All of us had tried to hide things from Mum and thought we were getting away with it, but it turned out she knew something was going on. Now Tressa and me were trying to hide something from Duncan, and he knew too.
I thought about my cake, hidden in the shed. I wondered if rats had found it and eaten through the plastic box, or maybe ants could have come and crawled under the lid. That was the problem with hidden things. Somehow or another, they always got found out.
Part Three: Ashes on the water
Chapter 1
The re-naming
I had three dreams that woke me up, three times in the night. In the first one, we were swimming in the sea pool and everything happened the same as it had in real life. We ran down the beach, I put the ball on the edge and the fake dog poo behind it; they all jumped in, then Tressa jumped in and I went in after her.
We swam up and down fast to get warm. I threw the ball in, we played some games, and then Elspeth saw the dog poo. She screamed, Duncan said we’d have to bury it, and I went to pick it up. Only, in my dream, it wasn’t fake. It was real dog poo, and my fingers squished right into it.
I pulled my hand away but it was covered in sticky, stinky poo. Everyone jumped back in disgust, and the smell was so bad I wanted to chuck. That’s what woke me up, the smell. It made me retch.
When I went to sleep again, I seemed to go back into the same dream, running down the beach, jumping into the pool, everything the same as had happened in real life, only this time it wasn’t the fake dog poo that I hid behind the ball—it was my cake.
We played some games, and then I went to pick my cake up, but it was all soft and squishy, so my hands sank right in. The cake collapsed and turned to mush, and both my hands were covered in it. ‘That looks like sick,’ Hamish said. Then I realised it was sick. It smelt like sick, and it was the sick-making smell that made me wake up.
The third dream was very short. I was standing on the edge of the pool, trying to force myself to jump in. But the water was icy blue, and I didn’t want to. I looked across at Duncan and his eyes were the same colour, and all of a sudden they sucked me in like a giant whirlpool, whoosh! I was swept into that icy-cold blue, and I went right under. I was drowning. I struggled and struggled to get back to the surface, until I woke up gasping for breath.
Duncan knew I was hiding something and he would keep staring me down until I cracked. Or maybe he would see into Tressa’s mind like his ancestor the seer could do and force her to fess up, even if she didn’t want to.
And I didn’t think she did want to because the thing about big sisters is that although they might not always be nice to you themselves, they don’t like it if someone else is mean to you. When Duncan had made me walk across the field to the south light, that was mean, and it was kind of Tressa’s fault for telling.
One way or another, Duncan would find out I told Mum about the feast, and I couldn’t stand the suspense. I just wanted to get it over with. So the next afternoon when we set off for the bothy, I put the cake in the bottom of the day-sack under the hats and gloves and mini-football. We were going to play some beach games and then have our meeting in the bothy. Duncan said it would be a review of our time in the Binding.
When we arrived, they were down at the water’s edge, skipping stones. We played three-a-side, which worked surprisingly well, considering we had Milo. He would normally be a handicap, but as Duncan, Hamish and Elspeth had never played before, they were nearly as bad as him.
Hamish and Elspeth went to prepare the bothy for the meeting, and the rest of us lay down on the dry sand at the top of the beach to wait until they were ready. When we finally went inside, I suddenly remembered the first time, how surprising and magical it had felt with the candles twinkling all around the edges and the fish-box chairs arranged in a circle round the driftwood table. Elspeth opening the box, her butterfly fingers fluttering over the black cloth and the big candle, and Hamish lighting it, and the way the flame lit up our faces. . .everything so perfect.
We made the circle, round and round, can’t be unbound, and sat down in our places. Then Duncan asked each one of us to talk about something we had enjoyed during the time we had been in the Binding. Tressa remembered the day they took us to the wrecking rocks, and Milo the six candles, when he got to light his own. Hamish remembered the Fruits of Morna. ‘That was really funny!’ he said.
Elspeth remembered the swim in the pool, and Duncan the games night when we played charades and in-the-manner-of-the-word. I said I had enjoyed the feast on the beach, making the driftwood fire inside the circle of stones, and listening to Duncan’s stories about his ancestors.
Duncan looked pleased about that. I teetered on the edge, not sure whether I could do it, but then I caught his eye and just plunged in.
‘I made a cake for the feast, but I didn’t bring it. I’ve brought it today.’
I lifted the Tupperware out of the day-sack, placed it on the edge of the table and took off the lid. The cake didn’t look quite as glorious as it had when I first made it because it had slipped across to one side of the box on the way down to the beach and got a bit flattened, but still.
Milo’s mouth dropped open.
‘When did you make a cake?’ he said.
‘How did you do it without anyone noticing?’ asked Hamish.
‘I didn’t.’
Duncan frowned at me. ‘Are you telling on yourself?’
I hadn’t thought of it in exactly those terms, but I supposed I was.
‘If you are telling, you have to say the words,’ said Duncan.
They all stared at me.
‘All right.’ My voice came out shaky. It didn’t sound like me at all. ‘I am the eyes and ears of the Lawmaker and I wish to make a report.’
The cake looked fluffy and light, every bit as good as the ones on the home-bakes stall at the school summer fete, even though it was a bit squashed.
‘I wanted to bring something really nice, so I asked Mum to help me make a cake, and she asked what for, and I said because we were having a feast. That’s all I said.’
Nobody spoke. They were waiting for Duncan. He stood up, and the rest of us stood up. Hamish handed him the Judgement and he put it on, but he still didn’t say anything. He looked really angry, and he looked really big.
‘I didn’t want to steal food from my mum and Matt,’ I said. ‘I wasn’t happy about it. I don’t mind if everyone else wants to, but I just couldn’t do it.’
Duncan glared at me. ‘Have you ever helped yourself to a snack at home without asking?’ His voice was as hard as nails.
‘Well. . .yes. I suppose. If Mum’s not around.’
‘And is that stealing?’
‘Well. . .no.’
‘So you decided that on this particular occasion taking food without asking was stealing, and you took it upon yourself to tell your parents the secret business of the Binding.’
‘No!’ I said. ‘I didn’t tell them anything important, nothing about the laws and the candles and the meetings, none of that.’
‘So you decide what’s important now, do you? All on your own?’
‘No! I just. . . I just. . .’
Duncan took a step back. The others did too. I stayed where I was, suddenly alone.
‘The secrets of the Binding are not your secrets to tell,’ Duncan said. ‘They belong to us all. Being secret is what makes the Binding special. It’s the root of everything we do; it’s the thing that binds us together.’
He looked slowly round at the others, in the flickering candlelight.
‘Who agrees with Jack?’ he asked. ‘Who thinks it’s all right to tell the secrets of the Binding?’
No-one answered. Duncan turned to me.
‘For the third time, Joker, you have broken the law of secrecy, which is the most sacred law of the Binding. This is your punishment—you are stripped of your name and I re-name you the Pretender. Do you know what that means?’
I shook my head. Tressa said it meant someone who wasn
’t a king but thought they should be, and wanted to fight the king for the throne.
‘For one whole day, Pretender, you will be outside the circle; no-one will speak to you, except when grown-ups are around. The day after tomorrow, you will come back here, either to accept the rules and become part of the Binding again, or else to challenge me for the leadership.’
What kind of challenge? Did he mean an actual fight?
‘If you challenge me and win, I will dissolve the Binding and you will make something else in its place, but if you lose you will be outside the circle forever.’
‘But—’
‘One more thing,’ Duncan interrupted me. ‘Between now and the day after tomorrow, if you tell any more of the business of the Binding to anyone outside, then there will be no coming back for you. Now take your cake and go.’
I stood for a moment outside the door, blinking in the daylight. The bright sun made my eyes water as I walked back to the house on my own, with the edge of the Tupperware pressing into my back.
I slipped behind the house to the sheds, sat down on a wrecked old chair, took out the Tupperware, opened it and broke off a big chunk of cake. If they didn’t want it, that was their loss. But I did want it, and what’s more I could have it, so I finished the first piece and broke off another.
I was full up and just picking off a few stray chocolate buttons when Tressa pushed the door open.
‘I’ve been looking for you.’ She came in, shutting the door behind her. ‘Milo’s playing in the old van.’
‘You aren’t supposed to be talking to me.’
She shrugged, cleared some boxes off an old kitchen stool and sat down.
‘Why do you keep doing this?’ she said. ‘Don’t you get it? The whole point about the Binding is it’s secret. That’s what makes it good.’
‘Maybe for you.’
As I said it, I suddenly remembered how I’d felt when I’d told Mum about the bothy, kind of disappointed because now she knew, and definitely sure I didn’t want to tell her anything else.
‘OK,’ I said, ‘yes, I get it. I don’t know why I asked about the cake.’
‘So what are you going to do?’
I shrugged. ‘We’ll probably be leaving in a few days anyway.’
‘Only if Mum gets her way.’
‘She will.’
Tressa reached over and broke off a bit of cake. She ate it and took a bit more, with extra icing.
‘This is really good!’ she said. ‘Look, it’s just one day, and I’ll still talk to you when Milo’s not around. After that, come back to the bothy and say sorry. Grovel a bit. Tell Duncan you’re going to toe the line. Then he’ll let you be the Joker again.’
We hid the rest of the cake and went indoors. Mum and Matt were snuggled up on the sofa doing a crossword puzzle.
‘Hello, you two!’ said Matt.
‘We’ve made a decision,’ said Mum.
They smiled at each other.
‘We’re going to stay for the whole summer, just like we planned!’
Chapter 2
Outside looking in
Matt said it was the seal beach that did it. We were climbing up the hill, just the two of us, the next day, while Mum was finishing her book and Tressa and Milo were at the bothy.
‘I don’t think it was the seal beach,’ I said. ‘I think it was you.’
He stopped and smiled at me.
‘And what about you, Jack—are you happy that we’re staying?’
I said yes, I was. Then he asked me, ‘What do you guys find to do here every day?’
I didn’t tell him anything. Just playing, I said. Normal stuff.
It was a bright, clear day, with actual blue sky, and considering I was in exile I was in a good mood. Now that I knew we were staying, I knew what I had to do—go back and accept the rules—because there was no way I was going to spend the rest of the summer holidays out in the cold. And once I was back in, I would make sure I stayed right there, in the magic of the Binding.
Because it was magic, I could clearly see that now, from the outside looking in. Not just the candles and rituals and ceremonies, and all the things that happened in the bothy, but also the effect it had on everything else. Tressa was helpful in the house; she was nice to Matt—it even seemed as if she liked him.
Milo wasn’t like a big baby any more, with that quivering bottom lip and hovering thumb, and tantrums every time he got separated from Nee-na. Also, he’d stopped whining if he had to walk somewhere or wait for dinner.
‘Shall we carry on along the ridge like we did the first time?’ asked Matt.
That felt like a lifetime ago. Now, looking down over the island from the triangulation point at the top, I recognised most of the coastline—the wrecking stones, the seal beach, the place where the Day Star ran aground. I realised we had still hardly explored inland at all.
Moving along the ridge until we could see down into the valley with the plantation of trees and the two Anderson Grounds made me feel curious. I knew Elspeth lived in the newer house at the very end of the track, but I didn’t know who lived in the mysterious house among the trees.
So when we got home and found Tressa and Milo were still out, I decided to walk up the track towards the north end of the island, and do some exploring on my own. I passed lots of sheep, rabbits and birds and also, in the field beside Elspeth’s house, a couple of goats, but not a single joke came into my head. Maybe that only happened when other people were around.
I heard shrieks coming from Elspeth’s garden. Going nearer, I saw two girls filling plastic beakers with water from a bucket and throwing it at each other. They must have been playing for a while because they were both completely soaked.
One of them had to be Meggie, because she looked exactly like Elspeth, but smaller. She had the same light wispy hair and skinny body, but her voice was loud and lively, and when she laughed, she threw her head back in delight. I had never seen Elspeth laugh like that.
A woman came out of the house with a laundry basket, which she dropped beside the washing-line.
‘Oh, hello!’ she said, noticing me. ‘Are you staying at Jean’s house?’
She stopped pegging the washing and came over. She looked very friendly and smiley.
‘Elspeth says you’ve been playing together, all of you. You must come over some time.’
I realised I had never had a friend before whose parents I didn’t know, or whose house I hadn’t been in.
‘That would be nice,’ I said.
‘How are you enjoying your stay in Morna?’
Before I had a chance to answer, Meggie skidded on a patch of mud up near the house and fell flat on her face. She let out an ear-splitting scream.
‘Sorry,’ her mum said, over her shoulder, as she turned to go back and see to Meggie.
I didn’t know whether it would be rude to go, but I also didn’t want to get into a long conversation with Elspeth’s mum in case I accidentally blabbed about the Binding, so I made my getaway and cut across the field towards the plantation.
Close to, I could see the trees were barely taller than me, tough-looking, old and gnarled, and leaning right over from the wind. Instead of making for the track, I climbed over the loose wire fence and went straight in among them. Although it was quite a still day, the leaves rustled on their wiry stems.
The ground underneath the trees was lumpy with roots and rabbit-holes, so I had to pick my way carefully. When I got within sight of the house, I stopped and slipped behind a tree.
It was a white-painted croft cottage like most of the houses around the jetty beach, but it looked different, nestling among the trees. There were bushes and flower-beds under the windows, full of tall nettles and weeds.
The sun on the windows made them like mirrors—all you could see in them was the trees outside. If someone lived here, I guessed it would be an old person, but it didn’t really look as if anyone did.
Staying in the cover of the trees, I crept right round
, to see the house from every angle. There was a barn with a few broken hay bales but no chickens. A yard with a byre but no horses or cows. A vegetable patch full of buttercups and brambles.
I’d come right back to where I had started and was just about to creep up to the windows and have a peep inside when I thought I saw something moving in the barn. I watched and waited, hiding among the trees.
Something touched the back of my leg and I jumped to the side in surprise. A black and white cat with yellow eyes looked calmly up at me, then curled itself around my legs, purring loudly.
‘Go away!’ I hissed. ‘Shoo!’
It didn’t look like a mangy stray, so someone must be around to feed it, and I didn’t want it drawing attention to me. Plus I didn’t like the feel of its heavy body leaning into my legs, and the way it carried on even after I’d tried to shoo it away.
I was bending down to give it a push and make it go, when a voice really close by exclaimed, ‘Jack!’
I snapped upright and the cat strolled off to wrap itself around a different pair of legs—Elspeth’s.
‘What are you doing here?’ she said.
‘I didn’t think anyone lived here,’ I said. ‘I was just exploring.’
If it had been Duncan, he would have said, ‘Trespassing, more like. You don’t go exploring in other people’s private property!’
‘No-one does live here,’ she said. ‘I just come up to feed Shadow.’
The cat, hearing its name, purred even louder and pressed even harder against her legs.
‘Is it just you?’ I asked, looking over my shoulder. If any of the others were around, they shouldn’t see her talking to me. She nodded and turned to go back to the barn, tilting her head as if to say, ‘Come with me.’
She had already put the cat food in a bowl, and she took it off the bench and put it on the floor. The cat gobbled it up, purring like an engine.
‘No-one else comes up here,’ Elspeth said. ‘Do you want to see inside?’
I was more curious than ever now, and glad to hear that the house was empty and it would be all right to have a snoop around. I followed Elspeth across the yard to the back door. It wasn’t locked, and I remembered Duncan telling us, ‘Nobody locks their doors here.’
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