Daughter
of the
Storm
Tina Callaghan
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, businesses, organisations and incidents portrayed in it are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Published 2019
by Poolbeg Press Ltd
123 Grange Hill, Baldoyle
Dublin 13, Ireland
E-mail: [email protected]
www.poolbeg.com
© Tina Callaghan 2019
© Poolbeg Press Ltd. 2019, copyright for editing, typesetting, layout, design, ebook
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-78199-786-4
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photography, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
www.poolbeg.com
About the Author
Tina Callaghan is a writer of speculative fiction. Her stories involve elements of history, mythology and the supernatural, although she mostly just makes it up as she goes along. Her short stories have appeared in anthologies alongside horror and science-fiction greats Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Ray Bradbury and Robert Bloch. Her first novel Dark Wood Dark Water was shortlisted for the Young Adult Book of the Year in the An Post Irish Book Awards.
She lives in County Wexford with her partner Joe and lots of pets.
Praise for Daughter of the Storm
‘Atmospheric, evocative, menacing, surprising – you can smell the sea, sense the danger and share the fear. This book is a
cracking read, definitely one to be devoured’
Helen Moorhouse, author of Ever This Day
‘Devastating as it is beautiful, Daughter of the Storm is a compelling and chilling exploration of generational grief and love’
Dr. Sarah Cleary, horror academic and Horror Expo Ireland Creative Director.
Praise for Dark Wood, Dark Water
‘A story Stephen King would have written if he’d grown up in Ireland’Peadar Ó Guilín, author of The Call
‘Chilling, atmospheric and with an effortlessly vivid sense of place,
this novel sustains the intrigue from the first page to the last.
A genuinely impressive debut from a storytelling talent to watch. And read’ F.G. Cottam, author of The Colony
‘A sublime fantasy horror grounded in dark and sinister local folklore’ Ruth Frances Long, author of the Dubh Linn series
‘A moody, atmospheric and entertaining tale’
Joseph Delaney, author of The Wardstone Chronicles
‘An impressive, ambitious and entertaining debut’
Ginger Nuts of Horror review
Acknowledgements
With love, I thank those who support me in the slightly mad endeavour of making up stories, particularly my dear friends and family, as well as my publisher Paula Campbell and editor Gaye Shortland, who I count among them.
For those who wish to create or enjoy a story in any medium, don’t let anything stop you. It’s the best feeling in the world, akin to love in all its glorious forms.
For Joe
From ‘Memorable Accidents and Unheard of Transactions’ published in 1693, held in the British Library. The book contains ‘An Account of Several Strange Events: As the Deposing of Tyrants, Lamentable Shipwrecks, Dismal Misfortunes, Stratagems of War, Perilous Adventures ... and Select Historical Events.’
Rocks that jutted out into the sea, lifted up the Vessel to the Clouds, letting her fall on a sudden upon the Cliffs with such violence that she could not hold out long. You might have heard her already cracking on all sides, some parts of her falling off the rest; and at last, this great Mass of Wood being for a while thus dreadfully shaken and toss’d from Wave to Rock, was dash’d to pieces with a horrible noise. The Poop bore the first shock, and accordingly was the first part that bulg’d. To no purpose they cut down the Masts and threw overboard the Guns, and all that lay in their way; all their precautions were in vain, for the ship struck upon the Rocks so often and so rudely, that at last she open’d under the Gunners Room. The Water then entring in abundance, began to gain the first Deck, and to fill the Gunners Room, it advanced even to the great Cabbin, and in a moment after it reach’d to their Girdles that were upon the second Deck, and still ascending insensibly, our ship at last sunk quite down into the Sea, till the Keel reach’d the bottom, the body of the Vessel remained some time immovable. It would be a hard task to represent the astonishment, terror and consternation that seiz’d up on every Heart on the Ship; Nothing now was heard but cries, sighs and groans: Some prostrate upon the deck implor’d the assistance of Heaven: Others were throwing into the sea Barrels, empty Casks, Sail-yards and pieces of Boards, to aid them in making their escape. After the violence of the crying was over, they that remain’d on the Vessel began to think of saving themselves.
One
She came – she came – and the quivering flame
Sunk and died in the fire.
It never was lit again on my hearth
Since I hurried across the floor,
To lift her over the threshold, and let her in at the door.
Mary Elizabeth Coleridge, ‘The Witch’, 1894
Lia watched the ferry lumbering towards the slipway where she waited. She hoisted her rucksack on her shoulders and clutched her ticket. The October air was cool and the sea and sky grey. Her jacket should have been enough to keep her warm, but a chill ran through her.
From the moment she had first bought the plane ticket to Ireland and the connecting train and bus tickets online, to actually sneaking out of the house with a hastily packed bag, she had been full of confidence. She was only a nuisance to her mother in New York – Jasmine was trying to get her life back in order since ‘the tragedy’, as she insisted on calling it, but that didn’t mean that Lia was ready to do the same. But, instead of leaving her alone to spend the summer thinking and just walking around as she wanted to, Jasmine kept trying to take her places, buy her new clothes, new laptop, new friends. There was even talk of a puppy, but by then Lia had made up her mind to go. She had to get away from all the … everything that was going on in her childhood home.
The brownstone was lovely, her friends were lovely, the city was lovely. Even her original plans of going to NYU were lovely. The only teeny-tiny problem was that she didn’t want lovely. She wanted bleak, grey, stark and lonely to suit her mood. She wanted answers too.
One evening, after an unusually bitter row with her mother over college, Lia was sitting on the side of her bed with her new laptop open beside her when a thought arrived unannounced, as though someone else had spoken it clearly into her ear.
Where can I find bleak, lonely and grey, plus answers?
She already had one answer. The island off the Irish coast that was her father’s homeplace. She booked the tickets there and then before she could change her mind. It would be better for Jasmine not to have to argue all the time. They could both do what they needed to get better, if they were apart for a while.
Out beyond the ferry, where it was hard t
o tell the sea from the sky, lay the island. If she squinted, she could make out a shadow that might be it. Clearer were the two sea stacks known as the Chimneys. The ferry website had pictures of them. They were quite famous, it seemed.
She followed a couple weighed down by shopping bags up the ramp. She guessed that October wasn’t the best time for tourists. She wasn’t a tourist of course.
The journey was slow and Lia watched the island come closer, both fascinated and somehow fearful. In fact, the sight of it was a shock. On the ferry website, the island had been lit up with sunlight, although still pretty rocky. Though she had been looking for bleak and lonely, those pictures hadn’t prepared her for frightening cliffs, edged with white waves, and a grey mist that pulled the island back into the blurry horizon.
When they were quite close to the Chimneys another text from her mom that she wasn’t going to answer arrived. Lia had texted once to say she was safe and just needed a break with friends. She had sent a selfie so that Jasmine wouldn’t think she had been kidnapped and coerced into texting that she was fine.
She glanced up and found that the ferry was giving a wide berth to the Chimneys. Even so, they were spectacular. Looming towers of black rock and limestone, streaked with bird poop, much bigger than she had expected. As she watched, a lump of rock tumbled from the top of one and crashed into the sea. The movement sent up a flock of gulls, a brief flash of sunlight catching their undersides, blindingly white against the darkening sky.
Lia took a quick picture, then noticed her phone had no service. She held it up again, watching for bars, but nothing happened.
‘Once you’re past the Chimneys, that thing is no good to you.’
She looked around, startled. A lady was sitting on a bench, shopping bags piled around her feet, her face soft and powdery.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Your phone. There’s no service on the island.’
Lia stared at her, appalled.
The lady chuckled.
‘Sorry – I’m not laughing at you, dear. You just looked so shocked. I know you young folk like your phones. But everyone has a landline if you want to call someone. As long as the weather doesn’t knock out the wires on the mainland. Or you can post a letter of course, at the shop – my shop. I’m the postmistress. AJ the ferryman takes the post across.’
Lia looked up at AJ in the wheelhouse. He was younger than she expected, and he briefly met her gaze with a blank expression that could have been hiding everything or nothing.
The lady went on. ‘He’s an islander, though he doesn’t live on the island anymore. He’s got mainland blood of course – his mother Kitty is a mainlander.’
Lia didn’t know how she was expected to respond to that.
‘But maybe you won’t be staying long enough to want to post anything?’ the lady enquired.
Lia shrugged and said, ‘Maybe’.
The lady nodded and looked out towards the bow.
‘We’ll be landing soon,’ she said.
Lia followed her gaze and saw the little harbour, the houses of the village clustered behind, backed by a semicircle of low hills. She watched intently as they grew closer.
The lady was standing now, waiting for departure, many bags hanging from white fingers. A man – presumably her husband – came up and took some from her, nodding to Lia. He looked piratical, with unruly dark eyebrows, shot through with white.
‘Do you have anywhere to stay tonight or is there a tent in that bag?’ the lady asked.
‘I’m here to see someone,’ Lia said.
‘Oh?’
Lia hesitated, but she had to find him somehow or spend the night under a tree. Not that there were any proper trees that she could see on the wind-stripped rock ahead – just stunted twisted little things.
‘It’s Harry Crowe.’
‘How do you know Harry?’
This was from the husband, suddenly staring at her with sea-green eyes.
‘He’s ... yeah, he’s my uncle.’
They shared a look but there was no time for more as the ferry ground its ramp onto the stone slipway.
‘Bye then, dear.’
Letting her husband go ahead down the ramp, the lady glanced back.
‘We’ll be in the shop if you need anything. That house there, with the red door.’
She hurried after her husband and Lia followed slowly behind, realising that she should have asked for directions. On the way down the ramp, she read the same notice that held a prominent place on the mainland.
Ferry operation subject to weather.
Suddenly feeling an aloneness that was very different to what she had been looking for, Lia sat on a bollard until the ferry eased away from the pier and made its way out to sea, bearing a few new passengers. When it had gone around the Chimneys, she stood up, turned towards the village, hitched her rucksack higher and went up the slipway. What else was there to do?
She considered calling to the red door, which she now saw doubled as the name of the shop, to ask for directions but something about the look the two had exchanged made her nervous. She looked around for a likely stranger to ask.
Down below her, fishermen were working on boats in the small, sheltered harbour, doing whatever fishermen do. They all looked too busy to ask.
A guy was close by, with a camera raised to his face. She looked to see what he might be photographing, but it all looked the same colour grey to her. Then she raised her gaze and saw two big white-and-yellow birds flying towards the Chimneys. A birdwatcher. Hopefully harmless.
Lia walked towards where the birdwatcher was standing on a spongy expanse of moss and grass leading to a small cliff. Below him was a beach, part sand, part shingle. It probably looked pretty in the summer.
‘Hi,’ she said, still a small distance away, not wanting to startle him.
He turned sharply, snapping a picture as he did.
‘Oh, did you get me?’ Lia said. She was conscious that her hair was a mess and she needed a touch of the lip gloss that she had shoved in a pocket of her bag.
‘Think so.’ He made no effort to look or to delete it. Instead, he just looked at her.
His eyes were some sort of blue, but dark. He actually looked quite nice. He wasn’t smiling, but he didn’t look annoyed.
She stepped towards him, her hand out.
‘I’m Lia Crowe. I’m looking for my Uncle Harry.’
His eyebrows drew together but he took her hand. His was warm.
‘Oh. Isn’t he meeting you?’
Lia made a face. ‘He doesn’t know I’m here.’
‘Oh?’ he said again, letting her hand go.
Lia bit the inside of her lip.
‘The Rest is up that way,’ he said.
‘The Rest?’
‘Don’t you know the name of your uncle’s pub?’
‘I know he has a pub but I don’t know its name.’ No one at home had spoken much about the island.
‘The Robin’s Rest.’
‘Thank you. Nice to meet you …’ She looked at him enquiringly.
‘Ed Wray. Nice to meet you too. I’ll print the picture for you. If you’ll be around for a few days?’
‘Oh – yes. I will.’
Lia walked away, feeling him watching her. When she stepped off the grass onto the road, she glanced back. He was facing the sea, the camera held up and following the flight of another bird. She made a face at herself and walked on in the direction he had indicated.
She had just reached the point where she thought she must surely have gone too far and was starting to worry, when the road curved back towards the sea and there it was. It was a charming stone building with sash windows and a multi-coloured roof, made up of mismatched slates, presumably replaced piecemeal after storms. All at once, Lia’s nerves twanged and she felt her stomach flip. Her legs felt wobbly. She turned around and stared at the road back to the village. It wasn’t really very far, although the pub seemed quite isolated. She walked back to the corner and
saw that lights were coming on in the village. There was probably somewhere there she could rent a room.
She heard a noise and turned back towards the pub. A window had been closed and the pub’s lights were on. The scent of a fire rose from the chimney and drifted towards her, pushed by the ever-present salt air from the sea. Lia had never felt farther from home.
She hitched the rucksack straighter on her shoulders and walked towards the pub. As she rounded the curve in the narrow road she saw another house in the distance, almost entirely sunk into the oncoming darkness. ‘House’ was too small a word for it. It loomed on the horizon, looking disconnected from the earth, almost as though it were riding on its own black shadows. It made her shiver and hurry towards the door of the pub. She had time to notice the name burned into a piece of wood, alongside a carving of a robin about to land, its feathers ruffled and feet out to grab onto a branch, but she didn’t linger.
She was in a small hallway with a door to the left and another to the right. She chose left. It opened onto a small snug. Four old men were sitting at the bar. One thumped his fist on the bar, punctuating some important point in his argument. The conversation stopped and four weather-beaten faces turned towards her. They stared for a second before turning back to their drinks, but the conversation, when it restarted, seemed without the passion that had generated the fist-thump. Lia backed out, closing the door quietly.
The right-hand door opened into a large lounge, where a fire burned in the hearth and a tall man was stooped over it, throwing on more turf and logs. When he had filled it to his satisfaction, he dusted his hands off and turned around. The resemblance to her father was uncanny. The two hadn’t been twins but, born within the same year, they might as well have been. Lia’s dad had been paler than this man, his hair more red than chestnut-brown, and he’d been a couple of inches shorter in height. This man, surely her Uncle Harry, was handsome.
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