‘Because he wants me to be the next Storm Keeper. He knows I can put the Beasley name back on the map!’ he said, his eyes gleaming. The rain was bucketing down now but he didn’t seem to care. ‘I’ve been raised for this responsibility my entire life. I’m going to be the next Storm Keeper of Arranmore and you can’t stop me!’
‘Watch me,’ said Fionn.
Bartley tightened his grip, his fingers searing hot against his skin. He glanced at the heaving sky. ‘This storm is on its way back to us. You really think the island will pick you? A coward?’
‘I am not a coward!’ lied Fionn. ‘And it might not be either of us! It could be Tara or Shelby or any number of others …’ He trailed off.
Bartley bared his teeth in a terrifying grin. ‘Make no mistake about it, Boyle. I’m going to get in that Sea Cave before the storm comes in and make that wish. Then you’ll see what I can do when your stupid grandfather isn’t standing in –’
Fionn pushed Bartley so hard he lost his grip and went tumbling backwards. ‘Good luck with that!’
‘Boyle –’ The air swallowed him with a faint pop, shimmering around his edges as the island catapulted him back to a different version of itself.
Fionn felt instantly better.
If only I could do that all the time.
He was left alone with the very end of the candle, across the field from an ancient burning tree. Elizabeth Beasley was circling his grandfather, her arms folded across her chest.
Fionn stalked towards her, eager to investigate. He could smell the venom in the air, but he couldn’t tell whether it was Elizabeth’s or Bartley’s … or maybe his own.
Elizabeth planted her shoe on Malachy’s chest and pressed down on him, like he was a button.
‘Hey!’ shouted Fionn. ‘Get off!’
Elizabeth stumbled backwards, her beady eyes flashing as she looked directly at him.
‘Boyle,’ she hissed. ‘Tell me! Is it me?’
Fionn stared at her for a heartbeat, anger pouring out of him, into five sharp words. ‘It will never be you.’
Elizabeth started towards him.
Fionn blew out the candle.
It has been a long time since I saw you, Fionn Boyle. A very long time indeed.
The island inhaled, and Elizabeth Beasley disappeared from him, taking her burning tree and her burning eyes with her.
It will never be you.
Chapter Twelve
THE KING’S MEDAL
It took Fionn almost an hour to get home, the sun melting into a flaming sea as he retraced his way across the island. When he arrived at Tír na nÓg, he tried his best to ignore the row of ravens sitting on the roof. He stalked inside and marched down the little hallway, slamming the back door behind him. ‘I have a lot of things I want to say to you.’
His grandfather was hunched over his workbench, stirring a puddle of wax. ‘I know.’
‘Just how much do you know?’
‘Almost everything,’ he mused. ‘Although, I do confess, I don’t have the slightest idea where Amelia Earhart went.’
Fionn took a deep breath, conjured all of his frustration and then released the storm that had been brewing inside him since the moment he stepped off the ferry. ‘When are you going to actually start telling me things I need to know? Or am I not important enough to be let in on my own family’s secrets?’
His grandfather peered at him over the rim of his spectacles. ‘Where on earth is this coming from?’
‘Your complete lack of respect for me!’ shouted Fionn. ‘Am I doomed to hear every single thing about this island and you from a Beasley!’ He’d balled his fists so tight his nails were cutting into his palm. ‘Did you steal the Storm Keeper gift from Elizabeth Beasley?’
His grandfather braced his hands on the edge of his workbench. ‘Well, you have certainly inherited your grandmother’s temper.’
‘I’m about to tear my hair out.’
He tapped the crown of his head. ‘Careful. It might not grow back.’
‘Grandad!’
‘All right, all right,’ he said, adopting a modicum of seriousness. ‘The truth is the matter was not up to me, or Elizabeth. The Storm Keeper is chosen to protect the island and, in turn, the world beyond from Morrigan. The island chooses the best person for that task. Someone who will lead the islanders against Morrigan should the time ever come. That person can be anyone from any of the five bloodlines. The island is not in the business of taking turns.’
‘Well, Bartley disagrees,’ said Fionn pointedly. ‘He feels the next Storm Keeper should be a Beasley and he’s going to use the Sea Cave wish to make sure of it.’
His grandfather frowned, the crevices around his mouth deepening. ‘The Beasleys have always wanted to use the gifts for their own ends. They do not fear Morrigan as they should.’
Fionn bristled at the memory of that fathomless stare.
Elizabeth Beasley’s burning eyes flashed in his mind.
It will never be you.
Now a human had seen him in the folds of the past too. ‘Elizabeth Beasley saw me today in a memory.’
‘Ah,’ said his grandfather, a deep V forming in the lines on his forehead. ‘It seems you are not quite as invisible as the rest of us.’
‘Why not?’ said Fionn with mounting dismay.
His grandfather chewed on his thoughts. ‘I believe your meeting with Dagda might hold the answer,’ he said, his frown deepening when he added, ‘But I admit I haven’t the foggiest idea what exactly that might be.’
Fionn’s shoulders had hunched halfway up his neck. He remembered the jolt that had leapt through his fingers when he touched Dagda, the strange spiky warmth that had made him flesh and bone before Morrigan. Was it still inside him now?
‘Elizabeth told me she saw a strange boy who looked just like me, standing near the Whispering Tree, when we visited it together a very long time ago,’ his grandfather continued, more to himself than to Fionn. ‘I believed it was Cormac that she saw. Well, now we know.’
Fionn didn’t like how entangled everything seemed to be with the Beasleys, or how little they cared about the biggest threat to Arranmore. How close they were to stealing the island’s most important shield. ‘Bartley says they already know where the Sea Cave is.’
‘The Sea Cave is very elusive,’ said his grandfather. ‘It’s extremely difficult to find a way down even if you know where to look.’
Fionn’s spine unstiffened. ‘Good.’
His grandfather tugged at his jaw. ‘I’m sorry, Fionn,’ he said with a sigh. ‘I’ve made you feel unimportant and that couldn’t be further from the truth. I felt it might be best to let you get used to the island and its peculiar ways before you learned my role in it. But in trying not to overwhelm you, I’ve kept you in the dark, and here more than anywhere else, the dark is a very unsettling place to be.’
Fionn cleared the lump from his throat. ‘Yeah, it is,’ he said gruffly. ‘At least we’re on the same page now.’
‘Indeed we are,’ said his grandfather solemnly.
Fionn lowered himself on to the stool opposite him, his elbows sliding across the workbench as he studied him at close range. ‘Can you really control the weather?’ he said suspiciously.
‘Rarely. And only for the good of the island. It was helpful when I worked on the lifeboats.’ Fionn gaped at his grandfather, floored by the simplicity with which he had admitted to such wild, incomprehensible power. ‘I try to keep most of it though.’
‘But – what for?’ spluttered Fionn. ‘Wouldn’t you prefer to use it?’
His grandfather sat back on his stool, his fingers tap-tapping along the workbench. ‘What would you have me do with it, Fionn? Release lightning bolts from the highest rooftops? Travel around demanding money and favours, like Bartley Beasley would?’
Fionn didn’t have to think very hard about this. ‘No, but you could throw a rainstorm at him. Or trap him in an ice palace. Or hurl him into an endless hurricane-like oblivion.’<
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His grandfather snorted. ‘As ever you are a pillar of maturity.’
‘How do you make the candles? Where does the magic come from?’
‘I think this is a conversation for another time, Fionn.’ He knitted his hands together, his head cocked when he said, ‘Now that you know what I am, there is the matter of the next Storm Keeper to discuss.’
‘I want to talk about the candles.’
‘No. You want to talk about the Storm Keeper’s magic,’ he countered. ‘And that depends on who the next Storm Keeper is.’
‘I thought we were on the same page,’ said Fionn with renewed frustration.
‘We are certainly on the same page, but we are not yet in the same paragraph.’
Fionn slumped in his seat, defeated. Sometimes it felt like his grandfather thrived on being this annoying. ‘Fine. Let’s talk about the next Storm Keeper. I definitely don’t think it should be Bartley.’
‘Nor do I,’ said his grandfather, dusting his hands. ‘Now that that’s settled, let’s move on to the next order of business.’
‘Do you want it to be me?’ asked Fionn warily. ‘It sounds like a lot of pressure …’
His grandfather’s smile was grim. ‘Responsibility and power, in equal measure. Do you want to be the next Storm Keeper, Fionn?’
Power.
Fionn stilled. Being the guardian of this wild and ancient place would mean learning snowstorms instead of long division, composing rainbows instead of acrostics. Everyone on the island would know his name. He would be part of a tight-knit tribe umbrellaed under his sky, bound to protect others from darkness. The elements would shimmer at his fingertips. Earth, Fire, Wind, Water.
The Storm Keeper’s magic. He could use it, however he liked.
He had seen what it could do and in that moment, he wanted it very badly.
And then he remembered Morrigan. Her icy handprint on his heart.
What if she came back in earnest?
His chest tightened.
‘I don’t think I’m good enough,’ he said at last. ‘I’m a Boyle who can barely look at the sea without feeling sick. The island will figure that out soon enough if it hasn’t already.’ He smiled sadly. ‘I’m not brave enough to be a Storm Keeper.’
Fionn traced the swirls in the workbench. The decision had floated out of his hands and back into impossibility, like seafoam scattered to the wind. It left a dull ache in the centre of his chest – this destiny worth fighting for, something far greater than his lonely little life.
His grandfather was frowning at him. ‘And what makes you so sure of that?’
‘Because even my dad wasn’t brave enough,’ said Fionn in a very quiet voice. ‘And he was really brave. Even Elizabeth Beasley thought so.’
That was the cold hard truth of it all.
Fionn’s father had drowned off the coast of Arranmore during one of the worst storms in the island’s history. The details were murky, because Cormac never came back to tell them, but sometime in the afternoon, he went out alone in one of the lifeboats. The storm picked up and his boat ran aground, splintering against the rocks. Then the sea swallowed him up. No one remembered a distress call being made, and no one was ever reported missing in the aftermath. By the time they held Cormac Boyle’s funeral, Fionn’s mother was already on the ferry to the mainland with Tara, and Fionn still in her belly. She hadn’t set foot on Arranmore since.
Fionn’s fingernails were cutting half-moons into his palms. ‘Bartley says the new Keeper is chosen in a storm. That’s how it goes. The island gets restless, it brews its own storm and then the gift passes to the next generation.’
‘Aye,’ said his grandfather.
Fionn’s heart sank. ‘Well, then that rescue must have been some kind of a test. And my dad failed it. Otherwise, he would be here now with us. He would be the Storm Keeper.’
His grandfather stroked his chin, pulling the lines on his face into a grimace. ‘That storm was so powerful it glittered around the edges. Yes, we thought a new Storm Keeper was rising. Your father had visited the Whispering Tree two weeks before the storm. I thought it had confirmed what we all suspected – that it would be him. But we were wrong, Fionn. Nobody knows what the tree showed Cormac. He took that secret with him in the end.’ He cleared his throat, gruffly. ‘Your father was the bravest person I ever knew. The island would have known that better than anyone. It wouldn’t have had to test him.’
‘Then he died for nothing.’ Here was the ugliest part of Fionn – the shadows and the thorns – spilling out of him, and even though it was sad and painful, there was a touch of relief in it. He could finally talk about the unfairness of losing his father before he ever knew him without fearing he might upset his mother or send her into a spiral that kept her in her room for days. ‘Why did he go out on that boat by himself?’
‘I don’t know,’ his grandfather conceded, and Fionn felt as though he had won something then, only the feeling wasn’t warm, but cold and sticky, like gum on the underside of his shoe.
He couldn’t forget the sight of his mother fighting the sea. In that moment, as the realness of his father’s death rose around them like steam, Fionn couldn’t believe an island so magical could be so cruel.
‘Does it ever give anything back?’ he asked bitterly.
‘Well … Once, a very, very long time ago, when I was a boy much younger than you, the sea took my father from me too. And that time, the island gave him back.’
The words landed like a punch in the gut. Fionn was surprised by how fast the tears burst out of him. They rushed down his cheeks like they were racing each other, dripping underneath the collar of his jumper. It felt as though someone was scooping out his insides. His grandfather had asked for his father back, and the sea had bowed to the request. Twelve years ago his mother had done the same thing, and this place had turned its back on her.
His grandfather continued speaking while Fionn gathered the pieces of himself and tried to glue them back together. ‘It was December 1940. The weather was as bad as we’ve ever seen it. Not just hurricane-force winds but sleet and snow and ice too. It was beyond even the Storm Keeper’s control. The storm swept in from the north and ran a Dutch cargo ship bound for Liverpool off its course.’ He splayed his hands wide to indicate the size of the ship, then spread them over his head as though he was yawning. ‘It ran aground on rocks several miles off the coast of Arranmore.’
His brows knitted together and Fionn got the sense he was travelling back inside his head, trying to gather up the memory.
‘The ship was called the SS Stolwijk,’ he said. ‘And by the time my father and his fellow lifeboatmen received the distress call, ten crew members had drowned and many more were in the stormy waters, hanging on for dear life.’
Fionn shivered. He could imagine it too clearly – an enormous ship turned belly-up to an angry sky, frantic sailors spilling out like innards.
‘The Arranmore lifeboat was the SS Stolwijk’s last hope.’ This time his grandfather pinched his fingers close together, until there was just an inch between them. ‘The lifeboat was small, with sails not meant for hurricane winds, and an engine ill-equipped for such an undertaking. It was a fool’s mission, Fionn. And everyone on the island knew it. If you work the lifeboats on Arranmore, you take an oath,’ his grandfather said. ‘You swear to put the lives of those in peril ahead of your own. You go, even if you’re afraid. Even if you think you won’t make it back.’
Fionn looked at his feet. To him, the oath sounded like shackles around his ankles, chaining him to a churning sea. He couldn’t imagine binding his life to it, the way his father and his grandfather had before him.
‘When the call came through that wintry day in December, each of them had a decision to make, Fionn.’ His grandfather looked at him, the blue of his eyes alive with the memory of an angry sea. ‘To stay with their families on the island and wait out the worst storm they had ever seen …’
‘Or to go,’ said Fionn quietly.
‘Despite their fear.’
To go the way his father had the day the storm took him.
His grandfather nodded. ‘They went. All nine of them.’
Fionn cleared the cobwebs from his throat. The tears had stopped but he could still feel the prickles underneath his cheeks, the desperate thudding in his chest.
‘At 6.30 a.m. they went over the first wave and right through the next one on their way out of the port. For the rest of the day and most of the night, the women of the island walked up and down the shore dressed in black.’
‘How did you get them back? Did you go to the Sea Cave?’
His grandfather’s eyes twinkled. ‘Our Keeper, Maggie Patton, led the way to the Sea Cave. It was kind to us that day.’
‘The island brought them home,’ breathed Fionn.
‘After a long, gruelling rescue, they sailed into port.’ His grandfather shook his head, as though he still couldn’t quite believe it. His eyes were alight with a kind of wonder Fionn could only imagine – the satisfying sense of something finally going right for once. ‘The lifeboat crew rescued eighteen Dutch sailors and returned them to the mainland. Afterwards, Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands awarded all nine crew members with Dutch gallantry medals for their bravery. The Royal National Lifeboat Institution awarded the men with gallantry medals too.’ He leaned forward, and Fionn mirrored him without meaning to. The whites of his eyes shone extra bright in the darkness, his smile as wide as Fionn had ever seen it. ‘King George IV was the patron of the RNLI, so I like to think they got a king as well.’
Gallantry. Wasn’t that the sort of word that only existed in fairytales?
His grandfather sprang to his feet, his finger in the air as though to shush him, even though Fionn wasn’t saying anything. ‘Wait here!’ He returned almost immediately. ‘Hold out your hand.’
His grandfather dropped a bronze medal on to his palm. It was not much bigger than a two-euro coin, but it was much heavier than it looked. Fionn held it up to the rising moonlight, picking up its scent immediately. It was tangy and metallic, with a rim of earthiness around the edges. He could tell it was well travelled, and that it had been in more than a few pockets and cupboards over the years. It was unusually shiny despite its age, and had an engraving of a sea rescue on the front. Underneath were the words: Let Not the Deep Swallow Me Up.
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