The boat edges closer to the shore and I wrap my arms around my daughter, wondering if she knows that this hug is as much for my own comfort as it is for hers.
Chapter 27
Lorna
I am back on Kip, searching the island for my daughter. Rain falls on my bare arms, making me shiver. How long has it been raining? Perhaps forever. I’m on my own; the others have given up but I can’t stop. Brambles scratch at my skin as I drag myself across the moor, calling Ella’s name.
‘Mum!’
I stop, searching wildly around me. Where is she? I can hear her but I can’t see her, the rain blurs my vision and the island stretches out around me, a wild expanse of hills and mountain, trees and heather.
‘Mum!’
She must be nearby, she must be. I call her name again and again. And then I see her, lying beneath a tree, her body slumped against the trunk. Her skin is milky white, her lips a pale blue, her eyes closed. I rush for her and suddenly my brother is at her side too.
‘Hypothermia, I think,’ he says in a hushed voice. There’s another voice that sounds like Alice’s, although I can’t see her anywhere.
‘What should we do?’
‘Keep her warm,’ replies my brother. ‘And we’ll phone for the air ambulance if she doesn’t improve.’
I reach for my daughter’s limp body and pull it towards me, holding her tightly. I can feel her heart fluttering against mine, just like it did when she was a toddler and shared my bed at night.
‘She needs rest,’ says Jack. And then he reaches out and holds my hand.
*
Sunlight streams through yellow curtains. They are half open and move slightly back and forth. I can smell the sea on the breeze and something sweeter too. A flash of colour to my left: a jug filled with poppies, buttercups and sprigs of heather. I take a deep breath of the fragrance, feeling it swirl through my body like wind filling a sail.
There’s a weight on my chest and as I open my eyes fully I see a pile of blankets and duvets covering my body. It’s an effort to move beneath them but I shift slightly, adjusting my heavy limbs. I’m in the yellow room at Hilly Farm. How did I get here? And why am I not at home in London? I was supposed to be going home, wasn’t I? And then I remember. The storm. The boat trip across to Caora Island. And my daughter, shivering in my arms.
‘Ella!’
My voice escapes me as a hoarse croak. It feels as though sandpaper is being rubbed against my throat. A shuffling comes from the other side of the room. I look across and spot a new armchair I hadn’t noticed before and in it, my brother. He opens his eyes and tilts his neck from side to side. From his position it looks as though he’d been slumped asleep, arms crossed over his chest. A book has fallen open at his feet.
‘You’re awake.’
I open my mouth, trying to force words through my dry throat. But the bedroom door opens and Ella rushes inside, followed by Molly and Alice, who carries a tray of tea things.
‘I thought I heard voices,’ says Alice as Ella leaps onto the bed. I wince slightly as she jogs my aching body but I don’t care. She lies next to me and wraps her arms around my neck.
‘Are you OK, darling?’ I ask her.
She pulls away from me slightly and looks at me carefully. Her cheeks are rosy and her eyes bright.
‘I’mfine!’
I reach for her again, feeling her forehead with the back of my hand. She feels a normal temperature. But could that be a trick of her body? Should I still be worried anyway?
‘But I thought you had hypothermia.’
She looks at me in a strange way again and I notice that the others are staring at me the same way too.
‘Mum,you’vehad hypothermia. You’ve been in bed since yesterday.’
Really? How is that possible?The events of yesterday feel like a blur.
‘Molly and I are fine – as soon as we got back and had hot showers we were totally OK. But you … You started shaking like crazy. And then you just went sort of all sleepy and floppy. It was really scary.’
