safely across the river to the underworld? There is a coin in my mouth, growing bigger and bigger so that I can’t speak—
I wake up properly, briefly. It’s bitterly cold and the waves are tipping the boat sickeningly. The men are swearing. The other people are silent. They hold each other, except for the people with no one to hold. Some are vomiting, over the side, on each other. The stink of it is unbearable. I sink back into black.
‘There! Patrol boats! Shit—’
The men are shouting, panicking.
Through the blur of night, I see searchlights.
You’re supposed to go towards the light, get out of the dark, I think.
But this light is dangerous.
There is screaming, scrambling, nails—
The sea becomes the sky—
A boot in my face—
The shock of the icy sea knocks the air from my lungs and then I’m under the water, my shout bubbling to nothing and my breath turning to thick liquid salt, stopping up my throat and nose—
Then air for a split second gulped in and then – gone thrashing kicking trying to grab something but there’s nothing and then up to the surface but there’s something there above me pushing me down down—
Breath held, held, growing inside me till it will burst through my ribs—
I’m a good swimmer. Yes. Did my lifesaving with Danny way back, rubber brick, pyjamas—
Trying to swim up but I don’t even know which way is up because everything’s dark like in hospital, after, those murky underwater days, weeks—
But that was a dream. Wasn’t it? Or is this the dream and I just have to let go…
Billie!
Where is she?
I thrash wildly, try to call out to her – but pain bursts through my chest every part of it—
And now something grips me, something strong, a selkie, a shark, a sea monster, and I’m being pulled up or maybe pulled down, down, into the deep. And the sea is in my nose and my throat and my lungs and my belly, it is filling me with salt and cold and dark until it is part of me until I’m part of it…
Until I am the sea.
And Billie’s voice in the dark says
Don’t
let
go—
Coughing, gagging, salt water and bile spilled from me, my breath came in agonizing gasps.
Eyelids fluttered open. I half-saw the blurred faces of strangers.
I fainted at school once. It was sports day and it was the hottest day.
‘Lucky,’ Mischa said later. ‘I’ve always wanted to faint. It’s so dramatic. And you didn’t have to run in front of everyone.’
It didn’t feel lucky. It felt confusing more than anything. I’d been standing, head throbbing, feeling a bit out of it, and then I’d woken up lying in the shade of the stand, with the PE teacher staring into my face and clamping a cold compress to my head, Mischa next to her looking anxious.
This memory didn’t belong here.
They were speaking but I couldn’t hear.
Should I know who they were?
Where was I?
Where was Billie?
My throat closed. I couldn’t speak. Everything spun. Shivering.
Cold and dark.
Cold.
Dark.
Deeper, deeper, back into the welcoming dark.
After many weeks and months, the ring with the green stone led the girl to a village by the sea.
‘I need to find the island,’ she said, ‘where the blood-red flower grows. Can you tell me how to get there?’
‘The island only appears at the full moon,’ the villagers told her. ‘When it does, you can only get there if the boatman will take you.’
‘How do I find the boatman?’ she asked.
‘He’ll find you,’ they told her.
So, on the night of the full moon, the girl waited on the shore, looking out to sea. She spied a black dot in the distance that she thought might be a great sea bird or a seal. But as it got closer she saw it was a small boat being rowed through the waves by a man in a blindfold.
‘Will you take me to the island where the blood-red flower grows?’ the girl called.
The boatman said, ‘I will take you, but in return you must give me the thing most precious to you.’
‘I only have this ring,’ she said. She didn’t want to give it to him but she knew she must if it meant she would see her sister again.
‘That is not the thing most precious to you,’ the boatman replied.
The girl despaired as she had nothing else to give him.
Then she remembered the blue feather. She took it from her pocket and handed it to the boatman.
‘My sister is most precious to me,’ she said. ‘And this is part of her.’
The boatman nodded and helped her into the boat and they set out across the stormy sea to the island.
I woke in a light room with thick whitewashed stone walls and a small window. I was in a soft bed under a thick eiderdown. On the bedside table next to me was a jug of water and a glass, a small vase with tiny purple flowers in it. On the wall opposite was a fireplace and on the mantelpiece was a pale blue candle, several stones with holes in them; above it, the skull of an animal, a sheep maybe. The room smelt of fresh herbs.
Billie sat on the end of my bed.
‘Clem!’ she said. ‘You’re awake again.’
I tried to speak but found I couldn’t.
Billie smiled. ‘It’s nice here.’ Then she ran off and after a while I heard her outside, singing.
I tried to sit up to pour myself some water but it took a while. I was weak and everything hurt. Eventually I managed it but felt out of breath and flopped back down on the pillow once I’d had a few gulps.
‘Hello?’ I called. There was silence. But it felt like a calm silence rather than a threatening one.
You know that doesn’t make sense, right? Mischa said. You might have been abducted or something. Or maybe you’re dead and this is all like heaven or purgatory or whatever.
Her voice sounded far away.
‘It doesn’t make sense, but it’s true,’ I said. I felt safe.
Mmmkaay, Mischa said. If you say so.
I realized suddenly that I really needed to find the bathroom. My head spun and throbbed as I stood up, my feet cold on the flagged floor. I swayed for a moment before my legs gave way and I found myself sitting on the bed again.
A woman who could have been any age between fifty and eighty came in. She had long white hair and very blue eyes and I knew at once that she would make me better. The room felt different with her in it, calmer. She had a kind of strength about her that I couldn’t describe or make sense of. I felt like she knew me.
‘Oh no you don’t,’ she said, grasping my arm as I wobbled. ‘You’re not strong enough to walk on your own.’
She told me her name was Bridie as she helped me to the bathroom, thankfully just next door, and I convinced her that I’d be fine to go in on my own, though she wouldn’t let me lock the door in case I fell. I didn’t, but I was glad to know she was there. Everything felt hazy and my body didn’t seem to belong to me.
Once she’d helped me slowly back into bed, she left me again and came back with warm milk and honey.
‘Drink this and then rest,’ she said. ‘Even just those few steps will have tired you out.’
I lay back on the pillows. She was right. I could hardly stay awake.
Billie, I thought as my eyes closed.
‘Don’t you worry about a thing.’ Bridie’s voice, calm and soothing. ‘Just sleep.’
For a few more days I slept and woke in the sunlit room. The pale blue candle was always burning and the scent of herbs was always in the air. Sometimes Billie was there, drawing or writing or folding birds. Sometimes she’d tell me a story or say, ‘The goats are so cute, with their weirdy eyes and little stubby horns,’ or ‘You’ve got to see the chickens!’ I told her I could hear the goats bleating sometimes if the wind blew the right way, and the rooster crowing in the mornings, but I’d thought maybe I was dreaming them because I was asleep most of the time.
‘You look a bit better now,’ she said. ‘A bit more like Clem.’
‘Who did I look like before?’
‘A ghost,’ she said.
At some point after that, I woke up and for the first time felt ravenously hungry. A few minutes later Bridie appeared with a bowl of something yellow that I wasn’t sure about.
‘Baked egg custard,’ she said. ‘For a day or two. Till you’re stronger.’
I scooped up a cautious half-spoonful. It was the most delicious thing I’d ever eaten.
Whenever I woke up she brought food: egg custards, bowls of creamy mashed potato, porridge with brown sugar, eggs with dark orange yolks, warm crusty bread with yellow butter. It was all like the taste version of seeing things in colour for the first time. I couldn’t decide whether it was because I was so hungry and had been hungry for a long time, or because I’d nearly died, or because the food just actually tasted better than any food I’d ever eaten.
Or because she’s a witch, Mischa said.
‘I think she is,’ I said. ‘The good kind though, not one who’s fattening me up to eat me.’
She’s a real witch, Clem, not a storybook one. Mischa knew what she was talking about when it came to witchcraft. Also, she could be microdosing you with mushrooms? Just saying. It would explain a lot. I honestly didn’t care whether it was psychedelics or witchcraft or organic cooking that was making me feel better.
Soon I felt strong enough to get up and walk beyond the bathroom for the first time. My room was on the ground floor and at the end of a corridor that opened out into a sitting room with stairs leading up to the next floor. A door led through to the kitchen, where Bridie was sitting at a scrubbed wooden table peeling potatoes.
‘Hello,’ she said, as if she’d been expecting me.
I sat down at the table.
‘How long have I been here?’
‘A while now,’ she said.
‘Like days? Or weeks?’
She nodded.
‘What happened?’ I asked. ‘I mean, I can’t really remember.’
She told me there had been two boats. The boat I was on capsized. Seven people had drowned.
‘And you’ve been looking after me? What happened to the others?’
‘They’re being looked after too, those that needed it.’
‘Here?’
‘Not here, no. I knew I could get you better, here on the island. It’s taken time though and it’ll take a lot more.’
I shook my head. ‘Thank you. I really appreciate everything you’ve done. But we can’t stay much longer. We’ve got to get to Edinburgh.’
She shook her head. ‘You were ill before you were in the sea, weren’t you?’
I nodded.
She put her hand to my forehead. It felt cool and soothing.
‘Sit there,’ she said.
She went to a cupboard and took out various jars and tins and ground something up with a pestle and mortar.
‘Did the other boat land here safely?’ I asked.
‘Yes.’
‘I think my rucksack might have been on it,’ I said. ‘I mean, I don’t know. It might have been left behind or just carried out to sea. But it had all my stuff in.’
‘It will be at the church then,’ Bridie said. ‘Everything that gets washed up, it ends up there. In case anyone ever comes looking for it.’
She rested her hand gently over my heart. ‘You are sick, in there,’ she said. ‘Until that’s healed, you won’t be properly well.’ She turned to stir the saucepan she was heating over the range and I was glad because I could feel that tears were going to spill from my eyes and I was too weak to stop them.
‘All that joy and energy,’ Bridie said. ‘A strong spirit. You mustn’t worry about her, you know.’ She turned and poured the liquid from the pan through a strainer and into a heavy mug.
‘Easy to say, I know,’ she said. ‘And impossible when you love her so much. Anyway, drink this,’ she said.
I carried the hot mug back to my room and sank back into bed, the tears still sliding down my cheeks. My breathing was still laboured and I ached all over. I drank the tea, which tasted spicy and sweet and slept.
Late the next day, I woke up and found my rucksack leaning against the end of my bed. It felt miraculous, as if Bridie had magically brought it into being. But I knew it wasn’t that. It was just chance. Ugly, random, indifferent chance. My rucksack was here, smelling faintly of salt water but otherwise unmarked. The woman who had insisted on taking a place on our boat might now be under the sea.
When I went outside at last, I realized it was winter. The wind whipped my hair and my eyes stung. The air tasted of salt and rain that would soon fall. I bent into the wind and walked away from the whitewashed cottage, aiming for a tall, grey standing stone at the other end of the island.
It looks kind of like a person, don’t you think? Mischa said. Do you reckon Bridie turned some guy into stone back in the day?
I was getting stronger. Billie walked next to me, encouraging me. ‘You can do it, Clem. Hold my hand. Don’t let go.’ Then she’d spot something interesting and skip off to take a closer look or run ahead with her arms outstretched as if she was about to fly away.
The first time I tried to reach the standing stone I only got about a quarter of the way. I wanted to cry. I couldn’t believe I was still so weak. But I wasn’t going to give up.
The second and third times I made it halfway. The fourth time, I really thought I was going to do it, but my legs gave way and Bridie had to come and help me back.
The fifth day, the sun was shining. The sound of the sea all around seemed to carry me along. I made it to the standing stone. It was lined and pitted, mottled with patches of moss. I leaned against it, breathing deeply, lungs aching, and looked out to sea, miles and miles of it, white-tipped, fierce. I felt dizzy and light as a feather, blown along on the wind. I turned and started the walk back towards the cottage. Each breath was painful and my legs felt heavy with the effort of the steps but I kept my eye on Bridie, who stood at the door watching me. When I reached her, I leaned against the wall and was too tired to speak.
But my mind was made up. We would leave tomorrow.
On the morning we left Bridie gave me one of her stones with a hole in it.
‘A hag stone,’ she said. ‘Loop it through that cord round your neck with your ring. That way I’ll know you’re safe.’
I did as she said.
‘Go now or you’ll miss the tide.’
She walked with us down to the causeway that joined the island to the mainland for part of the day when the tide was low. A paid-for taxi would be waiting for us on the other side, she said.
‘Thank you, Bridie,’ I said. ‘For everything.’
I hugged her and breathed in the calm of her that was almost like a scent. Then I walked across the causeway, Billie just in front of me, the sea all around us, not wanting to look back in case Bridie and the island weren’t there any more.
As the girl stepped ashore, she found the plant growing just as she had seen it in her dream, but it was not yet flowering. She knew it would not flower until midwinter, which was not for three nights. She waited in the cold.
On the first night the plant grew a bud.
On the second night the bud grew fuller and fatter.
On the third night it began to snow. The girl pulled her cloak around her, frozen to her bones, but she would not fall asleep.
As she heard the bells from across the sea ring out for midnight, the bud opened out into a beautiful flower. But it was not blood red, it was as white as the snow that fell around it. The girl wept. This was not what her dream had told her. This flower would not save her sister. Then she had a thought. With a small knife she carried in her pocket she cut her finger and let the blood fall onto the snow under which grew the roots of the plant.
One, two, three drops of blood in the white snow.
And as the blood fell so the flower bloomed blood red.