Gruff and Mat came round the base of the headland where Gruff had cornered Guinevere that morning. The yellow-grey sandy beach stretched out before them.
Mat gasped and stopped stock-still. Before Gruff could ask what was the matter, he found his gaze dragged away from her to the distant Sleepers: sharp and dark and dangerous. They pulled at his chest.
‘Peidiwch,’ Gruff said out loud. Don’t.
The pull vanished and he shivered, angry with himself. What was wrong with him today?
‘Those stones are amazing,’ Mat said, not taking her eyes off the six hulking shapes.
‘They’re called the Sleepers.’
‘They look like giant stepping stones,’ Mat breathed.
Unease crept into Gruff’s heart. ‘Everyone thinks that, but you mustn’t try. They’re dangerous.’
Mat laughed. ‘Dangerous? They’re just rocks.’
‘They’re slippery. The waves get really wild out on the end, even if it’s calm by the beach. And the current is strong and it’ll pull you under.’
‘Only if you fall in.’
‘You will fall in, that’s the point – it doesn’t matter how careful you are, Nain says. Anyone who climbs on those stones will jump out to the end, and then they’ll jump in the sea. The Sleepers lure people.’
Mat smiled and continued along the path towards the fishermen’s cottages and the beach, clutching the toaster box to her chest. ‘That sounds like a story to keep little kids safe.’
‘It’s not just that,’ Gruff said, annoyed. Who was Mat to dismiss his Nain’s warnings as though they were unimportant? ‘Islanders have told stories about the Sleepers for generations. It doesn’t matter how old you are. The sea’s always dangerous, and so are the Sleepers. Can’t you…’
He broke off, gritting his teeth to stop the words escaping. Can’t you feel their pull? he’d been about to say, but she’d probably just laugh at him. The island had its old, old stories, and he had seen more than one tourist laughing in Nain’s face.
Besides, Gruff knew the pull of the Sleepers was just imagination strengthened by the stories about them. You were told that they lured people, so you felt their lure.
‘Sorry,’ Mat said suddenly.
‘What?’ Gruff asked, confused.
‘I think I’ve annoyed you. I didn’t mean to.’ Mat’s voice was very small.
Embarrassment washed over him and he shook his head. ‘Oh. Sorry. No. I just…’ He petered out, feeling bad. He was meant to be being friendly, and she seemed nice enough. ‘Um … you said in your letter that you lived by the sea before, right? The sea’s great but it’s dangerous too. Sorry if I sounded mean. I was just trying to help.’
Mat gave him a shy smile. ‘We lived by the sea in South Wales until I was five,’ she said. ‘Mama volunteered with the lifeboat there. Then she met John – he was on holiday – and we moved to Manchester with him. I love the sea. I remember paddling. Mama says I was always trying to go out too far, even when I was really small. I guess I should be more sensible now I’m older. I’m allergic to chlorine in swimming pools so I haven’t learnt to swim. I really want to learn, though.’
They were past the fishermen’s cottages now, and Top Field stretched to their right, full of newly-shorn sheep. Thundering hooves approached and Mat leapt back as Guinevere careered up to the wall and stuck her nose over the top, hoping for more bread.
‘Sorry, Guiny,’ Gruff grinned. ‘No more bread for you today. Too much sugar. It’ll rot your teeth.’
‘Gwinny?’ Mat said, watching from a safe distance.
‘Short for Guinevere,’ Gruff explained, giving the ewe’s ears a scratch. ‘She’s a pest.’
Mat grinned. ‘She looks weird, all un-fluffy like that.’
Gruff laughed. ‘We sheared them today. All the Lleyn – that’s what Guinevere is – and the Romney. The Romneys are the ones with lambs. The Gotlands were properly shorn in the autumn and then trimmed last month. That’s what my family do, we run a wool farm and wool mill. We turn it into blankets and jumpers and things and sell them.’ He carried on along the path, beach on one side and Top Field on the other. Mat walked beside him. ‘That’s the farm, there,’ he said, pointing ahead. ‘The smaller building’s the farmhouse, that’s where I live with Dad and Nain. The other two are barns. One’s for when the sheep need to be inside, the other’s got all our wool equipment in it.’
‘So which one’s my house?’
‘That one.’ Gruff pointed. ‘That white cottage behind the farmhouse. It was the blacksmith’s cottage, when the island still had a blacksmith.’
The cottage had belonged to the farm until Nain’s parents had fallen on hard times following a terrible storm and had to sell it. If there was another storm like that one, there was nothing else to sell but the farm itself. And that would be that.
Gruff shook the thoughts out of his head.
The handcart trundled on ahead of them. Mat and Gruff were drawing level with the Sleepers now, and Gruff felt his feet slowing and a strong, quiet insistence turning him away from the land towards the sea.
The tide was out and the first of the stones was just jumping distance from the sandy shore. The swell lapped gently against the sides of the Sleepers and rolled past them to the beach, a constant hush and suck of sound.
Gruff felt the pull of the stones in the rhythm of the swell and in his heartbeat. Beside him, Mat stood transfixed.
Rosie Smalls wandered past, a bucket of beach-combed rubbish and treasures in one hand, her old, worn dungarees rolled up to her knees. She lived in one of the fishermen’s cottages at the head of the beach and worked odd jobs around the island. She was kind and sensible and treated the sea with respect.
Gruff watched as Rosie stopped walking and stared towards the six sleeping stones. The bucket fell from her hand, strewing plastic, fishing tackle and a single trainer onto the beach.
Rosie took one step, two steps towards the Sleepers. Then she was walking purposefully down the slope of the beach, the firm sand thudding beneath her bare feet.
Gruff gaped.
She was going to do it. She was going to make the journey every person on this island knew they must never make.
‘Rosie!’ Gruff shouted. The harsh sound of his voice surprised him.
Rosie stopped and turned round. She blinked at him like a newly-woken sleepwalker. ‘Gruff.’ She smiled and came back up the beach towards them.
‘You dropped your bucket,’ Gruff said. ‘Do you need a hand?’
‘Oh, no, don’t worry,’ Rosie laughed, chucking the beach-combed things back into the bucket. ‘Weird, I don’t remember putting it down – must have been in a daydream! Are you Matylda? Nice to meet you! See you soon. I’ve got to head round to Trefynys now, or I’ll be late to help Mrs Moruzzi in her garden.’
Rosie climbed up the bank of stones to the path and set off towards the fishermen’s cottages. Gruff watched her go, unsettled and confused.
‘One,’ Mat whispered beside him. ‘Two. Three, four, five, six, seven.’
‘Six,’ Gruff corrected, automatically. ‘There’s only six.’
And then he knew why what he’d seen that morning had been so wrong. His blood roared in his ears.
Mat counted again. ‘Six. Oh yeah, oops!’
Gruff raked his eyes over the stones. Six, he counted, and six, and six again.
The imagined figure, the boat-mirage human.
They had been standing on a seventh.