The Lost Tide Warriors

by Catherine Doyle

‘I know where to go, lad,’ said his grandfather gently. ‘I’ve always known where to go.’

  His grandfather squeezed his shoulder.

  ‘I love you, Fionn.’

  ‘I love you too, Grandad.’ Fionn held out the candle. His grandfather accepted it, their hands connecting around the wax as their other ones parted. ‘Now and forever.’

  His grandfather smiled, his eyes as blue as the sea on a summer’s day, as blue as a sky without clouds. ‘See you on the other side, lad.’

  Fionn released the candle, and his hand fell to his side, empty.

  His grandfather turned then, whistling to himself as the wind carried him away, to a glowing garden under a shimmering sky – to the woman who had waited in his dreams for ten years.

  Another world. Another time.

  * * *

  The wind brought Fionn home too, the layers flickering seamlessly, as flowers, new and old, dappled the fields around him. The warmth disappeared from the air and a chill settled in its place.

  The sky blinked and the lights vanished. The stars were peeled from the sky like stickers, and a silver moon swam overhead. The wind died away, leaving curls in the bottom of Fionn’s hair. A robin landed on a nearby fence. It puffed up its red breast and chirped a welcome home, and Fionn sank to his knees and wept.

  He wept for the Northern Lights.

  He wept for his grandfather.

  He wept for the island.

  And when all was said and done, and his tears had almost run out, he wept for the darkness yet to come.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  THE MERROW’S PLEDGE

  Fionn’s feet led him back to the cliff, though he was not consciously aware of the journey. He was lost in the tunnels of his own mind, thinking of his grandfather, whistling in the wind. When he reached the headland, most of the islanders were still there.

  Fionn spied his mother and his sister across the grass, with Douglas and Bartley. Tara’s shoulders were shaking, her head pressed against Bartley’s chest. Fionn watched him plant a kiss on the top of her head and looked away, disgusted. The night was already a black hole of misery – he could not face one more abhorrent thing before dawn.

  He pivoted around them, keeping his head down. There would be time enough to see his family. Time enough to tell them of their grandfather’s final words, and to grieve for him together. For now, Fionn made his way across the headland, to where Shelby was still perched on the edge of the cliff. Sam was with her, and they sat shoulder to shoulder, facing the dark horizon.

  Fionn lowered himself down beside them. ‘Hey.’

  ‘Hi,’ they chorused.

  Shelby took her hand from the Tide Summoner in her lap and placed it on top of Fionn’s. ‘We saw you go off together. He’s not coming back, is he?’

  Fionn looked out at the glistening ocean. ‘No. He’s not.’

  ‘Sorry, Fionn.’ Sam clapped him on the back. ‘He was a great grandad.’

  ‘He was a great person,’ said Fionn.

  ‘Yeah,’ they said together.

  They fell into silence, kicking the broken cliff-edge with their heels and chipping loose rocks into the sea.

  After a while, Shelby turned to Fionn, ‘Are you ready to talk to Lír?’

  ‘Is she still here?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Shelby, tapping the shell. ‘I can feel her.’

  ‘Well, as long as she doesn’t try to kill us,’ said Sam, rubbing the chill from his fingers. ‘I’ve had enough trauma for one century. I’ll be in therapy for years at this rate.’

  Shelby raised the Tide Summoner to her lips. This time, instead of blowing, she whispered something inside the shell. Then she slipped off the cliff and on to rocks. ‘Come on. Let’s get a bit closer.’

  Fionn and Sam exchanged a glance, before slipping off the edge after her. They trod down the crumbling mountain to where the tide lapped up the shore, stopping on a boulder that was sure under their feet.

  The water rippled. The crown came first – a sharp halo of coral and bone – and then the eyes, yellow as a blazing sun.

  Sam stumbled backwards, pressing himself against the cliff.

  Shelby laughed. ‘Scaredy-cat!’

  ‘I didn’t think she’d be so quick about it,’ he said defensively. ‘And besides, I just saw her eat a Soulstalker’s fingers like they were chicken nuggets.’

  Shelby waved his response away. ‘Lír, these are my friends.’

  The merrow folded her arms on the rock, her tail floating behind her in a sheen of silver. She studied them with languid suspicion, her yellowed gaze coming to rest on Fionn. ‘Storm Keeper,’ she said, in that familiar oceanic lilt. ‘At last you found us. With some help.’

  Fionn stared at the crown bolted into her scalp. Lír, Queen of the Merrows. Queen of his short temper.

  ‘I wasn’t having much luck on my own,’ he said sourly. ‘As you already know.’

  The merrow smiled, revealing a mouthful of shark teeth.

  ‘I sang you a song,’ she said, her tongue poking through her teeth. ‘For the Storm Keeper with the world’s fate on his shoulders, I broke an ancient rule.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about it,’ said Sam, creeping closer. ‘We’ve been breaking rules for quite a while now, and as you can see, things couldn’t be better.’

  Shelby snorted. ‘We’re practically a lead destination for Tourism Ireland.’

  Fionn was still glaring at the merrow. ‘Did you have to make it so difficult for me?’

  The merrow tilted her head. ‘Perhaps you made it difficult for yourself.’

  ‘Fionn,’ Shelby hissed. ‘That’s a queen you’re talking to!’

  ‘Should we bow?’ asked Sam seriously. ‘Is that the correct etiquette?’

  Fionn shook his head. ‘I bowed to one monarch today, and nearly lost my soul.’

  The merrow smiled, but there wasn’t an ounce of warmth in it. ‘We are equal, Storm Keeper. We share the same destiny,’ she said, rising up from the sea. ‘One that will lead us into great darkness.’

  Fionn’s resentment was quickly petering into exhaustion. His bones hurt – his heart too. He wanted to go home – to sleep for a while, and forget. Forget, forget, forget. He discarded his bravado.

  ‘Thank you for coming to help us.’

  Lír turned to Shelby, the shell reflected in her wide eyes. ‘I follow the Tide Summoner, and she who wields it.’

  ‘Good,’ said Fionn. ‘There’s less chance she’ll disappoint you.’

  Lír pushed back from them, and turned her face to Black Point Rock.

  ‘Can you see her?’ he asked, coming closer.

  ‘I can sense her. As you can.’

  Fionn knew it to be true. If Morrigan had perished, he would have felt it. Her handprint was still cold inside him, his magic half choked beneath it. ‘She’s weak,’ he said, and the merrow nodded.

  ‘We should seal off the island then,’ said Shelby. ‘Make a barrier between the mainland and Arranmore, and keep an eye on the caves, so she can’t come up through any tunnels and escape.’

  Lír dipped her head. ‘I’ll tell my merrows to guard the shores, and block passage to the mainland.’

  She slipped back into the ocean. The waves washed over her, smoothing the surface in a final ripple.

  ‘I don’t think Morrigan’s planning on leaving,’ Sam pointed out. ‘Isn’t she supposed to come to power by snacking on our descendant souls?’

  ‘We just have to get to her before she gets stronger then.’ Shelby turned to Fionn. ‘You can use your magic against her. We all saw what it did to Ivan.’

  Fionn shook his head slowly. ‘My magic only works sometimes, when I’m scared or angry, and when it does, I can’t seem to control it. I’m not like the other Storm Keepers. I’m … something else.’

  ‘What kind of something else?’ said Sam.

  ‘I have no idea,’ said Fionn. ‘But I think there’s someone we can ask. Someone we need to start looking for.’

&nbs
p; Sam and Shelby stared at him with blank faces.

  ‘Dagda.’ Fionn turned his face to the quiet sea as warm fingers walked up his spine. His magic was stirring again – the barest, broken flicker reaching out through his bones, trying to grab on to the name.

  Dagda.

  His grandfather was right.

  Morrigan had risen.

  The world was tilting.

  The time had come to resurrect their own sorcerer.

  Chapter Thirty

  FORGET-ME-NOT

  When Fionn and his family returned to Tír na nÓg, they sat in the darkness and munched on tasteless sandwiches, staring at the empty mantelpiece.

  Fionn knew they were all waiting. Waiting for his grandfather to not return, waiting to know for certain that he had passed over in another layer. Waiting for the pain to come in its entirety. Waiting for it to ease. When they could wait no longer, they took themselves off to bed. Weary feet on creaking boards, long hugs in a quiet hallway. I love yous exchanged in cracked voices. Morrigan’s return loomed over them, but all their questions seemed to dissolve into grief.

  The fight for Arranmore had only just begun. Fionn’s destiny still awaited him; he could feel the murky edges of it, like a ship’s sails flapping in a gathering storm. It would have to wait for another day.

  When his mother and Tara had gone to bed, their snores rattling through the little hallway in perfect, terrible harmony, Fionn crept out into the back garden. He dragged an old deck chair from the shed and pulled it right under the moon. Then he sat down and turned his face to the sky.

  A nightingale settled on the roof and sang him a lullaby. Fionn closed his eyes and felt his sadness grow warm in his chest. The heat trickled into his bloodstream and circled his bones. His tears dissolved in the edges of his mouth and he tasted their salt on his tongue. He tasted sea-salt too, and for the second time that day, he felt the nearness of his magic. Grief had pulled it from the depths of his soul. He still didn’t understand it, but he tried to accept it for what it was – unfinished, unknowable.

  For now.

  When he opened his eyes, the sky was bright green. Sweeping strokes of phosphorescence had turned the stars to emeralds. The ring of wax around his wrist was glowing too.

  Fionn thought of his grandparents sitting under the same radiant sky, together, in another layer. Perhaps his father was there too. Maybe they were thinking about him just as he was thinking about them. The nightingale was still singing, the garden rustling quietly around him. Fionn settled his gaze on the flowers blooming at his feet. A cluster of purple heads unfurled their petals in greeting.

  Forget-me-nots.

  Forget me not.

  Fionn smiled.

  He would never. Not for as long as he lived.

  And long after that too.

  EPILOGUE

  On a frosty Christmas morning, in the waters of a half-forgotten island, smoke was rising above three black rocks. Down by the pier, a band of Merrows patrolled the ocean, their yellow eyes glowing in the mist. Snow was falling, but there were no children outside to enjoy it.

  By the frosted doorway of the old Cannon library, a boy with swirling hair, and a girl wearing a coatful of candles, stood like sentries. Inside, between the book-lined passageways of Arranmore, three best friends crowded around a dusty map. Sam Patton had brought his great-grandmother’s flute, for cheer; Shelby Beasley wore her shell, for strength; and Fionn Boyle had an emerald in his pocket – for luck.

  The sky outside was black with ravens. All five of them could sense the darkness hovering on the horizon. But there was possibility there too – a future borne of light and hope, and so they reached out for it, with both hands.

  Deep in the rumbling earth, an ancient sorcerer opened his eyes.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Catherine Doyle grew up beside the Atlantic Ocean in the west of Ireland. Her love of reading began with the great Irish myths and legends, and fostered in her an ambition to write her own one day. She holds a BA in Psychology and an MA in Publishing from the National University of Ireland, Galway. The Lost Tide Warriors, the sequel to The Storm Keeper’s Island, was inspired by her real-life ancestral home of Arranmore Island, where her grandparents grew up, and the adventures of her many seafaring ancestors. Catherine is based in Galway but spends a lot of her time in London and the US.

  Look out for Fionn’s third adventure …

  COMING JULY 2020

  BLOOMSBURY CHILDREN’S BOOKS

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  This electronic edition published in July 2019

  First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  Text copyright © Catherine Doyle, 2019

  Illustrations copyright © Bill Bragg, 2019

  Lettering by Patrick Knowles

  Catherine Doyle has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN: PB: 978-1-4088-9690-7; eBook: 978-1-4088-9689-1

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