Mary

‘You’re different to my other keys. I’m borrowing you. I might sound mad and crazed talking to you but it helps me think and no one’s listening. So this is what you’ve done.

‘You’ve made me remember Grandmam’s stories for comfort, so that makes me think there’s something bad I’m going to find out.

‘I know that Da took Barney, and that’s why him were sent mad.

‘But I dun think Barney were took to the main land by the tall men like the others, for Langward were searching for him here. So Da must have given him to someone.

‘And you’ve told me Mam’s watching me.’ I swallow, hard. ‘Is it that I were meant to hear?’

The key lies there, silent.

‘Look, I know I’ve got to give you back.’

Think.

I stare at the key. ‘What do I need to know from this whole day you’ve made go too fast? Memories and stories and voices …’

Think.

Mam in the caves on the north shore. The loneliest place, furthest from all our homes. Caves and tunnels what stretch back so deep under the island, no one knows how far. That would be the best place on this island to hide someone, if you dun want them to be found.

Think.

Da went up to the peat pits not far from the north shore near on every week of hims life. If I were Da and I dun want to hurt Barney myself, but I had to hide him so well him would never be found, that’s where I’d choose.

My belly feels hungry-sore. I rummage in the kitchen cupboard and cook up some kale and onions in butter. Kale’s good for strength and I’ll need that if I’m to go up to the caves. I throw an egg in the mix and the smell of it makes me shake I’m so hungry.

As soon as the food’s ready, I sit on my bed with a spoon and the pot, like me and Barney did when Da were out fishing, and gannet it all down. The moppet lies on the blanket next to me. It dun move and won’t talk. There’s not even the sound of the sea inside it. On the blanket is a small light coil of hair like the finest thread. One of Barney’s. I put the pot on the floor, pinch the hair off the blanket and twist it around my thumb.

Someone taps on the window.

‘Mary? It’s Kelmar again.’

‘Get gone.’ I whisper. I put the hair under my pillow.

Kelmar taps again. ‘It’s important.’

I scrunch down under the blanket and shut up my ears with my hands. Mam were important. Mam dun talk to her, and I’ve got to have one belonging person I can trust, even if she’s deaded. I push my hands even harder over my ears and close my eyes.

I start awake, see the moppet’s raggedy face on the pillow. Dun mean to fall asleep.

The bedroom door rattles. I hurl myself out of bed and swing open the bedroom door.

In the main room the curtains blow up. The window is open. There’s a lit candle guttering on the table. Valmarie’s been here. The room looks the same: Mam’s chair, the empty table, the worn rugs … the tongs on the hearth …

I put my hand up the chimney and run my fingers over the empty ledge. I put my hands over my ears and crouch down on the floor. Groan so loud it echoes below me through the floorboards, comes back up at me from the storm room.

The Thrashing House key has gone.

I get a bag and put in the moppet, a blanket, a sharp knife and a small box of broiderie threads and needles of Mam’s. Dun want to be away for long without something of hers with me. I blow out the candle, put my coat on and sling the bag over me.

I try the front door, but it won’t open. I whisper, ‘I know that’s you holding it shut Mam, stop scaring me.’ I make sure it’s locked, take out the latchkey, climb on the table and get outside through the window.

I take the latchkey to the cold room. I close my eyes to the dark and the ice and the barrels and whisper to the latchkey, ‘I’m leaving you here, for I dun know how long I’ll be away for. But if I get lost in the caves, and if Barney’s found by someone else, be here for him. Let him safe into our home.’ I put the latchkey on the ledge near the cold room door.

I’m going to thieve the Thrashing House key back and go up to the caves on the north shore. Because if I’m wrong about Da hiding Barney in the caves, I’ll still need the key and all the women’s voices in it.

I’m going to burglar Valmarie’s house.

It’s a long climb up the path, and in the dark after the rain the grass and rocks are all streaked with silver and shadows. The night makes everything different colours. Puts me in mind of a broiderie of Mam’s. Stars up above and all these dragonflies skittering around green and grey flowers, what grew and stretched towards the moon.

I bit my lip and told her, ‘The colours are wrong.’

She said, ‘It isn’t wrong, it’s just different, for there’s a sliver of a moon throwing shadows around.’

I thought hard about it and decided she meant that the moon is like a fisherman, up there disguised in all that deep blue, catching stars in a net. Only it catches shadows as well, and throws them back down to us.

From the circle of boulderstones, I can see the graveyard hill. Starlight glints on the granite headstones. Mam’s buried in the graveyard, a headstone with her name, Beatrice Jared, and mine and Barney’s names carved below it. When Barney and me die, the deadtaker will score out our names from Mam’s grave and we’ll get our own graves.

I remember the coldness of Mam’s skin in her coffin box. I kissed her brow to say goodbye, and she were covered all over in sea thrift with pink flowers. The flowers seemed so alive, though them’d die all over her when them were sealed up and under the soil. I felt sorry for them flowers.

A sharp wind whips my hair across my face. I crouch in the wet grass next to one of the boulderstones. I can feel the cold of the stone on my cheek. Just below the Thrashing House, with a clear view of the graveyard hill, Valmarie’s house is tucked in a hollow.

My hands look like white gloves. I cover my fingertips with my mouth, breathe on some warm. Closing my eyes, I think of the Thrashing House key. Just to be sure. I think of its shape, the heaviness of the metal, the pattern of arrows in it. And it is Valmarie’s face what swirls up behind my eyelids. The key is back where it belongs and perhaps that’s where it should be, so the bells get rung, so the women can pass it between them, night after night after night, and everything can be as it always has been … but the palms of my hands feel empty. My hands still want the stories trapped in the key.

I look down the hill at Valmarie’s house. A candle sparks alight in her window. She’s not asleep.