The engines started and built up to the familiar spanking din, whining into action as I pulled the handle of a shed that refused to budge. No other cover. For a desperate second I eyed a rabbit hutch, before simply pushing the back door, which swung open. I stepped into a huge living space that ended with a vast picture of sea and sky framed in the bay window. Way out, amid the deep grays, a small light wavered in the darkness. They must have reached the ship by now.
With a blast of light, a shape rose into view, and the room was plunged into brightness. I hit the floor. The helicopters turned, and lights spiraled across the walls and away. I raised my head and watched them slide out of the frame, though their heartbeat thudded for a long time in the quiet night, heading inland. I stayed facedown on the living room rug. The dark rushed back in. My children were safe. What more could a mother hope for?
By the time I pulled myself back up off the floor, the moon had risen, shining a long path across the water, as though taunting me. It had forced the tide to turn, and now it dared me to follow. Instead, I went back to the kitchen and started packing up food from the cupboards. For the first time since I’d entered the house, I noticed a buzz in the hallway, so I slipped out the back door and down the side alleyway onto the coast road. Staying close to the cover of houses, I broke into a jog and, as I got into my stride, a run. When the road bent away inland, I dropped down onto the beach and the hard, wet sand slapped under my boots. My lungs felt huge, swollen from salt air and crying. But I felt I could run forever. I raced toward the blackened cliff that I would have to climb to reach the abbey. The rhythm of my boots on the sand like a drum. But then there was something else, another rhythm, clashing with mine. Instinctively, I clicked off my torch and threw myself down, crabbing over to hide behind the ribbed remains of a breaker. But no light in the sky. No beat of helicopter blades. The sound—slowing, arrhythmic now—came from the sea. I squinted into the dark. A tiny light bounced across the waves. Then a voice calling my name as a bulky figure jumped from a dinghy onto the beach.
“You’re supposed to be looking after my son,” I said.
“I am. A boy needs his mother.”
For a moment, I thought Larsen was going to grab me, force me on board. I wouldn’t have had the will to resist. But instead he said, “Take this,” and pushed a canvas bag into my hands. I fumbled open the buckle, and he shone his torch inside: medication, a transistor radio, and, wrapped inside another canvas bag, a gun with ammunition.
He nodded once and turned back to the dinghy. “The boat has sailed, we need to catch up.”
“Thank you,” I said.
He reached the dinghy in a few strides, pushing it away from the sand as he rolled inside.
“I’ll see you then,” he called out. “Same time, same place?”
“It’s a date.”
The engine roared, and his small light bounced away into the gray.
Later, I reached the bridge over the river and looked for the light out at sea. It was gone. The ship must have sailed. This was a good thing. When I had been pregnant with Billy, after the bleeding made me think I’d lost him, I used to close my eyes and convince myself that the white sunspot I could see was the light of my baby. I closed my eyes now and saw the sunspot. But when I opened my eyes, the light out to sea was still gone. Gone to safety, I told myself. Gone to safety.
It was easy to follow the uphill curve of the cobbled streets through the old town to the base of the hill. The abbey peered down again, the smoke, cleared. The hillside reeked, and the stone steps were black with charred debris. Along the top of the cliff, buildings smoldered, but the grass fire seemed to have burnt itself out. I paced myself and reached the top of the steps with burning thighs but enough energy to run, if needed. The moonlight played with the night’s proportions, so I felt I could reach out and touch the top of the ruined facade. Push it down like a cardboard cutout. But the sea breeze howled through the empty window sockets, reminding me that it was real.
I climbed back up to the base of the stone cross. It was still warm from the day. I pressed my scratched face against it and closed my eyes. I smiled at the white sunspot. But then a scraping footstep from the other side of the cross filled my body with an electric surge of adrenaline. A thin figure scuttled across the gravel toward the hillside, a cloak streaming out behind. I slipped down the steps and landed heavily on my backside on the grass with a huff.
The figure reached the top of the steps and turned toward me into the moonlight. Lola’s narrow face shone white beneath what I now saw was not a cloak but a raincoat.
“It’s me,” I called out.
“Aunt Marlene?”
“The same.” I got up and pressed my hand into the hip that always seemed to take the brunt of every mishap. The fall, the run, the withdrawal of adrenaline—now my right arm and shoulder throbbed back into action, too.
“What are you doing here?” Lola asked. “I watched you all leave.”
She stayed at a distance, behind the iron railings of the steps. It was just as well. Anger pooled in my hands, which twitched with an urge to wring the truth into her: You made me leave my children; I could die without seeing them again.
Lola gave a hiccup and started to cry. “I thought you were the Cleaners. I thought I was going to die.” She sat on the top of the 199 steps and wept into her hands.
I walked over and hugged her from behind, my arms around her delicate neck.
“What about Mom?” she asked, barely audible.
“Well, put it this way. If we see her again, she’ll be too happy to hold a grudge, and if we don’t, then it’s not really your problem, is it?”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“Quite the opposite, actually. But it is better than throttling you, which is the other option.”
Lola detached herself from my embrace.
“I didn’t think they would just sail away and leave us,” she said.
“The tide went out. And there are other survivors on the ship who need treatment. And your mother—”
“Are they coming back for us?”
“Maybe.” I let the bit about Joni go. We could deal with that later. “So what’s your brilliant plan, Lady Lola? What happens now?”
“Rescue Jack.”
“That’s it?”
Apparently, it was.
It was cold at the top of the 199 steps. The wind picked up. Wisps of cloud scuttled across the moon, sending huge shadows over the waves like dark glimpses of sea monsters. Lola shivered and zipped up her coat. We needed shelter for the night. Tomorrow, a vehicle. And supplies. A new plan.
I hauled Lola up by the elbow, and we started down the lonely steps to the town, accompanied by the hiss of waves dragging stones across the sand, making wishes as they went.
“Do you think we’ll get back, Aunt Marlene? Will we make it?”
“Oh, yes, Lola,” I said, through a mouthful of salty air. “We’ll make it back. Mummy always comes back.”