They hid in the mouth of a cave on the beach until light began to creep into the sky. It smelled of seaweed and wet stone. Jen looked out across the flat sand.
Her cousin was crouching near the water’s edge. Her head was bare and her hair was cropped short and uneven. From this distance she could have been a boy, except for the habit. She was holding her hand out, and Jen saw there was a bird on the sand a few feet from her cousin. It was smaller than a seagull, and a different shape – its beak pointed downwards. It had the distinctive profile of a bird of prey.
Ethie was still as a statue. The bird hopped closer, until it was next to her outstretched fingers. Still Ethie didn’t move. The bird opened its wings and flapped them, but Ethie’s hand stayed where it was. Then it flew up into the air and circled above her head. Ethie looked up at it. The bird circled again, then flew high into the sky. Jen could make out the straps dangling from its feet. Not a wild bird then. It flew higher and higher, then swooped down one more time, just feet above Ethie’s head, before flying away inland.
Jen followed its flight until it disappeared from view, then turned her head back to look at Ethie. She was coming back up the beach towards the cave. Jen lay her head on her arms and pretended to be asleep.
“I can’t come to Scotland with you.”
Ethie had replaced the wimple and was standing in front of Jen with her hands on her hips.
Scotland. The island. Lyddie had invited her, but after that one text there had been nothing. She’d probably forgotten. Jen wasn’t expected.
“Where are you going?” she asked Ethie.
“South. I have a friend in Norwich. I need her advice.”
“What sort of advice?”
“I’m being followed. Jules will know what to do.”
“Followed?”
“The man at the priory, last night…. He…”
“Who is he?”
Ethie shook her head and touched the gold coin which hung from her neck. “He… he’s my…” She looked as though she might cry. She’d never looked anything but serene before. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Jen stared at her cousin’s face, then looked away at the sea, at the line where it met the sky.
“Will you get the train?”
“No, I’m sticking to the coast.”
There was a boat, far out, catching the morning sun and glinting. It was hard to tell if it was moving. Jen looked back at Ethie.
“I’ll come with you.”
“I need to keep moving.”
“I don’t want to be on my own.”
Ethie paused, then nodded. “No, that wouldn’t be a good idea.”
Half an hour later they were walking. They crossed the beach, climbed over the rocky headland and continued into the next bay. The beaches were pitted with rockpools where anemones blossomed and seaweed floated green and brown in the clear water.
The path headed inland through crops on the clifftops. The sun was above the horizon now. Jen sat down on a boulder at the side of the path.
“I need a rest,” she said.
Impatience flashed across Ethie’s face.
“I’m sorry. I’ve been lying about in bed for weeks, I’m not used to this.”
Ethie softened. She’d kept the wimple on, and Jen felt more comfortable with her like that. Without it, she had seemed vulnerable, more human. Right now Jen needed someone she could depend upon.
“Of course. Sorry. It’s just that he’ll be coming after us as soon as he realises we’re gone. The abbess won’t be able to keep him out for long.”
“You’re not going to tell me who we’re running from?”
Ethie shook her head, walked a few steps along the path, then back. “How long do you think you need to rest?”
“I’ll be fine in a minute. Why are we walking? We could get a bus.”
“It’s safer,” Ethie said.
Getting information from her cousin when she didn’t want to give it was like the whole blood from stones thing. And most of the time Ethie didn’t want to give it.
“Are we walking all the way to Norwich?”
Ethie shrugged.
“Have you got anything to eat or drink in that basket?”
Ethie pulled back the cloth and removed a stone bottle. She offered it to Jen.
“Small beer,” she said.
“What?”
“Just drink it.”
Jen took a swig and it reminded her of the alcohol-free beer Terence drank on social occasions. She didn’t want to think about Terence. She handed the bottle back to Ethie.
“Are you ready?”
Jen could have done with sitting for longer or something to eat, but her cousin was already walking towards the stile at the end of the field.
The sun rose in the sky as they walked. Sometimes the path hugged the coastline, sometimes it took a detour around a bay, or crossed through fields on the clifftops. They didn’t see anyone. They passed through a fishing village, but no one was about.
At one point the path went steeply downhill to a wide bay. As they descended Jen saw two people sitting on a wall near some Portaloos. The man was passing a flask to the woman who wore a yellow hat.
“Look,” she said to Ethie.
“What?”
“Those people.”
“Where?”
The sun flashed on the sea, making Jen squint. When she looked again, the couple had gone. The wall had people on it, but they were made of stone; tiny figures of women reaching out to the sea with their arms.
“There was a fishing disaster,” said Ethie. “Those are the wives of the fishermen that died.”
“No, not them…” Jen remembered the way Rebecca had looked at her at the Angel of the North, the photographs with no bodies in them. “Never mind,” she said. “I probably imagined it.”
The bay stretched in both directions, backed by the high cliff. The road and the beach were clearly visible, but there was no one about. No walkers, no one drinking tea from a flask.
“I think we’ve got a good start,” said Ethie. “If he didn’t see us leave last night, he’ll still be watching the priory.”
Jen looked at her cousin, the word Who? on her lips, but this time she didn’t say it out loud. Ethie set off at a pace past the still-sleeping houses alongside the beach.
The path wound back uphill. Jen’s legs ached, and she could feel a tugging in the tops of her thighs. She wanted to rest.
For half a mile Ethie had been looking behind, sometimes into the sky. Jen looked up too. The sky was periwinkle blue. High above them a bird of prey was hovering, silvered by sunlight, like an aeroplane arrested in flight.
“We need to get out of sight,” said Ethie. “Come on.”
To their left was a small cove and a headland scarred with caves. At the furthest point was an arch, a scatter of rocks and stacks. A tiny path, probably made by sheep or rabbits, led down to the beach. Ethie scurried down, and Jen followed as best she could.
Jen’s feet slipped on the sand and she grabbed at the vegetation, spiking her hands on gorse. Ethie was already at the bottom. She looked up at Jen, then at the bird in the sky.
“Come on,” she said. “We need to hide.”
Jen thought, I could just sit down and refuse to move. I could cry. I could shout at her.
She wiped her hands on her jeans, took a deep gulp of sea air, then carried on down the path, feeling carefully with each footstep, going as fast as she dared.
They hurried past caves and rockpools, out to the end of the beach where the rocks broke into boulders. Ethie held her hand out to Jen as they jumped from one to another. Between them the sea was lapping gently.
“Is the tide going in or out?” asked Jen.
Ethie looked up to where the bird was hovering. “This way,” she said.
Jumping over ever widening strips of water, they passed under the stone arch and onto a rocky platform on the far side. It was studded with limpets whose points pressed into the soft soles of Jen’s shoes. Ethie looked back.
“He won’t be able to see us here,” she said.
“I think the tide’s coming in,” said Jen. It did seem to be rising. As each wave crashed, less bare rock was visible. “Are we safe here?”
“He won’t be able to reach us. Even if he does spot us, he won’t be able to get across the water. Look, it’s already cutting us off.”
“Ethie, I’m not sure being cut off is a good plan. What if we end up underwater? Can you swim?”
“Look, these rocks up here have pockets of dry sand. The sea doesn’t come up this far. We’ll be fine.”
“Maybe. If you’re right. But how long will we have to stay here?”
Ethie pulled back the cloth from her basket and produced a punnet of strawberries. “Here, eat,” she said. “You’ll feel better.”
Jen realised she was ravenous and shoved strawberry after strawberry into her mouth, until she saw Ethie wasn’t having any. She pushed them back to her cousin.
The sun was high in the sky now. It was hot out on the rocks with no shelter. The water was getting closer and the rocks they sat on had become an island.
“Have we got any water?” Jen asked.
“Just this.”
Ethie handed Jen the stone bottle of small beer. It was nearly empty.
“This isn’t enough. We could be here for hours.”
“I’ll be fine,” said Ethie. “You have it.”
Jen took a tiny sip and handed it back. “We better make it last,” she said.
There were seagulls circling above. Jen searched amongst them for the falcon, but the sky was too bright for her to focus. She was hot in her jeans, but glad of her white sports jacket. Thin and reflective, it kept the sun off her arms and shoulders. She pulled the collar up to protect her neck. If she needed to, she could unzip the hood from its pocket and cover her head as well.
Ethie’s robes were made of thick, black cloth.
“Get down!” Ethie pulled Jen down behind the rocks. “There’s someone up there.”
Jen lay flat on her belly against the hot rock. As best she could, she peeped over at the shore. There were two people on the clifftops. One of them wore a yellow hat.
“It’s the people I saw before,” she said. “They’re walkers. They’re not after us.”
“Over there.” Ethie pointed to where the stone arch framed the portion of the beach where they’d come down. Someone was standing on the sand. The bright sun made it impossible to see them properly, but Jen thought it was a man. He seemed to have a bird on his arm.
“Who…?”
Ethie shook her head and put her fingers to her lips which were moving, possibly in prayer.
The man on the beach walked back and forth, looking out to sea, then back inland. After a while he sat down. The bird hopped onto his shoulder. The sun rose higher. The waves rushed in, near to Jen and Ethie’s feet, as the area of dry rock got smaller and smaller. Jen could taste the strawberries in her stomach.
I’m so thirsty. She wanted to say it out loud. Surely he was too far away to hear. There were other sounds – waves, gulls, even the distant bleating of sheep in the fields. She lay still and didn’t move. She said nothing.
It must have been nearly midday. The falcon was flying in arcs above the water. The tide hadn’t turned, but the man on the beach got to his feet. He looked all around, then whistled. The bird came straight to him and landed on his shoulder. The man walked back up the cliff path, turning only once to have another look.
Jen glanced sideways at Ethie and saw her eyes were full of tears.
“Ethie…”
“Wait.”
They watched until the man and the falcon had completely vanished from sight, then Ethie sat up. Jen ached from lying still for so long. She moved slowly to a sitting position, but her stomach cramped, bending her double.
“You need water,” said Ethie.
They were surrounded by sea water, and they’d been lying on wet rocks. Their clothes were hot and dry on their backs, soggy at the front, sticking to their skin. Jen had never been so uncomfortable and despite herself she could feel saltwater leaking from her eyes as well.
Ethie pulled out the stone bottle, but it was practically empty. All they could do with the remaining beer was wet their lips.
Jen wished Rebecca were there to tell her there had never been any walkers wearing woolly hats in the sunshine and that she’d imagined the man and the falcon, to hand her a bottle of water from her bag – because Rebecca would never set off on an expedition like this without adequate water. But there was no Rebecca. Only Ethie.
Jen lay on her back on a dry bit of rock and pulled her jacket over her head to cover her face and keep her from getting burned. It wasn’t a soft bed, but she was so tired it did the trick. Her wet belly up, she would dry off. She could sleep until the tide turned and they could get off these rocks. Her eyes half closed, she saw Ethie in silhouette through the thin fabric of the sports jacket. She was kneeling, facing inland, her hands clasped in her lap, her lips still moving.
Jen closed her eyes completely and sank into the red glow behind her eyelids.
Next thing she knew Ethie was shaking her arm.
“Jen, Jen, look!”
Jen sat up. Ethie was pointing to the wet place where they had been lying, where water was still running down the rocks in a thin sheen.
“What?” said Jen.
“The water. Look, it’s still running down.”
“And?”
“It wouldn’t do that if it was sea water. The waves just go over, or they retreat. This is coming out of the rocks.”
She was right; the water was coming from a small gap between two rocks. The stone beneath was dark and slimy and didn’t look as though it ever dried out.
“So…”
“It’s not the sea, it’s freshwater. We can drink it.”
Jen looked at the dark shine on the rocks, the streaks of algae, the seaweed and limpets which surrounded them.
Ethie was holding the stone bottle out to her.
“Here, have a drink.”
It was heavy.
“Did you…?” If you held the bottle at just the right angle, you’d probably manage to redirect a bit of the flow where the water emerged from the rock. Maybe.
“I’ve tried it. It’s fine to drink.”
Jen didn’t feel like she was in a position to argue. She lifted the bottle to her lips and the water was sweet and clear. She drank a few sips then offered it to Ethie.
“Have as much as you want,” said her cousin. “We can refill it.”
Jen drank, letting the water flow down her throat to sit heavy in her belly. She was immediately cooler.
She didn’t quite drain the bottle before she handed it back to Ethie. The tide had turned while she was sleeping and it wouldn’t be long until they could return to the beach. A patch of sand had been exposed and was marked by footprints. Jen looked at Ethie’s feet, which were bare and sandy. The footprints appeared from behind the arch, formed a circle on the sand, then continued across the rock near Jen and Ethie. Jen blinked. It seemed as though the footprints carried on across the platform, indentations in the dark rock. The bright sun must have affected her vision.
Ethie was refilling the bottle.
“We’ll be able to go soon,” she said. “Half an hour, tops.”
“Can we stop and rest now that guy’s gone?”
“A friend of mine is on Holy Island. Another day and we should get there. Can you make it?”
“As long as I can sleep somewhere.”
“We’ll find a cave or something.” Ethie looked up at the sky, and Jen followed her gaze. It was blue and clear. There were no seagulls flying, no birds of any kind. The only noise was waves rushing the beach. The sun beat on through the afternoon.