MARCH 2018It was true that she had meddled in Mr Hailey’s business, but she had done it for them.
Faced with that firing line at the stones – their three reproachful faces – Viola held back her desire to wail After everything I’ve done for you! She knew that shouldn’t matter, and it didn’t. She had never expected gratitude, any kind of payment. But their acceptance, their friendship – she’d considered that hers, immutable.
Britta tossed a dark gaze to Anna, then Jade-Marie, getting their nods of permission to go on. ‘Mr Hailey’s getting us out of here,’ she said.
Viola’s throat tightened. ‘What?’
‘The project isn’t the play.’ Britta spoke from beneath the fall of her hair. There was a sense of apology to this explanation, but also condescension. Did Viola really believe they were relying absolutely on spells and chants and the reassurances of a red-haired coycrock? A play was not enough to solve everything. ‘Mr Hailey is preparing a document about us.’
‘A dossier,’ Jade-Marie put in, pleased with the word, one clearly gifted by Benjamin Hailey. ‘We’ve given him statements, had our photos taken. He’s going to hand it in to the authorities on the mainland.’ She was perversely excited about this.
‘We’re going to take it.’ Anna jumped in with the clarification. ‘Mr Hailey’s going to take us with him.’
‘On… On the April ship?’ Viola stammered.
Britta shook her head. ‘The August ship. He’s going to finish one whole school year so as not to…’ She paused, searching it seemed for another of the man’s expressions. ‘So as not to arouse suspicion.’
‘What… Mr Hailey’s really a policeman?’ Viola was a girl in a rabbit hole, a child tumbling down a well. ‘So… he’s… he’s working undercover or…’
‘No, he’s just a teacher,’ said Jade-Marie. ‘Just a man.’ Quickly adding, ‘But he does care about us.’
‘You’re going to leave your mums behind, your dads?’ said Viola. She turned to Anna. ‘Your little brother?’ The true cry within her was: What about me? What about me? ‘What about the girls here who are about to turn sixteen?’
‘That’s all been sorted.’ Jade-Marie beamed with evangelical fervour. ‘We’ll send for them once we get there, once we’ve got it all settled.’
‘But that makes no sense,’ said Viola. She wasn’t angry anymore, nor confused, because this was clearly madness; it wasn’t real.
‘You don’t understand,’ Anna cut in with her voice of all reasonableness. ‘Everything’s been worked out, it’s –’
‘No!’ Viola yelled, ‘No!’
There came that hum again, that singing of the earth, the sensation of it vibrating through them – an undiscovered chord. All four girls stood and listened as the tremor receded.
Then Viola asked calmly, ‘What’s the difference between speaking out over there and speaking out here?’ Jade-Marie inhaled, her response ready, but Viola wouldn’t hear it. ‘You think things will be different if you cross a huge stretch of sea? Well, believe me, they won’t be.’ Viola knew this. They knew this. ‘You’re worried about the payback if you tell, just think what will happen to the people you leave behind if you speak out somewhere else. How will they suffer for you doing this? Will there be more losses?’
Britta folded her arms. ‘Now you’re just being dramatic.’
‘Am I?’ Viola told them a story then, one that they had told her. ‘Ten men head out in the middle of the night on a fishing boat meant for five … That’s even stranger when you consider that most of the men on board are not fishermen.’
‘Shh!’ Jade-Marie covered her ears and closed her eyes, unable to bear it.
Viola continued, ‘In the weeks before they leave, these men talk about revolt, even murder, but no, they decide to do things the right way, get proper justice. Others had gone over to the mainland and been ignored, but no one could ignore the voices of ten men who had crossed an unforgiving ocean to reveal the truth, could they?’
‘Okay,’ said Britta, ‘you can stop now.’
Viola refused; she would make them see. ‘They didn’t even tell their wives about their mercy mission, for the women’s own safety. Just left them to their doubts. Left them forever it turned out. Because that boat never reached the mainland and it never came back. The storms got them. Or… what if that boat was scuppered on purpose?’
‘The inscription on the cross at the harbour says it was an accident,’ whispered Jade-Marie, tears falling.
‘Yeah,’ said Viola, ‘but you don’t believe that, do you?’
Their silence was answer enough.
‘It’s all we have, Viola,’ Anna said – a gentle lament. ‘It’s all there is. We can’t rely on nails in hearts, we need something more… something…’ She tailed off; she hung her head.
‘The heart worked!’ Viola cried out. Her faith in this was still strong. Peter Cedars had died because of them! If they could only harness this power, control it… But the girls were looking at their feet, not willing to agree. So, Viola spoke cruelly, only to be kind. ‘Mr Hailey isn’t going to take you with him on the August ship.’
Britta sighed. ‘He said you would do this.’
‘I bet he did,’ said Viola. She laughed; that got their attention.
‘Go on,’ said Jade-Marie.
‘He can’t take you with him on the August ship because he’s leaving on the April one! Friday the thirteenth. He’s got Leah Cedars pregnant and they don’t want to have the baby here.’ Viola watched their faces fall, drain of colour. ‘They’re probably worried about what will happen if it turns out to be a girl.’
Britta’s jaw was working, building up to a refusal. Viola got in first. ‘I heard them, Britta! Saul Cooper did too. Out here in the woods. Ask Mr Hailey yourself. Ask Miss Cedars. Though I’m not sure they’d tell you the truth.’
The girls looked at one another, eyes widening. The sea swilled and churned somewhere beneath them. The wind chased furrows through the long grass at their feet.
‘Shit!’ This was Anna. ‘Fuck! Shit! Fuck! Shit! Fuck!’ She alternated the only bad words she knew, looking for a release and getting none, angry tears drenching her face. ‘Oh, god!’ she cried. ‘Oh, god! Bethany Reid had the right idea!’ She directed this viciously at the others. ‘That’s the only way out of this fucking place!’ Then she turned, in a great swirl of white nightdress, and stamped away, out of the circle.
It was Jade-Marie who realised it first, that Anna wasn’t heading back through the woods; she was making towards the cliff edge.
‘Anna, no!’
They sprinted after her, yelling for her to stop, telling her she didn’t mean it, but her stride was certain, fast.
Jade-Marie snatched hold of her friend, trying to halt her with the restraint of a hug, but Anna broke free, she carried on; she howled: ‘I’m doing this for all of you!’
‘It won’t do us any good to have you gone!’ Britta pleaded, moving with her, the wind clipping her words as they drew nearer to where the edge was, or where it might be; the gloom made it impossible to see. Each step could be their last.
The sea crashed louder, closer, it warned them; they were on the brink. The group staggered to a halt. Anna’s teeth were chattering. Britta and Jade-Marie clung to a hand each, the wind making sails of their nightdresses.
‘This will get their attention,’ Anna said. Her eyes were already dead, her voice a flat line. ‘It will bring the mainland authorities here, like when Bethany killed herself, but I’ve got you to tell them it was no accident. You can tell them why I did it.’ She began to mutter a prayer in the same voice they had used for their spells. ‘O Almighty God, King of all Kings and governor of all things, whose power no creature is able to resist …’ These were her last rites.
Viola stood behind them, breathless, watching their swaying outline, three girls as one body, lurching towards the tow of the black sea beyond, heels driven into mud, inches from the edge. She knew she should step forward, help wrench the girl back, but she was gripped by something – the truth of what Anna had said.
‘But why does it have to be you?’
At Viola’s voice, Anna’s supplications petered out, the words dropping like shingle from the ledge. Her head turned, her pull slackened. Jade-Marie seized the moment, enveloping her shivering friend, if only for one last embrace.
‘Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends,’ incanted Anna.
‘Yes, there should be a sacrifice,’ said Viola. ‘But why should that sacrifice be you?’
Viola stepped towards them, the circle forming without her asking. They breathed as one: earth, fire, air and water; north, south, east, west; black, blonde, brown, red. Their heads touched, and a strange light, at once imagined yet real, formed itself between them, glowing brighter, gathering into an enthralling shape.
‘It’s not a sacrifice,’ said Jade-Marie, ‘unless you offer up something that matters.’
‘Yes,’ said Viola. Then she corrected that note, ever so slightly, making the harmony ring true. ‘But why,’ she asked, ‘must it matter to us?’