No, Brendan, not yet. Soon. I promise.
OK.
Lia is dying. The sea is taking her. Save her. Save one for all you didn’t save.
How?
You’ll see but you must hurry.
Will let him go and the current caught him, spinning and twisting him so that he didn’t know which way was up. His lungs were on fire. He burst through the surface and water and bile poured out of his mouth. He sucked in cold air and coughed violently until he was sick again. Instead of being tossed about, he was being swept fast towards the Chimneys. A huge wave dumped him on a rocky ledge at the bottom of the western chimney. He stood up and scanned the wild surface. Nothing.
Taking a breath, he dived free of the sea stack and swam as powerfully as he could. He saw her then, spinning, being tossed by the careless waves. She looked dead, but Will had said if he hurried …
He struck out towards her, trying to go with the current. He braced himself as the sea thrust them together, and he almost lost her. Her long hair saved her. He grabbed it and pulled her close and together they were taken up and driven hard towards the island. A perverse twist of the undertow pulled them away from the harbour and out towards the Devil’s Teeth. Brendan tried to control the direction of their headlong plunge, but this close to the rocks the sea was intent on bringing them to a catastrophic end.
Look for the gap.
The voice was in the wind, the waves, inside him. He kicked out, struck the first of the Devil’s Teeth with his feet and shoved them into the gap that only an islander would know. They shot through as though they were on a water slide, spun once, twice and, narrowly avoiding the cave, were thrown up on the rocks to the side of it.
The girl’s lips were blue. Brendan thumped her several times in the chest, then turned her on her side. No reaction. He got up and hauled her into his arms, pulling instinctively on her chest from behind, hitching her until the water flew out of her mouth. She was still limp in his arms so he dropped her and started pumping her chest again. There was no dramatic coming to, but instead a single intake of breath. She shuddered and opened her eyes. She stared at the dark sky behind him and her next breath was released on a scream.
The Strix was coming. Brendan felt her in the cold terror knocking against the bones of his spine. He pulled the girl to her feet and they clung to each other, as the Strix swooped back over the cliff, dominating the wind, but passing them by. As soon as she was out of sight, Brendan let the girl go and started climbing. He heard her scream something, but the wind tore it away.
Everything hurt but the pain didn’t override the terror of being left behind with that thing up there in the storm. Lia screamed after Brendan.
‘Don’t leave me!’
He kept climbing. He had somehow got her this far. With or without his help, she was going to survive. Ed was up there. Grabbing the rock face where he had, she found hand-holds and, praying, she clambered after him. Then they were on a precipitous path. She climbed, battered by the wind, sure she would be torn from the cliff face. Head down, clinging to tufts of vegetation, she bumped into him. She looked up. He had stopped and was holding the frayed end of a rope in one hand. He held out the rope, green with algae, and slippery. She took it but didn’t trust her weight to it. He shouted something she couldn’t hear. He leaned closer and shouted in her ear.
‘It’ll hold! Go! Quickly! The Strix is coming!’
She looked behind her. The waves were crashing, and farther out she could see the white shape of the girl wheeling against the black sky. The Strix. She slid her hand up the rope and found a knot. As she grabbed it, he boosted her upwards. She saw another knot and lunged for it. Then, feet against the rocky cliff face, she was climbing.
Even over the roar of the storm, she heard the girl scream, a furious shriek. The sound was growing closer and Lia climbed for her life, knowing that the talons would once more dig into her flesh and tear her from the cliff, dropping her to the rocks below, where her father had died, or keeping her for some other fate that she dared not imagine.
Brendan used the rock and one hand on the slippery rope to pull himself higher, squashing her against the cliff. Lia was surrounded by the cold wings, as the talons gripped the cliff face. Brendan’s mouth was close to her ear and he screamed. She felt a warm splash against the side of her face, and then he was gone. Lia climbed, her skin crawling as she waited for the impact of the great wings, the teeth or the talons to sink into her and pluck her from the cliff like a bird takes a worm. She climbed until a hand grabbed her wrist and she was yanked free and up as though she weighed nothing.
Ed pulled her away from Harry and she clung to him. He held her tight. Other arms went around them both. She opened her eyes and Jasmine took her from Ed and held her, crying. Lia couldn’t understand how or why her mother was there, but she didn’t care. They hugged each other as they hadn’t done in years.
Then the shriek cut the wind and suddenly everyone was running.
Twenty-Three
For life be, after all, only a waitin’ for somethin’ else
than what we’re doin’; and death be all that we
can rightly depend on.
Bram Stoker, Dracula, 1897
Jasmine followed her husband’s brother into his pub, all of them out of breath. She had known there was something terribly wrong, and that feeling had grown until she couldn’t bear to stay in the city any longer. Throughout the journey, made expensive for the sake of speed, fear for her daughter had expanded so that she felt she couldn’t breathe properly. The strange man on the ferry didn’t help. She could smell the fear coming off him when he took her ticket. There were no other outbound passengers and he seemed about to say something to her but withdrew. Getting off the ferry alone, into an afternoon darkening with a developing storm felt uncanny. There was a sulphurous smell in the air, as though lightning had just crackled over the village.
She had been here just once before, when she and Will were newly married. The exposed island, with its few stunted, windblown trees, was dry and yellowed during that hot summer. She and Will had been so passionately in love that she had scarcely noticed the world for weeks, but the moment they set foot on the island, everything went wrong.
Her new brother-in-law didn’t understand her. Thinking back, she later realised that she had been dressed head to toe in couture, wearing heels and a bit sniffy about the stark and simple lifestyle of her new family.
Harry had been overjoyed to see Will and the two had roughhoused as though they were still boys. With eyes only for Will, even then she had seen that Harry was the better-looking of the two, more impressive physically. None of that mattered. He seemed cold to her compared to Will’s fire. Because he so obviously disapproved of her, she decided to disapprove of him.
Now, with the pub door slammed behind them, the unearthly scream of whatever was following them echoing in her ears and her bruised and bloodied daughter gripping her hand, Jasmine saw something very different in Harry. She had thought him cold, but there was fire inside him too, just under better control than Will had been able to manage. Like Will, he was strangely ageless. Neither of them had looked particularly young when she met them, but neither had life made changes to them. She had often bemoaned the fact that men aged better than women, when she had found the first greys in her hair and the first lines around her eyes. Despite his tanned skin, she thought Harry looked no different than he had twenty years ago when she came to the island as a nineteen-year-old bride. It must have been she who had changed because when he suddenly took her and Lia into his arms, she had a physical reaction to him. He was bigger than Will, bigger than Ash. Without heels, she reached only to his chest and she heard his heart beat for the brief moment that he held her. He smelled like Will. It was all she could do not to cling to him.
Lia saved her. ‘Mom, what the hell are you doing here?’
Jasmine dug her nails into her palms. She felt like she was running a fever. She focused on Lia, although eve
ry fibre of her body was still attuned to Harry.
‘I couldn’t stay away. I suddenly felt that something was terribly wrong. I went straight to the airport – there was a cancellation and I got a seat on the next flight to Shannon. I felt that was an omen that I was doing the right thing.’
‘Oh Mom, I wish you hadn’t come! I mean, I’m so glad to see you but it’s dangerous here.’
‘And that’s why I’m supposed to be here with you.’ She looked at Harry. ‘So what was that – that thing we were running from? What’s going on?’
No one answered.
‘Are we safe here?’ she asked.
Harry nodded slowly. ‘I think so. For the moment. I’ll stir up the fire in the lounge. Ed, would you lock all the doors and check the windows are closed? Lia, you look like you need a shower. Jasmine, maybe you could make tea and something to eat. That’ll make everyone feel better. If you don’t mind.’
Jasmine shot him a look but he didn’t notice. Ash would have been crushed and apologetic if he implied that the women should do women’s work, but either Harry didn’t notice or he didn’t care. After he had made up the fire, he joined them in the kitchen and started cutting slices off a cooked chicken. It occurred to her then that while Ash would never have said anything sexist, she had also never seen him do anything domestic. Of course, he had a cleaner and always ate out. As she spread rich yellow butter on slices of bread, she glanced at Harry’s hands. They were big, long-fingered and veined. Man’s hands. God, what was wrong with her? She was acting like a silly teenager.
Harry finished slicing chicken and glanced at her. Something passed between them, like a flame.
She put the sandwiches together and poured the water onto tea bags in a faded flowery teapot. And, all the while, her mind was spinning. There were so many memories of Will here. No one had explained who Ed was but she saw how he was with Lia. And there was Harry. She had been certain that she would never feel like this again. Could it be real, when Will felt so close?
She tried to tell herself not to be ridiculous, but he was like a magnet and she was drawn to glance in his direction. Lia came back from her shower, still bruised and stiff, but looking better. Together, not yet able to talk, they focused on setting out the food.
The others trooped in and everyone ate in silence.
Finally, when everyone was sipping the last of the tea, Jasmine spoke up.
‘Someone start. Tell me what’s going on.’
Lia started, but Ed joined in. Harry didn’t say anything, just listened and watched her reactions.
The Jasmine she had been before Will died might have said that they were all suffering from some sort of group hysteria but, whatever her intellect might tell her, she had seen that winged creature and heard that unearthly scream.
She looked at Harry. ‘Can she be killed?’
His eyes darkened. ‘Killed? I don’t know. Maybe contained. This, whatever this is, is new to me too.’
‘Kill it with fire,’ Lia said.
Everyone looked at her. She blushed.
‘Well, that’s what the entire internet would say.’
Harry stood up. ‘No one is doing anything tonight. It’s too dangerous out there. We’ll make a plan in the morning. For now, I think we should stay put and stick together.’
Jasmine could see the wisdom of this. Something terrible had been out there. The sound of it was enough to chill her blood. Besides, the wind had built to a howl and rain was striking the windows. In the end, they pulled mattresses into the lounge and all settled down in front of the built-up fire. Jasmine thought that no one would sleep, but stress and the heat of the fire worked on them until the room was quiet. It was almost comforting to be inside listening to the storm outside. It was like the storms that Will had described to her. She drifted into an unsettled sleep, filled with strange images and Harry’s face, close to hers.
Evan stood in the door of the barn, listening to the cows chewing behind him. He loved the sound and the sweet scent of the silage and the animals themselves. His own farm was mostly tillage, providing winter feed for the island’s animals.
‘Alright?’ Jim said.
Evan nodded. Jim leaned against the opposite side of the door and lit a fag. Together, they looked across the yard at the main house. Andrew had gone straight in and not bothered to help feed his own animals.
‘So, what do you think about all this?’ Jim said.
Evan glanced at the man who was his closest and oldest friend. Jim was the oldest of them. He had grey in his hair and his beard grew nearly white when he let it. It was just growing back after a period of being smooth-shaven, dusting his lip and chin with a touch of snow. His red nose showed the signs of his whiskey consumption.
Evan considered the question. Neither of them were talkers, but the oceans of time behind them had led them to a deep understanding. They both had wives and children at the moment, which was hard. It would have been better if they had been between families. Still, it was what it was.
After a while, during which Jim waited patiently, smoking, Evan answered.
‘Sure, it’s all coming to an end, I’d say – wouldn’t you?’
‘Aye,’ Jim said.
There didn’t seem to be anything else to say, so they watched the bursts of cold rain lash the cobbles of the yard. When the wind and rain came properly, as it would very soon, it would be hard enough to hurt, to knock unstable fences, to break holes in sheds, to lift anything that wasn’t nailed down. The sea was already much too dangerous to take a boat out, although they had considered it.
Andrew thought they were here because they were brainless followers of his. Clever as the others all thought they were, it had never occurred to them that he and Jim did whatever it took to get by. Being overlooked had often proved useful and it might again. It meant that they were here in the warmth of the animals instead of in the Hall with whatever Dan had become. That was another mistake Andrew and Harry had made. They didn’t have a grip on things anymore. They all would have been better off if Dan had been thrown into the sea. The days when the Strix was happy draining a body for sustenance were apparently gone. Maybe she was lonely for others like herself.
They heard her shriek, somewhere out there.
‘She’s having fun tonight,’ Jim said.
‘Yeah. Tomorrow night will be different.’
‘Aye.’ Jim carefully crushed the butt of his cigarette in a puddle and lit another.
Thunder rolled in the distance.
‘I think Brendan’s gone,’ Evan said.
‘It’s like when Will went. You can feel it.’
Jim was right. Evan could feel it. It felt like a missing limb. There but not there.
He turned to his old friend.
‘I’ve had enough. I’m tired.’
‘Me too,’ Jim said.
After a pause, Evan put his hand out for a fag and Jim lit it for him.
‘So what would happen if someone, not naming anyone now, if someone went up there tonight and set the place alight?’ Evan said, drawing a circle in the dull light with the end of the cigarette.
‘Hmm.’ Jim blew a smoke-ring which was swept away by the wind.
‘I mean,’ Evan said, ‘it would break the bond and certain people might just be able to get on with things the way they’re meant to be.’ He pulled on the cigarette. ‘I’m fond of the lads,’ he said, nodding in the direction of his house, where his wife and eldest son were waiting for him to come home. The other kids had gone across to be with their mainland wives and husbands. They were better off.
‘Aye. Supposing a couple of lads did that, while herself is out having the craic. Before she settles in for the serious business.’
Evan nodded and dropped his cigarette beside Jim’s first one, watching it sizzle. Jim put his down and ground all three with his boot heel.
‘Will we head off so?’
‘Aye,’ Jim said.
Twenty-Four
Though sympathy al
one can’t alter facts,
it can help to make them more bearable.
Bram Stoker, Dracula, 1897
Rose woke up in the dark, feeling ill and thirsty. She could hear Becky and Matt talking quietly in their bedroom. Her neck was throbbing painfully but that wasn’t the worst of it. There was something in her. It was like she had got a bit of the virus that Frank had been fully exposed to. She could feel it crawling through her veins, a creeping parasite exploring its new home. She wanted to cut into herself to get it out, but she knew that wouldn’t work.
Frank had done something to Becky when he touched her bump. To her, or the baby. Becky had nearly died. There was no way that Rose was going to be a danger to Becky or the baby. She couldn’t stay here with them.
The first part of the storm had come. It was now November. It felt cosy here, with the baby asleep in his room and big, solid Matt in the kitchen, but she knew that it was an illusion. That thing, that creature, was out there and nowhere was safe. And the men were somehow responsible.
She thought back over the many nights she had helped out in the pub, when drink had loosened their tongues and made them believe they were whispering. There had been a word she didn’t understand. She thought she hadn’t heard it properly, but now it came to her clearly, like her blood was screaming the name of its invader. Strix. She didn’t know what it was, but she knew its name. One part of her wanted to recoil from the word. That was the part that wanted to protect Becky and the baby. It was the part that had made her try to lead the birds away when they were attacking Ed and Lia. It was the part that forgave Matt when he broke her china because he was too big and built for the outdoors.
The other part was new. It sharpened and focused as though the word had called it. It wanted to be close to its maker, to serve and to worship. If she allowed that part to grow strong, she would lose herself and those she loved. And she knew it would become strong, because that part of her was alien, not really her at all. That part of her, spreading through her veins was the Strix. That wild creature was at once somewhere out there, and inside her.
Daughter of the Storm Page 19