“How long have I been here?” I asked.
“A couple of hours,” Da said. His voice wobbled.
Pipi barked and licked his hand.
“It’s all right now, look! She’s going to be OK,” Penny said, fussing over my da and pulling a blanket up around his shoulders. “He’s not moved from your side. He wouldn’t even change out of his wet clothes.”
“Grandpa?” I mumbled.
“He’s fine. A bit of a bump on the head. But he was making as much sense as usual before he fell asleep,” Penny said, pointing to a snoring Grandpa wrapped in a layer of blankets. Pipi trotted over to him and dutifully curled up on his lap.
“It’s you we have to worry about,” Hettie said, looking down at my flickering hand.
“Here, drink this, it’ll help. An old home remedy helps with tummy troubles and all sorts of more magical ailments,” Penny said, passing me an enormous cup of something that smelled like cinnamon and spices and, oddly, Marmite.
I took a sip. It tasted worse than the mystery cheese Da had bought on sale in the local shop once. But my hand stopped flickering so madly.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
“The power the rock gave you is trying its hardest to fulfil your wish.”
I knew when we had crashed into the house that I had lost control of the magic. No matter how hard I tried to stop the disappearing happening, it was determined to take me to one last place. I pulled out the compass; the needle was spinning and spinning like I’d never seen it before.
“But if it succeeds, the island won’t be safe, will it?”
Penny nodded. “The storm is only getting worse,” she said.
Da had been right when he said I was a proper islander: my home was with him on Dark Muir. It had just taken me a long time to realize that. And now I had, I was going to do everything to protect it.
“How do I stop it?” I asked.
“Come with me,” Hettie said as she pushed the door to the attic staircase open.
I picked my way across the attic floor. It was just as cluttered as before. It wasn’t long before I tripped up over a pile of magazines and knocked over a lamp shaped like a horse head.
“You best be careful, you don’t know what kind of animals you might wake up. Wasn’t long ago we had a bear up here,” she said, giving me a crooked grin.
I blushed and dug my hands into my pockets.
“Over here, look,” she said, wiping away the frost from the window.
I could see out over the snowy cliffs, and beyond the harbour to the dark black sea, and just for a moment, I thought I saw something. Then lightning flashed and the room filled with shadows.
“Can you see it?” Hettie asked.
I pressed my nose up against the cold glass. The moon was out and so were the stars, and even through the storm, they were brighter then I had ever seen them, so bright that I had to squint. But this time I was certain. Out in the ocean, just beyond the harbour, poking out of the sea, was the tip of Serpent’s Tooth Rock.
Lightning forked through the sky and the rumble of thunder that followed shook the whole house. My hand burned and my fingers flickered. I could feel the magic tugging insistently at me again, desperately trying to take me to my mum. But it wasn’t what I wanted. Not any more.
“I want to give my wish back,” I said.
Hettie’s golden eyes glinted in the dark and there was a ghost of a smile on her lips.
“Then we need to hurry,” she told me.
Chapter 35
It wasn’t long before Hettie, Penny, Da and me were all squeezed into Da’s old jeep.
“So what now?” Da asked.
“We get Amelia to the harbour and hope I can remember what to do next to help her take back the wish,” Hettie said, getting the seatbelt tangled up in her nightgown.
“You don’t remember?” I said.
“It’s been a long time since I did this last,” Hettie replied, blushing.
“But even if you could remember, there’s no way we can get to the rock. The harbour has been hit worst by the storm. I don’t think any of the boats will have survived,” Da said.
But then I had a brainwave.
“The Bonny!” I said. “It’s moored on Seal Beach.”
“That’s a sheltered cove, there’s a good chance it’s still in one piece,” Penny said.
“So you’re telling me we’re going to drive through a snowstorm to get to Amelia’s pirate ship so you can hopefully remember how to take back a wish granted by an ancient rock?” Da asked.
“Yup,” Hettie said, nodding enthusiastically.
It was the kind of impossible plan that Tom would have come up with. And I realized if it was going to work I would need his help most of all.
“We need to make a stop; I need to get Tom,” I said.
Da sighed heavily and slammed his foot on to the accelerator. The jeep lurched forward and we sped off into the snow.
It was already getting dark by the time we reached Tom’s grandma’s farm. The storm was getting fiercer and fiercer and I could hear the ponies stamping in their pens. I knew Tom would be in there trying to calm them down. I jumped out of the jeep and sprinted over.
“Tom!” I yelled over the paddock fence.
Tom’s head appeared from behind the hatch as the fence posts were ripped out from around us.
“Amelia! What are you doing here? Follow me!” Tom yelled, and I ran with him to the barn.
It took both of us to pull the door shut against the wind. Inside I could hear my heart thundering as the wind shuddered and shook the barn around us. The ponies stamped and panted.
“What are you doing here, Amelia?” Tom said, smoothing one of the ponies’ manes.
“The rock’s back so this is my only chance to take back the wish.”
“Are you sure?” Tom said, his eyes growing wider.
“I’m sure,” I nodded. “But I need your help.”
Tom grinned. “I thought you’d never ask.”
The sky was filled with storm clouds. You couldn’t even see the stars as we pushed The Bonny out into the water. The sea was dark and frothy and it rippled as if something was lurking beneath it. I thought of the fairy tale book from Sinclair’s shop and the picture of the great sea serpent. I shuddered as I imagined it moving in coils under the water.
“Get in,” Da said and he pulled me and Tom into the boat. I held out my hand for Hettie but she just shook her head.
“Aren’t you coming with us?” I asked.
“Not enough room in the boat. Besides, you and the boy will know what to do.”
“Good luck!” Penny said, giving the boat a final push into the waves.
“Hold on, this is going to be a bumpy ride,” Da shouted, pulling the oars through the choppy waves.
As we rowed further and further out, the boat got pulled from side to side. I had never felt so seasick and Tom clung to the sides with both hands, his eyes shut. But I couldn’t close my eyes because just out of the water I could see the sharp tip of Serpent’s Tooth Rock. In the dark of the night it glistened.
“Are you sure this is going to work?” I asked Tom.
“I know it will,” Tom said.
“This is as close as I can get without running us into the rock beneath,” Da said, pulling the oars back into the boat.
We swayed and rocked back and forth, the hull of the boat bumping up against something dark in the water. But even though I could see the tip of Serpent’s Tooth Rock, I knew we were too far away.
“I can’t reach it,” I said. “I’ll have to swim for it.”
“Don’t even think about getting into the water, not with the currents here in this weather,” Da told me, spray from the waves falling all around us.
“That’s it, then. We came out here for nothing. The storm will swallow up the rock and the island!” I said, collapsing into the hull of the boat.
“Amelia, you’re not going to give up just like that, are you?”
Tom cried out.
“I don’t know what to do. And Hettie and Penny are not here to help.”
“But I am. And I know how to bring the rock back. That day in the girls’ loos, when I tried to give you the book, I was going to tell you about the standing stones and how touching them helps bring the rock back up out of the sea.”
“That must be what Grandpa was trying to do when he went missing!” I said. “But only the tip of the rock is back, not the whole thing!”
“Not yet,” Tom winked. “Because you need this next part…”
Tom leaned his long body over the edge of the boat, his arms reaching towards the rock. He wiggled his fingertips until they just brushed the edge of the rock. Then he squeezed his eyes shut and whispered the words from the final page in the book.
“Latha a choinduibh.”
The boat wobbled, then, with a huge creak, it was thrown back. Me, Da and Tom hung on to each other. And with a huge roar, Serpent’s Tooth Rock rose from the water.
“It’s your turn now,” Tom said to me.
“I’m scared – what if it doesn’t work?” I said.
“Do you trust me?” Tom asked.
I nodded.
“OK then, it’s time – time to take back the wish,” Tom said.
I looked out at the rock. It seemed so far away and the storm was growing fiercer and forcing us further and further from it. I tried to reach out for the rock but I could see the dark, churning sea below.
“You have to do it now!” Da said, “I can’t hold the boat here much longer.”
But no matter how hard I tried to be as brave as the women in the book of adventurers, this time I couldn’t stop being afraid.
“I promise, whatever happens, I’m not letting go,” Da said as he put his arms tight around my waist.
“And neither will I,” Tom said as he grabbed hold of me too. “You can do this, Amelia!”
I could feel Da and Tom’s grip and I knew that no matter what, they wouldn’t let go. And maybe I wasn’t as brave as Amelia Earhart, or as daring as Lady Hester, but right then I didn’t need to be, because I wasn’t alone. I took a deep breath and leaned over the edge of the boat.
My fingertips grazed the rock and, with a final effort, I pressed my palm flat against the rock.
“I take my wish back,” I whispered. “I take it all back!” But the rock didn’t move.
“You have to say it like you mean it,” Tom said.
I screwed my eyes tight shut and said in my bravest voice, “I don’t want to disappear any more.”
But I could feel the pull of the magic. In the middle of the storm my powers felt overwhelming. My hand was red hot and the compass shook in my pocket. I knew it wanted to take me to Mum, to finally fulfil my wish. And a part of me still wanted that too. All the things of Mum’s I had found when I disappeared popped up in my mind. The binoculars, the fossil, the pirate flag, the sea-worn glass and finally her letter. I thought all of them had been about finding Mum. About making sense of what had happened before she left. But the more I thought about them, the more I realized that all the clues I had found were all about Da. It was Da’s boat we had watched for with Mum’s binoculars. It was Da who had given me Mum’s fossil when I was sad. It was Da who had helped me sail The Bonny when Mum couldn’t. It was Da who had found me in Puffin Cave and cleaned sea glass with me when I’d been upset, and it had been Da who had hidden the letter, thinking he was protecting me. Maybe in a way the rock had been trying to show me where I belonged all along: with Da, who loved me no matter what.
I reached out with both hands and yelled as loud as I could:
“I don’t want you to take me to Mum any more!”
As my voice rang out into the wind and rain, I realized for the first time that I meant it.
For a moment, nothing happened, but then Serpent’s Tooth Rock began to shake.
“It’s working!” cried Tom.
The rock started to shudder up from the sea, growing taller and taller until it loomed higher than I had ever seen it. Then, with a crack of thunder, the sky filled with light.
“What’s happening?” Tom asked as green, yellow and purple lights filled the sky in great waves. The sky shimmered, the lights grew brighter and brighter as they arched above us.
“It’s the Northern Lights,” Da said, “but I’ve never seen them so clearly.”
“Does that mean it worked?” Tom asked.
I looked down at my hands. My fingers had stopped flickering and I couldn’t hear the roar of thunder any more. I pulled the compass from my pocket. The needle wavered for a moment and then stopped. It pointed to where I belonged: past the sea and the beach, past the hill and the cove, and onwards, towards the little white house that lay under the North Star.
“It’s done,” I said, before sinking back into the boat and into Da’s waiting arms.
The last of the storm clouds faded away until there were only bright, brilliant lights dancing above us.
Chapter 36
After the storm, the whole island woke up to smashed windows, broken roofs and trees torn from the ground. We even got more time off school because the storm had been so bad that it spread to Stony Island too. Bridlebaine Academy had been completely flooded. But it wasn’t just the school or the island that had suffered from the storm, it was our house. Not only were all the windows broken, but the tree outside had smashed into my room. It was only Hettie and Penny who had saved us from having to sleep in all the mess.
“You’re to keep staying with us until you get your house fixed up,” Hettie had said, and after everything that had happened, me and Da had been too tired to argue.
It took us a little while to settle in to living at Hettie and Penny’s. Grandpa at first insisted that he would rather “live in the cold and the damp and risk dying from pneumonia”. But it didn’t take long for him to strike up a friendship with Penny. Every morning they would do the crossword and gossip about the people in the village. Now that Grandpa had a friend, he didn’t seem to get so frustrated when he forgot things and he had even stopped doing his “Magical Ways to Pop My Clogs” lists.
It turned out that we all quite liked living at Hettie and Penny’s. Da spent the evenings cooking with Penny. Every week they came up with new and slightly unconventional recipes, like Stargazy pie with lobster instead of white fish, fried bread jam sandwiches and vegetarian haggis. It was all delicious! And it wasn’t just the food that I liked. Hettie turned out to be one of the kindest people I knew. She spent ages helping me with my schoolwork and listened to me talk about horrible Blair Watson and how anxious she made me.
“Don’t you worry, sooner or later that girl will get a taste of her own medicine,” Hettie muttered, her yellow eyes flashing dangerously.
Even Pipi seemed to prefer living at Hettie and Penny’s. Mostly because every morning after I fed her she would find Hettie and pull her sad face.
“Oh, look at Pipi’s poor little face. You must have forgotten to feed her again?” Hettie said.
“Don’t trust her for a minute,” I said for the thousandth time.
“Oh, but the poor thing looks half-starved,” Hettie said as Pipi rolled over on to her back to let Hettie rub her belly. “Have your nasty owners let you go hungry again?”
“Hungry? She’s better fed than me or Amelia! In fact, I think she’s getting a bit round,” Da retorted.
“Shh, don’t listen to those bad people. You’re beautiful,” Hettie said, pulling a biscuit from the packet on the kitchen table and offering it to Pipi. But before she knew it, Pipi had jumped up, grabbed the whole packet and rushed out of the door, leaving a shocked Hettie standing there still with the biscuit in her hand.
“We tried to tell you,” Da said.
“It’s not their fault; Pipi is a master of deception,” I said. “Remember the time she ate Grandma’s Christmas turkey?”
“And we had to pretend it was us so Mum wouldn’t get upset,” Da said.
“And
then she found half a turkey leg under the armchair,” I finished, laughing.
Penny smiled and nudged Hettie.
“What?” I asked.
“Oh, nothing, it’s just good to see you two getting on,” Hettie said as Pipi wobbled back in, thumping her tail on the kitchen floor as she licked the rest of the biscuit crumbs from her hairy face.
After the repairs were finished we moved back into our house. That’s when I finally felt ready to reply to Mum’s letter. But even though I had so much to tell her, I couldn’t seem to find the right words. It was weird. I had spent the whole year telling Mum all my secrets, but now I could talk to her for real, everything felt different. I had all these mixed-up feelings.
“How does the first night back in your own bed feel?” Da asked as he settled himself into his old position at the bottom of my bed. Then he noticed that I was clutching Mum’s letter. “You’re going to read the ink off those pages,” he said, smiling sadly.
He was almost right; I had read Mum’s letter about a million times, but there were still so many things I didn’t understand. There were so many questions I still had. And I had been keeping them locked up in my little brain box for so long that now they all came tumbling out at once.
“Was it my fault Mum left? Was it because I wasn’t good at schoolwork and I wasn’t brave and I wasn’t—”
“Amelia, no,” Da interrupted. “None of this is your fault, do you understand?”
“Then why did she leave?” I said, my voice small and cracked.
“Your mum wasn’t happy living here. She always wanted to go off on adventures. And when your grandpa came to live here, she knew I’d never leave. Our fights just got worse and in the end she felt she had to make a move on her own.”
“But why didn’t she take me with her?”
Da sighed.
“Because she knew this was where you belonged. This island is my home and Grandpa’s and yours.”
Lightning Chase Me Home Page 15