FIFTY-SIX
The rowboat rounds the bluff, bringing the lighthouse into sight. It’s shimmering atop high white cliffs, a light burning at its summit, despite there being no ships to guide.
‘There’s a jetty underneath it,’ says Seth, driving the oars into the water.
Emory’s staring towards the fog, alarmed by how close to the island it’s come. At one point, she saw an overconfident seagull swoop inside, only to be immediately swarmed. For a second, the insects were so tightly packed around the poor bird that they formed a perfect golden copy of it, only to scatter when its bloody carcass dropped into the ocean.
‘How are you doing that?’ asks Clara, watching her grandfather’s technique admiringly. ‘I rowed Mum around for about an hour yesterday, and my hands are raw.’
‘You need to pee on them,’ he says.
‘Huh?’
‘Your hands,’ he says. ‘They get like that if you’ve been rowing for too long. You need to pee on them. They’ll toughen up.’
‘Urgh, no.’
He shrugs. ‘Maritime life isn’t for everybody.’
‘Why would Thea have been rowing the night Niema was killed?’ wonders Emory, who’s only been vaguely listening to their conversation.
‘It must have been important,’ states Seth, grimacing as he rows them through a current. ‘I’ve never seen an elder row themselves anywhere. They either get me to take them, or they don’t go.’
‘You couldn’t take her,’ supplies Clara. ‘You were on your way to Blackheath with me and Mum.’
‘I think Thea came out here,’ says Emory, staring at the lighthouse. ‘Her hands were really torn up, much worse than yours, Clara. I can’t think of anywhere else she could have gone that would have caused that amount of damage.’
‘Maybe she was helping Niema with her mysterious experiment,’ ventures Clara.
‘I don’t think they were friendly enough. They –’
The rowboat jolts, knocking Emory onto the deck. Clara manages to hold on, but Seth yelps in surprise, almost dropping the oars.
The ocean is white-tipped and furious, thrashing furiously beneath them, as though they’ve been overtaken by a storm, but every other patch of water is perfectly calm, and the sky is clear.
Seth grimaces, fighting a whirlpool, which seems determined to fling them onto the jagged rocks.
‘What’s happening?’ screams Emory, over the crashing water, as she clings desperately to the bucking boat. Huge swells are emerging from the still ocean, slamming over the side, drenching them.
‘I’ve never seen it like this before,’ yells Seth, as he tries to point the boat directly at the swells, ribbons of muscle pulling taut on his powerful arms.
A wave pummels them, almost capsizing the boat.
‘Another one of those and we’re done for,’ he screams, as an oar is ripped out of his hand.
‘There! There!’ hollers Emory, pointing to a gravel bay.
‘There’s no way out of there!’
‘It’s better than –’
A powerful wave smashes into the boat, flipping it into the air and sending them flying into the water.
Emory lands on her belly, the wind knocked out of her as she’s dragged underneath by the current.
She’s slammed into the shallow seabed, then against the rocks, before being thrust back to the surface. Somewhere distant, she hears Clara crying out for her, but she’s dragged back beneath the waves before she can respond.
Unable to hold her breath any longer, she opens her mouth, sucking in great lungfuls of water.
Her vision clouds, as she thrashes for breath.
Finally, it goes dark.
FIFTY-SEVEN
Emory groans, her head throbbing. She touches it tenderly, as slapping waves soak her. She sits upright, nearly vomits, then closes her eyes to stop the world spinning. Every bit of her is competing to ache the most.
‘Clara!’ she calls out.
‘I’m over here,’ she says, in a voice as groggy as Emory’s thoughts.
They’ve been delivered to a grotto in the cliffs, their boat smashed to firewood. The pieces are floating on the surface of an ocean that is perfectly calm again.
Emory gets to her feet, stumbling over to Clara, who’s trying to drag herself up the wall. She’s covered in cuts and bruises, strands of lank hair clinging to her pale face.
‘Is everything where it ought to be?’ asks Emory, worriedly checking her daughter over for broken bones.
‘Aside from us, you mean?’
‘Have you seen your grandfather?’
‘I’m here,’ he replies, stumbling forward out of the gloom. ‘I ended up at the back of the cove,’ he says, hitching a thumb at the darkness. ‘I don’t wake up in beds as much as I used to.’
‘How long were we unconscious for?’ wonders Clara, noticing that the sun is a little higher in the sky.
‘An hour,’ I inform them.
‘Anybody know what happened?’ asks Emory, whose hands are jittery with adrenaline.
‘I’ve been out here hundreds of times,’ says Seth ruefully. ‘Niema had me row her at least once a month, and I’ve never seen the sea like that before.’
‘There were machines churning up the water,’ says Clara. ‘I saw them when I was dragged under.’
‘Why didn’t they sink me when I was rowing back yesterday?’ wonders Seth.
They exchange looks, but there are no answers forthcoming.
Emory squints into the darkness at the back of the grotto. ‘Don’t suppose you saw a way out?’
‘Nope, and it’s pitch black,’ he tells her. ‘I wouldn’t want to chance it without a light.’
She walks to the cave mouth, her legs still wobbly. ‘We’ll have to follow the coast,’ she says.
‘That will take hours,’ groans Clara.
‘What choice do we have? Abi can’t send another boat. It will just end up stuck, like we are.’
‘Your mother’s right,’ says Seth. ‘It’s shallow enough, and there should be plenty of handholds. We just have to go slow.’
It’s late afternoon by the time the three of them reach safety. For three hours, they’ve edged their way around the treacherous coastline, clinging tight to the rock face every time a wave tried to dislodge them. Whenever possible, they waded out into the shallows, picking their way across the pools, but they’re choked with dead turtles, being feasted on by seabirds.
Finally, they reach the jetty under the lighthouse, where they slump onto the planks in exhaustion, the sea below slapping the sides.
Their bodies are battered, their fingers bleeding. The tatters of a dead shark are floating nearby. It obviously got too close to the fog.
That’s not difficult any more, thinks Emory. The great black wall is so close to the island now that you can’t help but see it from the corner of your eye.
A metal staircase zigzags up the cliffs. It’s rusted and rattly, and gives the impression of being attached to the rock by choice rather than bolts. After getting her breath back, Emory gives it an experimental shake, causing it to shriek in indignation. The top of the cliff looks terrifyingly far away, given the indifference of the staircase.
‘Right,’ she says, geeing herself up.
The three of them complete their climb without too much trouble, and are soon standing in the last of the afternoon’s sunshine, staring at the lighthouse, which is surrounded by thousands of pink and purple flowers, a deer sleeping peacefully amongst them.