Beyond the Sea

by Melissa Bailey

  For a few moments she simply stared at the box in front of her. She couldn’t quite believe it. After she had discovered the key to the lighthouse tower, she had spent time looking through its rooms in the hope of finding something, anything, that her son had left behind – hidden away from the prying eyes of his parents. But all she had discovered were the faded treasures of the keepers – books, maps, magazines, old notes; nothing that had belonged to her son. But now there was this. How had she overlooked this space before? She was terrified that the box would disappoint her. That it would turn out to be Pol’s or someone else’s after all. She ran her fingers once more over the lettering. KEEP OUT. PRIVATE. She smiled. It sounded so much like something Sam would write. And before she could change her mind, she pulled open the lid and started to delve through the contents.

  Items flashed before her eyes. Shells and stones, sea-smoothed pieces of glass, a few coins, perhaps a Viking one amongst them, a small knife blade. They were beachcombing finds, no doubt. There was an intricate silver necklace, the metal tarnished but still surprisingly well preserved. Freya lifted it out of the box and examined it more closely. The silver curled round and round, one piece from beginning to end, that would presumably wind tightly around the throat of the person wearing it. The metal was thick, well made, its surface rough, striated, though the pattern it had once borne had been erased, perhaps by the sea. At its highest end, the silver shaped itself into the tail of a serpent. It was a stunning piece, Freya thought, replacing it in the box and continuing her search through it. There were some pens and pencils and an exercise pad, with writing across it – Sam’s diary, it said, in hesitant red felt pen. Freya gasped, felt the hot rush of tears to her eyes, the quick flow of them down her cheeks. For a moment she struggled to breathe, then she grabbed the diary and flicked through its pages. A familiar scrawl of red letters flashed into and out of view, page after page, interspersed with scribbles and drawings. She closed her eyes, hardly able to believe it. She had found something new, something else to hold on to. Something that had belonged to her son.

  19

  ‘MARTA!’

  Freya shouted loudly down the tower. She tried to keep the tremor out of her voice but her hand, holding the diary, was shaking uncontrollably. She listened and was about to shout again, when she heard Marta’s footsteps running up the stairs. A moment later, her sister appeared, panting.

  ‘What is it?’ Marta’s eyes were wide, panicked. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, sorry. It’s just … I found this.’ She thrust the diary at her sister. It was easier than trying to explain everything she was feeling.

  Marta took it and read the writing across the front. ‘Oh, I see,’ she said, smiling. ‘How amazing. Where did you find it?’

  Freya pointed to the cupboard. Suddenly, her mouth felt as dry as a desert.

  Marta flicked through the pages, scanning the writing. ‘Have you read any yet?’

  Freya shook her head. ‘My first instinct was to read the whole lot. I desperately wanted to hear his voice again.’ She took a deep breath. ‘But then, when I sat down to begin, I couldn’t do it. I found it hard enough to read the first line.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ Marta said again, taking hold of Freya’s hand.

  ‘I think I need to pace myself. Read a little bit of it now and again.’

  Marta nodded. ‘Why don’t you start with the first entry? See how you go?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I thought.’

  Marta turned to leave her but Freya held on to her hand.

  ‘Do you want me to stay?’

  Freya nodded.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want to read it alone?’

  ‘Yes.’ Freya gave a small, slight smile. In truth, she was a little afraid of what the diary might say.

  ‘Okay then,’ said Marta, handing it to Freya. ‘Let’s start at page one.’

  18 April 2014

  It is now five days since Mum went to France to work. It is the first time that she has been away from us for so long. I miss her and I told Dad. He said that I should write a diary. When I asked him why, he said so I could write about my feelings. So I am writing this diary. And in red pen as I miss Mum so much. Even though she phones it is not the same.

  Anyway, the weather was good today. Dad said that to take my mind off it we would go out in the boat to Fingal’s Cave. I had wanted to go there for ages but with one thing and another it had never been the right time. I think Mum said that once. So we sailed up from our island between Mull and Iona and after what felt like ages arrived at Staffa. But it was excellent and worth the wait. The sea cave is brilliant with columns of lava and you can hear the echoes of the waves inside it. It’s like a natural cathedral, Dad said. He also said it was named after Finn MacCool, a great clan leader. Afterwards we walked over the island which is very flat. I didn’t think it was as good as our island because we have a lighthouse and hills.

  Dad told me about a man, whose name I can’t remember, who visited Staffa a long time ago and caught lice during his stay. But he still had a good time and enjoyed the cave. I have had lice and I couldn’t imagine that was right – even though the cave was good. But I didn’t say anything.

  Then we bumped into Callum. He said he would take me to the Treshnish Isles and we could see some birds and visit the castle. I said that sounded brilliant. I like Callum. Dad agrees. He said he is a really good guy.

  On the way back home the sun came out and it was nice. Dad told me the story of the Land under Waves. He said that when no wind is blowing and the surface of the sea is still and really clear if you’re lucky you can see the Land under Waves. He said you can see deep forests and green valleys with streams running through them and if you look really closely the pebbles in the beds of the streams. He said the rocks are made of gold and the sand is silver dust. There was then a lot of stuff about a princess who was ill and a man, Jeermit, who had to go to the Land under Waves and give the princess water in a special cup from a magic well. After he had done that she got better, so he could return to his family, who included Finn MacCool. But he had been gone for seven years by the time he got back even though it didn’t feel long to him.

  That was basically it. To be honest, it sounded much more like a story Mum would have told and it made me think that Dad was missing her too. He wouldn’t normally tell a story like that. The interesting bit was that the entrance to the Land under Waves was through a sea cave and I wondered if that was meant to be the one we had just been to on Staffa – especially because the cave was named after Finn MacCool and he was also in the story. Dad said it’s possible. That’s what he always says when he doesn’t know. I wish Mum was here. She would give me a better answer. I thought about Jeermit then, being gone for seven years with no one knowing whether he would come back. He must’ve missed his family a lot – and they must have missed him too.

  Silence sat heavily in the lamp room after the sisters had finished reading.

  Freya, silent tears flowing down her cheeks, finally spoke. ‘I wish we’d taken him to Staffa earlier.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Marta, pulling Freya to her. ‘He went there with his father. And he had a wonderful time. You can hear it in his voice.’ She took a deep breath, to stop herself from crying.

  Freya nodded and closed her eyes, trying to picture her son running wild over Staffa’s empty green wilderness, laughing and shouting to his father. She tried to see him in the cave, listening to the rise and fall of the water, astounded by the strangely shaped columns of rock. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, but she couldn’t see any of these things. They were obscured by a veil of guilt and sadness. She remembered the last line of the entry, its haunting irony, and her tears fell even faster.

  ‘Hey. You know what we should do?’ Marta said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We should go to Staffa. We should retrace their steps. You never know, it might help.’

  Freya thought about it. Not a bad idea. But the mo
re she considered it, the more she knew it was more than that. They could take the boat out over the ocean, stand in the cave where her son had stood, his words fresh in their minds.

  ‘That’s a great idea,’ she said, turning to face her sister.

  And she knew in that moment that if the diary told of other places Sam and Jack had been to, she would follow. She would conduct a pilgrimage, and at the end of it perhaps she would be offered redemption.

  20

  ‘REMIND ME AGAIN why we had to come out here.’

  It was the day after they had read the diary entry, and Freya was manoeuvring the boat into position at the landing place near Clamshell Cave. Even though it was low tide and the sea calm, she knew that Marta would be suffering. She was not a good sailor. ‘Hop out and rope up the boat,’ she called to her sister. ‘You’ll feel better as soon as you’re on land. I promise.’

  A few minutes later, the boat secure, the sisters walked southwards, towards Fingal’s Cave, picking their way over the misshapen stones underfoot. On one side, basalt cliffs towered above them; on the other the ocean, less than ten feet away, lapped against the rocky shoreline. Mull loomed large in the east, Ben More towering in the distance, and closer to them was the tiny island of Ulva.

  Freya looked at a nearby cluster of rock columns descending diagonally into the sea and felt a pang of guilt. ‘I can’t believe we never came to Staffa,’ she muttered.

  ‘What did I tell you before about that?’ her sister admonished.

  Freya looked at Marta and smiled. ‘Okay, okay.’

  ‘Besides, really, what’s the big deal?’ Marta gestured around her, attempting nonchalance and failing.

  Fulmars circled overhead in the clear blue sky and puffins dive-bombed from the top of the cliffs and headed out to sea. Freya could hear the distinctive call of kittiwakes and the high whistle of guillemots. Even though the mating season was barely under way, the island was already full of birds, alive with their noise. As they rounded the southern tip of the island, Fingal’s Cave came into view.

  ‘I really don’t want to count my chickens, but there doesn’t seem to be anyone here,’ Marta said, a tinge of excitement in her voice.

  Freya nodded. ‘It’s still a little early for tourists. With a bit of luck we’ll have it to ourselves.’

  They skirted the narrow ledge that led into the cave, holding on to the rail to guide them. Once inside, Freya saw that it was much higher and deeper than she had imagined, the basalt columns rising upwards on both sides to form an almost perfect arch. In the sunshine of the day, the water at the bottom of the cave seemed luminous, a fluorescent aquamarine, and it threw dappled patterns up into the darkness overhead. The effect was magical. But perhaps the most arresting thing about the cave was the unearthly sound that echoed through it. It was the pressing and lapping of water against rock, Freya knew. But it sounded like something else entirely.

  She sat down and closed her eyes, listening to the noises, deep and churning, sometimes otherworldly, at other times guttural, almost human. She remembered that Sam had wondered whether the cave could have been the entrance to the Land under Waves. Now she was here, she almost believed it was possible. She opened her eyes and looked down into the clear water, watched its hypnotic rise and fall. Could she make out rocks of gold below the surface and sand of silver dust? Perhaps the shadows of a boy and his father, separated from their family, unaware of time, thinking they had been gone only for an instant?

  ‘It’s unbelievable.’ Marta was standing at the back of the cave, beside what looked like an altar of stone. ‘It really is like a natural cathedral.’

  Freya nodded. Then she turned and looked back through the cave’s mouth. In the distance, perhaps six miles away, was the island of Iona, a splash of green against the blue of the sea. Freya knew what she could see was the machair, stretching down the north coast to the ocean. And although she couldn’t see them from here, Freya could imagine the wild white beauty of Iona’s west coast beaches. From their fringes there was nothing else for thousands of miles but ocean. And it was there that Jack’s boat had washed ashore, devastated, its passengers nowhere to be found. There was just a white carcass, flaking paint, battered wood and broken glass. It was on Iona’s green isle that her life had started to unravel.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Marta had made her way back through the cave and sat down next to her sister. ‘Does it bring back too many thoughts?’ she said, following Freya’s line of sight.

  ‘No. Actually it feels good to be here. They feel close.’ Freya looked back down into the water, and tried to focus on its melody. A sudden surge of seawater into the cave produced a long sad noise, and Freya was reminded of the sound she had heard from the lighthouse gallery, and once before that, when she had woken from dreams. Her eyes searched beneath the surface of the waves but there was nothing there.

  ‘These noises are bizarre,’ Marta said. ‘I’ve never heard anything like it.’

  Freya paused, wondering whether she should share Torin’s stories of the Ceasg. But she knew her sister would in all likelihood make light of it.

  After a moment, Marta rose. ‘Are you ready?’ she said.

  Freya nodded. ‘Yes, I think so. Thanks for coming with me.’

  ‘No problem. It’s amazing. As Sam said, even the guy who got nits still enjoyed the visit. So it says a lot for the cave.’

  21

  FREYA, SITTING AT the back of the boat, looked out over the ocean. The sky was darkening and the wind was getting up. A storm was brewing. She turned back to see Sam sitting on the bottom of the boat. He was looking down at a map arranged in front of him.

  ‘I think it could be there, Mum.’ Sam pointed to a speck in the middle of a vast expanse of blue.

  ‘Why do you think that?’ Freya asked, moving to kneel beside him.

  The map ranged from the western islands of Scotland across the Atlantic to North America.

  ‘Because it’s so far away, it’s practically halfway to Greenland. So, the way I see it, it could be the Green Island.’

  Freya smiled. There was a certain beautiful logic to what he said, and part of her didn’t want to disillusion him. ‘But I thought the Green Island never stayed in one place. That it moved around, floating over the sea, never still for very long, never really wanting to be found.’

  Sam was quiet for a while, deep in thought. ‘That’s true,’ he said at last and removed his finger. ‘So it can’t be the Green Island. It wouldn’t be on a map.’

  ‘I think that’s right,’ Freya murmured, stroking his head. ‘Perhaps it’s out there in the vast ocean somewhere,’ she circled the Atlantic with the index finger of her free hand, ‘waiting for someone to stumble upon it accidentally.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Sam, wrinkling his nose and then pointing to the island again. ‘What is that place then?’

  ‘It’s St Kilda,’ said Freya, taking in the expanse of water between it and the coast of Scotland. ‘Almost the westernmost point of the United Kingdom.’ And with Sam’s finger hovering over it, that was just what it looked like – a point, a dot on a map almost submerged by sea, a mere hint of an existence.

  Sam was still frowning. ‘Is that where my great-grandmammy was from?’

  Freya paused, surprised he remembered. He had been just a baby when she passed. ‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘It is.’

  Sam nodded. ‘I thought so. That place is filled with death.’

  Freya started. It was. She knew that from her grandmother. But how did Sam know? ‘Where did you hear that, darling?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. The point is that these islands are dangerous. Death is everywhere.’ His finger moved northwards over the Flannan Islands, then circled around over Lewis, Harris, Barra, and back to the islands nearest to Ailsa Cleit. ‘And you,’ he said, looking at his mother for the first time, ‘have to be careful.’

  ‘What?’ said Freya, a dull sensation of fear rising in her stomach. She felt sweat sting her armpits. Her son didn’t sound
at all like her son. ‘What are you talking about, Sam?’

  ‘Here,’ he said, his finger now circling a stretch of water closer to home. ‘You must be careful. Especially here.’ Freya looked towards where he was pointing, but she didn’t understand what he was talking about. She began to feel very afraid. ‘Mum, do you understand? You must avoid this place. You must be very careful. There is danger for you here.’ Then Sam looked her directly in the eye. His intensity frightened her.

  At that moment, Jack appeared from the cabin. He fixed her with an icy stare. ‘Do you hear him, Freya? Be careful.’

  ‘Do you hear us, Mum?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, softly, closing her eyes to avoid their gazes. ‘I hear you.’

  Freya sat upright, abruptly, startled out of sleep. As she remembered the dream, she felt a sudden biting fear and the chill of the room. The hairs on the backs of her arms were standing on end and there was a cool slick of sweat across her chest. She tried to move her legs, to get out of bed, but she was frozen to the spot. Moonlight flooded the bedroom, rays of lilac and pale blue, hazy around the edges, and she heard the soft breaths of the waves through the open window. Then she thought she heard something else.

  ‘Sam?’ she whispered, so quietly she almost couldn’t make out her own voice.

  The air of the room seemed to crystallise and come into sharp focus. She could see the wardrobe door slightly ajar, the dresser with stones and shells across its top. In the hallway beyond the half-open door, shadows lurked. She fixed her eyes upon them. The smell of night jasmine flooded her nostrils.

  ‘Sam?’ she said again, louder this time.

  She thought she saw a quiver of movement followed by the soft sound of footfalls along the hallway. She listened hard but she was distracted by the loud thump of her heart in her chest. Then the room fell into darkness, the moon suddenly eclipsed by cloud.