Mat sat in the kitchen of the farmhouse and fingered the raw, red flaps of skin on both sides of her neck. Gruff winced. ‘Does it hurt?’
She shook her head. ‘Not exactly. It just feels weird.’ She snorted with uncertain laughter. ‘I’m turning into a fish!’
He shrugged one shoulder, not wanting to upset her. She did appear to be turning into a fish.
Mat ran her hands up her arms. ‘You said Dylan had scales?’
‘Yeah.’ Gruff tried to imagine Mat looking like Dylan had. Would she stop being able to come on land? Would she forget herself forever? It was hard to believe any of it, sitting quietly at the pitted wooden table of the farmhouse kitchen, with the saucepans hanging on the wall and the gingham lampshade and the peeling paint above the window. It would be impossible to believe, if Mat wasn’t sitting opposite him poking at her gills with an expression of curiosity and horror. ‘Are you going to tell your mum and John?’
She fidgeted with the pepper pot. ‘I want to. I mean, I wanted to tell them about the sword and stuff, but what if they don’t believe me? What if they think I’m lying, and they stop trusting me or –’
‘Mat,’ Gruff said firmly. ‘You have gills. They’ve got to believe you.’
‘Oh yeah.’ She grinned sheepishly. ‘Do you think I’ll go back to normal when we finish the sword?’
‘I don’t know.’ Secretly, he didn’t think what was happening to Mat was anything to do with the sword. She’d told him she used to walk too far into the sea when she was a small child, and that was long before she came to the island. Perhaps whatever was happening to her now had always been waiting to come out.
‘I mean, I don’t hate it,’ Mat said quietly. ‘I know it’s weird and everything, but when I remember what it feels like to be part of the water, it’s like … it’s like coming home. What did you say the word was? I feel hiraeth for the sea. You know you asked me if I felt like the sea was inside me, the other day? I didn’t know what you meant, then, but I can feel it now. I think it’s always been there, but I didn’t notice it. Like the way you don’t notice your heartbeat because it’s just normal. The sea’s inside me. It’s always been inside me.’
Dad’s mobile, abandoned on the kitchen sideboard, rang. Gruff got up and checked the display. Eleri. His heart plummeted. Not now. He didn’t want this conversation now. And why hadn’t she rung him? He went to check his own phone and realised he’d left it in his room.
The front door latch clicked up. Dad’s voice came through from the hallway: ‘Oh, the phone’s ringing.’
Looking panicked, Mat shook her hair out over her neck and stood up. Gruff, seeing no way out, answered the phone.
‘Hi, Mam,’ he said, just as Dad walked into the kitchen with Nain, Tim and Elen behind him.
Dad mouthed, ‘Who is it?’
‘Mam,’ Gruff mouthed back. Dad’s eyebrows went up in surprise, but he didn’t offer to take the phone. He went to the bread bin and pulled out a loaf.
‘Hello, cariad,’ Mam said. ‘I rang you but you didn’t pick up. Are you okay? What brought on that text?’
‘Um,’ Gruff said. His mind spun away from him and he couldn’t seem to find words to answer. Dad was cutting the bread as Tim ladled soup into bowls and Elen filled the kettle. Mat hovered in the doorway, looking at Gruff with pleading eyes. She hadn’t been prepared for an influx of people either.
‘Sweetheart?’ Mam said.
Gruff headed for the door. ‘Sorry, Mam. Everyone just came in to make lunch.’
Mat escaped into the hall ahead of him. ‘I’m going home,’ she whispered. He nodded and she disappeared outside, coughing.
Gruff took the stairs two at a time and lay on his bed. He stared up at the cobweb-covered ceiling, watching Gary the spider and the Garyettes lurking quiet and patient in their sticky homes.
‘Gruff? Are you still there?’
‘Yes.’ Not for much longer, he thought. ‘I … I just … the farm is in trouble, and if I wasn’t here, maybe it’d help.’
‘Oh, Gruff!’ Mam sounded shocked and angry. ‘Did Dad say that?’
‘No!’ Gruff shook his head violently even though she couldn’t see him. ‘No, Dad doesn’t even know I sent the text.’
‘This is a big decision, cariad. You’ve got to talk to your dad about it.’
‘Well, I can’t tell him and you at the same time, so I had to start somewhere.’ The words came out more bitterly than he’d meant them to.
Mam sighed. ‘If it’s really what you want, you know you’re always welcome here. It’s a small flat, but I’m fairly settled right now. I’m still doing a bit of travelling though. We might have to find you a friend to stay with sometimes.’
A friend. In a place he hardly knew.
‘Gruff?’ Mam sighed again. ‘It would be a whole new start, sweetheart. New school, new friends, new way of life. No farm. You’re a farming lad. Wouldn’t you miss it?’
He couldn’t answer. Of course he’d miss it. But if it would mean saving the farm; if it would mean having a farm to come back to and visit; if it would mean that Dad and Nain and Ffion and James and Tim and Elen and Mrs Moruzzi and all the others who looked after the sheep and spun the wool and knitted it and felted it, could carry on…
‘Cariad, I rang now because I knew your dad would be on lunch. I’d like to talk to him, too. Do you want to tell him about the text you sent me before I do?’
‘He hasn’t been telling me anything about the farm,’ Gruff muttered. ‘He can have a surprise for once.’ But the words left a nasty taste on his tongue.
‘I need to talk to him now,’ Mam said. ‘I’ll be too busy the rest of today and tomorrow.’
Gruff pushed himself off his bed, feeling heavy and tired.
‘I need to know one more thing before I talk to Dad,’ Mam said, in her most firm, Mam-like voice. ‘Do you want to leave the island? Tell me truthfully, Gruffydd.’
‘No,’ Gruff said, coming down the stairs slowly and wishing they were twice as long. ‘I don’t want to leave.’
‘Then why, Gruff? This is a big thing to have asked. To ask of your dad and your nain. To ask of yourself.’
Gruff felt very young and small. Tears pricked unhelpfully at the back of his eyes. He sat down on the final step of the stairs and rested his forehead on his hand. ‘We can’t lose the farm, Mam. Dad and Nain mustn’t leave the island.’
‘A sacrifice,’ Mam said. ‘How noble.’ She sighed. ‘My brave boy, carrying the weight of the farm on his shoulders. It’s not your weight to carry, sweetheart.’
Gruff gulped and half-laughed. He thought of the hammer and the sword and the blacksmith and the storm that was on its way. If only she knew.
‘Lunch, Gruff?’ Elen asked, appearing out of the kitchen. Her face fell when she saw him. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Can you get Dad?’
Elen nodded, her eyes worried. A moment later Dad came out of the kitchen, a tomato soup moustache on his top lip. He frowned.
‘What’s happened?’
‘Nothing,’ Gruff said quickly. ‘Nothing bad, I mean. Here.’ He held the phone out and Dad took it, looking mystified.
Gruff ran back up the stairs, unwilling to see Dad’s face or hear the conversation. As he got to his room, he heard the front door close and he knew Dad had gone outside to talk in private. He lay on his bed and counted the Garyettes. Five. Then he deliberated over names. Peter Parker, and Fred. And Charlotte, of course. And Shelob. And Leggy.
Gruff rolled onto his side and scrunched up tight, wrapping his arms round his head as though that would protect him from all the thoughts going on inside. The money troubles and the possibility of leaving the island, and Mat becoming something that they had no word for, and the failure to finish the sword. And hanging above it all like a great, silent wave, the threat of a storm that could wash them all away.
His door clicked open and someone knocked. Dad, then. Nain was much better at remembering to do the knocking before the barging in. Gruff peered out from under his arms and saw his sturdy, dependable Dad, mud on his jeans and a hoof trimmer sticking out of one pocket, leaning on the doorframe and looking at him with glistening eyes.
Gruff pushed himself upright. Dad sniffed, rubbed a hand across his eyes and cleared his throat. ‘Do you want to leave, Gruff?’
To his frustration, Gruff felt his face crumple. He’d planned this moment. He’d planned to keep a calm face and say yes. To tell Dad it was what he wanted. To make it easier for Dad to see the back of him. ‘No,’ Gruff whispered.
Dad moved across the room in two steps and knelt by the bed, gathering Gruff’s hands into his own. ‘I don’t want you to leave.’
Gruff shook his head, unable to keep his tears back. ‘You mustn’t lose the farm. I thought, if I wasn’t here … you and Nain, you’d be able to stay. And at least I’d have a farm to come back to.’
Dad took an unsteady breath. ‘I would rather lose the farm than have you even think you should leave us.’ He squeezed Gruff’s hands. ‘I know the island is where we live, but you are my home, Gruff, more than the island. You and Nain are my home. Do you understand?’
Gruff nodded. He couldn’t speak.
‘I know why you did what you did,’ Dad said. ‘And I’m so sorry you felt you needed to take all that worry onto yourself. I’m so sorry. I will explain everything to you properly, I promise. Tonight. After work, we’ll sit down and I’ll tell you everything about the farm and the trouble we’re in. And you’ll see that you leaving the island would change nothing. But even if it did, I wouldn’t let you do it. Not unless you really wanted, in your heart of hearts, to stop living with us. Yes?’
Dad pulled him into a tight, tight hug and Gruff squeezed him back, feeling safer than he had for days.
‘You’re my home,’ Gruff whispered. ‘You and Nain. You’re my home.’