‘Let’s not dwell on insignificant details,’ said Elizabeth dismissively. ‘Here is what we have so astutely established during this seemingly endless hour. The Soulstalkers are here, and their numbers are increasing with every ferry that arrives. As yet, we have seen no sign of Ivan, but his ilk are affecting the health of the island and in two days, if the rumour is to be believed, they plan to raise Morrigan.’ Elizabeth settled her icy gaze on Fionn. ‘The question is, what does our disgraced Storm Keeper plan to do about it? Or do you intend to stand by and watch us die, one by one?’
‘Without a shred of magic to defend ourselves,’ added Douglas sourly.
Fionn’s mother cleared her throat pointedly. ‘Well, actually, that’s not quite the case.’
‘We do have magic,’ said Tara.
There was a sharp intake of breath, the whole sitting room inhaling as one.
Douglas snapped his head up, and Elizabeth’s eyes grew suddenly very wide.
Chapter Eight
THE TEMPORARY TORNADO
Tara plucked a candle from the shelf, and Fionn leapt to his feet without meaning to. ‘The Soulstalkers are nowhere near as strong as they used to be,’ he said quickly. ‘I spoke with Lír yesterday, in another layer, and she told me that they’re weak without their leader. They don’t have their true strength. At least not while Morrigan is still buried. They’re only shells really, half alive and half dead.’
Elizabeth threw up her hands. ‘Oh, so the Queen of the Merrows has weighed in, has she? Nice of Lír to give us her two cents. I don’t suppose she’d bother to help with this mess, would she? Or are you so ineffective that you forgot to ask her, in whatever layer you were wandering around in?’
‘Actually, the Merrows can help us,’ said Fionn, ignoring Tara’s prickly glare. ‘In fact, that’s my whole idea.’
‘Fionn,’ said his mother. ‘That is not the idea we’re here to discuss.’
Fionn ignored her. The magic of the Storm Keeper’s candles was hardly a secret – for centuries they had carried islanders to different layers, stored thunderstorms and heatwaves and everything in between. But their second use – as weapons with magic to control the elements – was not widely known. The idea of imminently revealing a roomful of powerful weapons to two very hostile Beasleys, not to mention a bunch of people who wouldn’t have the first clue what to do with them, seemed like madness to Fionn. Especially when they hadn’t even discussed the possibility of finding the Tide Summoner.
He went on determinedly. ‘All we have to do is find the shell that binds the Merrows to the island. It’s big and white and sparkly, and it’s called the Tide Summoner, and it’s somewhere on the island. Hughie Rua had it last, so it might be around the area where he used to live, or even in someone’s attic or shed! Once we find it, we can summon the Merrows to destroy these invaders once and for all, and keep the rest of them from ever darkening our shores –’
‘Fionn!’ hissed Tara. ‘What are you doing?’
Fionn blinked the room back into focus, only to find the islanders staring at him with varying degrees of incredulity.
‘You want us to go and look for a … shell?’ said Alva delicately.
‘Like, a seashell?’ clarified Juliana.
‘That’s the grand plan?’ said Douglas.
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. ‘Dagda save us all.’
Niall hmm’d under his breath, a muscle working in his jaw as he stared at Fionn.
‘Stop talking about the stupid shell,’ said Tara frustratedly. ‘We’ve already discussed this. We need to tell them about the candles. About what they can really do.’
Elizabeth turned her attention on Tara. ‘Go on,’ she said, intrigued.
Fionn whirled around, looking helplessly at his grandfather.
‘It’s all right, lad,’ he said gently. ‘Let her show them.’
That was enough permission for Tara. She plucked a candle from the shelf, Fionn’s mother handing her a lighter at the same time. ‘Nothing too showy,’ she warned. ‘Or we’ll have a big clean-up on our hands.’
Tara blinked slowly, as though savouring the moment. Then she marched into the middle of the sitting room, stepping over Sam as she ripped the anchor from the bottom of the candle.
Juliana gasped, then promptly covered her mouth. ‘Sorry. I thought something was going to happen.’
‘It is,’ said Fionn’s mother with a smile. ‘Watch.’
Tara flicked her lighter and brought it to the bottom of the wick. The islanders bent forward in their seats to watch the flame crawl up inside the wax. The second it disappeared, Tara curled her fist around it.
‘This candle holds a limited supply of the Storm Keeper’s magic,’ said Fionn’s mother. ‘For the time it takes for the wax to burn, the wielder can control the elements in their environment.’
Tara stuck her hand out in front of her. ‘Earth, air, water, fire. All it takes is a little concentration.’
Suddenly the cottage windows flew open and the wind rushed in. It flapped in the end of Tara’s hoodie and lifted the hair from her head, until it looked like she was standing in the dead centre of a hurricane. This time, everyone gasped. Fionn didn’t miss the way Elizabeth glanced at Douglas, her eyes growing big and greedy.
‘Every one of Dagda’s descendants can be taught, if they’re willing to learn,’ said Fionn’s mother.
Tara flicked her wrist and the couch was swept backwards by a wall of wind, taking Alva, Juliana, Niall and Tom along with it.
Juliana shrieked, and Tom laughed, the islanders’ surprise turning to giddy excitement as Tara rolled her hand in a circle, swirling the gust into a thin tornado. She sent it skipping around the room, giggling as Sam sprang up to run from it, only to trip over his father’s feet and land on top of Fionn’s grandfather. Elizabeth reached out to touch it, yelping as her hand was blown backwards, nearly slapping her in the face. Douglas covered his head as it danced around him, and Sam’s dad simply shook his head in delighted disbelief.
And then it was over – the candle lay crushed inside Tara’s fist, and the wind scattered to the far corners of the island, slamming the windows shut on its way out. She dropped her hand and flexed her fingers. ‘Voilà.’
Fionn’s grandfather chuckled. ‘Well done, Tara. Excellent work.’
The rest of the room sat in stunned silence.
Even the Beasleys were speechless, and Fionn, despite his squirming jealousy, felt the barest flicker of smugness at the look on Elizabeth’s face.
‘Well,’ said Niall, easily tugging the couch back to its rightful place despite the three other people currently sitting on it. ‘That was impressive.’
‘Impressive is an understatement,’ said Alva. ‘When do we get to try?’
‘This afternoon.’ Tara was grinning so wide, Fionn could barely look at her. ‘We have thousands of candles. I’m going to bring some to the school hall later and hold a training session with anyone who wants to learn. It’s really easy,’ she said, lazily peeling strips of wax from her fingers. ‘It won’t take much practice.’
‘Count us in,’ said Alva.
‘We’ll rally the troops,’ said Sam’s dad.
Fionn’s mother curled a hand on Tara’s shoulder, her eyes shining with the success of a plan coming together. Their plan.
Fionn’s grandfather smiled encouragingly at him, but Fionn could see the pity in his expression, so he looked away, feeling sour, despite the success of Tara’s demonstration. He was supposed to lead the island, and here he was, curled up by the fireplace, failing to lead their own meeting.
‘Go back and spread word to the other islanders,’ said Fionn’s mother. ‘Tell anyone who doesn’t want to be a part of the coming conflict to leave as soon as they can. Any descendants interested in wielding the Storm Keeper’s magic should meet us in the school hall at three this afternoon. Non-descendants are welcome to come along, but they won’t actually be able to use the candles,’ she said, smiling at Juliana, who loo
ked at once jealous and relieved.
And then all at once the sun was high, and the biscuits were gone, and everyone was clambering back into their coats and scarves and gloves and hats, until their chins disappeared, and then their noses too, as they were sent out into the frigid morning air with renewed purpose and whipped down the headland by an icy gust.
Niall lingered a moment in the doorway. ‘I think I heard a story once about that shell you mentioned,’ he said to Fionn in a low voice. ‘It was an old favourite of Patrick the Story Weaver’s. He was a Cannon Storm Keeper.’
Fionn felt himself swell with anticipation. ‘Yeah,’ he said eagerly. ‘I’ve heard of him. He founded the library.’
Niall nodded. ‘There were rumours of a seashell that could call the Merrows home. I used to search the beaches for it as a boy, when I wasn’t out looking for Aonbharr.’ He smiled to himself. ‘If Hughie Rua really was the last to see it, you could try searching the old Freedom house.’
‘Freedom house?’ said Fionn, with confusion.
‘The McCauley farmhouse,’ said Niall, wrapping his scarf over his mouth so that his words were muffled. ‘I suppose it’s more of a ruin now. It’s the one Hughie Rua built when he was alive.’ He pointed vaguely in the direction of east. ‘Your mum knows it. Her parents left the land to her in their will – not that you can grow anything there these days.’
‘Oh.’ Fionn nodded in delayed understanding. ‘Yeah, I know that place. I just didn’t realise it had a name.’
Niall shrugged. ‘Everything here has a name. Hughie named it after his boat. Saoirse. Means “freedom”.’
Fionn frowned. Something was stirring in the back of his mind, a thought flitting by, too quick to catch. ‘Hmm.’
‘Well, he was the great protector of our freedom, after all,’ said Niall with a wink. ‘Storm Keepers and their egos. Not you though, Fionn. The Boyles have always been responsible with the role. You were right to ask us for help today. We’ll handle this together.’ He waved as he stalked down the garden path. ‘See you later.’
The Beasleys were the last to leave, Elizabeth insisting on using the bathroom and then loudly complaining about the brand of hand-soap to Douglas as they finally left the cottage. ‘It gives me hives, Douglas. It’s that awful cheap formula …’
Not thirty seconds after Fionn had shut the door behind them, his mother came out, waving Elizabeth’s dead-badger hat. ‘She left this on the sink, Fionn. Will you run after her before she gets home and accuses us of stealing it?’
Fionn groaned his way outside, took the hat into the wind, and fleetingly considered flinging it over the cliffs and into the sea below.
Elizabeth turned around long before he reached her, her hand outstretched, as though she had been expecting him. ‘Oh, how clumsy of me, Fionn. And that hat was so expensive.’
‘You should have just asked Tom to shoot one for you.’ Fionn stuffed it into her hand and turned on his heel.
‘Run along home, Storm Keeper!’ she called after him. ‘Let the adults handle this little mess you’ve made.’
Fionn glared at her over his shoulder. ‘We’re all handling it together.’
‘It’s not really a group task though, is it, Fionn? The guardianship of this place.’ Her smile was a perfect pale crescent. ‘But then, every Storm Keeper is different. There are some that bring great honour to their family name and then, well, there are some that bring shame.’ She sighed dramatically. ‘I suppose, as islanders, we can’t all take after Hughie Rua …’ Fionn could sense it before she said it, the dark arrow hovering on her tongue. ‘Some of us are destined to end up like Cormac Boyle.’ She opened her mouth and shot it at him. ‘Utterly forgotten.’
It landed in the centre of Fionn’s heart, and he felt, for a second, like he might crumple. ‘Get lost, Betty.’
He marched up the headland so fast, he didn’t feel the searing cold – only the heat of his rage as it razed a trail through his body. The wind came with him, howling just as angrily. When he got home, the door slammed so hard, the hinges rattled. A hat leapt off the coat-rack and flew across the room, where it hit the wall and tumbled to the floor.
His grandfather shot up from his chair by the fireplace. ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa! What did my favourite hat ever do to you?’
‘I didn’t even touch it,’ said Fionn. ‘It did that on its own.’
‘I know,’ said his grandfather, eyeing it uneasily.
Fionn plucked the hat off the floor and stalked back to the coat-rack, where he hung it back up, before shrugging his coat on.
‘Where are you off to now?’ asked his grandfather.
‘To do something useful,’ said Fionn, swinging the door open. He was outside and into the wind before his grandfather could answer him.
Chapter Nine
THE FREEDOM MEMORY
While Tara spent the rest of the day in the school hall, training willing islanders in the secret art of candle magic, Fionn scoured the ruins of the old McCauley farmhouse. Sam joined him in his efforts, stoically surrendering the chance to attend the magic lesson, in order to pursue the legend of the Tide Summoner with his best friend. An afternoon of fruitless searching gave way to an evening of the same, Fionn and Sam crawling around in the frost-slick grass, while the ghost of Fionn’s McCauley ancestry yielded nothing but numb fingers and wet socks.
When night fell, they trudged home along the strand, greeted by reports of the evening ferries, which had brought two hundred more blank faces across the narrow slip of sea. Another regiment marched inland and then disappeared down the craggy underside of the island.
After a late dinner of his grandfather’s beef-and-Guinness stew, Fionn lay awake scanning the shelves in the darkness. He noted the missing candles, since sacrificed to his sister’s lessons. She had taken the bare minimum, but Fionn still worried over the loss. Tomorrow, more magic would be donated in aid of island practice, creating new gaps that would remind him of all the ways he was failing his people. How the islanders who had once respected him now looked at him with a mixture of pity and betrayal. How they had turned to his own sister for leadership.
And why wouldn’t they? They knew his secret, after all.
Magic Barren.
Useless.
The wind howled outside the little cottage on the headland, pressed its hands against the windows and shook them in their frames, as if the island was trying to tell him something.
The bond that takes a touch to make
Will not before a lifetime break.
But the bond had been broken. Hughie Rua was long dead. So where did he leave the Tide Summoner?
Lay worthy hands upon the shell,
And breath becomes the ocean’s knell.
Fionn studied his hands in the dark. Were they even worthy of the Tide Summoner? He turned over on the couch, pulled the blanket up around his ears. When he finally fell asleep, he dreamt of the mainland. He glimpsed rolling green hills and newly paved motorways, little towns made from cobblestones and coloured flags. He recognised the different patterns, each county a notch in Ireland’s curved spine.
Fionn saw Ivan standing beneath the Dublin spire, the column rising like a sharp tooth in the darkness. Morrigan’s laugh rushed through him. She was gleeful, expectant.
Tick-tock, Storm Keeper.
Tick-tock, comes the Reaper.
Fionn felt his skin peel away, his bones plucked from his skeleton and stacked one by one, until they made a spire as tall and white as the one in his mind.
Dublin.
Ivan was in Dublin.
The clock was getting louder.
It set the tempo of his pulse.
Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-TOCK, TICK-TOCK, TICK-TOCK –
He woke, gasping. Fionn felt as if he had swallowed a ball of fire, and it was torching him from the inside out. His fingertips were crackling. He curled them into fists and breathed through his nose, to keep from vomiting all over himself.
A shard of moonlight slipped th
rough the window and crept all the way up to the couch. Fionn looked around, making his eyes as wide as he could in the darkness. The shelf in the corner was shaking.
There was a thought prodding at him.
Think, said a voice in his head. Remember.
He wandered over to the shelf. The moonlight came with him, dusting itself along the labels as Fionn’s magic glowed like an ember in his chest.
The thought was crystallising. It was a memory, and it came in Niall Cannon’s voice. Hughie named it after his boat. Saoirse. Means “freedom”.
Fionn stared at the candles.
Well, he was the great protector of our freedom, after all.
Seven blizzards in a row. A handful of summer skies. Autumn showers and winter winds. Sean McCauley’s Runaway Kite … Storms and storms and storms and storms. Unexpected Tornado at Josie’s Twelfth Birthday Party. Ribbon lightning, sheet lightning, forked lightning, flash lightning … Hurricane Ophelia. Snow days and snowstorms. Sunsets and sunrises. Suaimhneas, which meant ‘peace’, and Saoirse, which meant –
Fionn froze.
Saoirse.
Freedom.
Was it possible?
Had it been here all this time, sitting right under his nose?
He reached out to take the candle, and a breeze curled around it like a finger. It knocked it from the shelf.
Fionn caught it in mid-air. ‘I was about to do that,’ he said aloud.
The candle was tall and thin, like a stick of dynamite, the wax as inky as a pirate’s sail. Fionn dipped his nose in and almost sneezed. Gunpowder – the thickness of it rested along the top like froth on a cappuccino. Then came the rest: a violent storm flung from an angry horizon, capillaries of lightning burning fissures in the sky. Shattered wood and burning flags, ash and fire, and cast-iron cannonballs soaring through an open sea. Blood and bone and seaweed, all tangled up in the salt-filled gurgle of drowning men.
Fionn bristled as the dredges of Saoirse crawled up his nose – crusted barnacles and scales the colour of burnt silver, a shark’s grin bearing down on human skin.
The Lost Tide Warriors Page 7