“They don’t?”
“They don’t.” He shook his head.
“You mean the young stay and the parents fly away? Even the mother-bird? How does that work?” That made no sense. “How do the chicks manage without their mothers?”
He looked at her with sadness. As if the price were his to pay. “They just do.”
“Are they ever reunited?”
He shook his head.
Finella fussed with the hair at her nape. Her mind scraped to make sense of what pounded in her heart. Mothers should never be taken from their little ones. “I can’t believe they choose to leave. What happens to the chick when the mother leaves?”
He took a deep breath. As if the open sand and wild sea did not offer enough air. “They’re safe in the nest, until hunger drives them out. They rummage around and if they survive long enough outside the burrow, they fly off in the direction of their mother and father.”
“And when does this happen?”
“Mature birds leave at the end of summer. The young fly off a few months later, when instinct tells them to.”
Finella looked away, nailed by the emptiness of cruel separation. A cruelty she could not afford to taste again.
“I remember what it felt like to really know my mother would never come back. It’s the darkest, most hollow place for a child, even with an aunt nearby. No one should live like that. Not even a baby bird.”
“You don’t need to tell me.” He forged ahead, but Finella stopped. Up ahead, the sand shimmered. Shadrach’s end of the crate pulled at her wrist, before he too, stopped.
She pointed to the stretch of beach. “Look.”
At the other end of the cove, the sea rushed in like a river.
“It’s not as bad as it looks. Just the tide swelling.” He gave the twine a light tug and coaxed her along, a fresh cheeriness in his voice. “Before the sun sets.”
“But how do we get past?” The cliff offered no way up and if they didn’t hurry, they’d be locked in. She quickened her steps.
Soon enough, they found the source of their trouble at the end of the cove. An estuary filled as quickly as the day closed upon them.
Shadrach put the crate down and tested the water’s depth with his crook. “Deeper than it looks,” he mumbled.
Finella didn’t like the way he said that. He scanned the cliff face but with his back turned she couldn’t tell what he thought.
“Shadrach?”
He kept walking, testing the water’s depth every few paces. Each time the crook hit sand, the water deepened.
“I reckon it’s just above my knee at the lowest point.”
“Your knee is significantly higher than mine. Are you suggesting we wade through?”
“What if I wade and carry you? I’ll come back for the crate when you’re on the other side.”
“You’re going to carry me? Across there?” She looked at the widening stream.
“It wouldn’t be the first time. That I carried you.”
A flame lit in her cheeks. She hadn’t forgotten the way he galloped along the pier with her across his back. Or how he’d carried her into his hut when she’d slipped in the mud.
“I was injured then. You don’t suppose I could manage on my own this time?”
“You could. Or you could learn to trust me.”
There it was again. Another poke with his words. Scarlet swipes deepened over the sky and soon there would be no light left at all.
“I promise not to rush through the water. You won’t even feel a drop.”
“A drop of water, or a drop into the water?”
“Neither.” He said it with such tenderness she could hear the promise in his voice. And in that moment, Finella dared to believe this convict’s son could fix all that was wrong in their world.
With a scoop she hardly saw coming, he whisked her off the sand. Finella gathered her skirt in one hand, and secured the other around his neck.
“Are you going to walk through with your shoes on?” She tried to angle her face away from his, but thought better of it. There was no sense in upsetting his balance by throwing herself too far in the opposite direction.
“Better for me if I keep them on. Don’t know what’s under there.”
Another step and he had both feet in. He closed one eye and looked at her with a scrunched up face. “I hope you’re considering how cold this might feel against a fellow’s legs?”
Finella smiled. “I hope you consider how desperate I am to not share the experience.”
He took another step and she felt his body sink further.
“You mean slip and fall or deliberately dunk you?”
“You wouldn’t let either happen, would you?”
“As I remember it, there’s always been a moment I’ve looked for as payment for the face full of flour. Remember that, Miss Finella.” He stopped in the middle of the stream. “Remember when I said revenge would find you, somehow?”
His breath tickled her chin. Sent a posse of shivers up her nape and through her hair and they had nothing to do with the freezing waters swirling around them.
“Keep walking.”
“I will.” He answered, as if he lazed against the garden gate. “When you pay your passage across.”
She stared at him. Stared hard and wondered how she’d not seen this coming. Blue eyes flashed at her, daring her with a deepness she cared for more than her desire to escape an ill timed ocean dip.
He let his grip slacken a little. Enough to warn her to hurry up. Enough to make her hold tighter. She leaned in, close enough to leave a tentative kiss on his rough cheek.
“Call that a kiss?” he asked with a low rumble.
“From where you stand, Mr. Jones, you’ve not completed our crossing. You get part payment here and full payment when we’re clear.”
He sloshed his way across in five large steps. Quicker than she imagined, her feet landed on a low spread of rocks jutting out from the cliff.
Shadrach shook his legs free of cold water and climbed the rock to stand beside her.
He bowed and with one arm, scooped her into his embrace again. Only this time they met with all four feet on the ground. Finella wasn’t sure how long hers would stay there. He ran his other hand along her cheek and pulled her close enough to whisper against her lips.
“Pay up, Dandelion.”
Finella trembled. He’d stolen a kiss from her before, but now he demanded what she’d just promised. And she’d have to give it. She’d meant to add a quick kiss to his other cheek but now…
“In full.” He closed his eyes and waited.
Finella leaned in and pressed her lips against his. He did nothing in return. This was not like last time. This was like kissing a fence post.
He cracked an eye open. “Like you mean it,” he added, and closed his eye again.
The swell of life bubbled up in Finella’s chest and she fought hard to find just the right place to balance her toes.
A flicker of the sun’s last rays bounced off his dark hair, and she pushed it with gentle strokes off his face with her fingers. The tightness in his eyes faded and he opened them to watch her.
Emboldened by lengthening shadows, she wound one hand behind his head and cradled it against her palm.
And right there, with the sun and all its ribbons playing in the sky, Finella thanked Shadrach Jones for carrying her along the pier, over the puddles, and across the stream.
29
“You did what?’”
Shadrach ducked Sharpie’s laughter. It roared across the campground drowning out the music until Shadrach elbowed the guy in the pouch with a soft blow.
“Enough, old man. Ever thought I might not want an audience?”
Sharpie sucked in gulps of air and doubled over to laugh some more. “You’ve got no choice there, Shad.” He wiped his eye with the heel of his hand. “Get prepared to become the laughing stock of the district.” He dissolved into another round of chuckles, and hunted in his pocke
t until he produced a crumpled handkerchief.
Shadrach shot the man a look he hoped said, move-or-I’ll-give-you-a-real-reason-to-need-that-rag. He picked up his empty crate and egging crook, and moved off to his tent. It would only last until morning, but at least the cover of darkness saved him from further disgrace.
For while he’d enjoyed his sunset walk with Finella more than he’d imagined possible, he hadn’t factored the tide would slip in and steal his crate of eggs.
“Shadrach? Is it true? Did you really lose your whole day’s catch?” Goliah Ashe sidled up to him.
“ ’Fraid so.”
“How?”
How indeed? He fumbled in the dark with wet boots.
Inconceivable as it sounded, he knew this wouldn’t be the last occasion when he’d have to explain the misfortune. He’d better rehearse the shortest version.
“Finella slipped down the slope where I worked part of the afternoon.” He tugged a stubborn wet knot. “Between us we disturbed some sand and well, we had to come back through the cove and along the beach. Tide had come in at one spot and I carried her over. Didn’t get back for my eggs until it was too late.”
Was that short enough? The preacher kept his face hidden in the shadows.
“By the time I went back the tide had carried everything away. Lucky I found the crate and crook, floating nearby.”
He tossed his shoe against the empty crate. Silence, less than golden, filled the space between them.
“You… you forgot your crate of eggs?” Goliah’s voice trembled but to the man’s credit, he didn’t guffaw.
“I didn’t forget.” Shadrach yanked at his other bootlace. “I just didn’t get to them in time. That’s all.”
Because kissing Finella was better than almost anything else I could think of. “Could happen to anyone, couldn’t it?” He turned to Goliah.
The new preacher coughed. It sounded more like a stifled chuckle.
“It could. Why not?” He didn’t sound convincing. “I hope your empty crate means you caught another prize.”
Shadrach threw his other boot down. He didn’t care much where it landed. Dizzy with hunger and hot with fury at himself for letting his egg catch slip away, he needed a way out of this mess. But it was more than eggs snatched by the tide. It was what had happened next that filled him with shame. But he wouldn’t think about that now.
“Do you know how much Melbourne bakers pay for those eggs, Goliah? How many Christmas cakes they make each year with eggs from this island? They’re mad for them in town. They sell faster than goose eggs.” He hung his head. “If you’ve got any to sell.”
Goliah sat on the ground beside him. “That’s some loss, Shadrach. I’m sorry to hear it. What do you have from yesterday’s hunt?”
The accordion cried in the night.
“Half a crate.”
“So, you missed out on your egg money this year. My wife tells me there’s something else you’ve been hunting.”
Shadrach shrugged. Yes, he’d managed another kiss from Finella, but the walk back had been marred by their shared disbelief and disappointment at losing the eggs. And the annoying tap of the empty crate against his wet trousers. Neither one said much along the bush track, the lost eggs extinguishing the sweetness their kiss had delivered.
Shadrach blew out a puff of air. “I ruined something I’ve waited for a long time.” He looked up at the stars and the knots in his neck crackled.
It pained him to admit it. To remember the frenzied way he’d trampled eggs in the shallows. The disbelief that tipped him over. The anger that pushed him to nearly split the crate into a million splinters on the ragged rocks.
“I clammed up pretty good after I found that empty crate. Lost the mood.” He dug his elbows onto his knees and looked at the preacher.
“There’s always next year. Folks will enjoy your story for a few days, but they’ll forget about it soon enough.”
“Question is, will Finella?”
“How did you part?”
“She couldn’t scamper away fast enough.”
The preacher tapped him on the back. “Fresh trouble always looks worse than it really is. I’ll help you pack up in the morning. I’m thinking you’ll want to move off early.”
“Is before dawn too early?”
“If you’ve still got Finella on your side, you won’t care about the eggs by nightfall tomorrow. I promise.”
Shadrach hoped the man knew what he was talking about. Right now he had a sinking feeling lost eggs were only the beginning of his troubles.
*
Shadrach circled the house like a speared bull; steaming mad for reasons even he didn’t understand. He pocketed a quick breakfast when he knew Finella and Molly made a trip to the chickens, but other than that, steered clear of the two of them.
He didn’t need reminders of his quick-tempered outburst at the shallows when he lost the eggs, and probably Finella’s respect.
Probably?
He scoffed at his own logic. Not probably. Definitely. Absolutely. And any other word that meant she was most likely in his skillion right now, balancing on a chair to reach her bags.
He hunkered down in the barn and threaded a long needle. He’d not made a blanket of rabbit before, and hoped his attempt would make Molly happy come Christmas day. He remembered how he’d ignored her this morning and dread squeezed at his core. Dread and shame and the knowledge by dusk tonight the entire district would laugh at his misfortune.
And tomorrow? He didn’t want to think about facing the village when he took his eggs in for sale.
How had he gone from champion one year to laughing stock the next? He pierced the rabbit skin with such force his own flesh paid the price.
Goliah Ashe had better be right in thinking people would forget. He sucked the blood from his palm. The sooner they had something better to talk about the better.
But what about Finella?
He dropped the skins and paced. Stretched his arms over his head until they met with the rafters of his barn. His fingers grazed the rough boards he’d nailed there himself. Flashes of his father and the night he brought their tent crashing around their heads, chipped at Shadrach’s thoughts.
Have I turned into him?
If Finella hadn’t held her ground, he would’ve smashed that crate into sawdust.
Turned into him.
Shame folded around him and he gripped the rafter with one hand. Finella deserved to be with someone who wasn’t going to turn into a monster. Wasn’t a big part of her fear the convict legacy? His gullet brimmed with hot gall and he let go of the wooden plank to kneel in the dust.
I’ve held it back long enough, but is one wrong move enough to turn me into my father?
*
“Will Brother ever cheer up?” Molly asked from her bed where she lay like a cat in the sun.
Finella measured oats into the porridge pot. “He will. In time.”
“He’s cross about the eggs.”
“He’s cross about many things, the eggs being one.” Finella poured the milk.
“I like Brother when he’s laughing.”
Finella considered much of what she’d been thinking on the silent ride home. “Me too.”
She banged the pot over the fire. Her kisses were not for any charmer who came along. And if she was going to kiss someone, he’d better not be grumpy about it afterwards. Even if all the eggs in creation washed away.
But Shadrach Jones was not any old charmer. And she’d not soon forget the look on his face when she pulled away from their kiss. The rough scrape of his hand on her chin. The way he drew her closer for another kiss, and then another.
“Is my debt paid?”
“Not yet.” He’d whispered. “You still owe me.” More and then some more, until the cold shadows of night pulled them out of where nothing should have found them.
Only calamity was a good hunter and had snuck in with great reward. Just when she found herself wanting him to ask again
, questions about their future remained unexplored. Robbed in more ways than one, they’d returned with less than they imagined. Not even one egg remained at the end of a fractured day.
In a way, she understood his brooding last night. But to remain silent all morning when they drove home under the morning fog? Even with Molly?
No. An ember lit in Finella’s stomach as sure as the flame at her side. She ground the wooden spoon through the thickening oats.
No one would steal from her again. No thief, no sickness. Not even the deep blue sea.
30
He didn’t consider it stealing, but eating a slab of damper and two pickled cucumbers in such a hurry at his abandoned table, almost came close. Shadrach didn’t know where Finella had taken Molly, and if that were his only bothersome thought, the pickle may not have caught in his throat like a thief’s reward.
But the empty room was only part of what grieved him. He scraped his hand along the stubble on his jaw. Where had they gone? He should have sought them out, but he’d been too busy. In his fields, in his barn, and in a self-made pit where he’d stewed all day. And he had no mind to climb out, just yet.
He pinched another pickle. Sour deserved sour, didn’t it? And that’s why Finella doesn’t deserve you.
He wiped his vinegary hands on his trousers, and ground every boot-step back along the shell path to the barn. Even his rabbit pelts came in short. He may as well grab the blanket from his bed and measure how much more he’d need for Molly’s gift.
Unlike the empty house, his skillion chimed with laughter.
“Now, you put it on.” Molly’s voice held the sparkle of someone who’d been tickled.
He peeked into the room where they sat on the edge of his bedroll. Finella and Molly. Shoulder to shoulder they looked like the best of friends, one of Finella’s trunks open at their knees. Finella tried on some kind of crown and made a face at Molly who giggled for more.
He warmed to see them so close. He’d done the right thing by Molly in bringing Finella here. What he wouldn’t give for his mother to see this.
“Brother?” Molly reached out. “Come and see.”’
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