Chapter Two

Aberglad

When they arrived at Aberglad, a wonderful thing happened. The sky began clearing from grey to the brightest, cleanest blue. A rainbow hovered above the town. Children chattered in the streets and strings of brightly coloured bunting flapped in the breeze. The sea was as sparkly as a crystal when they walked down to the harbour.

‘It’s always brighter in the west,’ the woman said.

Elen remembered that the woman’s name was Nerys, which seemed like a pretty name when she thought about it properly.

‘That’s where I grew up.’ Nerys pointed to a tiny pink cottage. It was the size of a doll’s house and had millions of flowers in its small garden. ‘Winkle Cottage.’

‘It’s lovely,’ Elen replied, startling Nerys.

Nerys smiled. Elen smiled shyly back at her. She felt a bit guilty but also quite proud of how long she’d managed to keep silent. It was the longest she’d not said anything since she’d learned to talk.

‘It is lovely. Bit on the pokey side, mind you.’ Nerys waved to someone in a passing car.

‘I can see that,’ Elen said, then worried that she’d picked the wrong time to joke, but Nerys beamed down at her and laughed loudly. Elen laughed too. The storm had passed inside her as well as in the sky.

‘Come on. Let’s get a wriggle on or we’ll miss the boat, ’ said Nerys. They hurried on to the harbour wall and reached some rickety stone steps.

Elen read the words ‘Dead Man’s Steps’ on the sign at the top and, shocked, looked at Nerys. Nerys pointed at a door with a large skull and crossbones above it. ‘That’s where they used to put people who died from the plague so that they wouldn’t have to step over their rotting bodies in the street. Imagine it. All the flies and the maggoty stench!’

‘That’s gross.’ Elen was starting to like Nerys. No one talked to her like this usually. Everyone else treated her like a kid.

‘If anyone died at sea and their body washed up without identification they would throw them in there too. There’s an awful lot of sailors there. Some of them were buried with their treasure hoard. Or so people say. I doubt if it’s true though.’

Elen stared at the door and felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle.

‘We should’ve left earlier,’ Nerys panted, as they trotted down the steps. ‘I’m running out of puff.’

‘What happens if we miss the boat?’ Elen asked, almost jogging to keep up.

‘We can’t miss the boat. It’s the last one today and there might not be another one for a week if the weather forecast is right.’ Nerys looked up grimly at the shiny sky. ‘Now come on, slowcoach, or we’ll have to swim for it.’

‘Not with the size of those jellyfish, thanks very much.’

Little pastel-coloured houses surrounded the harbour walls and lots of people bustled about, shopping and fishing, gardening and chatting. Nerys greeted nearly all of them by name. A man shook a lobster at her. It looked as if the lobster knew Nerys as it waggled its claw in the air.

‘You’ll soon get to know everyone around here,’ she told Elen. ‘And they’ll want to know everything about you!’

As if on cue, a woman stood in their way with a hen cuddled close to her chest. She had bright pink hair. Elen marvelled at how much she looked like a human candyfloss.

‘Hello, Nerys love. Who’s this, then?’ She squinted at Elen.

‘Sorry, Sally. Got to catch the last boat over. No time for a chat.’

Nerys tried to get past her. The candyfloss-on-legs persisted. ‘Well, when you’ve got time, love, I want to tell you about my new collection of hens. Lovely things, hens. Lovely eggs they lay. Lovely. Lovely. I said to Mrs Williams only this morning…’

Nerys dragged Elen on with a look that said: ‘I told you so’.

The tide was in and cheerful boats bobbed red and yellow against it, their bells chinkle-tinkling and their chains tugging against their anchors.

‘We’re going to have to run!’ Nerys exclaimed.

And they did. Past the lobster pots and the old buoys with seaweed beards, past the children crabbing and the adults eating sarnies, and along the harbour wall, Nerys waving her hands to get the attention of a man untying a boat which looked a little the worse for wear.

‘Mr Evans!’ Nerys shouted.

He looked up and waved back, handing the rope to a boy. Elen and Nerys clattered up to them.

‘Hello, Nerys. Long time no see.’ The man smiled.

‘I’ve … been … working … away … Mr Evans,’ Nerys told him between breaths.

‘Ah, all the young ones go off and they very rarely come back.’ He shook his head. ‘Who is this then?’

‘This is Elen, Mr Evans. She’s staying with her grandmother on the island.’ Nerys pushed Elen forwards.

Elen held out her hand to Mr Evans. ‘Very pleased to meet you, sir.’

Mr Evans threw his head back and laughed. The boy laughed slyly too.

‘Very polite we are.’ Mr Evans chortled. ‘But you can call me Captain Evans and I’ll call you Able Seaman Elen.’

Elen would rather he just called her Elen but she knew it would be rude to say so.

He looked as much like a sea captain as it was possible to look in his yellow wellies and Sou’wester hat. His curly white beard was so fluffy Elen wanted to give it a tug to see if it was real. As she stared at his beard, he started to scratch it.

‘So Mrs Thomas is your granny then, eh?’

‘Elen has never met her,’ Nerys said.

‘I have, but when I was a baby so I can’t really remember her,’ Elen added.

Mr Evans winked at the boy, who had now finished untying the boat. ‘That old boot! Oh you poor little thing. You’ll be lucky to get any sense out of her. She hasn’t spoken to me in nigh on twenty years!’

Perhaps he had done something to make her cross. Elen wondered if maybe she wasn’t the only one in her family who sulked.

His face changed from joyful to stern in five seconds flat. ‘Seriously, you be careful with her. She’s a strange one.’ He looked straight into Elen’s eyes. She could tell he wasn’t joking. She felt a shiver run down her spine.

‘OK. Well, take good care of her, won’t you.’ Nerys patted Elen on the head and passed her luggage to Mr Evans. Mr Evans gave it to the boy, who threw it roughly down from the top of the steps, almost breaking it. The boy stared spitefully at Elen as if daring her to complain.

‘Aren’t you coming with me?’ If she hadn’t already cried all the way here, and if the boy wasn’t now looking at her as if she was a complete baby, Elen could easily have started bawling again.

‘I’ve got to go and see my own family now, lovely,’ Nerys said. ‘But I’ll come over in a week or so and check you are all right.’

Elen looked down at her feet and started a brand new silent sulk. Nerys leaned over and hugged her awkwardly.

‘All aboard!’ Mr Evans shouted, ushering Elen into the boat. It rocked violently as it was released from the quay and Elen almost lost her footing.

The boy laughed. ‘We’ve got ourselves a right landlubber here, Captain Evans.’

‘She’ll soon get the weight of the water,’ Mr Evans called back.

The boy sneered at Elen. She walked confidently to the seat so that he could see she was actually fantastic at being in a boat.

She could feel her tummy rolling over, though she wasn’t sure if it was the motion of the boat or fear of what was waiting for her on the island. The wooden bench was wet with sea spray and soaked through her trousers immediately. The whole thing reeked of fish.

Elen stared at the deck as the boat chugged out of the harbour into the open water. She could feel the boy’s sullen glare burning holes into her back and could hear Nerys shouting goodbye but she didn’t turn to wave. Nerys had been employed by her parents to deliver her like a package and that was exactly what she had done. As soon as Elen’s foot had hit the deck of the boat, she’d finished her job.

Elen was alone in a boat that stank of fish. Totally, completely and stinkily alone.