The crowd on the beach parted suddenly. A tiny woman with impossibly long dark hair was crossing the unseen line in the sand. She came right up to the whale, an arm’s-length from where Fionn and his grandfather were standing in the shallows, and bent down to look the creature in the very same eye. The wind whipped a strand of her hair into Fionn’s face – and the smell of lavender tickled his nose.
He stumbled backwards, startled.
His grandfather smirked. He had been silent for so long, Fionn had assumed it was a consequence of his sadness at the whale’s misfortune, but now he wondered whether it was simply the quiet confidence of someone hearing a story for the second time and already knowing the ending.
A hush had fallen over the beach. The crowed leaned closer, teenagers on tiptoes and children on shoulders to see what the diminutive woman was going to do. Fionn’s grandfather squeezed his hand, and they moved backwards into the waves. ‘Give her room, lad. Let her work.’
Fionn stared at the woman as she stood before this prehistoric beast, her narrow shoulders squared to the wild Atlantic way. Her face was unlined, her skin tanned and freckled from years of sun. She was young, but her eyes were ancient. They were silver-grey, the same colour as the wax dripping over his grandfather’s fingers.
She smiled and a flicker of recognition lit up inside Fionn.
‘That’s Maggie Patton,’ he gasped. ‘The Storm Keeper before you!’
She was wearing Sam’s toothy smile. It was a peculiar thing, Fionn thought, to be fashioned from second-hand parts, quirked mouths and big noses and high foreheads passed down from generation to generation, like gold earrings and well-worn watches.
‘It was no small thing to gaze upon the power of Maggie Patton,’ said his grandfather approvingly. ‘Wave Sweeper, we called her.’
‘This is Maggie and the Fin Whale!’ said Fionn, with a jolt of gleeful understanding. ‘We’re standing in the middle of an island legend!’
His grandfather pointed to himself. ‘Yes, and you’re standing next to one too.’
All at once the sea began to bubble.
Maggie Patton threw her arms out wide, a cry springing from her as she raised the ocean like a blanket. Up and up it went, deserting crabs and oysters and shells and sprats, tangles of seaweed and shining rock, fish flapping against the solid sand. She flicked her wrist – a movement so small, Fionn barely caught it – and the water thinned to a wide silken sheet, leaping over the whale and scooping it up, like a fist.
The whale was rolled on to its front, streams of water gushing underneath its hide as the ocean tightened its grip.
Gasps rose with the whale as it was lifted from the beach. Pink laces of coral dripped from its fins, and strings of seaweed tumbled from its mouth. The sea rained down on Fionn and his grandfather as it swallowed up the creature, first its tail and then its fins, its throbbing white underbelly and deep ridges, and, finally, its wide, glassy eye.
Fionn waved it goodbye.
The water kept rolling, reversing the tide and pushing the waves back out to sea. Slowly their crests shrunk. The froth dissolved into gentle ripples as Maggie Patton twirled her hand, as though she was offering up a royal goodbye.
And then the whale was gone.
The beach erupted. The islanders surrounded their Storm Keeper as she staggered on to the sand and sagged to her knees.
‘Is she OK?’ asked Fionn, craning his neck to see.
‘The Storm Keeper’s power is finite,’ his grandfather reminded him. ‘The bigger the magic, the longer the snooze.’
The islanders hoisted Maggie Patton up between them and carried her from the beach. ‘Wave Sweeper!’ they chanted, over and over. Fionn was reminded, with alarming quickness, of his own searing incompetence. He couldn’t even command a glass of water, and here was another Storm Keeper, wielding the ocean like a ladle.
Wave Sweeper, they called her.
What would they call him? Sea Fearer? Magic Barren?
His grandfather was pulling him away. ‘Don’t dwell on it, lad. That’s not why we’re here.’
Fionn remembered then. They hadn’t come for the whale; they had come for the merrow – and somewhere inside the patchwork of this memory was the glint of blue skin on clear water. He just had to find it before the candle ran out. They tracked to the edge of the beach, following the curving peninsula out into the sea.
They stood there for several minutes, craning their necks and scouring the water with close attention until –
‘Look! There!’ said Fionn. Just out to sea, behind a cluster of rocks, a pair of yellow eyes floated atop the water. ‘Do you see her?’
Beside him, his grandfather stiffened. ‘Aye, lad. I see her.’
Chapter Five
THE BROKEN MEMORY
The merrow was watching the strand, where the revellers were herding Maggie Patton into the nearest pub. Even from a distance, Fionn recognised her face – a nose pinched sharp as a blade, a moon-white scar tracing the hard line of her jaw. On top of her head, wedged into her shorn hair like bolts, she wore a twisted crown of coral and bone.
‘Lír,’ breathed Fionn.
‘Terrifying.’ The word seemed to slip from Fionn’s grandfather.
Fionn tightened his grip. ‘I need her to see me. Let me hold the candle, please.’
‘Be careful of disturbing the memory too much,’ warned his grandfather as he handed it over. ‘You might only have seconds before the wind changes.’
When Fionn’s fingers closed around the candle, the wind cut through him. The memory stretched, allowing him to exist inside it. It was an additional gift from Dagda – unsought and unexpected – transferred the minute Fionn had pressed his hands against the sorcerer’s back a thousand and more years ago. When Fionn held the burning wax against his fingers he could be seen in every layer. Even for a Storm Keeper, this was unique.
Across the sea, the merrow turned her gaze on him.
‘Hello!’ Fionn called out, before nerves could steal his voice from him. ‘My name is Fionn Boyle. I’m the Storm Keeper of Arranmore!’
The memory flickered; the air wavered and then held, like a kite catching the wind.
The merrow drifted towards them. Her skin was blue as the ocean, with barnacles, pearly shells and molluscs spattered across her torso.
‘Go on, lad,’ said his grandfather. ‘Keep talking.’
‘The island … my island is under attack,’ said Fionn. ‘I’m from a time many years from now. And in that future, Morrigan is awake, and her followers have returned.’
The merrow leaned her folded arms on their rock. ‘The Raven Queen stirs,’ she said, peering up at Fionn, ‘to face a Keeper no older than a common carp.’
Fionn could hear the swell of the sea in her words, the violent rush of water bubbling in her throat. He licked the dryness from his lips. ‘Have you ever seen her Soulstalkers? Do you know what they’re capable of?’
The merrow bared her teeth, but Fionn couldn’t tell whether it was a smile or a grimace – only that it brought a terrible coldness to his bones. ‘I know the Raven Queen’s followers. I’ve killed my fair share. The more of them that band together, the greater the sickness that rides with them. They exist in a weakened, stagnant state until the day their leader returns. Only when their souls are unburied can they return to their true power – to strength and agility and violence, the likes of which you have never seen.’
Her gills flared in warning. ‘With dark magic they were made. But with magic they too can be felled.’
Her pupils were keen and bloated as she watched him. They travelled the length of Fionn’s arms, to the hand clutching his grandfather’s invisible fingers.
Could the merrow sense him? Could she tell they had no magic between them?
‘There are only three days until the winter solstice. I need the merrows to help me get rid of the Soulstalkers before that. I can’t find a way to reach you in my time,’ Fionn went on quickly. ‘So I need you to remember thi
s conversation and bring your people back in my future so I can fix this mess.’
The merrow stared at Fionn for five very long seconds. Then she threw her head back and released a laugh so shrill, Fionn and his grandfather both jumped.
‘Goodness,’ muttered Fionn’s grandfather.
‘Why are you laughing?’ Fionn demanded.
When the merrow only laughed harder, he kicked a strip of seaweed at her. She caught it in mid-air and crushed it between her teeth.
‘You must do your part before we do ours, Keeper. That is the way of Arranmore.’ Her jagged teeth glinted as she chewed. ‘You earn the gifts before they yield to you.’
‘But I’m the Storm Keeper,’ said Fionn, with growing impatience.
The merrow spat the seaweed at him. ‘Then you should know we are not bound to you.’
Fionn blinked. ‘What do you mean?’
‘By Dagda’s will, we are bound to the Tide Summoner.’
Fionn glared at her.
The merrow glared back. ‘Does the Storm Keeper not know of the Tide Summoner? The shell borne of ancient magic and merrow blood? The very thing that links my people to your island?’
‘You mean the big white conch one?’ said Fionn, remembering the shell in Cowan’s Lake – a thing so full of magic that its imprint had half drowned him. ‘The one Dagda pulled from the water the day he made you? I’ve seen it, actually.’
The merrow narrowed her eyes. ‘Then go back to your time and blow it.’
Fionn glanced sidelong at his grandfather.
‘You’d better tell her, lad.’
‘I don’t have the shell. I only saw it,’ said Fionn. ‘But I really don’t have time to look for it right now. We’re kind of on the clock.’
The merrow’s frown cut through Fionn like a knife. ‘We answer to the one who wields the Tide Summoner.’
‘Who is that?’ said Fionn and his grandfather at the same time.
‘Who had it last?’ added Fionn.
The merrow’s smile was worse than her frown – it was all shark teeth, too wide and too sharp. ‘Hughie Rua.’
Fionn reeled backwards. ‘Hughie Rua!’
‘Hughie Rua McCauley hasn’t walked these shores in nearly three hundred years!’ said his grandfather, aghast. ‘Not since the pirate invasion of 1728!’
‘How am I supposed to find the shell if its previous owner has been dead for centuries?’ said Fionn. His chest was blazing hot, but he couldn’t tell if it was the Storm Keeper’s magic or the heat of his own frustration. The candle was burning low. ‘I can’t go off on a treasure hunt when the island is in danger,’ he said desperately. ‘Isn’t there some other way you can help me?’
‘A message for the floundering Keeper,’ said the merrow, smiling savagely as she pushed herself off the rock. ‘And the world that rests on his shoulders.’
She skimmed a song along the sea as she drifted away from them, the melody as wild and terrible as the sound of her voice.
Two fates bound by Dagda’s hand,
One at sea and one on land.
Lay worthy hands upon the shell,
And breath becomes the ocean’s knell.
The bond that takes a touch to make
Will not before a lifetime break.
Eight waves to call the tide,
On the ninth wave, the Merrows ride.
‘Why is ancient Arranmore so obsessed with rhyming everything?’ muttered Fionn’s grandfather. ‘Can’t everyone just speak plainly?’
‘Wait, please!’ shouted Fionn, lunging forward. ‘I don’t have time for this! The Soulstalkers are already here!’
‘If you are worthy, you will find the shell.’ The merrow disappeared in a final ripple, the waves folding over her as though she had never been there at all.
‘Come back!’ Fionn leaned over the clear water. ‘You have to help me!’
‘Fionn. She’s gone.’ His grandfather was tugging him back.
‘Our fates are linked!’ Fionn swore he could see a flash of something in the water. He plunged his foot into the sea and splashed it frantically. His anger surged, and the wind surged with him, whipping his coat behind him. ‘You have to help us! It’s your duty!’
‘Fionn!’ his grandfather warned. ‘Be careful! We’ll be thrown out of the memory.’
Fionn was too panicked to listen.
‘We’re going to die!’ He kicked the water. The waves grew bigger and angrier, crashing against their rock until they were soaked from head to toe. ‘We’re all going to die and you don’t even care!’
‘Fionn! You’re angering the island!’
The ground began to shake, as though the world was slipping out from under them. A gust of wind came down like a whip and tightened around Fionn. He screamed as he was torn from his grandfather’s grip and thrown backwards, landing on the rocks with a sharp thud.
The candle in his fist went out, the blackened wick crumbling to ash as the rest of the wax streamed over his fingers, warm and runny as blood. The sky churned, summer blue to angry clouds of grey and purple. The earth groaned, and a bolt of lightning stabbed the horizon.
He had taken it too far.
He had done too much to the memory, and it had kicked him out.
The second realisation came a heartbeat later.
His grandfather was gone.
The wind tornadoed around Fionn as he flattened himself against the rock and spider-walked back to the beach. The sea sprayed salt in his eyes. The sky flickered, like pages flying through a sketchpad, the angry storm dissolving to lead grey and then winter white. By the time Fionn made it to the end of the peninsula, his hands were numb and his teeth were chattering, but he was too frightened to care. He sprinted along the empty beach as the island reset itself. ‘Grandad!’ he yelled. ‘Grandad! Can you hear me!’
There was nothing but the howling wind.
‘I’m sorry!’ he shouted, not just to his grandad, but to the island too. ‘I’m sorry I got so angry! I’m sorry I messed with the memory!’
He tracked the entire beach twice, running and yelling, until finally the air hiccoughed and Fionn’s grandfather appeared before him.
He was standing alone by the water’s edge.
‘I’m sorry!’ Fionn panted as he caught up with him. ‘I don’t know what came over me. I wasn’t thinking!’
He felt it before he saw it – the door that had slammed in his grandfather’s mind, the bolt that had slid into place. His blue eyes had clouded over. ‘Cormac,’ he said, staring past Fionn into the distant sea. ‘The tide is awfully low, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ said Fionn, relief mingling with dread. ‘Yes, it’s very low.’
His grandfather frowned at the sea, as if he had lost something in its froth.
‘Let’s go home,’ said Fionn, taking him by the sleeve. ‘We can put the fire on.’
‘Did you see the dolphin, Cormac?’ he said, following him across the sand. ‘I’m sure I saw something in the waves.’
‘No,’ said Fionn. ‘I must have missed that.’
At the top of the beach, an old woman was watching them, her shawl arranged about her face so Fionn could only see the curious tilt of her head. Rose. She stood back to give them room as Fionn helped his grandfather over the low wall. His movements were stiffer now. When he reached the other side, he sat down heavily, his hands grasping his knees as he tried to catch his breath. ‘My legs are creaking,’ he panted. ‘I can hear them.’
Fionn hovered in front of him like a barrier, all too conscious of prying eyes. ‘That’s OK. So are mine.’
His grandfather looked up at him. ‘I’m getting old, Cormac.’
‘At least you’re still handsome.’
‘Aye,’ he said quietly.
Fionn helped him to his feet, looping his arm through the crook of his grandfather’s elbow as they made their way up the headland, leaving Rose behind. ‘Are we going to see the dolphins, Cormac? We shouldn’t leave your mother out. She’d be heartbro
ken.’
‘No, not today,’ said Fionn gently. ‘It’s too cold.’
He desperately wanted to talk about the Tide Summoner, about what Hughie Rua might have done with it before he died. But his grandfather was a million miles away now, in some forgotten place where Fionn was not Fionn at all, but Cormac.
He sank into the role with depressing ease.
They walked up the hill in silence, Fionn’s grandfather stopping every now and then to pluck forget-me-nots from the frosty earth. They popped up with surprising regularity, their heads bent in submission, as they were swept into his bouquet, one by one. ‘For your mother,’ he muttered, time and again. ‘Winnie loves these.’
They trundled up the hill like that, plucking the same flowers and having the same conversation about dolphins and the cold, and the cold and dolphins, and dolphins and the cold, until the land flattened and the little cottage appeared before them.
Then, like the twist in a terrible movie, Elizabeth Beasley sprang up in the distance, marching towards them in an outrageous fur coat and matching hat. Fionn decided that the only thing more dreadful than encountering Bartley Beasley’s grandmother in that particular moment, was encountering Bartley Beasley’s grandmother decorated with twenty dead badgers and her famous simpering smile.
‘Malachy Boyle,’ she called out. ‘Do my eyes deceive me?’
Fionn’s grandfather blinked at her dumbly.
‘Let’s go a bit faster,’ said Fionn, pressing his palm against his grandfather’s back. ‘I think it’s about to rain.’
Elizabeth slid in front of them, peering up at Fionn’s grandfather as though he had appeared from thin air, a genie finally freed from his lamp. ‘What an unexpected surprise.’
Fionn’s grandfather frowned. ‘Who is this woman, Cormac?’
Elizabeth’s eyes widened. ‘Cormac?’ she said, looking at Fionn with dawning alarm. ‘Don’t you know your own grandson, Malachy?’
Fionn’s grandfather blinked at her.
‘What are you doing here, Mrs Beasley?’ said Fionn icily. He amplified his disdain two-fold – once to draw her attention away from his grandfather, and twice because she deserved it. ‘Don’t you live down by the bridge?’
The Lost Tide Warriors Page 4