“Maybe my mum was darker.”
“You don’t know?”
“I don’t remember,” she said. “Hardly anything about where we were from. Just that we came on the boat. And …”
She shrugged. And … what?
Something spicy-good.
Hiding in a dark, small place.
An angry man.
The images from Pa’s cave. Could they be memories too?
Finn sighed. “Do those flowers make you forget?”
She shrugged. “Sometimes.”
She didn’t like this conversation, or the way it left her feeling perched and uncertain as a new-hatched kittiwake: If she took one step too far too soon, she’d fall. There’d be sharp cliffs to catch her. She peered again at currant bushes, looked again at pine trees. No fishboy hisses, no shadow-slip of a body moving through branches.
“The flowers do good things, too,” Moss said, quiet. “They made Aster come.”
“And they’re pretty! So brightly colored! If they were back home, everyone would have them. Could charge a fortune for a bouquet of them!”
As Aster weaved through the forest track, Moss told Finn how Pa once made the flowers glow wonder-bright just from thinking about them. “They swayed when he passed by.” She paused, remembering how the flowers used to glow even more so, how they lit up pathways on the sand. “It’s only recent he’s been going to Blackness again. Cal thinks it’s the flowers changing him. I’m not sure.”
Finn was silent for a good long while. When they ducked under branches, he laid his forehead against her.
“You know,” he started, “I can see why someone wouldn’t want to leave this island. With those flowers and how pretty everything is—with how no one would know you were here. It doesn’t actually matter what the rest of the world is doing when you’re in a place like this. It’s the perfect place to hide. If you’d done something wrong, I mean. If someone was not entirely right in the head …”
And again there was that swirling feeling inside her, tying her stomach up—there was something in what Finn said that she didn’t want to think about. Moss pressed her legs against Aster and urged her faster. The quicker they were from the dark pines, the better. The quicker they got to the wide stretch of beach … found Finn’s friend and boat … found Cal. They’d make a plan then, the four of them. Work out what to do about Pa. Decide how to get to the Flicker-land.
“Western Beach is the biggest beach,” she said chipper-quick, as much to change her own whirring thoughts as to tell Finn. “When you were in your boat, do you remember seeing a stretch of big sand? A long point going into the sea?”
Finn shook his head.
“Any lizards?”
“Lizards?”
“Sometimes they swim in the water.”
“How big are these things if they’re swimming?”
“Big as Pa’s tall. Some of them.”
She felt Finn glancing from side to side. “Would they hurt Tommy?”
“Not if he’s smart.”
“What if he’s unconscious?”
Moss kept quiet, gave Adder’s ears a scratch, checked the sky: grayer now, sure, but the wind wasn’t up. Surely Pa couldn’t—wouldn’t—bring in another storm? Why should he after so long? But why eat all those stormflowers earlier either?
When they were almost out of the forest, she nudged Aster into a trot before remembering Finn couldn’t cling on.
“Warn me when you’re going to do that!” he huffed, gripping hard to her waist.
The trees thinned as the ground changed to dunes. Moss felt Aster’s muscles strain as she started on the uphill. When was the last time Pa had taken her here? When Moss was a Small Thing, she and Pa would gallop Aster ’til her sides heaved and she went calmer. Moss touched her withers now, gave gentle thoughts.
Finn scooched closer behind, until Moss felt his warm chest pressed full against her back. It made her remember the way she’d slept against Cal.
At the top of the dunes, Finn looked over her shoulders, straining to see. Like Aster, his body was tense with excitement. Moss felt herself grow tense, too. Perhaps they would find Finn’s boat, and maybe Cal and the new human would be mending it already! Then it would only be a short while until she saw the world from the storybooks … the unflooded world. Where would they go first? Once there, would she remember this island at all?
“You’ll love where I live,” Finn said, almost as if he were reading her thoughts. “You know, you could stay with us until you got yourself sorted. Mum wouldn’t mind. Just until I went to college, at least … Maybe then you could even come with me. And Tommy’s just down the road; you’ll like him too.”
He was speaking so fast, babbling like a songbird. Strange words from a strange world.
College … Come with … Got yourself sorted …
A real, live mum.
Finn reached forward and grasped hold of one of her hands. Adder snuffled at his fingertips. “I’ll help you fit in with the rest of us,” he said. “Promise I will.”
And that felt nice, his warm, soft hand on hers.
“What else would we do?” she said, daring herself to imagine it. “Go to a library? A supermarket? I want to see dancing! Shopping!” And all the other things she had read about in books!
Finn laughed. “All of that.”
The wind was playing with her hair and coverings, teasing them closer to the sea.
“We could go searching for your home,” he added softer. “For your mum, even! Find out what really happened to you. If you wanted to.”
That made her feel swirling again. She heard Finn swallow.
“There must be places we could go to find out, I mean,” Finn continued. “Maybe you were in the news. A disappearing child doesn’t just, well, disappear. There must be a story.”
“I wasn’t disappearing.”
The swirling and swirling. Her own story. A story that might be different from the one she’d always been told. What, exactly, did Finn think had happened to her? Who did he think Pa really was? And, anyway, did he not think Pa would come with them on the boat too? What else would he do?
When they were on top of the last dune and looking down on Western Beach proper, she heard Finn’s breath catch.
“Now I’ll believe there are unicorns,” Finn said, his head turning as if to take it all in.
It sounded like a line from a storybook, something she’d read. But after the dark forest, she supposed the beach did look like something shining. Flowers sprouted purple on this side of the island, patch-covering the beach, sending honey-violet scent their way. She could see aster-flowers too, growing among them in a slightly different purple shade. Again, she looked for the land on the horizon. Again, saw nothing.
She scanned the sand. The wide beach was torn open by the storm, and she saw quick-fast there was no boat ready to sail. There were other things, though, brought in on the waves—lumps of wood and twists of material. Perhaps that’s where Finn’s friend was, tangled up and needing help. Perhaps this was where Cal was, too.
“We should get closer,” she said.
“Good idea.”
She was looking to pick their path down when Finn leaned over Moss’s shoulder and kicked Aster firmly in the side.
“No, don’t—” Moss started to say, leaning back and grabbing the horse’s mane.
But it was too late. Aster took off, headstrong and lightning-fast down the dune, throwing them both forward. Finn’s fingers gripped harder around Moss’s stomach, Adder scrabbling to stay steady also. Moss clung to her dog, wrapping her other hand tight in Aster’s mane. She tried to send calm thoughts to make Aster slow. But Aster was wound up as a whirling-wind, pointed at the water. Moss willed the horse’s twig-snap legs not to find a rabbit hole.
Quick-fast, they were down the dune and going to the ocean. When her hooves found the sea-smacked sand, Aster’s speed went full-quicker. Almost too fast to breathe. But still she hadn’t lost Finn, or even Adder,
off the side: Moss felt claws and fingers digging sharp into her as proof of that. Maybe they should all jump off? They might have to if Aster entered the sea. Moss heard the roar of the waves, calling them close. She tightened her legs around the horse, trying to lean back and calm her that way.
“No,” Moss whispered. “Not time for you to be in there, Aster. Not for any of us.”
And, whether because of her thoughts or her strong embrace, the horse slowed. A little. Adder leapt off to run alongside. She tried to get in front of the horse to cut her off and round her back. She barked and barked.
“Aster-spirit, easy, soothe yourself.” Moss murmured the words over and over. She leaned forward over the horse’s neck and whispered in her ears. “Stay with us. Walk now. Easy. Not yet to the sea …”
Aster slowed a little more.
Finn gasped, his breath back in a rush. Moss felt the tension in Aster stretch out further. Moss couldn’t turn her from the ocean yet, but she would. She just had to keep the horse calm and listening.
Slower now, the horse went, ’til she was cantering again, then trotting, then in a walk. Moss unwound her grip from the mane, breathed deep. She turned to face Finn, glaring.
“Why did she take off like that?” Finn said between breaths.
“You kicked her, that’s why.” Moss might have hit him if she were not still thinking calm thoughts to Aster.
Finn was looking at the ocean, at where there were rock-teeth surfacing in the waves. “I didn’t think she’d want to go in there!”
“I told you, she’s not just a horse! Got her own desires too!”
And maybe, this time, a part of Finn believed it.
When Moss did turn Aster from the sea, they walked on wet sand, avoiding flowers and storm treasure, in the direction of Lizard Rocks, to where more rock-teeth waited. And, hopefully, two more boys. The horse’s ears flicked from the sound of the waves, to Moss’s soothings, to something only she could hear. Soon, there was a large shape up ahead: storm treasure they’d seen from a way back.
“It’s the sails!” Finn slid fast from Aster, started digging through. “But they’re all twisted!”
Moss laid her hand against Aster, skittering now at Finn’s voice. The flight had gone from the horse, sure, but her skin still twitched at every noise; her ears still flicked to a sound too faint for Moss to hear. Flowers singing?
“There’s nothing but the bloody sails!” Finn kicked the salt-stiff material. “And they’re so busted!”
Moss came to where Finn was searching. No Tommy. No Cal. But she could see, scattered throughout, shards of red painted wood, bits of metal, and stretches of rope. More of Finn’s boat.
“All splintered,” she whispered. “You can’t fix it, can you?”
Finn kept quiet. But she knew the answer—’course he couldn’t fix the boat. Finn could no more do that than she could fix Pa. They were stuck here. At least until they could build a new boat—and not one like the shaky raft Cal and her had built when they were Small Things, either. A proper boat, one ready to sail a long way. But even with Finn’s knowledge, how easy would that be?
Finn found a glinting thing, tangled up. “Compass,” he said, tossing it on his palm. “My dad’s. Weird that this survived when everything else …”
They watched its needle, spinning and twisting everywhere, never quite coming to rest. Finn shook and tapped it.
“Another thing I’ve broken.”
He put it in the pocket of his shirt, in front of his heart, and stared across the beach. Moss sat beside him. After a moment, he put his arm around her shoulders. She leaned into him and stared at the ocean too, looking for Cal’s land. She felt Finn’s sadness, heavy, as if it were a blanket they shared. She added her own.
“Sorry,” she said.
“What for?”
“That your boat is broken …”
That this place is breaking, too.
Finn shrugged. “It’s just how it is. Can’t exactly go back in time, can we?”
Finn rested his head down against hers. It felt nice, like they were sharing thoughts. She shut her eyes. Maybe if she concentrated, she would hear his thoughts—he’d be worrying about Tommy, maybe, that they were stuck here forever. She imagined going back with him to his town on the hill, wondered again what his home looked like. She was surprised to realize that she wasn’t as excited as he’d clearly wanted her to be.
“That boat was my dad’s,” Finn said, making her eyes open again. “Like the compass. He always said what me and Tommy were doing was stupid. ‘Why d’you want to go sailing around the world, anyway? You’ll just end up worrying your mother’—those were his words. Guess he was right. Guess I’ve worried a lot more people than just her now.”
Moss pressed her temple to Finn’s shoulder. “We’ll get you back to your home. Somehow we will.”
Though she didn’t know how. Moss thought about the raft she and Cal had made—how they hadn’t even gone far beyond the reef with it. How the weather, the storms, or something, had dragged them back. Near drowned them. She remembered, too, the watery man in the deeps, and hard-shivered. Finn squeezed her shoulders.
“We’ll find your Tommy, and then we’ll make a plan,” she said firm.
They’d find Cal, too.
Adder was racing in circles across the sand, and Moss was glad to see her wild movement. She smiled when Adder brought them a piece of boat in her jaws, head held high and tail wagging.
“At least she’s happy it smashed,” Finn said.
When Adder circled round a second time, Finn drew the dog into his chest, hugging her close. He buried his head into her fur. After a while, he looked up at Moss, studying her.
“Guess it wouldn’t be so bad being stuck here,” he said. “It’s pretty, at least. An adventure!” Half his mouth curled up into a sort of smile. “Maybe I could drop out like Pa, get those flowers to numb the pain. I could write about it someday. My memoir about the place that didn’t exist … That no one would ever find to read …”
He made a noise halfway between a laugh and a sob. Adder looked over Finn’s shoulder, her tongue lolling sideways and her tail thudding against his legs.
“Daft dog,” Moss said. To Finn, she pointed out the route they’d take through the Lizard Rocks. “That’s where we need to search next.”
Although parts of the rocks seemed to slither and shift, like scales glinting in the late-morning sun. Adder growled, noticing too. But it was too early in the day for the lizards to be waking. Unless the recent stormy-strange weather had set them off, changing their patterns.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go before it gets any later.”
She pushed at Finn, who’d gone flower-dopey again. She saw the heaviness, sure, in his eyelids. But she also saw the determination in his face as he stood up and stumbled toward the rocks. Moss took one last look at the ocean.
Could she see it again, out of the corner of her eye—flickering?
She squinted. Maybe there was something, far, far out. So far it almost looked like a storm cloud. She couldn’t be sure.
She prodded Finn. “Can you see any land there now?”
He frowned. “Maybe …”
She straightened. “True?”
He frowned harder, then looked around at the rest of the ocean. “I think it’s just a cloud or something.” But there was doubt in his face.
As there’d been doubt in Pa’s.
But quick-fast he shook his head and pulled her on.
“It keeps appearing, Finn,” she said, holding back from leaving. “I’m telling truth.”
He looked at her like she was the strangest creature he’d ever seen. “Land doesn’t just appear, Moss,” he said soft. “It’s either there or it’s not. Geography’s not like that.” He brushed the backs of his fingers against her arm. “No matter how much you … or anyone else … might want it to.” He waited, watching for her reaction. When she didn’t give him one, he sighed. “Look, I’ll tell you s
omething. When floods happen, do you know they actually flood islands first? This place would never have been left dry with the kind of floods you talked about.”
She shook her head, impatient. “It’s different here, we have stormflowers, remember? They make things change—they protect this place. The last safe …”
He reached forward and took her shoulders, turning her to him. “How can one island have different rules from the rest?” He looked hard into her eyes. “Water doesn’t just disappear—it can’t, it has to go somewhere. Islands don’t just pop out of the sea. Water doesn’t just go down. The world doesn’t work like that.”
“This world does.” Moss looked away. “And things have come out of the sea before,” she said. “Cal. Aster …”
Finn squeezed her fingers. “You don’t think this Cal could just be a washed-up boy like me? You don’t think Aster could just be a horse?”
She shook her head. Because Aster was not just anything. And Cal had gold dust in his eyes. And the longer she and Finn stayed there talking, the longer she wasn’t finding him.
Cal rested on his heels. The human’s skin was moist-warm as a reef anemone, almost so red as one, too. Fevery. Was Cal cooking him? But what else could he do but keep him warm and with water, but try to slip juicy-soft clams down his throat? He could go back for stormflowers—that’s what—could smoke them and heal the human like that. Maybe then Cal could use petal-smoke to put new dreams inside him. Like Cal’d been thinking the Pa had done with them. Cal could make flower-smoke wind like vine inside the human’s mouth and into his thinking. P’raps, like that, Cal could get the human to want to hurt Pa—make them all free that way.
Kill the Pa and they all go walking.
He shook his head quick-fast. This thinking were dark as seabeds. But it were brewing still, biting as a weaselmouse. Cal had memory of flower-smoke—of how Pa brewed it strong. Of how Pa told stories when he did. Made pictures come.
Of how spirits came from ocean.
Of how Pa made them come.