Jimmy’s body aches when winter sunlight spills across his face, waking him from a night of fitful sleep. Panic overtakes him as he drifts back into consciousness and finds himself in unfamiliar surroundings. He’s lying on a pew in the island’s only church. Wooden eaves soar above him, long fingers of oak spliced together two hundred years ago. He remembers his mother explaining how the church was built from the remains of a shipwreck, its bell salvaged from a clipper that foundered near Tolgillian. The place has provided Jimmy with shelter from the cold, but he misses his own four walls and the prized possessions he has spent years gathering. It feels like the first strong wind could carry him away, his bones as fragile as a bird’s, but he must honour his promise to the burning man before the police put him in jail. His feet still ache from searching the island the night before, peering through windows, trying to work out who would set a man alight.
The Birdman gazes through one of the arched windows at grassland rolling away to the sea. The earth is studded with ancient gravestones, grey and uneven as broken teeth. The sight makes him shudder. The man in the fire had no headstone to bear his name, only a bed of flames to lie on, and soon the church’s comforting silence will be out of bounds. Worshippers will arrive to sing hymns and whisper the prayers his mother loved.
He can’t visit his birds again until nightfall, but wandering the island’s shores since childhood has revealed all of its secrets. If he listens hard enough, the fields and hedgerows will explain why the man died. Jimmy can hear the raw keening of a tern summoning him outside. He gathers his bag then hurries from the church, leaving no trace of himself behind.