Feathertide Read online

  ‘When you find him, tell him I searched for him. Tell him I tried, and let him know that I’m so sorry we ran out of time.’ Then she pulled me back towards her and held me for an endless moment.

  Looking up, I caught a movement in the upper window of the house; it was Sorren. She hadn’t gathered with the others to say goodbye, but she was there watching, palm flat against the glass, her expression unreadable.

  Finally, Lemàn released me from her arms, and I was relieved to feel the heavy fabric of my cloak crush down the bulk of my feathers. Once upon a time, when I was a little girl lost to the world, I thought my cloak hid buried treasure, but now I saw this treasure as a curse that I wanted to lift. I thrust my hands in my pockets, which should have been empty, but instead, my fingers brushed against something soft and bulging. Pulling it out, I found it was a purse, heavy with the weight of coins. I gasped in astonishment at the unexpected gift and the enormity of what it meant. There was only one person who could have put it there, but when I looked back at the window she was gone.

  The professor and Lemàn stood in the doorway reaching for each other’s hands when there was nothing else to hold onto. At a distance, when I was sure they were all too small to be seen, I turned and looked back. All I had ever known was falling away, nothing more than dancing specks of light, shards lost in the wind, blurred by my tears.

  CHAPTER 10

  Through the fog, the harbour was alive with the chug and chatter of endless vessels. Small tug boats and returning night trawlers bobbed up and down next to the larger, more imposing ships, which stood like magnificent icebergs glistening in the sun. Crates were being thrown between boats and loaded onto carts. The horses, with their slow sulky plod, took them up the hill into town. The high-pitched cries of the gulls mingled with the hurried exchanges between the traders and the merchants. Fearing I was too late, I pushed my way through the impatient crowds with a jostle of elbows, in search of the captain. He was at the far end of the harbour, quickly unwinding a thick coil of rope through his calloused hands. The boat had begun to move.

  ‘Wait!’ I yelled, running towards him. ‘You said you’d take me with you to The City of Water – don’t you remember?’

  The look on his face suggested he didn’t, but then as I came to a halt, there was a sudden spark of recognition provoking the lustful grin I had seen three days before.

  ‘I have this.’ Without hesitation, I lifted out the purse of coins. ‘I can pay for my passage, there is more than enough here … check if you don’t believe me.’ Breathless, I jangled the purse in front of him.

  His eyes fell from me to the purse, then he snatched it from my hand, stretched it open, peered inside, and, satisfied, dropped it into his pocket. For one frightful moment, I thought I had lost both the money and my passage, but then to my relief, he reached out his hand. ‘Welcome aboard,’ he said.

  My cabin was airless and cramped, lit only by a kerosene lamp, which swung from a beam, casting strange shadows, which limped across the floor like deranged, tormented creatures. There were two low-slung hammocks hanging from hooks on the walls, but the other was empty. This pleased me, for I could remove my cloak without the fear of questions.

  Mostly, I stayed hidden in my cabin, listening to the voices and laughter and the scuttle of ravenous rats, which swilled through the boat. When the waves grew choppy, I could hear the occasional sound of retching from above. I had a single tin bucket to be used for both washing and for waste, and would hurry onto the deck and fling my dirty water overboard before it stunk out the cabin. Despite this efficiency, the boat still reeked of sweat and damp and sewage. There was no standing headroom below deck, so I spent hours huddled in a ball of hibernation, waiting for the harsh winter months to pass in the dark, damp gut of the boat. Slowly, I emerged from this darkness and began spending more time on deck, breathing in the salty air, and staring in wonder at the vast expanse of sky. I was always sure to wear my cloak then, not just to shield me from the fresh breeze swept up from the waves, but to avoid finding myself on a different kind of boat: a boat of freaks and oddities.

  I rarely saw the other passengers – there were not many of us on board – but I heard snatches of their curious conversations. Whispers of canals filled with wishes, shops that only opened at night and so many bridges that a person could easily lose their way, and even suffer from altitude sickness on cloudy days. One man was already bartering with another about the price of a boat; it seemed you couldn’t move quickly through the city without one. In amongst all these stories, I kept hearing the same word repeated over and over again. It shone like a bright fruit on a dark tree, or the moon at midnight: mist. Islands of mist, boats of mist and jars of mist. Even though everyone whispered about it, I never heard enough to discover its importance.

  There was one woman in particular who caught my eye, always accompanied by a man I presumed to be her husband from the way he held his arm around her waist. I noticed her because of the hat she wore. It was dark blue with a spray of indigo and amber feathers, twirling proudly from its velvet trim. In the sunlight it blazed and sparkled as though it was a firework and I couldn’t tear my eyes away. She liked to watch the sea and would turn her face and squeal playfully each time the wind brought a splash of waves to greet her. Marianne had been right; the woman held onto that hat as though it was the most precious thing in the world, and for a moment it made us both feel beautiful.

  Heaved across the endless silver blue, the distance between myself and all that I knew lengthened. I could no longer see any patch of the land we had left behind, and the rocky outcrops, which had given me comfort, had all been lost to the deep waves. We were in a watery wilderness with nothing to cling on to and nowhere to drop anchor; we were a tiny capsule at the mercy of the sea. On we floated, guided by the magnetic moon and the turning tide. We could have been lost and I wouldn’t have known. I no longer knew if what lay behind was any further away than what lay ahead. My great sense of longing was now borne out of the need for arrival rather than departure. Answers were waiting for me across the water and whatever they were spurred me on. Physically, I could go no faster than the boat allowed, but my mind had long ago raced ahead.

  Every day was the same, and for a while I wondered if we were moving at all. I would climb to the top deck in the hope of seeing something new or something that had changed: a mackerel boat like the ones I’d left behind; the dark fin of a hunting whale, or the straggle of floating seaweed, but there was nothing out there. The sea was empty. Above all, I grew restless for some small sign of land, but no matter how much I squinted into the distance, all I could see was the endless dazzling blue of sea and sky, as indistinguishable as the passing hours.

  At night everything turned black. Then, unexpectedly, something did change. I felt it hours before it arrived and I sensed the heaviness in the air. When I asked the captain if there was a storm coming, he thought the journey was making me mad, for when we both looked up at the sky it was sun-spilled and a spotless blue. But I grew uneasy and my feathers ruffled under my cloak, even though there was no wind to move them.

  That night I slept fitfully, disturbed by the encroaching prowl of thunder, which nobody else could hear, but me. My feathers kept me awake, chattering and whispering in the dark. I was reminded of once upon a time, when I had been high in my childhood tree wondering if I would be lifted into the air, should I dare to step off the branch. My feathers answered me, but I didn’t listen then, and now their warning was even clearer. Finally, in the early hours, I gave up completely on sleep and climbed to the upper deck to empty my bucket. The cool night air was a welcome tonic and I lay down on the salt-splashed deck, relieved that I could still see the stars in the restful sky. Perhaps I had been mistaken, I thought, getting to my feet. Then peering over the side of the boat, I saw that the waves had begun to stir. Troubled, I went back to bed.

  It felt like I had only been asleep for a few moments when I was awoken by a loud clunk; the lantern was swinging w
ildly from its hook, sending a tribal dance of shadows spinning frantically round the cabin. Reaching for my cloak and staggering from my hammock I tried to climb the steps. I had only managed to get about halfway to the top when a sudden jolt knocked me against the wall and I tumbled to the floor, landing with a heavy thud. I could hear the chaos exploding from above. This time I crawled up the steps on my hands and knees and pushed open the door. As soon as I did, a vicious torrent whipped me across the deck, just as we plunged into the watery darkness. I managed to reach for the bottom of the mast and clung on as we flew upwards just long enough to fill our lungs with air before the dark water swallowed us up again. I heard the shout of the captain and searched for him through stinging eyes. He threw me a rope and, not letting it slip from my fingers, I secured myself to the mast, wrapping it three times round my waist and fastened it in a double knot, as he had taught me on the first night. The storm did its worst, raging without mercy. I scrunched my eyes closed, and held on tight. There was nothing else to do, but wait to see what survived.

  By morning we were balanced again, mournful in the water. For a while I couldn’t loosen my grip; my fingers were tight and stiff with pain. The boat, although broken and bruised and splintered in places, had survived. The sea and the sky shone clear and steady as the captain and the crew set about fixing the deck with hammer and nail. I helped to unfurl the sail, tattered and torn at its edges, like a broken wing, and together we did our best, until the sail caught the wind again.

  I searched for the woman with the hat, and eventually I found her standing at the very end of the boat. This time though, she wore no hat, and her hair hung loose and flat. She was sobbing into the shoulder of her husband and I wondered if they were tears at having lost something so beautiful.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I heard him say, ‘I will find you another.’

  ‘I don’t want another,’ she protested; ‘I want the one I lost.’

  ‘Then I shall have to buy you a jar of mist instead.’ He took her hand and pressed it to his lips.

  She returned his gesture with a smile. ‘I hope we’re in time.’

  I wondered then if this mysterious mist was some sort of magical remedy, a cure for disappointment. I reached under my cloak to where I knew my feathers grew long and smooth and shone the colour of sunlight through honey. I gave one a sharp tug, and felt it loosen into my hand. Soundlessly, I approached her and she looked up through her tears. I held out the feather and she stared at it in confusion.

  ‘Take it … it’s for you,’ I urged. There was surprise in her eyes, and then slowly she did as I asked. ‘You can wear it in your next hat.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said quietly, with a flicker of a smile. Gazing at it, her eyes were filled with admiration. ‘But why are you giving it to me?’

  ‘Because you reminded me that feathers are beautiful,’ I replied.

  I knew she might ask me where I had found it, so by the time she looked up I had hurried away to save myself from the lie I would have to tell.

  Wind-raw and salt-parched, I closed my eyes and must have drifted off to sleep. When I opened them again, something was circling high above me. Blinking against the glare of the sun, the shadow seemed to grow bigger. Shielding my eyes, I could see a curve of silver, like a splinter of moon. For a moment, I thought the storm had shaken it from its hook in the sky and sliced it into tumbling pieces. But instead of falling, the shape soared and I realised then what it was.

  ‘Captain!’ I called excitedly. ‘Look! Up there!’

  The captain glanced upwards just as the gull screeched sharply and flew into the distance.

  ‘We’re not far from land now,’ he yelled, his swollen belly juggling with relief and too much rum. Heaving the nets to one side, he started to work on the shattered prow. ‘How did you hear that storm hours before it broke? You must have the instincts of a bird.’

  I smiled at how right he was. Like my pine cones, I had always been sensitive to the weather. On my walks with Professor Elms l always knew when the rain was coming and how heavy it would fall. I didn’t just look like a bird; I thought like one too.

  Then came the mist, dancing around us on its tiptoes. It thinned and swirled then thinned again, weaving an ancient potion, shaking us loose and wrapping us up and sweeping us along as though we were the missing ingredient. Then came the drift of smoke and something familiar and sweet, like pine resin or jars of jam and summer honey like the ones stored outside Sorren’s door. It was a relief from the constant smell of damp and sweat and salty fish, which had swilled around my lungs for far too long.

  Floating closer, I began to make out the murmur of ghostly shapes, spied briefly through the vapours that reared up like sea monsters from the depths below. Hypnotic shapes, sirens of the deep, twisting and tempting us closer until arrival was no longer a choice but instead a compulsion. Whenever the mist magically lifted, like the lid of a secret trinket box, it revealed towers and domes and sloping roofs trembling beneath a delicate lavender-coloured sky. Ribbons of twilight tied themselves around the tallest towers, delivering the city like a wrapped gift, ready to open. A place of half-water and half-land swelling and shrinking, being cast like a spell, right before my eyes. It felt like we were drifting through the hushed conversations of lovers in the evening. Spires rose like masts, its domed roofs like sails caught on the wind. It was as though someone had packed the whole place – its people and belongings – on to the deck of a majestic ship, ready to set sail at a moment’s notice. Should someone discover its secrets it stayed on the run.

  I stared in open-mouthed wonder. What was this place? It was more exquisite, more bewitching, more enchanting than I could ever have imagined. My eyes weren’t big enough to take it all in and I was afraid to blink in case it all vanished like a dream. I wanted desperately to brush my fingertips against its walls, for my feet to balance on its stone steps, as though touching it might somehow make it seem more real and long-lasting. Like a cake, you had to taste it to know how delicious it was.

  Trust you to fall in love with a sinking city, Lemàn had said before I left.

  I had laughed at her words then, but now with the city floating before me, I was no longer sure. Was it quivering in fear or excitement? Was I?

  Finally, came a tiny jangle, like the sound of the bell above the sweet shop door in the marketplace. I always imagined what it would be like to sneak inside and explore its multi-coloured edible wishes. Drifting closer, the sound grew louder, like the clink of glass against glass, a thousand flutes toasting an evening’s celebration. The captain steered us slowly into the sheltered waters of the lagoon, gliding towards the fast approaching walls of buildings with their crumbling balconies and shuttered windows. We slipped into the shade of a small canal and the captain tied the boat to a mooring pole, its restless spirit stilled.

  Spellbound, we had finally arrived.

  CHAPTER 11

  This was where we parted. The captain and his small crew stomped away in search of a night of revelry and mayhem. There was no backward glance, my money had bought my passage and nothing more. The other passengers scattered like breadcrumbs until I was left quite alone, standing by the side of the canal in a fast-darkening city. I could follow them or find my own way. For a while I hid in a doorway, uncertain of what to do or which way to go. My body still seemed to sway from the endless days upon the floating vessel, and I waited for everything to steady. Finally, a distant clock chimed, summoning me from my musing, and, hood up, head down, I drifted into the city.

  The smell was different here; it wasn’t the cool, woody air, which reddened my cheeks and followed me home from the fields. Here the air carried something heavy and rich and warm: a dark infusion of intimacy; a lover’s bedroom.

  Heart aflutter, I meandered down streets that tunnelled and twisted into the depths of this magical place, grateful for the solitude I found there. I had left behind a muddy, muffled world, a place of grey and gloom, with damp corners and clogged chimney pots. N
ow I had stumbled into a city of sunset reds and pie-crust browns; of summer-baked apricots and dancing golden coins all reflected in the shimmering water. The brightness twirled and spun all around me like a lollipop. Buildings crumbled from both sides of the canals, and where one ended and another began, it was impossible to tell. Every stone seemed to cling to another, refusing to let go, out of fear or love, desperate for something. I let my eyes marvel and wonder at the doors that opened straight into the water. How strange, I thought – if there were no boats, what would the occupants do; just swim away? Bridges appeared out of nowhere; some were so small that I had barely set foot upon them before I had reached the other side; others were almost vertical, snatching at my breath as I climbed to their summits. Captivity had made me weak, but now as I walked and watched and listened, I could feel the energy pulse and release, flowing through my bones. I was stretching into life.

  So far, I hadn’t passed a single person; the streets were deserted. Beneath the dusky fast-falling shroud of twilight, everything seemed watchful. My bearings had been snatched away like a net of trawled fish, but I felt no fear now, only a nervous excitement.

  It was time to find my father and to do that I had to go back to the beginning, I had to find the Uccello Hotel. I don’t know what I expected to find after all this time, maybe nothing, but he had been there before and perhaps he would go there again. Maybe someone remembered him; a man with wings and burnished feathers would be impossible to forget. I had memorised its location from Lemàn’s description and the professor’s maze of maps.

  I plunged back into the infinite alleys and strode across the squares, stopping only once near a wall of wisteria, to get my bearings before racing off again, using the water as my navigation point. My heart quickened with each step, until I crossed a bridge and headed down to where the canal ran at its widest. I knew that the marketplace should be just up ahead, and was relieved to see the empty stalls still stained with streaks of fish oil and the dark canopies resting above them. By my reckoning, the hotel should have been some way back, behind the Church of One Hundred Souls, but somehow, I had missed it. Across the water, I could make out the warm lights and hear the welcoming laughter of people, yet there was no bridge to take me there. I had gone wrong somewhere, but where? There was no sign of the church and churches don’t just pack up their pews and vanish into thin air.