Isla flung the lantern away, and as it arced through the air it lit up a bank of reeds. Isla paused. She thought she’d glimpsed the body of a brown bird, inert and half hidden in the undergrowth.
‘Curlew?’
Isla found the spot and knelt down in the mud. It was her friend. There was a wound in his chest and a crossbow bolt at his side. Isla thought he must be dead, but when she picked him up and cradled him in her arms, he let out a faint cry.
Faint it may have been, but the sound was too much for the Baron’s poor horse. Isla turned to see the animal plunging like a mad thing, its eyes rolling and its teeth bared. The Baron yelled and clung on. The curlew cried again, and the next moment the Baron was on his back in a filthy pool and his horse was halfway home.
The Baron staggered to his feet and Isla ran on. It was harder with the curlew in her arms: every time she fell over she got a mouthful of wet sand. The ship was close now, and she could see faces peering over the sides – her father’s among them – but the Baron was closer still. She could hear his gasping breath and feel the splashes from his boots.
At last there was nothing but a narrow channel separating Isla from the ship, but the water was knotty with currents, and she couldn’t hope to swim with the wounded bird in her arms. She hesitated on the brink, her feet sliding and sinking, and then the Baron’s fingertips touched her arm and she jumped. Better to drown, she thought, than to be taken.
The rest was confusion: the muffled underwater roar, the slicing cold, the darkness that hurt her eyes. Isla’s woollen skirt dragged like a ball and chain, but she kicked and fought, and somehow surfaced to draw breath. Diamonds of light danced on the black waves. People shouted from the ship. A thick rope whipped her cheek and fell across the water, and she grabbed it with her free hand.
The sea rolled Isla towards the shore, but the rope hauled her back again, and as it did so she saw the Baron. The earth was sucking him into its maw, the way a gourmand sucks an oyster: he was waist-deep in sand and sinking fast. Isla heard him shout her name before the currents seized her and she tumbled through a rushing blackness, only to emerge some distance away. Friendly hands caught her, and her body bounced against the side of the ship as she was dragged from the sea.
There was a great deal of noise – the groaning of ropes, the churning of water, the babble of voices getting closer – but they weren’t enough to cover the Baron’s screams. She saw him through her dripping hair, up to his chin in liquid sand. She glanced down to make sure the curlew was still safe in her arms, and when she looked again he was gone.
The people at home never knew there’d been a ‘Happily Ever After’. They were glad that the Baron was gone, and sorry when Isla failed to return, but time passed and her story was forgotten.
The winds and tides remembered it, though, as did the birds, and the cockles and the shrimps, and the sand worms, and the whispering reeds, and the grasses, and the lichens, and every single stone in the old sea wall. I know they remembered, because they passed the story on to me – a stranger – just as I have passed it on to you.
They told me something else too, and I want you to note it well.
Every so often, they say, the Curlew returns to the marsh, gliding like a ghost through the gap between one year and the next. People rarely spot it, and those that do think little of it. They say it’s something and nothing: a star, a buoy, a ferry boat. But you know the story now, and you have a sharp pair of eyes.
I can’t make you any promises. I can only ask you to watch and listen, and lift your face to the wind from time to time, in case it’s carrying the scent of an ancient magic.
One night you will sense something – glitter on black water, perhaps, or the snapping of a sail in an empty sea, or the call of a curlew – and then you’ll know that your ship is on its way.
The End
Acknowledgements
FIRST AND FOREMOST I would like to thank my agent, Joanna Swainson, for her patience and wisdom, and for all her perseverance on my behalf.
Many thanks also to the wonderful team at Transworld, in particular Suzanne Bridson, Kate Samano, Claire Gatzen, and the art department for their beautiful cover.
Thank you, John Quirk and all the Manx Litfest crew, for your interest and support over the years. Manx Litfest is a fantastic institution, and it seems to go from strength to strength every September. Long may it continue!
I would also like to thank Mark Lloyd, of Pillar International Publishing, who put me in touch with Joanna in the first place, and gave me encouragement when I needed it most.
I am extremely grateful to my friends Katherine Reed and Linda Harding, for taking the time to read early drafts of the book and for giving such perceptive and encouraging feedback.
Thank you to my mum, Marian Barrow, and my dad, Paul Barrow – not just for reading and commenting on earlier drafts, but for giving me such a happy start in life and inspiring me with a love of books.
Last, but by no means least, thank you to my husband, Christopher Brooks, without whose love and support I couldn’t possibly have become a writer.
About the Author
Elizabeth Brooks grew up in Chester, and read Classics at Cambridge. She lives on the Isle of Man with her husband and two children.
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First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Doubleday
an imprint of Transworld Publishers
Copyright © Elizabeth Brooks 2018
Cover design by Leo Nickolls
Elizabeth Brooks has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Every effort has been made to obtain the necessary permissions with reference to copyright material, both illustrative and quoted. We apologize for any omissions in this respect and will be pleased to make the appropriate acknowledgements in any future edition.
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Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781473555297
ISBN 9780857525574
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