Stormswept (2 page)

“Was he?” says Jenna now, in a carefully neutral voice.

“What?”

“In detention. Bran.”

“Yeah. He walked out halfway through though. He’ll get suspended again, I think.”

Jenna flinches.

“Bran won’t care about a suspension, Jen.”

“His dad hits him,” says Jenna in a low voice. She may not be friends with Bran any more, but she still knows a lot more about him than anyone else does. But the fact that Bran’s dad is violent isn’t exactly news. He used to live on the Island, when he was still married to Bran’s mum, because she’s an Islander, like us. She’s gone away, upcountry. I think Bran still sees her, but I’m not sure. I look at Jenna. She’s frowning and her face is full of worry. Jenna hates any kind of violence. Even the kind of fights boys have in primary school used to make her hide away in the girls’ toilets.

Mum and Dad aren’t at home. Mum’s left a note telling us that they’re rehearsing with Ynys Musyk in the village hall. Digory’s gone with them and there’s a stew in the oven. Ynys Musyk is our island band. Everybody plays in it more or less, although not Jago Faraday. The only time he even sings is at funerals, very loud and very flat. There’s a reason why our band is so important, but it’s complicated. We don’t usually talk about it to outsiders, because they wouldn’t believe it. They’d probably think it’s just a legend, one of those stories for tourists.

Digory is our little brother. He’s seven and he plays the violin. I do too, but Digory’s playing is something different. In the summer, when the visitors come, they hear Digory practising and they tell Mum and Dad that something ought to be done for him, as if Mum and Dad are too stupid to know how good Digory is. (Some tourists think that because there’s no mobile signal on the Island, and we don’t have broadband, that we are out of touch with the real world.) They say that Digory ought to go away to a music school on the mainland, to develop his talent. But Mum tells Digory to go and practise away down by the shore where nobody will hear him. She doesn’t want Digory leaving home, and nor do any of us. It’s bad enough that we have to go to school on the mainland once we’re past the Infants, because there aren’t enough of us to be educated here. At least we come home every night. The music school would be far away upcountry and Digory would have to board there. He would hate that.

When you grow up on an island you don’t ever want to leave it. It gives you such a safe feeling when the water swirls all around and no one can get to you. No, not safe exactly… Complete. As if you have everything that you will ever need, and nothing that you don’t need. Even though a causeway connects us to the mainland at low tide, we are still a true island. Sometimes in winter, when there’s a storm, we can’t go to school for days. I love the season of storms. No one can reach us then. We are supposed to keep up with school worksheets and reading, but even Jenna doesn’t bother.

Some people say that the sea is rising year by year, and the coastline will slowly crumble away as it retreats from the oncoming water. If that happens, we’ll be cut off from the mainland even at low tide. I’d like it, but other people say we couldn’t survive like that, and we’d have to build up the causeway, even though it would cost millions. Otherwise the tourists won’t come, and most of our income will be gone. It’s hard to make money here. The only jobs are fishing and tourism, unless you’re a doctor or a nurse or something like that. Mum has a part-time job in the post office.

Jenna stuffs our shoes with newspaper and washes the salt water out of our tights, while I put on potatoes to go with the stew. It is dark outside now, but inside it’s warm and you can smell the bread Mum made earlier, which is cooling on racks in the kitchen, ready for the freezer. The wind is blowing hard. The sea is beating up, and even with the door and windows closed we can hear the waves thump on the rocks. There will be deep water now where Jenna and I stood on the causeway. I shiver. Sometimes it frightens me, how quickly the world can shift between safety and danger. I want to retreat into a small, secure space. But at other times, risk pulls me like a magnet. I remember that strange feeling, when the sea almost lifted me off the causeway. I
wanted
it to lift me. Where did I want it to take me?

Maybe Jago Faraday is right, and I’m leading Jenna into trouble. She is so cautious and sensible. She would never take a risk unless I did, but then she would always follow me.

“You should dry your hair, Morveren,” says Jenna. “It’s dripping down your back.”

We both have long dark hair that reaches almost to our waists. When we were little Mum used to give us different partings, so that other people knew which one of us they were talking to, and she would buy blue hairbands for Jenna and green for me, because those were our favourite colours. We don’t bother with any of that now. If people don’t see that our characters are completely different, and that makes our faces different too, then let them go on mixing us up.

A thought strikes me. “You could do my detention for me next time.”

“It would still get written into your school diary,” says Jenna, who has clearly worked this out long ago. Otherwise, she
would
do the detention for me, I think. Jenna’s like that.

There’s a bang at the window, and I jump.

“That shutter’s come loose again,” says Jenna calmly.

“I’ll fix it,” I say, and before she can offer to help, I slip out of the door.

The night is wild now, full of wind and rain. All the cottages on the Island have shutters, to protect the glass in the windows from winter storms. I grab the loose shutter as it slams against the sill, and wedge in the hook that holds it. The wind whips my hair and I taste salt on my lips. Sometimes, when there is a storm, salt spray flies right over the Island. We go down to the headland and watch the waves battering the Hagger Rocks. I could go there now. I can find my way in the dark. I know every stone of the Island – we all do.

The wind whirls round the corner of our cottage. It’s pushing me, folding around me. The branches of our tamarisk tree whip above my head. How strange – I’m not by the window now, I’m already at the gate. The wind is shoving me along as if it knows where it wants me to go. My hand is on the latch. I open it, and now the wind seizes hold of me, carrying me with it, almost lifting me off my feet.

hen a storm is raging, I feel ten times more alive. Storms are in my blood, because of the way our island came to be, and the way I came to be here.

Long ago, there was no Island, and no wide bay full of sea. Mainland and Island were all one. There was solid land here, where our ancestors built a great city. It had wide streets and rich houses, and a hall as big as a cathedral, where they held gatherings. Everybody in that city loved music, and they would come together to play and sing and dance all night long, until they went home in the grey light of dawn.

But one night everything changed. The hall was packed with people. There was a great gathering, with music that was going to play all night long. There were fiddles and bodhrans, bagpipes, whistles and harps. The music flooded out, and in spite of the crowd everybody was dancing. All you could hear was the skirl of the band and the stamp of hundreds of feet.

That’s why nobody heard the change in the wind. It had been blowing a gale all day, but our ancestors were used to gales and bad weather, just as we are. They didn’t let it stop their celebrations. The wind grew louder and louder, louder than any wind that had ever been heard in that land. It roared around the roof like an express train, and as it blew the sea began to move.

It moved slowly and stealthily at first, as if it didn’t want to alarm anyone. Only one person saw what was happening, and that was a boy who was perched up on his father’s shoulders so that he could see everything. The windows were high up in the walls and only the boy could look out of them. He turned, just as the moon broke free of the raging clouds and shone out. The boy saw the wild, foaming waves flatten as if a giant hand were pressing down on them. And then, very slowly the sea began to move backwards, as if it were swilling away down a giant plughole.

The boy blinked. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

“Dad! Dad!“ he shouted. “The sea’s going backwards!”But his father didn’t hear him above the noise in the hall. The boy stared with his mouth open. In the far distance, where the sea had gone, he saw a wall of water, higher than any wave he had ever surfed, higher than any house, far higher than the walls of the great hall. It was as black as night with a crest of curling foam. It was moving, but not backwards now. It was coming in towards the land.

The boy cried out, so loud that this time his voice was heard above all the noise in the hall:

“The sea! The sea’s coming!”

People close by frowned at him for screaming like that. The band kept on playing, but one man heard the terror in the boy’s voice, and he went to the doors at the back of the hall and pulled them open. Outside it was almost dark. The air streamed with spray until it was hard to see anything. But the moon shone out and then the man saw what the boy had seen: a wall of water advancing slowly but with terrifying force, as if nothing in the world could stop it. The hair on his scalp prickled. A cold wind roared through the hall from the open door. At the same moment the man’s voice rang out like a trumpet:

“The sea’s coming! Run for your lives!”

The fiddler stopped playing, with his elbow raised. Everyone stood frozen for a second and then a wave of panic rushed through the crowd. People began to shove towards the door, grabbing their children and their loved ones. Some clambered up to the windows and there was the crash of breaking glass, and then a scream. The blind fiddler held his fiddle high. Whatever happened, he would protect what was most precious to him. He couldn’t see what was happening but he could smell the panic and hear the cries of parents calling for their children:

“The sea’s coming! Cador, where are you? Tamasin! Tamasin!”

“The sea’s coming! We’ll be trapped!”

They’d lived with the sea all their lives. They knew all about storms, but this they had never seen. Those at the back of the hall could see the wall of water rushing towards them, reaching for them, as they fought to get out of the doors.

The boy on his father’s shoulders saw the blind fiddler holding his fiddle high. He bent down and shouted into his father’s ear above the roar of the water and the screams and cries:

“Father! We must help him! He can’t find the door!”

In a few strides the boy’s father made his way along the wall, away from the crowd pressing towards the doors. The jam of people was too dangerous now, the father judged. His boy would be crushed. He would try to get the boy to safety another way, and the blind fiddler, if he would come with them.

They begged the fiddler to follow them, but he refused.

“You’ve got your young one,” he said. “Take my fiddle and run for the highest ground.”

The blind man put his fiddle into the boy’s arms, and the boy held it high. The father climbed on a chair, smashed a window and knocked out the glass with his boot. He lifted his boy high, still holding the fiddle, and put him up on the window ledge. The boy clung to the stone frame. Outside it was dark and the ground was a long way down.

“Jump!” he said. “Jump! I’m coming after you!”

The boy jumped. He landed on his feet then stumbled and fell on one knee, but still he held the fiddle safe. He looked up for his father, but his father shouted, “Run! Run, Conan! I’m coming after you! Run for the highest ground! I’ll be right behind you!
Run!”

The boy obeyed his father, and ran. He could hear the gathering roar of the sea, and ahead of him he could see the shadow of the Castle Mound, which was the highest place for miles. He held the fiddle in his arms and ran until his breath burned in his lungs, and his heart was pounding. The sea was behind him. He didn’t dare to turn. It was like a wild animal, roaring at his heels. In front of him the bulk of the Mound grew clearer. He was almost there. Just a few more breaths, just a few more desperate pounding steps. His feet were on the rock. He was stumbling, falling, with the fiddle held high above his head to keep it clear of the water. At that moment an arm reached out and dragged him up on to the rock, and held him tight. He was safe on the Mound.