The Lost Tide Warriors

by Catherine Doyle

  ‘Who are you talking to?’ said Shelby.

  ‘The island,’ said Fionn, his eyes on his sinking ancestor. ‘Why are you taking so long?’

  The wind only whistled in his ears, prodding his cheeks with its icy fingers.

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ said Fionn. ‘Hughie’s going to drown!’

  He looked for Lír, but she was lost somewhere in a sea of blood and bone.

  ‘Turn the boat around,’ he said suddenly. ‘We have to help him!’

  ‘But we’re watching the Merrows!’ said Sam, brandishing the candle in protest. ‘Look! That one just swallowed a foot!’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Fionn urgently. ‘We have to save Hughie. It’s us. It’s supposed to be us.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ said Sam, bewildered now.

  Fionn was already slapping his oar against the waves. ‘Quick! Help me!’

  Shelby sprang into action, both of them heaving as they turned the rowing boat against the tide. They were impossibly far away – and Hughie was drifting further from them with every passing second. Panic surged up Fionn’s throat until he could barely breathe from it. He dug his oar through the sea, over and over, sweat beading on his brow and magic flaring in his chest, until the waves parted around them. The little boat lunged forward, cutting a course through the froth as the wind flapped at their backs.

  ‘Whoa,’ said Sam, peering over the side. ‘How are we moving so fast? Is that you, mate?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ gritted Fionn. ‘Let’s just hurry.’

  When they reached the sailboat, it was already half sunk in the water. The lip of it drew level with their noses. The bow tipped, and Hughie’s lumbering body rolled across the deck.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ said Sam. ‘We can’t move him! He’s way too big.’

  Fionn was already on his feet, wobbling. ‘We’re going to have to drag him back to shore with us!’

  ‘But we’re all tied together,’ said Shelby. ‘It’ll be impossible!’

  Just as she said it, the sailboat tipped and Hughie Rua rolled out, into the open water. Fionn leapt from the rowing boat, and nearly cut himself in half on the rope as it tautened. Shelby and Sam screamed as they slammed against the side of the boat. In the water, Fionn wound his arm around Hughie’s broad chest, and kicked madly with his legs. The water rose around him, pouring streams into his mouth. ‘Help,’ he gurgled. ‘He’s too heavy.’

  There was a splat! from over his shoulder as Shelby jumped out of the boat. Sam followed a half-second later, the candle hovering perilously close to the waterline as he landed.

  They made a triangle around Hughie, Shelby and Sam taking a leg each, while Fionn kept his arm around Hughie’s chest. His ancestor’s head flopped back on to his shoulder, his pale skin dotted with an endless constellation of freckles.

  ‘Hurry up!’ warned Sam. ‘The candle’s about to go out!’

  They pushed and pedalled the water, leaving the Merrows shrieking far behind them. When they reached the shore, they rolled Hughie on to the sand and sat back on their hunkers, gasping for air. Their lips were blue around the edges, their soaking clothes melded to their skin.

  ‘W-w-well … Th-th-that. W-was. Insane,’ said Fionn, through chattering teeth.

  Sam held the puddle of wax up just as the flame sputtered out. ‘I c-c-can’t b-b-b-elieve w-w-we d-d-didn’t d-d-die.’

  The wind washed Hughie Rua away. The thunder rumbled after him, taking the flashing sky with it.

  ‘W-w-we s-s-survived,’ said Shelby, shaking her head in disbelief. ‘All of us.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  THE SOULSTALKER’S RETURN

  ‘Not to sour the mood or anything, but we did fail in our mission. The Tide Summoner is still missing,’ said Sam, after they had peeled off their sopping lifejackets and piled them on the rocks. When they untied themselves from the rope, they were alarmed to find it had frayed to almost nothing in several places. ‘And I don’t think my boots will ever be the same either, if that makes you feel even worse. The suede is ruined.’

  Fionn was standing at the water’s edge. ‘It’s not missing,’ he said, pointing at the sunken tide. ‘It’s in there.’

  ‘By “there”, do you mean the entire open ocean?’ said Sam, coming to his side.

  Shelby wandered over to them, still clutching the frayed rope. ‘It’s getting dark. We must have been gone for hours.’

  ‘The shell could be in Greenland by now,’ Sam went on, his eyes narrowing at the waves. ‘Or Canada. Or Angola. Or Bermuda. Or –’

  ‘Stop naming random places. I already know you’re cleverer than me,’ Fionn interrupted. ‘It’s our Tide Summoner. It belongs to the island. Do you know what that means?’

  They shook their heads.

  ‘It means it’s close by. It has to be,’ said Fionn, with a burst of determination. ‘And that means we can go back for it.’

  They stared at the tide. It may have been low, but it was still sprawling.

  ‘The sun is setting …’ said Shelby quietly. ‘And I’m really cold.’

  ‘I need a hot bath,’ said Sam. ‘And a cup of tea.’

  Fionn wasn’t cold or thirsty. He was focused. Somewhere underneath that wide expanse of sea, the Tide Summoner was waiting for them. ‘We’ll come back for it first thing tomorrow then. With more candles this time. A bucketload. Shelby, you and Sam can push the tide out, and I’ll search the seabed.’ He spun around. ‘This is better anyway. We don’t have to steal it from the past. We can lift it right out of the sea. Don’t you see? We’re so close.’ He gestured vaguely over his shoulder. ‘It’s right there, waiting for us.’

  Fionn could picture Elizabeth Beasley’s disappointment so easily now, the disgruntled look on her face the moment she realised he had succeeded without her. Without his own magic, even. He was going to bring glory to his family name. Not shame, or regret. He was going to prove that sour old woman wrong, once and for all.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Sam uncertainly. ‘Shelby and I have never used the candles like that.’

  ‘It’s easy,’ said Fionn quickly. ‘Tara says you just have to think about it, and it happens. If the other islanders can do it, then so can you.’ Fionn was hopping from foot to foot now, imagining the shell wedged and gleaming on the seabed. The same excitement was catching in Sam’s eyes – his own chance to use the candle magic, a chance to be a Storm Keeper too.

  ‘I’ve seen Maggie Patton lift the sea with a flick of her wrist, and a whale along with it,’ said Fionn. ‘You have the same blood in your veins – I bet you’d do an excellent job!’ He thumped his chest. ‘I’ll be able to feel it once the tide is out. There’s a magical pull. It’s like something inside me recognises it.’

  Sam grinned. ‘Well, when you put it like –’

  ‘No,’ Shelby cut in. ‘We need Tara. She’s the expert.’

  ‘I’m not asking Tara,’ said Fionn firmly. ‘She thinks looking for the Tide Summoner is pointless. Besides, she’ll hold it over me for the rest of eternity.’

  ‘You’re being ridiculous!’ snapped Shelby suddenly. She blinked, bringing a hand to her throat, as though she had surprised even herself.

  Fionn took a step away from her. ‘No, I’m not,’ he said in a wounded voice.

  ‘You have to ask your sister, Fionn.’

  Fionn stared at Shelby, her narrowed eyes and twisting mouth, the sudden shortness of her temper. He hadn’t even realised she had a temper. ‘What’s got into you?’

  ‘Common sense,’ said Shelby.

  ‘Where was your common sense when we put those ropes around us and threw ourselves into a dangerous pirate invasion?’ asked Sam.

  Shelby folded her arms. ‘This is different.’

  ‘Don’t you want to help us?’ asked Fionn.

  ‘No,’ she said flatly. ‘Not like this, I don’t.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘I’m not doing it.’ She turned around and marched towards th
e cliffs. ‘If you’re going to mess with the tide, then we need more than just us. Sam and I won’t be enough.’

  Fionn and Sam trailed after her in utter bewilderment.

  The way out of the cove was less arduous, now that they had unpinned themselves from each other, but the awkwardness was stifling. Their breathing was too loud in the silence, the three of them huffing and panting as they picked their way up the rocks on their hands and knees. When they reached the top, the sun was already floating on the horizon, and the earth was frozen beneath them.

  ‘Ominous,’ said Sam, kicking an icy strip of seaweed.

  Shelby marched inland, her hair damp and stringy against her back. Fionn jogged after her, signalling for Sam to give them a minute alone. He followed her through a thicket of evergreens and into a deserted field, where he found her sitting on a low wall, with her arms pulled around her.

  ‘Shel— Oh,’ said Fionn, staring at the tears trickling down her cheeks. ‘What’s wrong?’

  Shelby kept her eyes on her shoes. ‘I’m sorry for yelling at you, Fionn. I didn’t mean to snap.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ said Fionn quickly. ‘I live with Tara.’

  Shelby wiped her cheeks with her damp sleeve. ‘I want to help you tomorrow,’ she sniffed. ‘I just … can’t.’

  Fionn hovered awkwardly. He wasn’t sure what to do. When his mother got sad, he would bring her soup or chocolate, sit quietly beside her on the couch – so that she knew he was there – while she watched three consecutive episodes of Say Yes to the Dress. When Tara was upset, it was usually due to a boyband breaking up, or the result of something like the last northern white rhino dying, despite her not knowing of its existence until she read an article about its extinction. Usually, he would ignore her for several days. Weeks, if fate allowed it.

  This was different. He wanted to make Shelby feel better, but he didn’t know what was making her feel bad in the first place.

  ‘Are you scared?’ he said quietly. ‘It’s OK if you’re scared. I’m scared all the time, actually. But the candle magic is easy, and the tide is so low already and I know that shell is –’

  ‘I’m not scared,’ said Shelby, shaking her head.

  Fionn waited.

  ‘I just can’t use those candles.’ She wiped a rogue tear away, her voice barely more than a whisper when she said, ‘I’m not a descendant of Dagda, Fionn.’

  Fionn blinked at her. ‘What are you talking about? You’re a Beasley.’

  ‘Yeah, I am a Beasley, I’m just not one by blood.’ She waited a beat, watching Fionn’s face for dawning understanding.

  It didn’t come.

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Fionn. I’m adopted! My birth parents weren’t from Arranmore.’

  ‘Oh.’ Fionn kept his face very still as he computed this new piece of information.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Shelby. ‘That’s why I didn’t want to light the candle earlier. Probably why the rope nearly split in two when I piggybacked on your adventure.’

  ‘Oh,’ Fionn said again. He could see it now – Shelby didn’t look like the other Beasleys. She had a wide mouth that curved at the edges, always smiling even when she didn’t mean to. Her nose was small and ski-sloped, not long and thin like Bartley’s, and her hair was bright and sandy, as though woven from the shoreline. And – perhaps most importantly – she was inherently kind, not forged from pure, undiluted, ever-sneering evil.

  Fionn thought of the summer, the race to the Sea Cave that had nearly seen them all dead. Was that why she never chased the wish? Why she stood back and let Bartley take it, passed it off as a lack of interest in being her grandmother’s puppet? Was that why she’d never imagined herself as the Storm Keeper? She was certainly brave enough, determined enough. She would have been excellent, in fact. She would have been far better than Fionn …

  ‘It doesn’t bother me,’ said Shelby. ‘Not ever. My parents had Bartley, and then my dad got ill, and he got better again, but the treatment … well, it meant they were going to be stuck with just Bartley forever, and they thought it might be better to dilute his personality.’

  ‘A great idea,’ said Fionn.

  ‘So they adopted me. And I enriched their lives beyond belief.’

  ‘Obviously,’ concurred Fionn.

  ‘I know everyone loves me as much as they love Bartley. I think my dad probably loves me more than him.’

  ‘That does not surprise me.’

  ‘It doesn’t ever come up.’ She shrugged. ‘Except on days like today.’ She looked down at her Converse, the sparkles now mussed with wet sand. ‘I want to help you find the shell, but the magic won’t work for me, Fionn.’

  Fionn sat down on the wall beside her. ‘If it helps, the magic doesn’t work for me either. And I’m from two bloodlines. At least you’re brave. I’m useless and a coward.’

  Shelby smiled weakly. ‘You’re not useless, Fionn.’

  ‘Tell that to the islanders.’

  ‘They’ll see for themselves,’ said Shelby confidently.

  ‘Dagda was a good sorcerer,’ said Fionn. ‘He wouldn’t have cared where you were from, only what was in your heart. He would have known how … how special you are. How loyal you are to this place. He would have rewarded you for it.’

  Shelby’s smile faltered. ‘We don’t know that, Fionn. We don’t know where he’s buried, or what he wanted. We don’t know anything about him. Morrigan’s awake, and it feels like he’s gone for good.’

  This was not the first time Fionn had thought about this, but it was the first time it had been put to him so plainly. Where was Dagda? Why hadn’t he woken up too?

  ‘Well, I want you to be a part of this. If you don’t help us, we haven’t a hope of finding it. We’d probably get distracted or wander off, and Sam would definitely ruin his fancy coat, along with his shoes, and then what would we do?’

  Shelby snorted. ‘He’d never forgive you.’

  ‘No,’ said Fionn solemnly. ‘If I ask Tara to come and help with the tide, will you help me search for the shell? I don’t really want to walk into the sea by myself anyway.’

  Shelby looked at her hands.

  ‘Please?’

  ‘I don’t need your pity, you know.’

  ‘This isn’t pity talking,’ Fionn assured her. ‘It’s soul-crushing fear and total incompetence.’

  There was a beat of nothing. Then Shelby smiled. And Fionn smiled too. ‘Oh, all right then, you don’t have to beg. I suppose there is a role for my incredible bravery, after all.’

  The tell-tale crunch of footsteps made them snap their heads up. Sam appeared through a break in the trees. ‘Oh, don’t mind me, I’m just wandering around this wintery wilderness, waiting for frostbite to claim me,’ he announced. ‘It’s not like I need my fingers for my future lucrative career in classical music. They can just give me robot hands. By all means, finish your private chit-chat.’

  Shelby leapt to her feet. ‘Oh, cheer up, cranky-pants, you’ll survive,’ she said, beaming at him.

  Sam looked at Shelby. Then at Fionn. ‘I’m confused.’

  They made their way back through the evergreens, dodging jagged branches and prickling needles until they reached the path. A lone woman bustled along it, hemmed in by brambles and the spines of headless rose bushes.

  They watched her go past. Her back was hunched, her shawl tossed about her head so that her face was hidden. She was quick on her feet, despite the weight that seemed to bend her to the ground.

  ‘Wasn’t she … ?’ Shelby began.

  ‘Is that … ?’ started Sam.

  ‘That’s … Rose,’ said Fionn at the same time.

  They were all thinking the same impossible thing – that Rose looked very much like the woman from Hughie Rua’s time.

  ‘Go on ahead,’ said Fionn. ‘I’ll catch up with you.’ Sam and Shelby exchanged a glance, then shrugged their way down the path, towards the distant pier.

  Fionn trailed after Rose. ‘Hey,’ he called. ‘Can I tal
k to you for a minute?’

  Rose turned around, watching him from the shadows of her shawl. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I just wanted to thank you,’ said Fionn, a little awkwardly. ‘For looking after my grandad, I mean. I see the baskets every week. You did his shopping for him when he stopped being able to leave the house … Thank you for taking care of him, even though he’s not the Storm Keeper any more. I – I mean, we – my sister and my mam and I appreciate it.’

  ‘You are a Keeper once, you are a Keeper forever.’ Rose took a step towards him, and he caught the glint of green in her eyes. There was warmth there too. He could feel it spreading inside him, and he felt safer because of it. ‘All Keepers are special in their own way, but sometimes, Fionn, you can be something else. Something more.’

  Fionn swallowed the sudden dryness in his throat, the jarring feeling that this strange old woman was not looking at him, but into him.

  ‘Don’t fear what you don’t yet know about yourself, Storm Keeper. Your magic will come.’ She gestured over his shoulder, towards the horizon. ‘And therein possibility waits side by side with darkness.’

  She left him staring after her, humming idly to herself while Fionn’s mind whirred with more questions than answers.

  When he rejoined Sam and Shelby down on the strand, their faces were ashen with fear. Both of them were standing so still, they looked like a couple of damp statues. Wordlessly Sam raised his finger, and Fionn followed it all the way down to the pier, where the evening ferry was pulling in.

  Fionn spotted him immediately. One person moving through the droves of passengers, thinking and talking and walking for himself. It was unmistakeable – that glimpse of blood-red hair, hovering like a laser-point in the distance.

  The horn sounded, and the Soulstalkers parted.

  Fionn watched in horror as Ivan stepped off the ferry.

  Chapter Fourteen

  THE BURNING BOATS

  Fionn raced home only to find a holly wreath hanging on the front door. Inside, the cottage looked like Christmas had staggered in and thrown up everywhere. There was tinsel as far as the eye could see, a bowl of striped candy-canes in the middle of the kitchen table and an un-iced fruit cake cooling on the countertop. A giant statue of Santa Claus stood sentry in the hallway, wearing a scarf of blinking fairy lights. There were four stockings hanging above the fireplace, all of them different lengths and colours. On closer inspection, the last one was just an oversized sports sock.