The heron, finding nothing, lifts its grey wings and flies off into the coming darkness. I turn to Rana. ‘I’m really happy for you. It’s the best thing ever.’
‘Yeah. Isn’t it though.’
I think I’ve known for some time Rana was going to leave the bay. Perhaps that’s been the underlying sadness this year, the unexplainable tears. Rana has never really belonged here, at least not in the same way Mac and I do, with our family roots. For as long as I’ve known her, she has been like a lost migratory bird, one who has been unable to settle and make Rewa Bay her home.
The two of us sit for a bit, not speaking; not uncomfortable, but peaceful, happy to be together.
‘Rana,’ I say, finally deciding it’s time to share Sarah Cassandra with her. ‘What would you say if I told you we once had a pirate in our family?’
‘Get real, Cassie!’
In spite of her snort of disbelief, I tell her anyway. When I’ve finished, she makes no comment. ‘So do you think she was a pirate or not?’ I ask.
Rana half turns to me, the outline of her face etched against the night. ‘Hey,’ she says, softly. ‘What’s it matter? She was real fantastic. Whatever.’
Chapter Sixteen
It is Friday morning, early. The sun is still hidden behind the hills, the air clean and damp, cold even, but above me the whole sky is round and deep and blue. It is going to be the most beautiful day. One where the sun warms every blade of grass, every new leaf; one where you can hear the ocean on the other side of the world; one where the sea is the sky and the sky is the sea and both encircle the bay in a shimmering ring.
Today is the day Rana leaves the bay.
I’m in the dinghy rowing over to the island, the oars dipping in and out of the water, the smell of the bush strong, my strokes clean. On the hill that rises behind our place, I see other houses, built long ago, still perched in their little green pockets like they’ve done for decades.
The oars cut through the quiet swell of the inlet. One day, after I’m dead and gone, I wonder if there will be someone like me rowing up the channel wondering what we were like. Who we were and how it was to live in our time. Three hundred years or so from now.
As I approach the island, I turn the dinghy, let it glide sideways until it is against the shelf of sand built up by the wind and sea during the winter. Stepping out, I pull the boat up onto the shore and stand for a moment, trying to imagine what the life of a whaler must have been like, knowing that a little over a hundred years ago the island was used as a processing station. Where there were once buildings, there is now nothing but sand, all traces of their existence having long fallen down and decayed. Whispers surround me, the rough voices of the men and the cries of the dying whales, and I think of Mac’s great-great-grandfather. A whaler. Or was he really a pirate? What’s the difference? Both killed and plundered on the ocean. I think of Mac and how caring he feels towards the whales. But what if he had lived centuries ago?
As my feet plug at the wet sand and the first ray of sun glints over the tops of the trees, I think about poor Miss McKenzie, who retired last week at the suggestion of the Principal, and how after a lifetime in the classroom she has nothing to show except a square, gold-rimmed clock. How different her life could have been if she had at least kept playing the piano. In time she might have gone down in history as a famous pianist, but who is going to remember her now, beyond a few years?
At the outer rim of the forest, the pine smell is strong. Stepping out of the sunlight into the shade, I continue to walk, going way in until the green trees enfold me. Everything is dark, even the bright strands of the morning have gone. There is not a sound, not from the air, nor from the ocean. Then from deep within the silence, I hear Sarah Cassandra all around me, like the ocean on a summer evening. I follow the sweet sound, stumbling between the trees, clambering over the soft mounds of sand, past clumps of low-growing brambles, further and further into the heart of the silence. All at once before me is the lost grave, the grave that I came across years ago and have looked for ever since, the grave that is nothing but a slab of stone bearing the carving of a small flower. It carries no name, no epitaph, no dates, nothing.
Taking a small brown packet from my pocket, I carefully tip the sticky seeds of the forget-me-not flower into my hand. Then, closing my eyes and bowing my head, I throw them over the grave. As I do so, the ocean roars and I feel myself sinking down into it, down into the green and blue, down into a soundless drowning, a second, a minute, I’ve no concept of time. Suddenly I feel myself lifted up and up into startling bright sunlight. I open my eyes and see the sun shining through a gap in the trees. In the distance I hear the quiet stirring of the sea and I know Sarah Cassandra has gone.
After another five minutes of walking I stop. Here the sand is soft and the sky open. Here is where Rana and I used to come and play years ago. I stretch out my arms and slowly, slowly, start to turn, start to twirl. Then I do another turn and another, round and round, faster and faster, until I can feel the wind on my face and Rana’s hand in mine. ‘Faster, Cassie,’ she tells me. ‘Faster.’ Soon the two of us are flying, bare feet spinning, and we’re singing together as loud as we can, our voices echoing over the bay, ring-a-ring o’roses, until we are falling, falling onto the sand, falling into the blue sky, the blue ocean, falling through time into another world, a world far, far away from ring-a-ring o’roses.
Copyright
National Library of New Zealand Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Pulford, Elizabeth, 1943-
Sea dreamer / Elizabeth Pulford.
ISBN 978–1–77553–197–5
[1. Best friends–Fiction. 2. Ocean–Fiction.] I. Title.
NZ823.2–dc 22
A RANDOM HOUSE BOOK
published by
Random House New Zealand
18 Poland Road, Glenfield, Auckland, New Zealand
www.randomhouse.co.nz
First published 2007
Elizabeth Pulford © 2007
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
ISBN 978 1 77553 197 5
This book is copyright. Except for the purposes of fair reviewing 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 and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Design: Sharon Grace, Grace Design
Cover illustration: Paul Redican
Cover design: Katy Yiakimis
Printed in Australia by Griffin Press
Sea Dreamer Page 12