Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
E sme would not admit to herself that she was nervous to see Euan. Walking along the shore, she saw his familiar figure and she continued on her course. The shock at his appearance was hard to hide. Euan’s soft young features had been transformed into something angular. More jarring than the accelerated puberty, however, were his eyes. With no white visible at all, the boy’s eyes looked entirely a dark polished brown. The sun went behind a cloud and his eyes looked black. Esme realised she had taken a step back in shock.
‘It’s me,’ Euan said.
His sweet, uncertain smile completely disarmed Esme. She couldn’t remember seeing the boy smile before and she wondered if it was the effect of the physical changes or being free of his stepfather. ‘Welcome home,’ she said. ‘Did you have a good trip?’
He ducked his head. ‘We saw where mum grew up. On Orkney.’
Esme was about to ask about seeing family but she stopped herself. She knew all too well that family could be a touchy subject. She would wait to see if Euan mentioned them spontaneously. ‘Cool,’ she said instead. And then wanted to smack her forehead. She was acting the quintessential awkward adult.
‘We went into the water at the Sands of Evie.’ Euan’s expression was dreamy and he turned his head to stare out at the sea, as if unable to look away from it for long.
‘Well, we’re happy you’re both back.’
When Euan didn’t seem about to respond, Esme set off again. ‘See you later.’
He glanced back, his eyes looking more normal again, and Esme wondered if it was something under his control. She had never seen Fiona’s eyes change, so perhaps it was something that happened when their kind were young.
‘You are nice,’ he said.
‘I hope so,’ Esme replied. She wanted to say something more significant. Something that encompassed everything he had gone through, something to let him know that she was available if he ever wanted to talk. But he had already turned back to the sea and the words wouldn’t come.
Island meetings took place at The Rising Moon, which meant that everyone had just eaten a good dinner. Luke didn’t know what this meeting was about and hadn’t had time to ask anybody beforehand. He had spent the day contacting bookshops listed in the secret ‘crescent moon’ ledger and trying to work out whether there was anything that linked them, other than being bookshops.
His mind had been running over his research and the gnawing guilt that he had swapped his obsession with finding his brother for a new project. And that he wasn’t feeling anywhere near bad enough about it. Tobias was standing and talking for a few minutes before Luke properly tuned into the subject. Kate Foster. The woman who had visited the island a couple of weeks ago and asked about the dilapidated cottages near to Esme’s place, had returned.
‘She proposes to renovate the cottage on the end in the first instance, but has plans for the other two later on. They are in an even worse state, but she intends to rent out the renovated cottage to summer visitors to raise the capital to renovate the others.’
‘Well, that’s not going to work,’ Seren said. ‘What about the two-night rule?’
Tobias nodded and then looked around the room. ‘Any more thoughts? The floor is open.’
Luke wasn’t going to open his mouth. He was still a newcomer, he knew, and he wasn’t about to rock the boat.
‘How does she even remember the island?’
It was the question that everyone was thinking, but Esme was the one to voice it.
Tobias shook his head. ‘I have no idea, I’m afraid. We,’ he indicated Bee, ‘had hoped that you might have some thoughts.’
Esme’s cheeks flushed and she shook her head.
‘The cottages are a wreck,’ Fiona said. ‘It might not be a bad thing to have them looked after.’ Hamish was sitting on her lap, gazing around the room with wide eyes, one hand firmly wedged into his mouth and a trail of dribble running off his chin. ‘We might need some more accommodation in the future. If our community expands.’
‘Euan might want his own place one day,’ Esme said. ‘We want him to be able to find that on the island.’
Fiona smiled at the other woman and nodded.
Matteo wrote on his pad and slid it across to Seren, who read it and passed it on. When it got to Luke, he read: Is it just business? Does she plan to move here?
After Tobias had seen the question, he said, ‘I believe she wishes to use one of the cottages as a holiday home.’ He pulled a wry smile.
Seren tapped the table. ‘We don’t need to worry about any of that. She will forget about this idea, about the island soon enough. People say things all the time.’ She looked around, challenging somebody to argue with her assessment. ‘I serve visitors and they often say stuff like ‘it’s so peaceful I could stay a week’ or ‘we must come back’, but they never do.’
‘What do you think?’ Tobias looked at Esme. ‘You’re our Ward Witch. Do you have any… sense about this new person?’
Esme looked uncomfortable ‘Nothing concrete,’ she said after a few moments. ‘Perhaps if I speak to her again?’
That seemed to pretty much end the discussion. Luke and Esme walked out with Fiona, who wanted to get Hamish home for bed.
‘Thank you,’ Fiona said. ‘For thinking about Euan’s future.’
‘It’s only right he should have a place of his own,’ Esme said. ‘It’s strange to think of him growing up, though. Must be even weirder for you.’
‘It is and it isn’t. On one hand, he’ll always be my baby,’ she hefted Hamish a little higher in her arms as she spoke, ‘but he’s also a person. And so clearly growing up that it’s impossible not to see him as he is. If that makes sense.’
‘It does,’ Esme said. ‘You just have to hold more than one idea of him in your mind at all times.’
‘Exactly.’ Fiona laughed. ‘I was worried I was babbling nonsense. I’m a bit sleep deprived.’
‘How is his mum doing?’ Luke asked.
‘Good,’ Fiona said. ‘She’s out of hospital and recovering well.’ Her face had fallen, though, and Luke felt like he had put his foot in it.
After the meeting had adjourned and the islanders dispersed, and Seren had disappeared into the kitchen to clear up, Bee turned to Tobias. There was something weighing on her conscience. Lucy had told her something was coming to the island and she hadn’t stopped it. The Book Keeper had been hexed, he had almost died. People did die, of course, but this wouldn’t have been a natural death. ‘What do you think?’
‘About the renovations or the woman?’
‘Kate Foster. How does she remember the island? We know Esme has been keeping the wards.’
‘Our Book Keeper was close to crossing over,’ Tobias said. ‘Very close.’
‘You think the island got confused? Opened up a vacancy and then Luke recovered?’
‘Not confused, but maybe cautious.’
‘Allowed Kate Foster to remember us as a backup to fill the role of Book Keeper, you mean? Like an understudy?’
He shrugged. ‘She does seem very drawn to the bookshop.’
Bee allowed herself a wry smile. ‘Perhaps that’s got something to do with the god-like man behind the counter?’
‘God-like?’ Tobias looked both confused and affronted.
‘My deepest apologies,’ Bee said. ‘Too much time on the road. I meant fine-looking. Pleasing on the eye. Good husband material.’
‘I see,’ Tobias’s face had cleared. He nodded thoughtfully. ‘I do tend to overlook those kinds of things. It’s good you see more clearly.’
‘Most of the time,’ Bee said, taking the compliment. It didn’t soothe her feeling of being off-kilter, though. ‘I haven’t made as much progress with Esme as I had hoped. And I didn’t see the evil that came for our Book Keeper.’
‘Didn’t see or didn’t look?’
Bee nodded to accept the fairness of the question. ‘The latter,’ she admitted.
‘That’s all right, then,’ Tobias said, patting her hand. ‘Just because you are capable of something doesn’t mean you have a moral obligation to do it.’
‘Even if it could save lives?’ Bee hadn’t meant to say the words, but Alvis’s death was still weighing on her mind. Guilt was an entirely new and unwelcome addition to her repertoire. Too much time around humanity.
‘You know that’s not true. Not in the end,’ Tobias said. ‘Everybody dies. Even us.’
She caught a heavy undercurrent to his words. ‘Are you feeling well?’
‘Perfectly.’ His eyes flicked to Winter, sleeping in front of the pub fire. The dog’s sides were shuddering as if his breathing was laboured.
Bee didn’t know what to say. She knew that Tobias had been alive for a very long time and the wits to know how deeply lonely such an existence must be. But she also didn’t know how a being like Tobias suffered frailties like loneliness or grief. Perhaps, like her, he had spent too much time with the human islanders.
She was saved from deep conversational waters by Tobias clapping his hands together. ‘Tea,’ he said. ‘If you’d like to join me back at the house? I do believe I have half a fruit cake in the tin.’