The island god, p.4
The Island God, page 4
The tiredness that had been dogging her all day swooped in. She had intended to prop up her pillows and sit up next to Luke, but now she found she didn’t want to be upright for a moment longer. She laid down, curled onto her side, one hand underneath her cheek. Speaking quietly while facing away from him, and not sure whether he would even hear her, she let the quietest part of her say the thing it most wanted. ‘Will you hold me?’
* * *
Matteo left The Rising Moon at the same time as Fiona. He held the door for her and she was grateful for the simple kindness. Hamish was wriggling in her arms, fussy and tired. ‘I need to get this one to bed,’ she said at her front door.
Matteo smiled and nodded. His eyes were soft and Fiona had the distinct impression that he wanted to speak. She waited for a beat, giving him the opportunity, but Hamish was reaching for the front door, arms outstretched and pulling her off balance. She shifted her stance to avoid falling, and Matteo backed away. He raised a hand in farewell and turned to walk to his shop.
Inside, Fiona focused on Hamish’s bedtime routine. Warming his milk, dressing him in soft cotton pyjamas, reading his favourite stories. Finally, she wound the dial on the chunky plastic music box. It projected waves and fish onto the ceiling and played a lullaby. Euan had liked it as a baby, and she was glad she had kept it.
Closing the door softly, she went to the living room to sit down. Euan had emerged from his bedroom and was sprawled on the sofa, all gangly limbs and one arm stretched up behind his head. Fiona had an acute understanding that she was straddling two stages of motherhood. And then the realisation that, despite all of the protective thoughts she had thrown up – not to get too attached, that Hamish didn’t belong to her, and that his real mother might change her mind and ask for him back – she felt like he was hers. She felt motherly toward Hamish and there was no amount of rationalising that would prevent it.
‘You all right, love?’ She focused her attention on the half-boy-half-man prone on the furniture.
He rolled his head, and as soon as he saw her face, he sat up. ‘What’s wrong?’
Fiona sank onto the nearest seat and prepared to explain the inexplicable to her firstborn.
* * *
Winter stuck to Hammer’s side all the way back to the boathouse. He wasn’t a small dog and a less solid man would probably have been knocked over by the dog pressing against his legs as he walked. The moon was almost full and he didn’t need his torch for the path from the village to Harbour Bay.
The stove was banked up and Hammer woke up the fire to chase the damp chill of the evening. He thought Winter would be more comfortable in his own home, but the idea of staying in Tobias’s house was unthinkable. Better to consider this a strange one-off aberration. Nothing permanent.
He didn’t feel hungry, but warmed up a tin of stew on the stove. He opened a second tin and emptied it into a bowl, which he put down for Winter, along with a dish of water. He would need to get dog food, he supposed. Maybe he ought to pick up supplies from Tobias’s house. His mind rebelled again at this line of thought. Tobias would be back tomorrow. Winter would be back with his master, in North House where they both belonged.
There was a knock on the door and Hammer opened it quickly, expecting Tobias to be standing there, ready to take his dog and his rightful place in Hammer’s life. Constant.
It was Bee. Her long hair was braided, as usual, but strands had escaped, forming a halo around her face. ‘I need you to tell me what happened.’
‘I already did,’ Hammer said, but he stepped back so that Bee could enter.
She shook her head. ‘You come outside. Winter, stay.’
Winter whined softly, but when Hammer stepped outside to join Bee, he left his position of leg limpet and allowed Hammer to close the door. He left it ajar, making sure that Winter could come outside if he really wanted to. He knew what it was like to be imprisoned and it didn’t sit right with him to do it to anyone, even a dog.
Bee took a few paces away from the doorway, and it struck Hammer that she didn’t want to speak in front of the dog. He had clearly been on Unholy Island for too long, as it didn’t even seem odd.
She stuck her hands into her pockets, face serious. ‘What were you doing on Àite Marbh?’
And there it was. The question he couldn’t really answer. He was the enforcer on the island. He was prosaic. There when heavy things needed to be lifted or a rowdy tourist escorted out of the pub. He was there to provide an air of menace so that just his presence ensured there wasn’t any trouble. And, if there was trouble, he was there to deal with it. This was above his pay grade, and he felt a stab of resentment.
‘I saw a light. Moving.’ He pointed to the islet. Its dark silhouette was deepest black against the night sky. His gaze skidded away, unwilling to look at it for long.
‘Like someone using a torch?’
He nodded. ‘Then there was smoke.’
‘And Tobias volunteered to go with you?’
‘He saw the fire,’ Hammer said, hating his defensive tone. ‘It wasn’t just me.’
‘Okay,’ Bee said. ‘You decided together to go to Àite Marbh.’
He couldn’t maintain eye contact with Bee’s pale blue stare. ‘Yeah.’
‘And you didn’t think to ask what I thought?’ The words were crisp.
‘No.’ Hammer didn’t embellish. He wasn’t a big one for talking at the best of times, and this was one of the very worst. He felt bad enough about Tobias going missing on his watch, he wasn’t going to compound it by making excuses.
‘And then what happened? Exactly.’
Hammer tried to recount the trip to the islet. The mound. The doorway. Tobias being there and not there in the blink of an eye.
‘Did you see anything else?’ Bee was still searching his face, her gaze intent. ‘Could be anything at all.’
‘No.’
Bee’s lips tightened. ‘No lights or creatures or things that might have seemed like hallucinations?’
He shook his head.
‘Even a strange smell or sound. Anything out of the ordinary?’
‘It was very quiet.’ Hammer remembered now. The eerie stillness of the small island.
‘And Tobias went in first?’
‘Yeah. I was going to wait outside, but I followed him. He was right in front of me.’ Hammer held up his arm to demonstrate. ‘I could touch him.’
‘What happened?’
‘And then I couldn’t.’ Hammer let his arm fall. ‘He was just gone.’
Chapter Six
On the morning after Tobias went missing, a fog rolled across Unholy Island. It coated the land, hugged the village buildings and hid the pathways. The familiar landmarks of the island, the castle and causeway and the ruined church, were all disguised in thick grey robes. Bee liked fresh air and always slept with her bedroom window wide open. She woke up to find the thick mist in her bedroom. An uninvited guest that hung in a sullen miasma around her bed and made everything beyond murky and indistinct. She closed her window and got dressed quickly in clothes that were slightly damp. It was going to be a long day.
* * *
Luke woke up in Esme’s bedroom. He remembered lying down. Esme’s sleepy voice telling him it was okay if he wanted to sleep where he was and him saying that he would just wait for her to fall asleep and then he would go. He had pulled the pillows down and wrapped his arms around her, listened to her breathing as it became deep and regular. And he must have fallen asleep.
He was still fully dressed, but had shifted underneath the duvet during the night. Esme had pushed her half of the duvet down in the night and was curled up against his body, her head on his torso and one arm flung around his waist. Her wavy brown hair was spread across his chest, and his hand itched with the urge to touch it. His other arm was stretched underneath her and he stayed completely still, worried about waking her up and how she might feel when she realised she was cuddled up to him.
A loud yowling sound from outside the bedroom door reverberated loudly, shattering the early morning quiet. Esme opened her eyes and lifted her head. ‘I shut Jet out,’ she said, wiping the side of her face self-consciously.
‘He’s not best pleased,’ Luke said.
Esme’s cheeks were flushed pink, and he wondered if she had ever looked so pretty. He knew that part of his body was responding to waking up and was pressing against his jeans. He hoped, fervently, that Esme hadn’t noticed.
Her gaze flicked down and he sat up quickly, hoping to hide any evidence. ‘Shall I let him in?’
‘Better had, he won’t stop…’ Esme was back on her side of the bed, the duvet pulled up to her chin.
Luke swung his legs off the bed and crossed to the door. Esme’s cat didn’t seem particularly grateful to him for opening the door, but he stopped yowling at least. Luke scowled at the little bastard as he leapt onto the bed and rubbed the top of his head against Esme’s chin.
‘I’ll go and make coffee.’ He scrubbed his face, trying to fully wake up.
‘Tea for me, please,’ Esme replied, focusing on the furry interloper.
Downstairs, Luke realised he was smiling as he made the hot drinks. He was still worried about Tobias, of course, and it was no time to be happy, but he couldn’t help it. He had stayed the night in Esme’s bed. Whatever worries her conscious mind threw up, her body had relaxed enough to sleep next to him and to curl up close. He wrapped his arms around his own torso, remembering the feel of Esme’s arm across his middle, the weight of her head on his chest.
Through the window, the garden was obscured by a thick sea fog. It pressed against the glass as if it wanted to come into the warmth of the house and was oppressively, obnoxiously grey. He turned away from it, thinking of the woman upstairs. However bad the weather, however worried he was about Tobias, he knew one thing for certain: he was exactly where he wanted to be.
* * *
With some relief, Bee discovered that the fog hadn’t got further than her bedroom. She walked downstairs and found Diana in the main room of The Three Sisters’ house. The plants grew energetically and bloomed all year round, and Diana was talking to a particularly vigorous fern. She had small secateurs in one hand and was patiently explaining to the plant that it needed to stay beneath the ceiling or its leaves would go black.
‘We have a problem.’
Diana put the secateurs onto the nearest surface and gave Bee a reassuring smile. ‘I doubt that.’
‘Tobias has gone.’
A beat. The tiniest frown appeared on Diana’s smooth and healthy skin. ‘What do you mean, gone? To the mainland?’
Bee shook her head. She found she couldn’t form the words.
‘That’s not possible,’ Diana said after another moment.
Bee sank onto a floor cushion, legs crossed. The damp cloth of her shirt was sticking unpleasantly to her skin.
Diana joined her on the floor. Kneeling close so that she could look into Bee’s eyes. ‘Where?’
‘I don’t know.’ She needed time to think. She would close her eyes and look inside, see what answers were waiting.
‘We could look,’ Diana said. She didn’t mean meditation, though. She meant the three mirrors that waited, shrouded, in the room next door.
‘It won’t help,’ Bee said, closing her eyes. It never helped. When you had foreseen as much as The Three Sisters, you realised that knowing made no difference. You could look ahead and see the path as clear as day, but the present would unfold in its own night-time way. And the end would come just as sharp, just as final.
‘Shall we tell Luce?’
She opened her eyes. Lucy. Their youngest sister. Strong, unpredictable, hedonistic. Feral.
‘Not yet,’ Bee said.
‘She’s fond of Tobias,’ Diana warned.
Was she? Bee hadn’t realised that Lucy was particularly aware of any of the island’s residents. But, she supposed, Tobias was different. And perhaps even the basest heathens had a god.
* * *
After Luke had gone home to open the bookshop, Esme went upstairs to look at the painting she had ruined the day before. The dark shape squatted in the middle of her seascape, just as awful as she remembered. The longer she looked at it, the darker it seemed to get.
She was distracted by the sound of her landline. Hurrying down the stairs to answer it, she almost tripped on Jet.
Fiona’s voice was very welcome. ‘Do you want to come round for a wee bit?’
Jet had followed her to the dining room, his tail raised in the air and expression indignant. Esme could still see the dark shape from the painting in her studio behind her eyes, feel it pulling at her as if it wanted something. She said she most definitely did and went to get her shoes and coat.
Fiona’s living room was a comforting jumble of cushions, cups, toys and books. Domestic normality helped her to stop seeing the dark shape of the islet, but it couldn’t stop her from feeling like a failure. Tobias was gone, and she wasn’t doing anything to find him. ‘I just feel so bloody useless,’ Esme said, not for the first time.
Fiona passed a blue plastic block to Hamish and made a sympathetic sound. ‘I know, hen.’
‘Why did he go into the cairn? Why even go to the islet?’
‘Bee said he saw something. A fire.’
‘I know,’ Esme said. And she did know. Tobias was the mayor and he had probably felt that he had to go and investigate. She wondered if he had been frightened.
‘He’s not gone forever,’ Fiona said. ‘He wouldn’t leave us.’
Esme wanted to ask how Fiona knew, but she was scared to press the issue. It would be nicer to just accept her comforting words.
‘I just wish there was something we could do.’
‘Ock,’ Hamish said. Esme realised that he was addressing her. He held out a pink block. An offering.
‘Thank you,’ Esme said, accepting it.
‘Ock!’ Hamish said a moment later.
‘He wants you to hand it back,’ Fiona said. ‘Sorry. He probably won’t stop now.’
No sooner had Hamish accepted the pink block back, he shouted ‘ock!’ in triumph and offered a yellow version.
‘Is there anything you can do?’ Fiona asked, not looking at Esme. ‘As the Ward Witch?’
‘I don’t know,’ Esme said, feeling wretched again. ‘I’ve been reading books from the shop and there are spells for finding, but I don’t know if any of them are real.’ She wasn’t going to volunteer that she had already tried one involving candles, a crystal and some chanting that felt like a meditation mantra. Tobias hadn’t walked back into their lives, and now there was the fog.
* * *
After several rounds of pass the block, Esme made her excuses and left the house. She could still barely see more than a couple of feet. Esme had seen plenty of mist in her time on the island, formed over the cold sea and blown inland by the warmer air currents. They called it a haar and expected several days to be lost to the blank damp over the summer. This fog seemed different, though. It seemed to have seeped from below the island and was now advancing up the walls of the stone buildings. Soon Esme couldn’t see her own knees and felt as if she was wading in a thick grey sea. It cut sound, too, so the village was eerily quiet. Was the island expressing its feelings? After Alvis died, there was a terrible storm. Did the fog mean that Tobias was dead, too?
* * *
The sky was red. It took a moment before Tobias realised that it wasn’t the sky. It was the ground. It was dry and cracked, the redness was the earth itself. He wasn’t in the sea anymore and that was bad. He didn’t remember this place, and that was even worse. He knew his memory wasn’t as pin sharp as it had once been, but he was good with places. Or was it faces? He knew he was good with one of the two.
He touched the ground and felt the fine grain of sand. He licked his lips and tasted salt. The red cracked earth stretched for as far as he could see in any direction, vast and utterly featureless. The horizon was a thin line of bright light. He couldn’t see a sun, but he could feel heat beating down onto the top of his head, so he began walking across the barren plain. He needed to find shade.
Chapter Seven
After tea with Esme, her sitting in bed in her pyjamas and him in the clothes he had slept in sitting next to her, Luke had made his way home to open the bookshop for the day. He hadn’t been sure whether it was the right thing to do. Tobias going missing felt as if there ought to be a day of mourning or something to mark respect, but Esme thought they should carry on as normal. She seemed to think that if they acted as though Tobias was just going to wander back into the village, then maybe he would.
The shop greeted him by illuminating soft lights. He patted the counter as he walked past and went upstairs to wash and change. When he took his phone out of his jeans pocket, he realised he had a new WhatsApp message. His mouth was dry as he tapped to open it. Nobody else he knew used WhatsApp. Below the message that Hammer had written – send proof of life – there was a reply. It was the address of a Wetherspoons pub on Otley Road and a time, three o’clock.
His heart had stuttered and begun racing at the sight of the message notification. His first hope – that it was Lewis, finally replying – was instantly snuffed out. The way the message was written, short as it was, didn’t feel like Lewis. If his brother wanted him to meet at a certain time and place, he would have added some more information. Especially after all this time.
It was most likely to be from Dean Fisher, the criminal boss that Lewis had pissed off, or one of his minions. Maybe he was finally going to offer proof of life, or perhaps he was ready to make some kind of deal. Something that would result in Lewis’s return. Or, this was his way of tying up loose ends. Maybe he was ready to get rid of the one person looking for Lewis Taylor.
