The Atlas of Us

by Tracy Buchanan

  Claire’s eyes sparkle with happiness. ‘He’s great. He’s in his element when he’s at the farm.’

  ‘Yes, I was surprised when I got your change of address card. I never thought you’d return to Exmoor.’

  ‘Me neither. But we’d always talked about how running away from our tragedies do us no good. One day, he just woke up and said: “I need to go back home.” So we just went for a week and you know what? Though there were bad memories, there were the good ones too. When we saw his parents’ old farm for sale, we both knew we wanted to buy it and renovate it.’

  ‘You can’t be there much. I’ve read your articles, you seem to be everywhere all at once.’

  Claire laughs. ‘Oh, we’d never give the travelling up. Exmoor is just a base we return to every now and again. Milo took on an old friend who runs it while we’re away and the profit goes towards funding our travels. Most of the time, we’re travelling all over, me writing articles, Milo working on farms and bringing back what he’s learned to make our Exmoor farm even better.’

  I reach into my bag for my suntan lotion, the sun beating hard onto my neck, despite it starting to set. ‘Like the water buffalo herd?’ I say as I rub some lotion on my skin. ‘Olivia saw Milo’s vlog from last month.’

  Claire nods. ‘Yes, we went to India so I could write about how sand mining is encroaching on the Western Ghats, a mountain range there. While I did some research, Milo worked at a local farm. He learned so much. First thing he did when we got back was make enquiries about where he could get some water buffalo.’

  I shake my head in admiration. ‘What a life you two lead.’

  Claire looks out to sea, her face soft with contentment. ‘The life I’ve always wanted.’

  I watch the girls as they chase each other around the garden. ‘Chloe’s reading your travel memoir, she says it’s great.’

  ‘Thanks, it was quite cathartic writing it. I’m working on another book actually, I’ll—’

  A scream of delight rings out from behind me, and Claire peers over my shoulder, her whole face lighting up. I turn and see a young girl about Nora’s age running towards Claire, her arms open, dark hair like Claire and Milo’s bouncing around her shoulders with every step. Claire swings her up in her arms and twirls her around, her nose pressed against the little girl’s neck.

  ‘This gorgeous little bundle is Scarlett,’ Claire says, letting her down. Scarlett presses her cheek against Claire’s arm, gazing up at her adoringly.

  I think of the article Claire had written about her struggles with infertility and my heart swells. ‘Oh Claire, she’s beautiful! You must be so delighted after everything you went through.’

  Claire smiles. ‘Yes, I feel very lucky Holly had such a lovely little girl.’

  I bite my lip. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I—’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Claire says. She looks down at Scarlett. ‘Why don’t you go play with those children there, see?’ she says, pointing towards my girls.

  ‘Can I give them some sweets, Nanny?’ Scarlett asks Claire in an Australian accent, pulling a packet of fruit gums from her pocket.

  Claire nods. ‘Of course, sweetheart.’

  We watch her run off then I turn to Claire. ‘Claire, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have presumed she was yours.’

  She shrugs. ‘Easy mistake to make. I’ve never had children, never will. When I said I was infertile, I meant it.’ She pauses a moment. ‘You know, I really ought to stop using that word infertile. It suggests nothing has come of my life; that nothing has come from the love Milo and I share. But so much has grown from what we have together. Holly. Scarlett. All the wonderful experiences we’ve shared, the people we’ve met.’

  ‘That’s a wonderful way of looking at it.’ I watch Scarlett offering Nora a sweet. I can now see Erin and Holly in her wide cat-like eyes and high cheekbones.

  ‘Do they live in Australia? I noticed Scarlett has an accent?’ I ask.

  Claire nods. ‘Holly fell in love with the country when she stayed with me and Milo all those years ago. She’s married my nephew, Alex. He runs a pro bono law firm out there while Holly writes articles.’

  I smile. ‘Are they here?’

  ‘Just in the café,’ she says, nodding towards the nearby café. ‘They’re feeding little Bo – he’s six months old.’

  ‘Wow. Holly and Alex must have their hands full.’ I pause a few moments. ‘How is Holly? She went through such a lot when she was young, didn’t she?’ I ask carefully. I never did discover the secret Mum protected by retrieving Claire’s atlas but I could tell Holly was on a downward spiral when I saw those photos of her in the press ten years ago.

  Claire smiles. ‘She’s good. After we returned to the UK, we headed out to the States for a few months where a therapist friend of Jay helped Holly sort through her demons. They’re not gone, by any means. But she knows how to deal with them. Alex has helped too, as have the children. The memories will always be there, deep inside her, but she’s good, really good.’

  ‘Mummy, Mummy, look!’ I hear Nora shout out at me. I look over to see her standing with Scarlett by a large stone memorial in the garden, black plaques dotted all over it.

  ‘We better go see what they’ve found,’ Claire says, smiling.

  As we stroll over, something else comes into view: bright reds and oranges. A large eye. Dark hair.

  Mum’s painting.

  It’s the one Sam and I found flung onto the beach, her one eye blinking out at us, the vivid aqua sea beyond her. It’s been re-touched very carefully, colours once faded by water and time bright and overwhelming. It’s drilled into the marble wall to the left of the stone memorial, the sea beyond merging into the sea in the painting, creating a stunning effect. In a special plaque next to it are the words:

  ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty.’

  In loving memory of Nora McKenzie, artist, mother and grandmother, who joins her best friend Erin James, finally found after many years of searching.

  I purse my lips together, feel tears sting my eyes. ‘It’s wonderful,’ I say. ‘Who arranged this?’

  ‘I did.’ I turn to see Holly smiling at me. She looks the same, red hair even longer, beautiful green eyes slightly tired. There’s a gorgeous red-haired baby with almond-brown eyes in her arms, a handsome blond man by her side.

  Then Milo limps over, his dark hair long now, the skin around his eyes wrinkling as he smiles at me. Claire had told me his leg had been injured during the tsunami. I suppose we all still have our scars to bear from that terrible event.

  ‘Hi Louise,’ he says, putting his hand out and grasping mine. It’s calloused and sandy, the farmer in him oozing out of his pores. I notice the scar on his face, white and faded with age, and I wonder if the pain of losing his brother has faded too. Probably not. It’s like Claire says: the memories are always there, deep inside.

  ‘Look,’ Claire says, nodding towards Nora and Scarlett who are sitting cross-legged in the sand in front of the painting, both their heads tilted as they contemplate it.

  ‘My nanna did that,’ I hear Nora explain. ‘I never met her, but Mummy says I’m like her. Your nanna Erin was her best friend.’

  ‘I know,’ Scarlett says matter-of-factly. ‘Your nanna saved my mummy.’

  ‘I hope Nora and Erin are looking down watching this all,’ Claire says sadly.

  ‘Do you think our paths continue after this life?’ I ask her.

  She smiles. ‘I hope so.’

  ‘Me too. I hope Mum knows I got this,’ I say, reaching into my bag and getting the letter I’d found on my doormat when I returned home ten years ago. It was a short letter but meant so much, Mum finally telling me how deeply she regretted the two years of silence and how she planned to make amends when she returned home.

  ‘Oh yes, I remember you mentioning it,’ Claire says. ‘She told me on Christmas Day that she was hoping to make amends.’

  ‘She did. I just hope in her last moments she knew it would reach me.’
<
br />   Milo puts his hand on Claire’s shoulder. ‘Ready?’

  She nods so he reaches into the bag he’s been holding and pulls out two flat square objects, one red, one orange. He hands one to Alex and they both pull the corners of each object out.

  Sky lanterns.

  ‘For Erin,’ Milo says, passing his lighter to Holly. She lights one of the lanterns with Claire’s help as Alex holds Bo.

  Then Claire hands the lighter to me. ‘For Nora,’ she says.

  ‘What is it, Nanny?’ Scarlett asks Claire in awe as she watches me light the tiny tea light inside.

  ‘Wait and see,’ Claire says.

  I hold my lantern up high above my head, Holly and Claire doing the same with their lantern. Then we throw them into the air.

  They hover where they are for a few moments as though taking in the land below them one last time. Then they swoop up on the wings of a breeze, the lights inside trembling against the setting sun, before gliding up and up and away, two blinking lights above the calm aqua sea below.

  Read an exclusive extract from Tracy Buchanan’s latest novel, My Sister’s Secret.

  Everything you’ve built your life on is a lie.

  Discovering the truth could destroy you.

  Prologue

  Busby-on-Sea, UK

  March 1977

  Faith lay still, the rain wetting her face and bouncing off the soft skin of her outstretched palms. She heard voices, footsteps, but couldn’t move, couldn’t call out. She looked up at the soaking tree branches above. If she narrowed her eyes slightly it almost looked like she was underwater, floating under a submerged tree …

  Wouldn’t that be wonderful, discovering the drowned forest she and her sisters had spent their summers searching for? She remembered the first time she showed them the map she’d made. Three years ago. She was sixteen, so naïve then, so excited too. She’d hurried down the beach, the pebbles stretching out before her, the sky bright blue above, sun hot and hazy. When she caught sight of her sisters, she slowed down. She liked watching them when they were like this, quiet and still. Her thirteen-year-old sister, Charity – the youngest of the three – lay on a towel, chin tipped up towards the sun, eyes closed, wild black hair a tangle above her head. Her sunburnt legs stretched out from faded denim shorts, her halter-neck top matching her red knees. She was at that confusing age between girlhood and womanhood that Faith remembered so well.

  Sitting behind Charity on a large white rock, her pale knees tucked up to her chest, was Hope. She watched the sea pensively as it foamed against the beach, the end of her pen in her mouth, notepad open in her other hand. The swimsuit she was wearing – an old one of their mother’s, swirling colours of green, red and blue – and the turquoise swimming cap that hid her long red hair made her look more like thirty than fifteen.

  Faith quickened her step towards them, bare feet scrunching pebbles, the object of her excitement hidden behind her back.

  Hope peered up first, face lighting up when she saw her older sister.

  ‘How’s the poem going?’ Faith asked her.

  ‘I’m stuck on the colour of the sea.’ A frown puckered her pale skin as she turned to look back out towards the sea. ‘It’s such a strange colour today, not blue or grey or green.’

  ‘Ribbons,’ Charity lazily murmured without opening her eyes. ‘Blue, grey and green ribbons.’

  Faith smiled as she sat down next to Charity, pebbles warm beneath her bare calves.

  ‘Ribbons. I like that. You’re not so useless after all, Charity,’ Hope declared, scribbling in her notepad as Charity stuck her tongue out at her.

  ‘I’ve got something to show you both,’ Faith said.

  Charity opened one eye, squinting up at her sister. ‘Please not another type of snorkel? Because honestly, they all look the same to me.’

  Faith laughed. ‘I promise it’s not.’ She looked over at Hope, impatient. ‘Come on, I want to show you both together.’

  Hope put her hand up. ‘Wait, I have one more line to write.’ She finished scribbling then snapped her notepad shut, shouting, ‘Finished!’ Then she jogged over to them, pulling her swimming cap off and raking her fingers through her wavy red hair as it fell around her thin shoulders.

  ‘So,’ Faith said as Hope joined them. ‘You know we’re going to travel the world when we’re old enough?’

  Charity and Hope exchanged a smile. Faith always came up with fun adventures.

  ‘As Daddy pointed out, we can’t visit every single country in the world,’Faith continued.‘That would take us a lifetime. We need a focus.’

  ‘I quite agree,’ Hope said as Charity nodded.

  ‘Well, I’ve decided what our focus will be.’ She took a deep breath, looking at each of her sisters in turn, drawing out the drama.

  ‘Oh come on, Faith, don’t torture us,’ Charity said, bouncing up and down on her toes in anticipation.

  ‘We should focus on visiting submerged forests!’ Faith declared. ‘I was looking through the photos from Mum’s field trip last week in Austria, they’re beautiful!’

  Charity went still. ‘Submerged what?’

  ‘You never listen when Mum tells us about her trips,’ Hope said, rolling her eyes.

  ‘They’re forests that disappear beneath the sea over time,’ Faith explained.

  ‘Mrs Tate read a poem in class about a whole town that got flooded in Wales after I told her where Mum was going,’ Hope said. ‘You can still see the remains of its forests when the tide goes out.’ She flicked through her notepad then tapped her finger on a page. ‘Here it is. “When waves crashed on the sea-shore / with thunder in its wake / The bells of Cantre’r Gwaelod / are silent ’neath the wave.”’

  ‘So these forests are a bit like Atlantis?’ Charity asked.

  ‘Kind of,’ Faith said. ‘But minus the buildings. And they’re not just beneath the sea. You can find them in lakes and rivers too. There’s one in Austria that only appears in the summer when the snow melts. The water floods the trees, and even a park bench. I found a book in the library about them, and drew a map of all the forests I could find in it.’

  Faith pulled out what she’d been hiding behind her back and laid it on the towel. It was a large and rather beautiful drawing of the world map, tiny illustrated trees dotted in different locations. At the top, in Faith’s pretty looped handwriting, was: ‘World Tour of Submerged Forests.’

  The three sisters bent over the map, hair trailing across it, dark, red and blonde. They traced their fingers over the trees then all peered up at one another.

  Charity smiled. ‘This is so cool, Faith.’

  Faith’s pretty face lit up. ‘Isn’t it? I can collect samples from the trees as we travel. I’ll be a marine biologist by then anyway.’ She looked at Hope. ‘And you can write poems about them.’ Hope nodded, grey eyes sparkling. ‘And Charity, you can—’

  ‘Sunbathe after each dive?’ Charity suggested.

  The three girls laughed.

  There was the sound of crunching pebbles. They all looked up to see their friend Niall approaching. The top half of his wetsuit was around his waist, exposing the tanned skin of his chest. His face was very tanned too, his blue eyes even more vivid as a result. He looked like he’d grown up in the weeks since they’d seen him last. Faith supposed he wasn’t the annoying little boy they’d first met on this beach four years before. He was fifteen, after all, nearly a man.

  She noticed Charity staring shyly at him,her cheeks flushing. Clearly Charity had noticed the change in Niall too. Hope on the other hand was oblivious, rolling her eyes as she always did when Niall appeared.

  ‘Come join us, Niall,’ Faith said, beckoning him over. ‘We’ve decided to do a world tour of submerged forests.’

  Niall crouched down and looked at the map.‘There’s a submerged forest off Busby’s coast, apparently.’

  Hope looked at him cynically.

  ‘Seriously. A fisherman saw the branches of a tree during a storm.’
r />   ‘That’s hardly proof,’ Hope said.

  ‘But it’s something,’ Charity said, jumping up and shading her eyes as she looked out to sea. ‘I’d love to see it.’

  Niall smiled at Charity. She bit her lip, looking away. Hope shot her a warning glance, but Faith smiled. It was nice, watching the way they were together. Niall was a good kid, despite his troubled background. It wasn’t his fault his parents drank too much and lived on the grim estate at the other end of Busby, was it?

  He pulled a pencil from the small blue rucksack Faith always carried around with her and quickly drew a little tree over Busby-on-Sea on the map.

  ‘If we find it, it can be the first forest we visit,’ he said.

  ‘We?’ Hope replied.

  ‘Yeah, who else will teach you all to dive properly?’

  The three sisters looked out to sea, the waves crashing and receding before them. Then Niall picked Charity up, throwing her over his shoulder and running into the sea with her as Faith laughed.

  The happy memory dissipated. A tear slid down Faith’s cheek. She was so cold, so frightened. Her sisters would find her though. They’d see her bed was empty and they’d come looking for her. Then she’d tell them every little thing that had happened during the past few weeks and they’d figure it all out together, because that was what they always did.

  No more secrets, she thought to herself.

  She closed her eyes.

  Chapter One

  Willow

  In the middle of the Aegean Sea, Greece

  August 2016

  My friend Ajay reckons the Aegean Sea is named after Aegea, queen of the Amazons. My aunt Hope disagrees. She says it’s named after a famous sea goat.

  I know which one I prefer.

  In fact, I feel like I’m channelling a female warrior when I do dives like this, all swaddled up in my diving ‘armour’, ready to do battle with the sea and unearth its treasures. I feel it now as the dive boat we’re on bounces over the waves, the sea spreading out around us, the island of Rhodes just a shimmer of land behind us.