Lily and Kester sat on the top deck of the ship with their backs to the funnel of the ship, a huge black chimney as big as a house. It was a freezing cold night, but the chimney was warm, heating their bodies through their clothes.
The snow was heavier now, swirling around in the light coming off the ship.
‘We’ll stay up here until we reach the next port,’ Kester said, watching his breath twist away in trails as the ship passed through the black water of the night.
‘Yes,’ Lily agreed.
‘Once we’re off the ship, we can contact the others. I don’t think we’ll achieve anything by taking risks communicating now.’
‘Do you think we could have done more to help her?’ Lily asked.
‘Katiyana?’
‘Yes.’
Kester shook his head. ‘No,’ he said.
They both sat in silence. There was nothing else to say. But they were thinking about her. The girl from Canada that they hardly knew.
The night was strange. It stopped snowing after an hour. They could see for miles in every direction. Miles of sea and mountains and glaciers, a pale, cold light around the rim of the world.
Lily shivered. But not because she was cold. There was something about being on a ship in this vast world of sea and ice and rock. Something that made her feel like she wasn’t in the real world at all. It was as if all the mountains were ghosts of mountains and the sea was the ghost of a sea. Or that she was a ghost.
Lily looked at her hands. She’d always imagined that being out in nature like this would be exhilarating. But it was quite the opposite.
‘Do you ever think much about the last mission?’ she asked quietly.
‘All the time,’ Kester replied.
‘So why don’t you talk about it?’
‘Mostly we’re with Lesh,’ Kester said. ‘And he’s asked me not to. He hates all the pity he gets.’
‘Yes.’ Lily nodded. ‘He’s said the same to me. But he never talks about Jim either. Does he to you?’
‘No.’
‘You’d think he’d blame Jim. For the accident, I mean. If Jim hadn’t …’ Lily paused.
‘… betrayed us?’ Kester finished her sentence.
‘Yes. If he’d not been such a … you know what, then we’d not have been in the church and Lesh wouldn’t have fallen and broken his back.’
Kester was about to reply when a group of people emerged from inside the ship on to the deck. A family. Two children – much younger than Kester and Lily – were laughing and shrieking. Their parents were trying to keep them from the edge. Then, after a few minutes in the cold, they returned inside. To the warmth and light of the cafes and cabins.
Lily frowned. Seeing families always made her frown, always made her think of her mum and dad. Her dad. He’d have loved it here. He’d have taken to the mountains in his running shoes. And she’d have joined him. She closed her eyes.
‘What are we doing here?’ she asked, her eyes still shut.
‘Up this chimney?’ Kester smiled wryly.
‘You know what I mean. Here – doing all of this.’
Kester didn’t reply right away. He’s thinking up a good answer, Lily thought. Thinking of something to say that’ll make me feel better, but that’s still true.
‘Because we don’t have parents? So we can?’ he suggested.
‘Hmmm.’
‘Because we don’t have families and because they were taken away from us by people who want to cause havoc in the world and don’t care about a girl like you losing her father and mother …’
Lily interrupted Kester at this point, ‘… and we do all this to stop that happening again to other children.’
‘That’s right,’ Kester said.
‘It’s a good enough reason,’ Lily added.
‘Except Adnan has the chance to have a family now,’ Kester said.
‘He does.’
‘I’ve not been able to talk to him about it for a couple of days,’ Kester went on. ‘I think he’s putting it off until after the mission, but I’d say he wants a family.’
‘What did he say?’
‘That he wanted it,’ Kester said. ‘But also that he’d miss us and what we do.’
‘What do you think he’ll do?’
‘Well, what would you tell him to do?’ Kester pressed.
Lily didn’t hesitate. ‘Go back. Be with a family. If he can.’
As the two children spoke, the Nordlys pushed on through the black waves, heading to the northernmost tip of the European land mass.
Alongside the ship, a pair of whales moved invisibly with them.