‘I don’t.’
I rest my forehead against the chipped wood of the pew in front. It is slightly damp, rough against my skin and smells like rot and childhood church services. The cold has seeped its way into my blood, my bones, the tips of my fingers and toes. I’m stiff with it, exhausted by it. I’m all out of energy and I’m all out of hope. It’s as though the last remnants of optimism I clung to have simply blown away like cobwebs caught in the wind.
‘We need to keep looking,’ says Jack. I know he’s right. But I can’t bring myself to move. I can’t face what we might find or the fact that we may find nothing at all. I want to lie down on this damp, dusty pew, birds shuffling in the rafters above. And then I want to stay here forever. I can’t go back without my daughter. If she is really lost, then so am I.
I’m aware of the others hovering around me, perhaps unsure whether to wait or leave me here and continue the search. Alice and Jack exchange some words but I can’t make out what they’re saying; they use hushed voices reserved for husband and wife.
‘Come on,’ says Alice by my ear, wrapping her arm around me. ‘You can’t give up.’
I can’t tell her that I already have. Because it’s her daughter who is missing too.
‘What are we going to do?’ says Alice to the others, more urgently this time. My head spins. I can’t think clearly. Cold, and damp and a memory of Ella as a baby, her downy soft head cradled against my chest. I sink into thoughts of her. Her first day at primary school in that uniform that was slightly too big and that made tears catch in my throat. She couldn’t understand exactly why I was crying but she twirled for me, showing off the new clothes and kicking up the shiny shoes on her feet. A trip to ‘our’ café in Greenwich where we shared a strawberry milkshake and a piece of chocolate fudge cake and she talked about a history project that I can’t remember now but which she spoke about with such eagerness at the time. How have I forgotten what it was she said to me that day? I didn’t think at the time that I needed to remember, or that one day I’d sit in an abandoned church on an abandoned island and wish I’d remembered exactly what my daughter told me about that specific piece of homework. That I’d wish I could remember every single thing she’d ever said. I guess I thought I’d have a whole lifetime of her words.
‘What’s that?’ says Mallachy suddenly.
I lift my head slightly. The church is quiet as the others pause too, ears straining. And then I hear it. Rex’s sharp bark, carried on the wind.
‘Maybe he’s found something,’ says Jack.
I thought I had no strength left. But with the help of Alice at my side, I pull myself up from the pew. I follow the others out of the church and into the open air again, where the rain is finally dying down and a fragment of light forces its way between the clouds, shining suddenly on the damp grass, the dripping heather, the stone walls of the empty cottages. Rex barks again.
Mallachy points to the far side of the island.
‘Over that way.’
The four of us head off quickly, following the sound of Rex’s barks. We stumble along an overgrown track in the direction of another cluster of cottages in the distance. Jack has an arm loosely around Alice’s waist and together they help each other over the rocks and dips in the track and through the particularly dense patches of heather and grass. I try to keep up, forcing my numb, frozen limbs to work. The barks get louder as we near the cottages.
But there is something else now too, I’m sure of it. Another sound. I pause to listen and catch the sound of a voice. It’s a sound that hits me firmly in my heart, because I know that voice.
‘Mum!’
Suddenly, I’m running. I’m trembling and exhausted, but I’m running. I catch up with the others, who are breaking into a run now too, Jack and Alice shouting ‘Molly!’ as they run towards the cottages. And then I overtake them, leaping over rocks, tearing through bracken. I run faster than I’ve ever run before, on legs that feel made of concrete. I spot a cottage without a roof, a tree growing in its centre, the branches reaching out where the roof once was. And then I see Rex, darting out of the building, barking and barking.
I push past him to an open doorway, which reveals a tree in the centre of what once was someone’s home. Beneath the branches is a tent. And standing just outside the tent are two girls, holding onto one another.
‘Mum!’
Her voice wobbles, but it’s her voice. It’s my daughter’s voice. Molly stands beside her, eyes red. I run forward and wrap my arms around them both. They’re here. They’re alive. They’re OK. Jack and Alice are here now too and Molly breaks free from me and runs towards them.
‘Molly!’
They reach their arms out for her, Molly disappearing beneath their embrace, both Jack and Alice rocking their daughter against them. I’m left alone with Ella who grips me tightly, her body cold and shaking.
‘Mum, Mum,’ she says into my hair, tears streaming down her face, her arms trembling around me. I hold her with all the strength I possess.
‘I’ve got you, darling. I’ve got you.’
Chapter 26
Alice
‘What were youthinking?’
As I clutch Molly tightly against me, Jack’s voice rings out loudly in the air, sharp and hard with anger. She flinches against me and I hold her closer. I can’t help it. There will be time for anger but right now all I can feel is relief.
‘Seriously? How can you have been so stupid?’
Jack’s arms move at his side as he talks, his face scowling.
