Pathfinder

  To the north is a network of small, craggy islands. Once, they were all joined as a single landmass but over the last century the plains and much of the hills have been swallowed by sea and now only the peaks remain. Scattered across the slow-churning ocean, they look like bits of storm-tossed litter. Over the last century many islanders have had to shift homes and farms and entire villages up out of reach of the rising ocean—some more than once. Wing, the largest and highest island, is now overcrowded with refugees from its northern neighbors, who have made makeshift homes in the ruins of its ancient stone cottages and farmyard outhouses.

  “Oh, Tain!” wails Mara. “What can we do?”

  Mara feels the birdlike fluttering in her heart once again. This time it’s not restlessness, but fear.

  Tain sighs and juts out his chin. “We should have done something long before now. It took me long enough to face the truth. But maybe there’s still time, if we act now.”

  Mara stares out at the ocean, lost in thought. When she turns back to Tain she catches the strange, wistful look he sometimes fixes upon her. Mara knows it’s not really to do with her. It’s because she looks so like her grandmother did, the girl he grew up with long ago.

  “Tea?” she prompts, to bring him back to the present.

  “Tea,” he nods, with a shy smile, and they go inside.

  Mara munches gratefully on the large, warm, buttery oatcake that Tain hands her. The fresh air and a missed breakfast have made her ravenous. She eats it standing in a pool of sunlight by the open door, reluctant to miss a second of this glorious weather, while Tain stokes the stove and boils up the kettle. Mara finds his peaty brew too strong and bitter so he always makes her mint-leaf tea with a spoonful of heather honey, which she loves.

  “Tell me about you and Granny Mary,” she says, closing her eyes and lifting her face to the sun like a flower, preferring to fill her thoughts with stories of the old days rather than the threat of the future.

  “I’ve told you all the stories,” he says briskly.

  Mara debates whether she dare ask the next question—one that she has had plenty of time to wonder about through the long storm months. That wistful look of Tain’s when he remembers Granny Mary has made her wonder.

  “Did you love her?” she bursts out at last. “You did, didn’t you?”

  Tain doesn’t answer, just pours out the tea. They sit at the table in silence, amid the bright sunbeams that spill through the open window.

  “Ah, it’s all far away in the past now, Mara,” he says at last.

  “But—”

  “All over and done with. What we need to think of now is the future.”

  Mara’s mind is spinning. It’s just as she suspected. There was something between Tain and Granny Mary. That must be why he has always taken such a deep, fond interest in her. She knows she is her grandmother’s image; all the old people tell her so, and she has seen the striking resemblance in photographs of Granny Mary in her youth—the same intense expression and thick, dark sweep of hair; the same long, lean limbs; and even, says her mother, the same restless way of moving.

  But no one has ever suggested that Granny Mary was anything other than happily married to Grandpa and they both died when they were old, so how is it possible that Tain—

  “Listen to me, Mara.” Tain’s voice breaks into her thoughts. “Your future is not here on Wing. There might be no Wing left soon—or not enough for us all to live on. Your future lies somewhere else in the world.”

  The puzzle of her grandmother’s past is abandoned for the moment as Mara’s mind fills with more urgent questions.

  “What’s the world beyond here like, Tain? No one ever talks about it.”

  Mara thinks of the places she has seen on her secret travels. Amazing places, so strange and different to the familiar land and seascape that surround her. But her travels are not real, they’re only electric visions.

  “The outside world is a great mystery now,” says Tain. “That’s why we never talk about it.”

  “But what do you think?” Mara persists.

  Tain sighs heavily. “I don’t know. When the oceans first rose and swallowed the lands, we were all in shock. The supply ships from the mainland suddenly stopped and all our communication systems went down. We were petrified.” He leans forward and Mara sees a tremor of emotion, the reflection of that long ago terror, on his mouth. “We had no way of knowing what was happening to the rest of the world. And there was so much to do. We had to change our whole way of life, move all our homes and farms far uphill, out of reach of the sea. We had to make ourselves completely self-sufficient in just a few years. All this in the midst of storms like you’ve never seen. We had barely any time to think of anything beyond ourselves and our own little patch of the world. It was a huge struggle just to survive. But at last, when the seas calmed enough, some of our fishermen set out to see what had happened on the mainland.” Tain pauses again, and the look in his eyes tells Mara he still finds it hard to believe. “They found nothing but ocean. There were the rocky peaks of what had once been the highlands—solid rock that no one could live on—but no sign of any land. Once we heard that, we turned our thoughts away from the outside world. And that’s how we stayed, never looking beyond these islands. Till now.”

  Tain grasps Mara’s hand in his.

  “Mara, the seas are rising again. It happens in surges. Every few decades there’s another great meltdown of the ice at the poles and then you get a sea surge. I know the pattern—I’ve seen it before. We’ve had long, scorching summers these last years and now we’re getting the sea surge from the meltdown that the weather has caused. I think the last of the polar ice caps must be melting.”

  Last summer the heat had burned the island almost barren. Mara remembers air so hot it shimmered like glass. Days so long and bright the relentless sun hardly slipped from the sky. The sea was a haven then—she lived on the rocks like a mermaid, her wet hair a long, cool cloak against the sun, endlessly plunging her burning skin into the soothing balm of the ocean.

  “We need to move again,” Tain is saying. “But not uphill this time—there’s not enough land left for us.”

  Mara feels panic lurch in her stomach. She grips Tain’s hand.

  “We need to find a new home in the world,” Tain declares. “Soon, Mara, before it’s too late.”

  MAELSTROM

  A new home in the world?

  Mara stares at Tain with wide eyes. The thought is so terrifying she feels numb.

  “But where?” she whispers.

  “Do you remember when you were little I used to tell you about the giant cities built high above the rising seas?”

  “That was just a fairy tale!” Mara exclaims.

  Tain shakes his head. “No, no. Remember I told you I saw a television newsreel about the very first of those cities when I was young. They were just beginning to build them. New World cities, they were called.”

  Mara looks wistfully at the blank gray box that sits dead and useless in a corner of the room. Tain has told her all about television.

  “So there really are giant cities?” she asks doubtfully.

  “I don’t know,” says Tain. “I don’t know if the ones they built survived the flood—but they were designed to. I don’t know if they built more, as they said they would. In the time just before the flood all the news reports complained about an information blackout on the New World cities. Then the great flood came and there was no news about anything. Like I said, we were struggling to survive here on Wing. Later, we tried to search for information on the Weave—that was the old worldwide computer network.”

  Mara nods. She’s well acquainted with the Weave.

  “We looked hard but we never found anything. The Weave was in ruins and searching for anything was like looking for a needle in a haystack. So we gave up wondering what might or might not lie out in the world beyond us and concentrated on the here and now. But I’m sure those cities were built! There was a plan to buil
d lots of them.”

  In frustration, Tain rakes his white hair with his hand. “I always wondered if our fishermen didn’t sail far enough south. They were brave men but they panicked when they saw the mainland was gone and turned back. If they had kept going though, maybe they would have found one of those cities. I don’t know, but we need to find out now. Somehow we must. Those cities might be our only hope. Who knows what land is left in the world?”

  He opens the old atlas that is lying on the table and studies it. “I’ve searched and searched for other options,” he murmurs, “but all the high lands are too far from here. We’d never reach them. Our fishing boats could never survive such a distance on the open ocean.”

  But Mara is only half-listening, her mind filled with a picture of a beautiful city, towering safe and high above the ocean, far up into the sky. At the same time a shiver of dread runs through her at the thought of leaving Wing to live in such a place. It’s unimaginable. She doesn’t want to think of it. Dazed, she tries to collect her thoughts.

  Tain puts a steadying hand on her shoulder. He knows her so well she doesn’t have to explain what she is feeling.

  “Your granny was a very special person,” he tells her now, as he has so often before. “She was a real leader in this community when the world changed and we had to fight to survive. It was her vision and courage that helped these islands shape their own future in a world where people had lost heart and were ready to give up hope. I remember I almost did.” A smile deepens the lines on his face. “But she wouldn’t. She just would not let us all give up.” Now Tain’s voice trembles and his eyes burn with emotion in a way that Mara has never seen before. “She had a kind of greatness in her, Mary did. And you are her mirror image, girl. Her living image! You’ll make a new future in the world, I know you will—because you’ve got that same strength and courage.”

  “Why didn’t you marry her?” Mara whispers. The words are out of her mouth before she can stop them.

  Her grandpa, Granny Mary’s husband, died before she was born, so it’s hard to feel loyalty to someone she never knew; whereas Tain has always been close to her and has felt so much like a grandfather.

  A sudden great gust hits the cottage. An almighty wind howls across the island. Doors shudder and shutters bang. Outside on the hills the blades of the windmills begin to thrash. Mara and Tain jump up and run outside to secure the shutters before they shatter the windows.

  Storm clouds are already back on the horizon. Mara could cry with frustration. She can’t believe her short burst of freedom is nearly gone. She hasn’t even had time to visit her friends.

  Tain has disappeared inside and returns quickly, clasping a small, highly polished wooden box that is covered in exquisite engravings. He places it in Mara’s hands.

  “For me?” Mara exclaims. She fingers the beautiful patterns of the box, then opens it to find a small mirror on the underside of the lid and tiny compartments in the base.

  Tain nods. He is famed all over the island for his wood engravings, but nowadays there is rarely any spare wood. All the island’s trees have long been cut down. “I made it for your granny’s sixteenth birthday. I was keeping it for yours but, well, you should have it now. A box for all your jewels.”

  Mara laughs because he knows she doesn’t have any. She hugs him tight. “I’ve never owned anything so beautiful.”

  And suddenly she wonders—does he mean he made it for Granny and never gave it to her? And if not, why not? Somehow, she cannot ask.

  Instead she looks in the little mirror that is set in the box and blinks in surprise. The fresh air has whipped color into her winter-pale cheeks and her eyes are brighter than she has seen them in months. Her hair is alive with sunshine. At her neck glints the iceberg quartz Tain made into a necklace for her last birthday.

  The wind surges and there’s a distant rumble of thunder. Mara looks at the approaching clouds in dismay and shuts the box.

  “Go on home now,” warns Tain. “I fear we’re in for another hard blast. As soon as there’s another break in the weather I’ll call an island meeting and we’ll make plans for the future.”

  Mara runs down the hillside. Too late, she realizes that Tain never answered the question about Granny Mary.

  Mara doesn’t go straight home. She heads down to the village that lies in a fold of the hills and battles against the rising wind that is beginning to howl through the gaps between the houses. The hammers and saws have all stopped, the shutters secured, as Wing barricades itself against more storms.

  Mara thumps upon the shabby door of a cottage that sits near the edge of the village. There’s a shout from inside, then a tall, lean, strong-looking boy, with the reddish blond hair and bright blue eyes of the Celtic inheritance that her father, young brother, and many of the islanders share, opens the door. Mara’s dark eyes and midnight hair is evidence of other ancestors—an ancient shipwreck of Spanish sailors—an inheritance that she shares with her mother, Granny Mary, and countless generations before.

  The blond youth pulls her inside and quickly shoves the door shut against the wind. He’s a mess, covered from top to toe in dust and dirt and cobwebs.

  “Mara! What are you doing still out?” Rowan exclaims, but his lopsided smile says how glad he is to see her.

  “I was just helping Tain and the storm came on so suddenly and I wanted—”

  Mara stops because all she really wanted was to see her friends before the island barricades itself indoors again. But now that she’s here she finds she is desperate to tell them all about her conversation with Tain—yet she can feel the growing force of the storm. Is there enough time?

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” says Rowan as Mara falls silent. “Are you okay—is your family all right?”

  She nods mutely but she can feel her lips tremble. “I can’t stand any more of this, Rowan. I’ll go mad if I’m stuck indoors anymore. At least you two have each other to talk to.”

  “We don’t talk. Gail talks. All the time. My job is to listen to her,” Rowan reminds her with a grin. “But you’ve got Corey.”

  “He’s just a little kid.”

  Mara knows she should go home. The slow boom of storm waves on the shore has begun. But she needs to talk. Her father will only argue against Tain’s predictions for Wing’s future. Her mother will say it’s nonsense, then stay awake all night, worrying. Corey’s too young to understand.

  “Quick, come down to the den for a minute,” says Rowan. “Gail was out looking for you. She’ll want to see you.”

  Mara hurries after Rowan, along the hallway and down a narrow flight of stone stairs. The stairs descend into the gloom of a musty cellar. One corner of the den is alight with candles and Gail sits there on a heap of sheepskin, bent over some sewing as Mara knew she would be, her blue eyes frowning behind a longer version of her brother’s blond hair. Above her, in a billowing canopy, she has draped old curtains and adorned them with masses of shimmery, glinting things—silky scarves and ribbons and old necklaces. She looks as if she is sitting in a bedraggled but strangely exotic tent.

  “Gail’s winter project,” explains Rowan. “Inspired by a picture in The Arabian Nights.”

  Books and sewing materials—old bits of cotton, ribbon, nylon, or silk—are like treasure on the island. Gail and Rowan beg and borrow the biggest hoard of each that they can find to occupy themselves through the storm season.

  Gail looks up to see who Rowan is speaking to and bounds out of her Arabian canopy.

  “Mara! Oh, I’ve missed you.”

  Gail begins to talk a mile a minute without a pause for breath. “I went up to your house to find you this morning and no one knew where you were and then I tried the shore and then I met some people and we talked and talked and by the time we’d finished the wind was starting up but I was just thinking I should have tried Tain’s because maybe you’d gone there but then I thought surely you’d have come here first to see us because we haven’t talked for so-o-o lon
g.”

  Gail grinds to a sudden halt, seeing the stricken expression on her friend’s face.

  “What is it?”

  Mara flops down on a dusty cushion, then takes a deep breath and begins to tell Gail and Rowan about her conversation with Tain. Rowan listens raptly, shooshing Gail’s many attempts to interrupt.

  “Tain doesn’t believe in miracles,” Mara finishes up. “I don’t think I do either. I wish I did. That sea is rising and rising and nothing’s going to stop it. We can’t just barricade ourselves up and hope that something will save us. We have to act.”

  “But what can we do?” argues Gail. “Even if it’s true—and it’s not,” she insists, “we couldn’t just launch out on the ocean and hope we come across one of these New World cities. I don’t believe they exist. It’s too incredible. It’ll be some film Tain watched on, um, tele-what’s-it.”

  “Television,” says Mara.

  “And now he’s getting upset and confused,” Gail rattles on. “He’s an old man, after all.”

  “He is not confused,” Mara interrupts hotly. “He’s the sharpest person I know.”

  “Well, okay,” Gail backs down. “But we would know if there were giant cities out there. Someone would have come and told us.”

  “Like hell they would!” argues Rowan. “They’d do exactly what we’ve done and just look after themselves. I bet no one in the outside world knows we exist. If there is any outside world left.”

  “Do you think the rest of the world drowned?” Mara whispers. The thought is almost too terrible to voice.

  “No!” cries Gail, horrified. “Stop it, you two! I won’t listen if you talk like that. Mom says God looked after us, so he must have looked after the rest of the world too. Of course he would.”

  “God?” Rowan puzzles. “What’s God? Maybe that’s just another old story. Then people convinced themselves the story was true. I love stories but how can they save us?”