New Fears 2: Brand New Horror Stories by Masters of the Macabre

MAW Priya Sharma

The sea brought the container in on the highest tide that Little Isle had seen in thirty years, beaching it on the rocks at the base of the cliffs.

Magnus and his sons found it first. They’d been following the trail of dead seals and fish along the beach.

The ferry had been cancelled because the sky over the other islands and the mainland was wild, but the driving wind and rain had paused over Little Isle, making it a bright spot in the darkness.

Hildy, Magnus’s wife, gave him a pointed look when he suggested a day of roaming to the boys, before saying, “Back for lunchtime, okay? You have a homework box for days like this.”

Days when they were cut off and they couldn’t get to primary school on the next island.

The sea was now in retreat. The air smelt swept clean. Water collected in the ripples on the sand and reflected the blue sky overhead.

Donald, Magnus’s younger son, saw the dead seal first. Magnus squatted beside it. Its neck was badly bruised and one of its eyes had gone. A flipper was missing.

“What happened to it, Dad?”

Magnus rolled it over. His cursory post-mortem was inconclusive.

“I don’t know.”

They followed the curve of the beach, and there lay mackerel, herring and ugly monkfish, dull eyes wide in surprise at their fate. Some were whole, but most were torn up, the clumsy dissection revealing guts and flesh already starting to rot.

“Shame. What a waste.”

They picked their way through more seal carcasses. These had fared less well. Most were missing great chunks. Some looked bitten down to bone, the edges black and high.

“Rank.” Peter covered his nose.

“It’s nature.” Magnus loved his sons too much to coddle them. “We all end up like this.”

Magnus meant rotting, not chewed up. Donald screwed up his face.

They found pieces of oars too, beaten and worn. A rowing boat with a hole in its hull. A length of fearsome-looking chain. The ocean bed had been dredged and deposited on the shore.

After a quarter of a mile, the soft ascent of beach onto land was replaced by vertical columns of rock. The container was in the cliff’s shadow.

Donald was about to run to it but Magnus grabbed the hood of his coat and hauled him back. Peter, who was ten, stayed by his father’s side, frowning.

“What is it, Dad?” Peter whispered.

“A shipping container. Take Donald and go straight home. And not up the cliff path either, it’ll be slippery. Go back the way we came.”

Two figures approached them from the opposite direction. Magnus was relieved to see it was Jimmy and Iain. His sons walked away, looking back. Jimmy waved at them. Magnus watched them go and then turned his attention back to the container.

“They don’t normally drop off ships, do they?” Iain asked.

“No, not usually.”

Magnus had authority on Little Isle because of his knowledge of plumbing, plastering and mechanics, and because his grandfather was John Spence. Plus, he’d worked on the mainland port when he was younger, amid acres of decks stacked high with these identical steel boxes. That was the year before he’d married Hildy.

“That’s odd.” Magnus went from one end of the container to the other, kneeling to inspect it. “No twist locks.”

Iain looked blank.

“There should be one at each corner. They lock each container to the one below it, or to the deck.”

Jimmy picked up a pebble.

“Don’t.”

Iain was too late. It hit the container’s side with a dull thud rather than the clang Magnus expected. The stone that had survived endless beatings by the sea shattered into jagged shards. Jimmy’s gaze darted to Iain and then Magnus’s face, awaiting reprimand. Iain shook his head, then turned to Magnus.

“Are they watertight?”

“Should be.”

“What if it’s full of bodies?” Jimmy said. “Immigrants.”

“Don’t be daft.”

Iain’s embarrassment didn’t register with Jimmy, who put his ear to the container.

“What can you hear?” Magnus asked gently. Jimmy was everyone’s to look out for, not just his younger brother’s responsibility.

“I can’t hear what they’re saying.” Jimmy closed his eyes.

“Oh, for God’s sake.”

“What?” Jimmy was on Iain, fast and fierce. “For God’s sake, what?”

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” Magnus soothed him. “Come and help me look for something. Can you do that?”

“Yes.” Jimmy looked deflated, as if the unaccustomed anger had taken it out of him. His focus shifted to somewhere beyond Magnus.

“I’m looking for something called a CSC plate. It’s a metal rectangle. So big.” He held up his hands to demonstrate. “It has writing on it. Normally it’s on the doors.”

They circled the container, climbing up and down the rocks, or leaping from one to another. Nothing. Magnus lowered himself between two boulders to inspect the underside.

“What do you see?” Iain called.

“A load of barnacles. This hasn’t come off a ship recently.”

Barnacles, inside their carapaces, looked like closed eyelids or mouths. Barnacles don’t have hearts. His father had told him that.

I must remember to teach the boys, Magnus thought.

He ran his fingers over the jagged colony that was interrupted by limpets, their shells marked with starburst ridges.

Iain reached down to help him climb out.

“Can we keep it? They found one of these on Hesketh Head. It was full of quad bikes. That would be something, wouldn’t it?”

Magnus put his chin on his chest, considering Iain’s suggestion. “The police called them looters.”

“Didn’t catch them though, did they? We don’t have to keep it for ourselves. We could use it for everyone.”

“Maybe you’re right. We’re owed a bit of luck.” He lifted his eyes skyward. “Here comes his lordship. Well, that’s fucked that idea then.”

“Simon.” Magnus gave him a curt nod.

“How’s Hildy?”

“Fine.”

“Give her my regards.”

“Will do.”

“Did that wash up this morning?” Simon gestured towards the container.

Magnus didn’t reply, so neither did Iain.

“There’s no CSC plate on it. We looked.” Jimmy kicked at a dead fish and then wandered away when Simon gave him a bemused smile.

“Have either of you been able to get outside contact?”

“No, everything’s down,” Magnus replied. “The storm’s still out there.”

“We’ll let the coastguard know when the radio’s back up.”

“So that’s it. You’ve decided without a word to anyone.”

Magnus willed Simon to say It’s my island so he could have a go at him but Simon didn’t oblige.

“What’s there to decide?”

“You have no idea what’s in there.”

“Whatever it is, it isn’t ours.”

“Look at it. It’s been in the ocean for God knows how long. The insurance will have already been paid out on it.”

“It might be someone’s personal things.”

“Or there might be a load of laptops.”

“So you’re planning to sell stolen goods?”

“You can’t decide for everyone.”

There were distant figures on the beach. The islanders that couldn’t get to work on the bigger islands were out to see what the storm had washed up.

A fish flopped around in a shallow rock pool at Magnus’s feet. It was barely covered by the water. Magnus flipped the mackerel onto the sand and then seized it. He put his thumb in its mouth, snapping the head back at a sharp angle. The sudden motion ripped the gills from its throat and blood pulsed from its arteries onto its silver stripes. Magnus let it drip, holding the fish fast in its death throes.

“Was that necessary? Wouldn’t hitting it on the head be kinder?”

“Ignoramus.”

Bleeding kept the flesh from rotting, otherwise it clotted in the body where bacteria could breed.

Magnus flung it to Simon who fumbled with it, getting blood and brine on his jacket.

“Take it home. Make some fucking sushi or something.”

Magnus left the gawping crowd that was gathering on the beach. Simon talked to them from the vantage point of a rock. Cormac had joined him. He was Simon’s manager, which made him the second most important person on the island. He was also Magnus’s cousin. Their shared genes were apparent in their size.

Magnus went back to where coarse grass overtook the sand and up the hill. He crossed the sodden earth and made his way to the church. It was the same path his granddad favoured. Stern John Spence transformed into historian and storyteller, just for him.

St Connaught’s stood out against the scoured sky. Faith had arrived in a row boat bringing a crucifix and conviction to Little Isle. All that remained of the church was stone. Windowless, roofless, doorless, grass had sprung up within. Spiders’ webs sagged with raindrops.

Magnus and Hildy had brought Simon to the ruined church when they were children.

“Posh, aren’t you?” Cormac towered over Simon, who was still wearing his school uniform, even though it was the summer holidays. All the children had gathered on the makeshift football pitch at the end of the village. “Are you a frog, like your mum?”

“She’s French.” Simon’s accent was cut glass.

Cormac snorted, as he’d seen the adults do when they were talking about her.

“She’s a snob, that’s what.” Simon’s mother had only visited the island once. The islanders had mistaken her shyness for snootiness and her eating disorder for Parisian chic. “And so are you, turning up for the summer and then buggering off. You don’t belong here.”

“Let him alone.” Magnus stepped in.

“Or what?”

“You’ll get another share of what I gave you last time.”

The two boys squared up to one another. Simon was incidental to old enmities. The other children looked on, too scared to take sides. Except for Hildy. Strong, desirable Hildy was the only one who wielded enough power to end it. She got between them, thumping them both.

“Stop it, you idiots.” Cormac laughed but Magnus still cut a fighter’s pose. She pulled at his sleeve. “Let’s go.”

They went up to the cliffs to show Simon the puffins and the gulls’ nests on the precipices. Seals basking on the rocks below. There was a whole fleet of trawlers out on the glistening water. The three of them spent the long holidays roaming. Little Isle was rough, green fields and granite hills sculpted by glaciers.

“What’s that noise?”

Hildy was about to answer Simon but Magnus put a finger to his smiling lips to hush her. The roaring got louder as they approached.

Magnus stood close to Simon, enjoying his surprise. There was a whirlpool out on the calm sea. Its pull was mesmeric, the downward spiral of all that water into the depths.

“It’s Maw.” Magnus felt a swell of pride.

The maelstrom was a conspiracy of complex tidal flows in a narrow strait. Water forced itself up from a stone pinnacle on the seabed, opposed to the surface stream, so creating a downward vortex. The swirl was visible below the glassy surface.

“Wow.”

“It’s clearer when there’s a high wind or standing waves. You think it’s loud now. Just wait ’til the tides are right. You can hear Maw roaring from miles off.”

At St Connaught’s they found a nest of mice in the shadow of the stone altar. It had become nature’s temple.

“I found a crow skeleton here once. And a snake’s skin.” Magnus had never seen Hildy so shy. She pulled a sketchbook from her rucksack and passed it to Simon. “Look.”

He leafed through the pages. “These are brilliant.”

She gave Simon a broad smile.

“I like drawing too, but I’m not as good as you.”

“Will you show me yours?”

“Look, here.” Magnus pointed to the wall above the altar.

Simon squinted at the weathered markings. “What are they?”

“Fish jumping into a boat.” They leapt high, pouring themselves onto the deck in an arc.

“How can you tell?”

“My grandfather said. He died last year. He knew everything. Our family have always lived here.”

Simon flushed. His father had purchased the island only two years before.

“He didn’t mean anything by that.” Hildy nudged Simon.

Magnus hadn’t finished yet. “Guess what this is.”

Above the fishing boat was a figure falling into a spiral.

“A man going to hell?”

“It’s Maw.”

Magnus recited his granddad’s teachings. “He’s been given to Maw as a gift and Maw will give us the sea’s bounty in return.”

Magnus checked in on Mairi on his way home, just like his dad used to. Andrew Spence called her the old woman, even though she wasn’t that much older than he was.

He would sit with her, sometimes for up to an hour at a time. Magnus would peep into the single-roomed cottage through the door that was always propped ajar to let the weather in. Sometimes Mairi would scream and shout at his dad, other times they’d sit in silence.

“Hello.”

“I’ve been waiting for you.” Mairi sat on a stone bench outside. “Come and sit, John.”

“It’s Magnus, Mairi, not John.”

She turned her lined face to him. She was pushing seventy now, he reckoned. She’d been more muddled of late. He wondered whether he should talk to the doctor when the radio was back up.

“Of course you are.” Her voice was strong and certain now, which unnerved him. “Have you seen it?”

“What?”

“The bloody great container down on the shore.”

Her eyes were as temperamental as the sea, sometimes clear aquamarine, sometimes grey and chilly.

“Yes.”

“Maw sent it.”

The comment alarmed him less than her mistaking him for his granddad. Mairi was known for it. She’d lived alone from a young age. A bit touched. She’d been visited by a psychiatrist once, after which she learnt to keep her stranger pronouncements to herself.

“That bay over there”—she jabbed with her finger— “used to be full of trawlers. Everyone had work. All because of John Spence.”

There’d been crops of barley, oats and potatoes that thrived on seaweed-fed beds. Lambs, sweet on salt-laden grass. There were farmers, shepherds and weavers, but the island only flourished because the fishermen were kings.

John’s re-energisation of the industry brought a row of shops, two pubs, a new church and a primary school. The only thing that remained of this golden time was the new church. The school had shut years ago, despite the protests.

“We’ve turned our backs on Maw. We won’t be forgiven easily. To think, we have the blood of marauders and conquerors in us. We sailed to Byzantium. And now we’re diminished with each generation by the milksop messiah, taxes and fishing quotas.”

History marked the land. Cairns and gold torcs buried in the earth.

“I still send Maw boats.”

An old tradition. The islanders once gathered on the shore at harvest festival and sent out wicker and wooden boats, laden with gifts for Maw’s maelstrom. Priests came and went over the centuries, either smiling indulgently or shaking their heads.

The sea is hungry.

The sea has blue hands.

The little boats contained the choicest fish, the finest prawns, a cake, or a piece of fat-marbled lamb. A baby or man carved from soap.

“We put boats on the water last year,” Magnus repeated, wondering if Mairi had heard.

“Yes,” she spat, “and we were the only ones. A can of sardines and a loaf might be good for the five thousand but not Maw.”

She seized Magnus’s hand.

“You and I need this place. We can’t survive anywhere else. Not for long. It’s why you came running back with your tail between your legs. Same for your dad. You shouldn’t have let them take him away.”

Magnus turned his face from her. He’d looked after his dad for as long as he could after his mother died. Poor Andrew, so young to have dementia.You’ve done a grand job, the nurse had said, but he’s getting worse. He needs care from trained nurses now.

Magnus took a job on the docks over on the mainland so that he could visit his dad’s nursing home each day. The trained nurses were hard pressed and didn’t have time to dab the crusted cornflakes from his dad’s shirt.

His dad hated cornflakes.

Dementia stripped his father of sense, self and dignity. It took the meat from his bones and hollowed him out, as crafty and insidious as cancer.

The sea, the sea needs little boats, the sea, there are men in the water, blue hands, blue hands, blue hands. They’re so hungry.

He’d gripped Magnus’s wrist so hard he’d left bruises.

Hungry hands. Why did you do it, Dad?

It’s Magnus, Dad, not John.

I saw you. I heard her crying. Why would Mairi give up little Brid?

Then he pushed Magnus from him, weeping into his sleeve. Magnus was relieved when his dad died and he could go home.

“How did Granddad do it, Mairi? How did he turn this place around? Were those freak years of fishing just luck?”

Her eyes were the silver of needles.

“Fool. Ingrate. All you do is complain. You’re weak. Only John had what it took, the bastard. What are you willing to sacrifice for what you want?”

There was nothing to be done but leave the container. The rumble of thunder closed in. Night brought in the tide. The islanders took shelter.

Magnus watched the waves from the window until it was too dark to see out. The cottage was built from granite blocks, hunkered down against the hill to withstand the onslaught of wind and rain.

Peter and Donald lay on their bellies in front of the fire, playing cards. Hildy occupied the table, her sketchbooks spread out.

Magnus lay on his side on the sofa. He was aware of Hildy’s voice but it didn’t reach him. His mind drifted.

“Hild”—he rolled on to his side—“do you know if Mairi ever had a baby?”

“You’re not listening.”

“Sorry. What did I miss?”

“Nothing important.” There was the angry clatter of pencils on the table. “I’ve no idea about Mairi. I’ve always kept clear of the spiteful old crow. When did you see her?”

“On my way back from the beach.”

“I wondered why you were so long.”

“I couldn’t bear to listen to his lordship holding court about how we have to tell the authorities about the container.”

“He’s right. We can’t keep it.”

“Why not?”

“Because—”

The lights died. The chair creaked as Hildy got up.

Husband and wife went around the room lighting candles.

“Why can’t we live somewhere where the electricity always works?” Peter threw down his cards.

“Because it’s much more fun here.”

Quiet candlelight and their voices made the cottage timeless. When Magnus was Peter’s age the power often went out. Three generations sat close, mending nets and listening to John Spence. Magnus wished such fond memories for his sons too.

“It’s not fun here. It’s boring.”

“That’s enough.” Magnus’s temper was a lit flare.

“Boys, I’ll get the lanterns out. Early bedtime. You can read for twenty minutes.”

“Mum!”

“Shift when your mum tells you.” Magnus saw Donald flinch. He tried to lighten things with a joke. “Or the blue men will get you.”

Magnus listened to their tread on the stairs and then the creak of floorboards above. He picked up the photo frame on the table beside him. It was of his grandfather and his crew in front of Maw’s Teeth, the trawler named against all counsel. It was the first catch after John Spence had gone to London and insisted the Ministry of Fisheries retest the waters that had been depleted for years. He made a nuisance of himself until they did. A month later the fleet sailed after two years in dock. The sea was teeming.

It was a time of plenty. The deck was piled with fish, white in the monochrome snapshot rather than silver.

Now the fish were gone, the sea was empty and the Fisheries’ team came each year to check, and left shaking their heads sadly.

When Hildy returned, Magnus was sat ramrod straight and half cast in shadow.

“Mags, don’t be mad at the boys, not when it’s Simon you’re angry at.”

“I won’t be disrespected by my own sons.”

“That sounds like something your grandfather would say.”

“What’s that mean?”

“That he was a fearsome bully.”

“Don’t talk about him like that.”

“No, nobody can say a bad word about John Spence. How exactly was Peter being disrespectful?”

“These are my choices about our way of life.”

“Our choices, not just yours.”

That was why he’d wanted Hildy. She wouldn’t be cowed. Free-spirited Hildy had been a prize.

“Peter’s just a boy. He just wants to be like his friends on Big Isle.”

“That bloody generator.” Magnus didn’t want to be reasoned with. The generator was old and unpredictable. Sam the Spark would be up there with his bag of tools.

“There never seems to be a good time for us to talk about anything any more. Promise me you won’t get angry.”

“Why would I get angry?”

“Because everything makes you angry.”

Magnus sat back.

“Donald’s been telling me about his nightmares. They’re about the blue men and the Cailleach.”

The blue men lived in the strait and reached for sailors with outstretched arms. The Cailleach had a list of pseudonyms and occupations but on Little Isle she was a witch who washed her linens in Maw’s maelstrom.

“Why didn’t he tell me?”

“Because he’s scared of disappointing you. He knows how much you love the old tales.”

“They’re just stories. My granddad taught me them when I was younger than Donald is. And Peter wasn’t bothered by them.”

“Yes, he was. And just because we all learnt about them as kids it doesn’t mean they have to.” She shuddered. “I used to wake up screaming.”

Magnus had chronicled the dreams. Only those bred from old stock had them. Magnus used to wake in a sweat after the Cailleach bundled him up with her washing and chucked him into the whirlpool. The blue men pulled him down. They were always waiting in the undertow. Their teeth were pointed. The pain of drowning was like a knife.

“I’m not trying to hurt your feelings.”

“Why’s everything so hard?” Magnus blurted out.

“What do you mean?”

“This place is dying. Our boys will be gone soon.”

Peter would go to high school on the mainland as a boarder. Magnus wouldn’t see him from one weekend to the next. Donald would follow before he knew it. How time fleeced you.

“They’re going to school, not Australia.”

“They’ll stay on there when they’ve finished to find work.”

“So? They should be free to do as they please. Hell, we could even move too.”

“I hate it over there. Too many bad memories.” He meant the loneliness of the docks and his father’s slow death.

“The world’s bigger than that. We could go anywhere.”

No. The boys would go and he couldn’t follow. Mairi was right. He was only alive when he was on Little Isle.

The lights went back on.

When Magnus opened his eyes it was light, to his relief. He’d been waking earlier and earlier of late, the fluorescent hands of his bedside clock marking the slow progress of the night.

When Magnus slipped from the bed, Hildy rolled over, searching for him from her dreams. She snorted and settled into the warm patch on the mattress that he’d just vacated.

That one’s so sharp she’ll cut herself, his grandfather had said before he died. She’ll cut you, more likely. Are you sure you want a girl that’s so headstrong?

Yes, Granddaddy.

Well, just don’t marry her. He cuffed Magnus’s head.

Magnus pulled on the clothes he’d left on the bannister the night before. Peter’s door was closed but Donald’s was open. His pyjamas were rucked up to reveal spindly legs. He whimpered and shifted. Magnus knelt beside him. Donald’s curls were soft and loose, the same as Magnus’s were before his grandfather took the shears to them.

Girlishness. What’s your dad thinking?

“Mummy?”

“Hey, little man.”

Magnus waited until Donald settled and then went downstairs.

He tried the radio but all he got was static. Outside the light was still thin and grey. The storm had blown over but Magnus could see another front out on the water, waiting.

There came a tap, tap, tap.

Iain was at the kitchen window. Jimmy stood beside him, grinning.

“Mags, come quick. They’re trying to get the container open.”

The night had brought another massacre. The beach was littered with sea birds, flight curtailed. The tide line was thick with their carcasses.

The storm and tide had been merciless. It had thrown the birds about. Feathers were matted with blood. Heads made strange angles with their bodies. Guts were revealed, auguries that Magnus couldn’t read.

He recognised the fallen, even in pieces. The black guillemot’s monochrome plumage and their shocking red feet. The large angular wings of the gannet, tipped in black. The puffin, comical with its painted eyes. A variety of gulls. And his favourite, the storm petrel. His grandfather would tell him how whole flocks of these tiny birds would feed in the wake of the trawlers. Their feet would patter on the water’s surface and they held their wings in a high V shape, as if trying to keep them dry.

Flies rose from the dead as gulls and corvids landed to feast on them.

Magnus stumbled on the rocks in his rush to reach the container. He could see the shower of sparks from the welding rod as he pushed through the crowd.

“Oi! What are you doing?”

Niall flipped back his visor and mopped his forehead with his sleeve. “What’s it look like?”

“It’s not yours.”

“It’s not yours either.”

“It belongs to everyone.”

“It belongs to whoever can get the fucking thing open.”

“Check it out, Mags.” Isla stepped in. “Niall’s been at the same spot for twenty minutes and the paint’s not even blistered. Go on, show him.”

Niall pulled off his glove and slapped his palm against the spot that he’d been trying to cut. Magnus reached out with a tentative fingertip to check for himself. The metal was like ice.

“I thought I’d made myself clear.” It was Simon, standing shoulder to shoulder with Cormac. “I told you all to leave it alone. We don’t know what it is. It might be military. There could be something dangerous in there.”

“Then it’s something they’ll pay to get back,” Niall countered.

“The military don’t pay ransoms.” Cormac rolled his eyes. “They’d take it by force.”

“As soon as the radio’s working, we’re calling it in.” Simon was adamant.

“You’re full of shit.” Everyone turned to look at Magnus.

“Less of that.” Cormac stepped forward.

“What, you and Simon are best buddies now? I remember when you picked on him every chance you got.”

Cormac flushed.

“We’re not fourteen any more.” Simon shook his head. “Cormac had an interview, just like you. He was the better man for the role. Is that why you’re so sore?”

“No, it’s you. You want to be part of the community. For all of us to work together. What’s in there could help fund wind turbines to replace that shitty old generator.”

“I’ve applied for a grant for that. I told you.”

“You’re full of ifs and when. Nothing’s guaranteed. And you’re ignoring my point.”

“Which is?”

“That you don’t listen to any idea that runs contrary to your own. Everything’s fine as long as we all do what we’re told.”

“You mean I ignore you. You’re bitter because you don’t get a personal invitation to meetings. Because you don’t get the last word in everything. If you bothered to listen you’d understand.” Simon paused. “What exactly is your problem with me?”

“You’re blind. More and more of us leave each year. You’re not one of us. You don’t understand. Your rich daddy bought this place for a song. And your stuck-up mother didn’t even want to live here.”

Simon’s face was a mask.

“My mum was painfully shy. She didn’t come back here because she didn’t feel welcome. She was anorexic. She spent most of her life after I was born in and out of clinics being fed through nasogastric tubes. Little Isle was all Dad and I had left. I care about it as much as you do.”

“Refurbishing a few cottages and building a kiln isn’t going to save us.”

“And who made you the mouth of the people?” That was Cormac.

“I know the art world. My mother was a dealer. I have connections through college. I can make this happen. People will come. They’ll need housing and food.” Simon was talking to everyone now. “We’ll bring back farming. Rare breed sheep. We can start dyeing and weaving again.”

All the colours of the landscape in the warp and weft.

“That’s not sustainable industry. The other islands are developing halibut farms.”

“Which is exactly why we need to be different.”

“What we need is to be rid of you. Form a community council and a development company. Flog that big house of yours for capital. Attract people with business ideas and young families.”

The sky was getting darker. The air smelt of iron. Their anger was calling in the gale. Clouds were as unreliable as the sea; they too were water, after all. Now they were in scud formation, black and loaded with rain. Magnus felt the gust front on his face, the cold downdraught a harbinger.

“And you’d be in charge, I suppose. The problem with you, Magnus, is that you need to feel important. Most of us are keen for this to work. And Hildy will be a massive draw when her book deal is announced.”

“What?”

“She’s not told you? Maybe you should show more interest in your wife.” Simon’s laugh was bitter. “You never liked me, not really. Hildy’s a diamond. Did you know that I persuaded her to apply to St Martin’s when I did? She turned down one of the most prestigious art schools in the country to stay here with you. She made me promise not to tell you. All you’ve done is hold her back—”

Magnus was a juggernaut. He barrelled Simon over. He felt a satisfying crunch as he landed on the man. They made a furious knot. It came down to who was bigger. At least here, in the muck and brawl, Magnus was the better man.

Hands gripped his arms. Jimmy and Iain hauled him off. Cormac pulled Simon to his feet. The rain was coming down hard.

“I’m not sleeping with your wife, you stupid sod.” Simon wiped his bloodied nose. “She’s too good to cheat. In fact, she’s better than both of us put together.”

Magnus deflated. He felt Iain’s grip slacken, then he threw another punch at Simon.

“Where have you been all day?”

Hildy was sat in the hall chair, facing the front door. Magnus’s hair and coat were dripping. He bristled at her tone. She threw him the towel that had been folded on her knee. He kicked off his boots and started to pat himself dry.

She followed him into the kitchen, picking up his soggy shirt and trousers and throwing them into the washing machine. He pulled warm clothes from the clothes maiden that she’d left in front of the radiator.

“Where are the boys?”

“At Jack and Helen’s.”

“Why?”

“So we could talk properly. Why have you been fighting with Simon?”

“He had it coming. I don’t want that man in this house. I don’t want you to ever see him again.” Magnus sat on the kitchen stool, his mouth rucked up. “You and Simon have already done a fair bit of talking. What’s this about you getting a place at a posh college when we were kids?”

“Mags, that was such a long time ago.”

“Well, it’s news to me.”

“Your dad had just been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Your granddad had died a few years before. I didn’t want to leave you.”

“Didn’t stop you applying, though.”

She tilted her chin at that, all remorse gone.

“My chance at that’s long gone, so you’ve no need to worry.”

“Yet here it is, another reason for Simon to insult me.”

“How exactly has Simon insulted you?”

“He’s robbed me of the chance to provide for my family.”

The washing machine drum started to gain speed. The spiralling clothes made Magnus’s stomach churn.

“Simon offered you good work on restoring the cottages and knitting.”

“Men don’t knit.”

“Of course they do. All the men here used to. You learnt from your dad.”

Knitted cables represented fishing lines and nets, knot stitches added together formed fishes. Each fisherman had a unique pattern, so that their sea-mauled corpse could be identified from their sweater if washed ashore.

“I want to make nets, not jumpers for rich boys.”

“What’s the difference between selling them jumpers or oysters? You heard Simon. He can get you a hundred quid for each one from a boutique in London. You have real skill. You could even teach it.”

“It’s not proper work!”

“There. There it is,” she hissed. “That’s what you really think of what I do. Dabbling with paints. Not proper work. I cook, clean and take care of the kids, and then I sit down at night and work while you stride around like a king, doing fuck all. Well, it’s my dabbling that’s been paying the bills and clothing our sons.”

“That’s not fair. And art college isn’t the only thing you’ve been keeping secret from me.” He had another reason to take the high ground. “Simon loved telling me all about your book deal. Why exactly does he know and I don’t?”

“He promised not to say anything. It was him that sent my book to a friend of his in publishing. That’s why he knew. They want me to write and illustrate a whole series of books. If Simon’s plans work I’ll have my own studio at the big house, beside the classrooms.”

“I bet you will.”

“You’re being ridiculous. There’s no room here to work properly. And I tried to tell you last night but you weren’t listening. You started going on about Mairi. What is it about her and the men in your family?” Hildy didn’t wait for an answer. “The worst bit is that I’ve been waiting for you to be in a good mood to tell you, so that I can pretend you’re genuinely happy for me. If you spent as much time looking for a job as you do moaning about everything we’d all be a damn sight better off. If you don’t want to work for Simon get on the ferry each day and go work somewhere else.”

“Why should I? We could have a life here. Simon’s destroying what’s left of us.”

“Listen to yourself. It’s always about Simon. Your issue with Simon is that he went off to university and came back with new ideas that don’t involve you.”

Magnus stared at the floor. The words wouldn’t come. Something was rising inside him.

“Sea fishing’s dead. There aren’t the stocks left. Get over it. Everyone laughs at you because they know all those stories you tell are hand-me-downs. You’ve never worked on a boat in your life and you bleat on about making nets.” She followed him to the door. “And while we’re at it, your grandfather was a tyrant. He trampled over everyone, including your mum and dad. He gave them a dog’s life.”

“He loved this place. He sacrificed everything for it.”

What? What exactly had he sacrificed?

“You don’t want a job or a future. You want the past.”

Magnus couldn’t help it. The past persisted in his blood. He craved what was lost. Lighting a candle and carrying it in a cow’s skull through the byre and out into the black night of the new year. Stargazy pie. Gifts launched on the tide. A time when men ruled the seas and themselves and life was easier to navigate.

“All that crap about wanting things to be better for the boys. The problem with you is that you want them to live the life you want for yourself.”

The problem with you is that you want to be important. The problem with you.

Simon and Hildy had talked behind his back. They’d talked and laughed.

“I love you, Mags. There’s only ever been you, but I don’t know how much more I can take. I need you to think about this. I’m telling you so that we can try and change. I’m telling you because if things don’t change I’m going to leave.”

“Leave? The island?”

“I’ll take the boys somewhere, just until we both work things out.” She started to cry. “I’m not trying to punish you. I’m trying to save our marriage.”

Peter and Donald had been born at the cottage. Magnus had cut the cords tethering them to Hildy. Every inch of the squalling babies was his from the fine down on their backs to their screwed-up faces. They made him immortal. Part of an unbroken line. His heart had flipped and flopped in his chest. Fear and awe gnawed at him. It was his duty to remake the world for them.

Nothing would part him from them.

“Say something. Anything. Tell me you’ll fight for us.”

The swell inside him threatened to wash him away. He would pummel Hildy with his fists. He would snap her neck. This body that he promised to worship would fall before him. Beautiful Hildy. Strong Hildy. The mother of his sons. She held out her arms to him.

“I have to go out.”

“Not like this—”

“No.” He backed away from her, pleading on his face. “Let me be for a little while.”

At the door he turned back. “I’ll make it right, I promise, no matter what it takes.”

The beach was clear as the tide was coming in. As Magnus approached he could see that a figure was crouched beside the container. When it stood, he could see it was Mairi.

She stood up, paint dripping from the brush as she slapped it against the container’s side. She made a clumsy spiral with a shaking hand. Red stood out against the blue paint.

“Mairi.”

Her nightdress flapped around her legs. Her bare feet were covered in dark smears of paint.

“You must be freezing.” He took off his coat and put it around her shoulders.

“It won’t stay.”

The spiral was fading. It was sinking in. She turned to him, crying.

“What’s happened to you?” He clutched her head in his hands.

One side of her mouth drooped. She looked like a lopsided doll. He recognised it as a stroke. It wasn’t paint on her feet. They were bloodied from cuts and abrasions.

“Come on, let’s get you to my place.”

She pulled away, intent on daubing more marks. BRID. The word faded fast.

“Who’s Brid?”

“You dare ask me that, John Spence?”

“I’m Magnus, not John.”

Herring gulls gathered on the rocks around the container, more and more coming in. Some of them landed on the container’s top edge. A pair faced off, screaming at one another. Their wings made acute angles with their bodies in furious symmetry. Then they flew at one another, intent on blood. Red-stained grey and white feathers. The other gulls piled in, finishing off the weaker one.

“I should be young and beautiful. I used to run ahead of the lightning. Now it hurts when I get up in the morning and it’s all your fault, John.”

“Mairi, we need to get you inside.” He reached out for her.

“No, you don’t touch me. I’m not Mairi. I’m the Cailleach. You’ve tricked me before, you devil. I used to summon the wind and fly down to visit my brother, Maw, in the water. You, with your silky promises and kisses. Then it was too late. You made me just a woman. You stained my plaid. It’ll never white again.”

“What about Brid?”

“You know! Our little Brid,” she keened. “I hate you. I hate you and your family, John Spence. Little Brid was the only good thing to come from you.” Spittle landed on Magnus’s face. “You’re a damn liar. You said she wasn’t real because she came from me. That she was bound for Maw. She was just a baby, and I let you do it.”

“Do what?”

“You know,” she wept, “you know.”

Magnus did know. John Spence was a determined man.

Beneath the wind and waves there was the sound of their breathing and a click.

The container door was open.

“Will you kiss me, John?” Mairi’s voice was full of self-loathing. “Will you love me, like I love you?”

Magnus leant down. Her lips were dry and withered. Her breath was sour. Her fingers fluttered around his face.

He picked her up. She was like dry kindling in his arms. The old woman’s eyes were paler than he’d ever seen them. She rested her head against his chest and sighed.

She needed to be airlifted off the island to a hospital. How long would it be before the storms cleared and they could radio for help? He knew Mairi wouldn’t want that. She wouldn’t want to leave, not for anything.

The tide was closing in, faster than he’d ever seen, and another weather front directly behind it. Scud clouds were just the messenger. They hid the vast heights of the thunderhead above them. The air crackled with energy and the wind rose. Lightning discharged from cloud to cloud, not as a zigzag but a vein. The closing rumbling became a crack. Rain poured through.

Mairi wasn’t a fallen goddess or an elemental trapped in flesh. She was an addled old woman, touched in the head. It didn’t matter though. Maw had sent the container and now the tide was coming in.