‘Right,’ said Fionn.
‘Dead because I will have killed them,’ he clarified.
‘Yeah, I got that.’
‘And it will be a gruesome, gruesome end.’
Fionn’s smile dissolved in the silence. ‘How come you’re so brave all the time?’
‘Because I love you more than I fear them, Fionn.’
Fionn blew out a breath. He could feel his heartbeat fluttering beneath his collarbone, like a trapped bird. ‘You’re very wise, Grandad.’
‘And?’
Fionn rolled his eyes in the darkness. ‘And handsome.’
A few minutes later, his grandfather’s snores joined the chorus around him, a deep baritone in an orchestra of nightmares.
Chapter Fifteen
THE MAKESHIFT PRISON
Fionn lay awake for another hour, until inky fingers smudged the moon from the sky and scattered clouds across the stars.
When he finally slipped into unconsciousness, Morrigan was there, waiting for him.
I have a place for you in the darkness, Storm Keeper.
I have a place for you beside me.
Then came the laughter, rocking him by the shoulders, pulling him by the hair, stuffing fists down his throat and stealing the air from his lungs.
Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick –
‘FIONN!’
Fionn sat bolt upright and smashed his head against a Christmas bauble. There were pine needles in his hair, pine needles on his cheeks, a pine needle in his mouth. He spat it out, blinking through a mass of green and red and gold as he unearthed himself from the tree.
Tara was standing in front of him. ‘You sleep like the dead.’
I sleep with the dead, thought Fionn.
‘Shelby and Sam are here.’
She stood back, and Fionn noticed his friends hovering directly behind her. ‘What time is it?’
‘7.47 a.m.,’ said Sam. ‘And freezing.’
Fionn grabbed his blanket and pulled it over his shoulders. He was suddenly conscious of his spaceship pyjama bottoms, the Avengers T-shirt that was two sizes too small for him now. ‘I must have slept through my alarm,’ he croaked. ‘Sorry.’
‘Probably the fumes,’ said Shelby, gesturing at the chimney. ‘Our house smelled like smoke all night, thanks to Ivan’s explosion.’
‘You should hurry up and get dressed,’ said Sam nervously. ‘We have a little problem.’
‘I’d say medium-sized,’ called Fionn’s grandfather from inside the kitchen. He was still in his pyjamas, staring out of the window with a cup of tea in one hand. Fionn’s mother hovered beside him, glaring at something in the garden. ‘Nothing a bit of ingenuity won’t fix, I’m sure.’
Fionn rubbed the sleep from his eyes as he crossed the room. ‘What are you talking about?’
He paused at the sound of a toilet flushing. ‘What was that?’ he said, spinning around. ‘Who else is here?’
The bathroom door shut and two seconds later, Bartley Beasley came striding into the sitting room. A navy jumper peeked over the edge of a grey tailored coat and, as always, he was wearing deck shoes, despite the noted absence of a summer yacht in the French Riviera. He looked less like a teenager, and more like a middle-aged banker from Dublin City; the hair on his head swirled like a 99 ice-cream cone. ‘Nice T-shirt, Boyle.’
Fionn stiffened. ‘This is way bigger than a medium-sized problem.’
Tara rolled her eyes. ‘Bartley’s not the problem, Fionn.’
‘What’s he doing here?’ said Fionn, ignoring her.
‘Mum and Dad wouldn’t let me come here on my own,’ said Shelby apologetically.
‘I sneaked out,’ said Sam proudly.
‘And we need Bartley,’ Tara added. ‘You hardly thought I could drag the sea all by myself?’
Sam pointed at himself. ‘Ahem …’
‘And you’re always going on about how good you are with the candles,’ said Fionn.
‘I am good.’ Tara folded her arms. ‘But I’m not Dagda, for goodness sake! It’ll take three of us at least, and we can’t leave Grandad here all by himself. Mam has to stay with him.’
Fionn’s mother was still pressed up against the window, murmuring something to his grandfather.
Bartley leered at Fionn. ‘You heard her, Boyle. You need me to save the island. I mean, I can’t say I’m not surprised, but I didn’t think you’d leave it so last-minute.’
‘I was waiting to see if you’d come back to welcome Ivan home first,’ said Fionn. ‘Maybe bake him an apple pie.’
‘Fionn!’ said Tara and Shelby at the same time.
Fionn stalked past Bartley, joining his mother and his grandfather in the kitchen. ‘What are you two staring at?’
Fionn’s grandfather shuffled to the side. ‘See for yourself.’
Fionn pressed his nose against the glass. Outside, the sky was white as snow, the ground coated in a glistening layer of ice. The grass was sharp with frost, and covered in sunken footprints.
Fionn drew a sharp breath.
The footsteps belonged to Soulstalkers. The cottage was surrounded. He could see ten waiting at the front of the house alone, but there was probably double that many out on the headland, and countless more around the back too.
‘They let us in fine,’ said Shelby from over Fionn’s shoulder. ‘Barely even glanced our way, actually.’
‘They’re not interested in our movements,’ said Fionn’s grandfather gravely. ‘They’re only here for Fionn.’
Fionn narrowed his eyes at the blank-faced Soulstalkers. They had been stationed like soldiers, not, it seemed, to keep people out. But to keep people in.
To keep him in.
‘Oh.’ The word fogged against the glass.
When he pulled back, his grandfather was at the sink, his cup drained of tea. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, his eyes alight with a familiar spark of mischief. ‘I have a plan.’
Chapter Sixteen
ESCAPE BY CANDLELIGHT
Fionn hovered in the middle of the sitting room, with his coat zipped up to his chin and his hat pulled low over his ears, while his grandfather handed out candles. The first, Snowy Christmas 2002, went to Shelby and Bartley. It was short and squat and milk-bottle white.
‘Keep this in your pocket until you’re out of sight of the Soulstalkers,’ he told them. ‘Then light it and hold on tight to each other. It will be snowing heavily in this layer, so make sure you keep your bearings. Turn around and track north, past the cottage and along the coast, until you get to Hughie Rua’s Cove. Shelby knows where to go. Once you find it, blow out your candle, and wait for the others.’
Shelby and Bartley looked at each other, and nodded.
‘Right,’ said Shelby to Fionn and Sam. ‘See you soon then.’
‘Be safe,’ said Fionn.
‘Be smart,’ said Tara to Bartley. ‘We’ll be right behind you.’
They swung the door open and shuffled outside in their winter coats, the candle hidden in Bartley’s back pocket. Fionn watched through the sitting-room window, until they had disappeared through the front gates and out on to the headland.
The Soulstalkers barely glanced at them as they went. Fionn highly doubted they would have bothered following Bartley and Shelby to the cove in the first place, but it was better to be sneaky than sorry. Secrecy was everything now.
When Fionn turned around, his grandfather was brandishing another candle. Foggy Easter was the exact size and shape of an Easter egg, its golden outer coat glossy in the half-light.
‘Same story, love,’ his grandfather told Tara. ‘Take the candle with you until you’re clear of the Soulstalkers. Light it up when you’re alone. Then turn around and head north in your new layer.’ He looked at Sam. ‘Try not to let the wind turn you around too much. You remember where the cove is, don’t you, lad? It’ll be awfully foggy, so don’t wander too close to the cliffs.’
Sam smiled sheepishly. ‘I’ll do my best.’
Fionn’s grandfather laid a steadying hand on his shoulder. ‘Do better than that, or Morrigan’s shadow will return and devour us all whole, screaming, and bleeding from our ears.’ He patted him on the side of the head, smiling broadly. ‘All right then. Off you go. Have fun!’
Fionn handed Tara the schoolbag full of candles. She hitched it on to her back, and tightened the straps. ‘I’ll get these there in one piece.’ She jerked her chin at Sam. ‘Him too.’
‘Cheers,’ said Sam, with none of his usual bravado.
‘Get each other there,’ said Fionn’s mother, guiding them towards the front door. ‘Just keep your heads down, and don’t look at the Soulstalkers. If they give you any trouble, I’ll go out there and smash a kitchen chair over their heads.’
‘Evie.’ Fionn’s grandfather whistled under his breath. ‘That’s the spirit!’
And then Tara and Sam were out of the door, chattering too loudly as they made their way down the garden path, trying not to return the attention of the Soulstalkers who watched them go by. Fionn held his breath until his sister and his friend had disappeared from view, only exhaling when the Soulstalkers returned their attention to the front door.
‘OK, lad. You’re the tricky one.’
Fionn spun around. ‘They definitely won’t let me leave like that.’
His grandfather nodded. ‘You’ll have to light your candle inside the cottage.’
‘He can be seen in all layers,’ Fionn’s mother reminded him. ‘We have to make sure the cottage is empty in the one he travels to. Otherwise, you might die of a heart attack, Malachy, twenty years before now.’
‘Now wouldn’t that be a scandal?’ said Fionn’s grandfather, wandering from the room. ‘I’ll be back in a second.’
‘Or Cormac will get the fright of his life if you pop up in front of him.’ Fionn’s mother smiled sadly. ‘All of these possibilities at our fingertips, and who knows how many different ways we could hurt ourselves using them.’
‘I’ll be careful,’ Fionn reassured her.
There was a knock at the windowpane. They jumped as a Soulstalker pressed his face up against the glass. He tapped again, his nose stubbed so they could see his gaping nostrils, his dirty fingernails rolling back and forth.
Fionn’s mother thumped her fist against the glass. ‘GET OUT OF HERE, YOU DISGUSTING SOULLESS CRETIN OR I’LL COME OUT THERE AND BREAK YOUR SPINE!’
The Soulstalker looked past her, to where Fionn was standing by the couch. Then he wandered away from the window, and back to his post in the garden.
‘They’re just trying to scare us,’ said Fionn’s mother, glaring after him.
‘Making sure I’m still here, I bet,’ said Fionn, backing away from the window. ‘Ivan won’t leave anything to chance.’
‘Well, they’ve seen you now. Come on.’ Fionn’s mother lead Fionn into the hallway, shutting the door behind them. They stood in the dark and waited for his grandfather to come out of his room.
He returned presently, with a candle Fionn had seen many times before. Record High Tide 1982 – small, simple and ocean blue. Fionn took it from him and rolled it between his fingers. ‘Why this one?’
‘Because I remember it,’ said his grandfather simply. ‘Over time, most of the candle details have slipped away from me. I don’t know where I was or what I was doing on any given day. Not this one though. The tide was so high, it flooded the pier. I was down on the lifeboats, helping passengers off the ferry. Your father was with me. He was around your age then. He couldn’t get enough of the boats, rain, hail or shine. He loved the adventure of it, even if it soaked him to the bone.’ He smiled to himself, the memory playing behind his eyes. ‘We were gone for the whole day.’
‘What about Winnie?’ asked Fionn’s mother.
‘In bed with the flu,’ he said, chuckling to himself. ‘She was so delirious, I managed to convince her I was Elton John when I came home singing ‘Rocket Man’. I’ve never seen her so in love.’
Fionn pulled a lighter from his pocket. ‘I’ll keep it burning until I’m safely away from the cottage. And then I’ll keep my head down and move quickly, so no one notices me.’
‘Save the end of the candle so you can get back inside later,’ said his grandfather.
‘I will.’
‘Good lad,’ said his grandfather, ushering them both inside the little spare room, where Tara and his mother usually slept. It was like stepping into a furniture catalogue. The beds sat side by side beneath floral duvets, each one neatly made, with pillows plumped to perfection. Every article of clothing had been folded carefully away in a wooden chest of drawers, crowned by a basket of dried flowers that filled the room with the smell of lavender. Even their shoes were lined up neatly by the window sill.
Fionn’s mother closed the curtains. ‘I really don’t like that he’s going by himself, Malachy. What if the island kicks him out of the memory? What if the Soulstalkers catch him while the layers are changing? What if –’
‘It’s all right, Mam,’ said Fionn, trying not to think about all the ways it could go wrong. ‘I’ll make sure the island has changed before I go outside. It isn’t the first time I’ve been in a memory alone.’ He was reminded, with sudden sharpness, of his mother standing in the sea with her hands around her belly, screaming for his father. Screaming at the island. ‘You just stay here, and stay safe. Make the house look lived in, remember? Otherwise the Soulstalkers will come looking for me and that will ruin everything.’
There was a strained silence.
‘Evie,’ said Fionn’s grandfather gently. ‘This is the Storm Keeper’s job. It’s up to Fionn now.’
Fionn’s mother’s eyes darkened with thoughts he couldn’t guess at it. She pinched the bridge of her nose. ‘Well, I still don’t have to like it. I don’t have to smile about it. This cruel, cruel place.’
‘Evie …’
She shook her head. ‘I know, Malachy, I know. You don’t have to say it.’
Fionn raised the flame to the candlewick. ‘It’s now or never,’ he said, his fingers trembling, just a little. ‘Wish me luck.’
The candle lit up, and the wind whipped around Fionn, erasing his family from where they stood, until there was nothing left but the echo of their goodbye.
Fionn stood alone in a bedroom that was rapidly changing underneath his feet. The wind tornadoed around him, but he gritted his teeth and held on to the narrow door frame.
The walls changed first – winking from white to mint green, the plaster peeling beneath posters of musicians Fionn didn’t recognise – crazy hair and leather trousers, mouths open mid-song – as their corners fluttered in the wind. His sister’s bed disappeared, until there was only one sitting in the middle of the room. Crookedly. The sheets were crumpled, the duvet trailing on to the floor by a dog-eared comic book. X-Men – Fionn had to stop himself from reaching for it. The socks came last, springing up one by one by one, until they littered the floor like bombs.
The island exhaled, and Fionn released the door frame finger by finger, and stepped cautiously into the room. His father’s room. His father who had been a boy once, like him.
Musical. Nerdy. Messy.
Fionn smiled.
The wind grasped at his wrists, but he shook it off, and took another step. He traced the pile of comic books on the nightstand, smiled at the empty sweet wrappers. There was a cloudy vase sitting on the window sill. A host of purple forget-me-nots turned to peer at him. The door behind him swung on its hinges, as if to usher him out. For some reason, the island didn’t want him in here.
Outside, it was lashing rain, the whole sky pouring itself over the cottage, like a waterfall. Fionn could hear the island’s warning in every determined plink!
Get out, get out, get out.
But Fionn was standing in a treasure chest of memories – and he would never be here again, not for as long as he lived.
Just one more minute.
There was a blue jumper slung over the radiator. It
flapped in the wind, the windows shaking in their frames as Fionn stared at the smudge of chocolate around its collar, the ink stain blooming on the sleeve.
The candle wax began to melt along his fingers.
Reluctantly Fionn turned from the window. ‘All right,’ he muttered. ‘I’m leaving.’
The floorboards creaked, and from the dusky hallway came a woman’s voice. ‘Cormac, love? Is that you?’
Fionn froze with his back to the bedroom door. Oh no.
He clutched the candle tight against his chest and held his breath, as his grandmother wandered down the little hallway. ‘Cormac?’
Fionn cursed himself. The island had warned him, but he hadn’t listened.
A drop of wax passed over his fingers and landed on the floorboards. A tiny splat!
He felt her move into the doorway behind him, sensed her gaze on the back of his head. ‘What are you still doing here, love? I thought you were going down to the boats to help Dad.’
Fionn’s heartbeat was so loud, it drowned out the rain. That voice. Her voice. So warm and soft and near. It ached, the nearness of her. He cleared his throat. ‘I …’
His grandmother laughed – it was a deep, rasping sound that seemed to leap out of her. A pirate’s laugh, his mother used to say, and as Fionn stood there, frozen in the dazzling sunlight of his grandmother’s amusement, he felt it fold itself around his heart. ‘Oh, I don’t blame you, love,’ she said, chuckling. ‘I wouldn’t be out in this awful rain either. Even if I wasn’t half killed with this flu.’
She melted back into the hallway, wheezing as she went. ‘Will you pop down for a while at least? I know he’d love your company. Take the good umbrella.’ Her bedroom door closed, her voice muffled on the other side of it. ‘My treat.’
Fionn glanced over his shoulder, to the empty door frame, and felt himself deflate with relief. He hurried into the kitchen, the candle warm in his fist, and slipped out of the front door into an onslaught of rain. There were no Soulstalkers in this layer – no islanders at all, in fact – just the comforting howl of the wind as it came after him, the tide so high he could see it over the cliffs. He jogged out on to the headland and turned north, tracking along the coast, until he was far from the little cottage on the headland, and the goons Ivan had dispatched to keep him there.
The Lost Tide Warriors Page 12