She underlines the word ‘study’ with a shaky line and points at me with the pen.
‘Yes, Mum,’ I say. And I mean it. I can’t disappoint her.
She’s writing again.
Swim 7 p.m.
I almost laugh then shake my head. Mum’s insisted we keep going to school; carry on with our lives. But I can’t compete in a gala, not tonight. It’s a part of the championship I’ve been training for, but I couldn’t care less now. She’s far too ill for me to leave.
‘No, Mum. I’m staying here. I’ll read to you.’
Mum frowns. Hand at her chest as if even feeling annoyance is too much for her disintegrating lungs. My own short breaths are heavy, noisy, a dreadful luxury. She points to her nose, her eyes full of concern and I know what she means. I inhale through my nostrils, slowing my breathing, hating that Mum needs to worry about my anxiety when she is going through this.
She lifts the pen again and scribbles.
Bus. Go.
Her eyes grip me hard. She’s still my mum and the urge to do what she says is compelling, especially when it comes to swimming.
I hesitate. ‘I’ll check with Suzie, OK?’
Mum gives the slightest nod.
Suzie says she is currently stable, but we know how things are.
I kiss Mum and as I glance back she’s written more words and holds up the page, hand shaking with the effort. The letters are wobbly but it is clear.
Reach. Kick. Breathe.
The words she used when she first taught me to swim, the words she called out from the side of the pool every time I raced. ‘It’s all there is to it, girl. Reach your arms, kick your legs and don’t forget to—’
I wake, panting. I’m sweating, swaying, my body fighting the truth. Why can’t I have a normal nightmare? Anything, no matter how scary, would be better than reliving the last time I saw Mum.
Blue light through cracks. Hammock. Hut. The island.
The hissing sound of Mum’s oxygen tank still fills my head. I sit up and tip from the hammock. Poppy isn’t here, I don’t know where here is.
I force in deep breaths. Poppy is with Iona. She’s safe, she has to be.
Beti and Callum snore softly in their hammocks. The sun isn’t up yet but I always wake early after years of swim training before school. I open the waist pack and strap the knife in its sheath to my waist belt, feeling sort of silly, as if I’m a character in a survival role-play game. I pull the goggles over my head so they hang at my neck. The sandy floor of the hut is cold beneath my bare feet and I shiver as the nightmare sweat cools on my skin.
My mind clings to the dream memory, Mum’s rounded shaky handwriting on her last words. The message that she’d slipped into a coma reached me at poolside less than two hours after I last saw her. I’d finished my races and was wrapped in a towel, surrounded by the rest of the squad, waiting for our times.
Reach. Kick. Breathe.
I hear her voice say it and grief surges in my throat, behind my eyes. Mum never said, but I think the swimming was because her own mum died of lung cancer. She wanted our lungs as strong as they could be and I happened to be good at it. She had mixed feelings about it, wanted me to do what I enjoyed but also see my friends and study hard. Could Mum somehow have known that we’d end up surrounded by the ocean? Could Iona have told her about Wildhaven?
I sneak out of the hut without waking the others and jog across the beach, quickly warming up. I climb the rocks at the east side of the beach, then decide to clamber along, try to reach the other side of the island. The sun is rising, but not yet over the horizon, a bruise of blue light behind me. I move quickly, hopping from rock to rock with my bare feet. Finally I reach the end of the bay and am faced with a cliff. I clamber up and look out towards the ocean, noticing a dark blotch against the blue of the pre-dawn sky. Another island, closer than the others we saw yesterday, which are hazy blurs in the distance. This one doesn’t look much more than a tangle of thick vegetation, and it wasn’t visible from where we stood yesterday, or from the sea at the lagoon gap. The water leading to it is paler turquoise; it almost looks like an underwater path, joining this island to the next bigger island with this outcrop between the two. I narrow my eyes, trying to judge the distance. I think I could swim to it. Maybe there’ll be something else to see from there.
This place is tropical. Atolls are the remains of coral reefs after sunken volcanoes, but that doesn’t give me much to go on as I think there are atolls in the Pacific, the Indian Ocean, and the Caribbean. The thought makes my heart plummet. Planes go down in the Pacific and no one is ever found, even now, in modern times, with satellites and technology; it’s that huge.
I climb back down and sit on the rocks, paddling my feet in the warm water. I shouldn’t swim alone.
The sun rises, clearing the horizon much more quickly than it does at home, and as I’m bathed in golden light my legs and arms buzz with the urge for activity. I should fetch the others, start searching the interior, but my brain is fogged up with my desperation to find her. If we came out of the sea, I need to get back out there.
I’m still wearing the swimsuit I arrived in. I strip off the T-shirt and tuck it into a crevice on the rocks, take one last look at the small island from here, and make a ragged dive before I can change my mind.
At first I revel in the feel of the water. I follow the slight ridge, which is around four metres down. It’s like a sandbar that joins our island to the smaller island, deeper water sloping off either side. It seems safer in this shallower water where I can clearly see the bottom, and I try not to look off into the deeper blue either side of it. Along the ridge there are thinly scattered rocks, coral carcasses and a few patches of living coral, but nothing like a full reef. I swim past a field of spiky sea urchins to one side, waving their black spines like a gang of giant porcupines, then dive down to look closer at a clownfish colony darting in and out of a purple sea anemone, and almost gulp down water when a rock next to them moves. Colour ripples across its surface and when it unfurls a tentacle, I see it is a small octopus with a bulbous head around the size of a tennis ball. Swirls of red, white and terracotta pulse over its skin. I’ve never seen anything look so much like an alien. It spreads all eight legs and creeps along the sea floor below me, then without warning, forms an arrow shape and shoots off into the deeper blue nothingness.
I stop swimming for a moment to catch my breath. I’ve been so fascinated by the sea life I’ve not realized how far I’ve come. More importantly, how far there still is to go.
The small island is further than it looks. I haven’t done much open-water swimming and although the sea is calm, the ripple of the waves means I’m using up my energy quicker than I would in the pool. My initial enthusiasm shrinks until I almost turn back at every stroke. This is reckless, my decision-making skills have been warped by my panicked state of mind, but I continue on, seeing nothing below me but the occasional school of fish.
The sun creeps higher in the sky. My muscles burn and anxiety rises, but it’s now further back than it is to the island I’m heading for. I could do with resting before I turn back and I really do want to get a look at the other island, and beyond. The sun scorches the top of my head and I dive under every few strokes to escape the heat. It’s at least twice as far as I’d estimated. I must have swum around two kilometres.
At last I pull myself up on the thick roots that coat the rocks. The island seems to be nothing but a huge mass of mangrove trees, perched on a pile of boulders. I make my way to a rock between the roots and sit and circle my shoulders, wincing at the ache and surveying my surroundings. A few young coconut palms rise from the centre but the dense canopies of mangrove surround them. I saw Callum drill into the dots on the top of a coconut with a blade, I could give that a go; it would give me water and energy. The mangrove roots are everywhere, a gnarled overlapping lattice, some rearing up in front of me like giant claws. To reach the trees I need to either wind through the roots or climb over them an
d that’s going to use a lot of energy. But the thought of coconut makes my mouth water. I pause, tapping my fingers on my lips. I’m tempted to try to find some energy reserves and swim back right away. But I’ve made it this far; I should at least look around.
I scramble over the roots and after a lot of effort I’ve made almost no progress and my bare feet are grazed raw by the rough bark. I might as well give up on finding a coconut. I stop to catch my breath, sweat staining the armpits of the now-dried swimsuit, salt drying crispy in my eyebrows. I lick my lips, parched. It’s become too hot too quickly.
This could be the most stupid thing I’ve ever done. What if a storm whips up? Or I twist my ankle? No one will ever know what happened to me, I’ll die here. I look behind me. I can’t even explore the rest of this island because it’s only going to make me even more dehydrated.
I climb into a large gap between the boulders and sit for a moment, my back against a rock, partly shaded by a mesh of tree roots above me. Something in the corner of the hollow catches my eye.
A shape I recognize. Pale, misshapen. A hand.
My heart leaps into my throat. I gasp and press my back against the rock, heart racing, even as I see it isn’t a hand, but the remains of a glove.
I hold my chest, slowing my breathing, my eyes fixed on the glove. I crawl over to it and pull it out from where it’s pinched between two rocks encrusted with mussels. It rips a little on the sharp shells, but comes free. I hold it up to the sunlight. It is definitely a glove, but missing the whole palm and two of the fingers, the rest barely more than a rag. It’s rotted and mildewed, green and slimy in parts, but a couple of patches are grey, which might have been its original colour. It’s made from a thin, stretchy material like our suits, and I hold it against my swimsuit. It’s a much lighter grey.
It’s only an old glove, lost at sea, nothing to do with us. I slip it under my waist belt as I have nowhere else to put it. I try to shrug the feeling off, but keep imagining it was a hand, something awful to do with Poppy. No. I won’t start jumping at shadows and freaking out. I can’t.
Need to get out of here, now.
I scramble from the hollow too quickly with an inexplicable feeling something is following me. I stumble and make a giant step to regain my balance, but miss the next rock and go down hard on my knees.
When I haul myself up, a jolt of hot pain forces me to cry out. A sharp ridge on the rock is smudged with my blood. I shudder and stand, wincing, looking down at my knee.
Oh God.
The cut is about the length of my thumb. I bend my knee a little to get a better look and start back as the wound opens, revealing the white of the deeper layers of my flesh within, like an open mouth drooling blood. This is bad, so bad. A determined trickle of red already tracks down my shin. I look around me for something to bind it with, but there’s nothing. I’m such an idiot.
I’m not at the same place I climbed out of the water; here it is all tree roots. Toppling from root to root, I leave a trail of oily blood smudges on the bark. The roots bounce and sway over the water, and at last I get to a place where I can dive in. I haul air right to the bottom of my lungs and crouch. A dark drop of my blood hits the water and curls into brown tendrils against the blue.
I breathe in through my nose, out through my mouth. Three in, six out. As soon as I get my breath back, I’ll swim. I’m spooked, that’s all. It was just a glove, too old to be anything to do with us.
Don’t think about it any more.
Reach. Kick. Breathe.
I blank her voice out, look down at the wound again, and reason that I’m not badly hurt, the cut only gives off a dull throb. Counting my breaths for a few more rounds helps me feel calmer. I straighten and circle my arms; my muscles aren’t as tired as I thought. Our island is now surrounded by a sea haze and looks alarmingly far away.
Well, not for long. I squat, preparing to dive, toes dipping into the water.
I blink in disbelief.
A triangular fin gleams blackly as it cuts a steady line through the water towards me.
I scramble back up the branches, gasping. Below me, the blood from my cut has billowed into a murky cloud. The fin whips back and forth, churning eddies and whorls topped with pink foam.
Shark.
Rays of light slice through the vertical blinds and highlight the dust motes Sam has been watching while he waits for Granda to wake up. The hospital room is stale and stuffy but the window’s jammed shut, he’s tried it twice. He checks his watch and sighs. He doesn’t like to wake him, but visiting hours will be over soon, and they are pretty strict even though this is a private room. The heart monitor shows a steady beat and the oxygen mask is wrapped around the tank, unused. Good signs that Granda is fighting off the infection. He looks a lot better than when Sam saw him last, less sunken.
A knock at the door and a man enters, without waiting for an answer. He’s wearing an open-collared blue shirt and a stethoscope around his neck.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says, ‘I’ll come back.’
He turns as if to leave, but Sam stands, the hospital chair making a squeaking sound against the lino.
‘No worries. I’m his grandson. You can carry on with me here, Granda won’t mind,’ he says.
‘It’s quite all right, take your time,’ says the doctor. He has a slight accent, clipped and correct, and is Sam’s dad’s age with dark hair flanked by wings of silver at the temples. But it’s his eyes that catch Sam’s attention. Pale green-blue. He flashes Sam a smile as he leaves, and instantly Sam is taken back to the fire site in the bush. The same guy—
A rattling cough. Sam turns back to the bed to find Granda awake and trying to shuffle himself into a sitting position.
‘What are you doing, boy?’ he says. ‘Bad enough one of us has to be here.’
Sam supports Granda’s back and adjusts the pillow.
‘Good to see you too, Granda,’ he smiles. ‘Feeling any better?’
‘Still crook, but the nurses are happy with me.’
‘That’s really good, Granda.’ He hesitates, then points at the door, ‘That doctor—?’
‘Oh him?’ says Granda, and closes his eyes for a moment. ‘I don’t suppose it matters any more.’
He clears his throat and his eyes are bright as they meet Sam’s.
‘He ran the treatment trial I was on – Marisogen – but it was never licenced. He . . . visits when I’m in hospital, asks some questions, gives me a once-over.’
‘Is there a chance you could go back on the trial, then?’ says Sam. Hope rises in his chest, sickly sweet.
Granda shakes his head.
‘I wish I could. Marisogen was the only treatment that actually worked and it didn’t even have side effects. Just an injection every two weeks.’
‘What’s this doctor’s name?
‘Nygard.’ Granda breaks off into a coughing fit and points to the oxygen. Sam fixes the mask on his face and turns the valve, and Granda rolls his eyes as his breathing eases. Sam remembers how his Granda recovered so well on this Marisogen when he was staying with Mum. Since then the cancer been held in check by chemotherapy, but his lungs are damaged and he’s always catching infections. This last one was particularly bad.
The nurse arrives and Sam is kindly reminded of visiting hours. Sam squeezes Granda’s hand and says goodbye, lingering at the door until Granda bats him away.
As he unlocks his bike, Sam recalls the fire site in the bush. Could this Doctor Nygard really be the same guy? He scans the car park, and wonders whether he should go back in, try to find him. But what would he say? As he rides home, memories flood in.
The girls from the plane. Poppy and Aster.
Sam pedals faster. He wants to find out more about this doctor.
Back at home he calls out a greeting to his parents in the lounge and heads straight to his room. He’s experiencing that same odd, unbalanced feeling – the dull pounding in his temples and clenching of his stomach – that he often has after v
isiting Granda. But this time it’s more than that. Why wasn’t Marisogen licenced if it worked so well?
Sam wonders if he should tell his parents. Mum never liked how secretive that trial was. But what if this doctor is planning a new trial or something, and telling his Mum stops it going ahead? He can’t get his head around this. In the end he calls the hospital and they confirm Doctor Nygard isn’t part of the oncology team treating Granda, but is a consultant in genetic disorders who runs a clinic a couple of times a month at the hospital. Sam asks to speak to Granda but he’s asleep.
The girl’s mobile phone. How could he have forgotten? The police had sent the girl’s phone back to him. That’s what they did with unclaimed lost property.
Sam opens the wardrobe in his bedroom. He shifts aside two pairs of old trainers. Underneath is a shoebox with Random Stuff scrawled across the lid in marker pen. Inside, underneath gig tickets, receipts, and a broken watch, is a brown envelope. Sam draws a deep breath and tips the phone and a ball of tissue out on to his hand.
The phone charges fine, but Sam still can’t find a way to hack into it, same as when he first found it. It feels heavy in his hand. He checks again, but every website still states that the email address is required. Finally he gives up trawling online phone forums and spins around on his desk chair with a dramatic groan. He taps the phone screen and a background of turquoise water appears with the security dot grid on top. Water. He remembers that when Poppy had said her older sister was a champion swimmer, Aster had smiled for the first time, embarrassed. Sam keeps looking at the screen as if it is going to tell him something.
The back is encased in a rubber skin with a faded rainbow pattern. Sam flips it over and peels off the rubber case. Nothing on the smooth metallic back. He slots his thumbnail under the casing and opens it to reveal the battery. Sam blows out a breath. This is so pointless. It’s late. He’s working tomorrow—
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