At first, Molly hadn’t known what to make of Billy, and the feeling had appeared to be mutual. She had very quickly sussed that this adult wasn’t able to outsmart her, but on the other hand was even more wily and stubborn than she was. Their early interactions had been a bit of an immovable object meeting an irresistible force, and they had circled one another cautiously. But one day, Billy had come across her at the Crow’s Nest. Ben had been adding a zip line to the structure, which allowed for emergency escapes in case of attack, andhe’dbeen sitting with his back to a tree, smoking, and doing little more useful than admiring Ben.
Molly had been deep into some game which appeared to involve dashed forays down to the ground to pick flowers, fearful alarm at something in the trees, screams, and then retreat back up to shelter. Billy, fascinated, had observed this for a while, casting anxious glances to the dark tree line. At one particularly realistic screech, his nerve had gone, and he’d scrambled up the ladder with her. It had then been rapidly withdrawn.
Then that evening in the lighthouse, Molly had started to sing. She wasn’t especially tuneful, but Billy had watched her, entranced, and when she’d stopped had egged her on to sing again—a first for Molly from anyone in the family.
Billy couldn’t read. Molly preferred to be read to, but Aleksey discovered this was only because she’d sensed no one was patient enough for her to read at her pace. Now, she had a captive audience. Billy would sit entirely engrossed as she went through all the books in the library Ben was creating for her, she curled up on one deep leather armchair, he in the other. She’d attempted a board game, but that hadn’t gone very well.
But Molly was no longer lonely. Between her cat and Billy she hung fascinated, able to pour out all her demanding attention and passionate love on two friends who were willing to soak up all she had to offer.
Aleksey grinned to himself as he watched her now, her happiness infectious. Having been refused her latest plea to be allowed to hold her kitten’s leash, she was throwing her sandwiches to the wheeling guillemots, screaming with glee when they caught the pieces in midair.
Billy preferred Snodgrass to the kitten, although he was occasionally giving her glances as she darted like a flick of flame around Ben as he sat eating. Aleksey watched her prance over the picnic rugs, and dive under them, rolling in a bid to escape her humiliating captivity. Apparently concluding that she’d never get free unless she killed her captor, the cat suddenly sprang onto Ben’s shoulder and went for his ear. Ben only turned his face into her fur and kissed her and let her pat his stubble. Aleksey swung his foot out, tapped him, and murmured for his ears only, ‘Careful. I am a jealous man, Benjamin.’
Ben shuffled back so he was leaning against him. ‘You have a new girlfriend—I’m only evening up the score.’
Aleksey wrinkled his nose. There had been a noticeable thawing in his relationship with Morwenna Eames. On her side, at least. Either he was losing his touch or his best attempts to be annoying were failing badly. But she owned the only bookshop on St Mary’s and the entire family loved books. It was inevitable they would meet.
The kitten was sitting still, balanced effortlessly on Ben’s shoulder, alert, watching Molly’s antics with her bright green eyes flicking as the motion of the birds caught her attention.
Aleksey chuckled, taking in Ben’s wayward, windblown hair, stubble and scruffy appearance. ‘You look like a pirate and she looks like your parrot.’
Ben laughed. ‘There you go. Another new name: Parrot.’
Molly, who was now dancing around on one leg, throwing her last few crumbs to Radulf who was oblivious and snoring, suddenly announced, staring at the kitten, ‘You’re just being silly, Daddy. She’s called Jenna. She says she’salwaysbeen called Jenna.’
* * *
The following day, deciding that a bit of quiet time was needed by Billy and Harry, and feeling his own life had taken a rather surreal turn, Aleksey took everyone else to St Mary’s for the day. Yes, he had reinstated his island as being miraculous. No, he didn’t think rocking horses named themselves. Neither did he really think his perfectly healed scar and Radulf’s new snarky friskiness were products of the holy essence of angels leaching into his pond. Ofcoursenot. But he couldn’t explain that moment on the cliff with Molly no more than she could.
Wheeling guillemots. Kitten. Jenna.
But Aleksey lived a life that contained Ben Rider, and Ben Rider had a hyphen in his name and was actually Ben Rider-Mikkelsen, and even more miraculous,hehad a hyphen too and was AlekseyRider-Mikkelsen. So who was he to dictate what was real and what was not? If this was all the product of his deranged mind, and he was still in the bottom of a Dartmoor mine shaft slowly dying, then he sincerely hoped that death would drag out for a great deal longer.
The whole island was in deep mourning when they sailed in. They were not yet in their new boat, which he was reluctant to bring to the island until he could enlarge the boathouse, so headed towards the moorings for hired boats. There were a lot of tourists around who weren’t affected by the sad events going on in London, however, and so the shops and restaurants were still open. They went to the seafood one they’d enjoyed before.
They attracted attention. They always did. But now in addition to the two dogs, they had Jenna, and Ben seemed entirely unconcerned about her new and seemingly permanent position on his shoulder, where she rode, watching her world with her bright green eyes, her flame colouring startling against his dark hair. She seemed entirely unfazed by anything, her occasional tail flicks almost making it appear that she was finding it all funny. Or familiar, there was always that.
Relaxed, stretched out in front of the blazing log fire the restaurant had lit on this grey November day, his foot resting on Ben’s, his phone rang. Once more, it was such an uncommon occurrence that he took a while to fish it out and answer. He didn’t recognise the number. For one moment he wondered if Phillipa might be calling him from the abbey with an amusing anecdote. She’d left a text about a leaky pen. As with the runny boiled eggs, it had not impressed her.
When he cautiously said, ‘Hello?’ Mark Trebetherick asked him if it was a good time to call. He immediately suppressed his instinct to ask, ‘Emilia?’ in the slightly panicked way he did about Radulf whenever the moron called him, and so said it was, stood, and went outside where it was less noisy.
‘Can you hear me?’
‘Yes. I can now.’
‘Well, firstly I was wondering about the diary we translated for you. All this going on up here this week has made it oddly relevant, hasn’t it? Did you ever find Jenna?’
‘Yes, we did. She got married soon after she left Guillemot, had a little baby girl, and is now retired and living in Sea View Retirement home here on Scilly.’
‘Oh, that is good news. Well, what do you think about us doing—?’
‘No. I asked her if she would be happy for it to be published, and she asked us not to. She never told her daughter about Gerren Roskilly—her husband brought the girl up as if she was his.’
‘Ah, fair enough. Shame though. Fortunately, I actually did the translation myself, couldn’t resist, so there’s no one to disappoint but me if we can’t work on it. I’ll post it back to you then.’
‘Good. How are things?’
‘Splendid. We’ve just come back from Hadrian’s Wall. Have you been there? It’s absolutely superb. Emilia loved it—well, they all did. I don’t mean just Emilia. But you wouldn’t be interested in anyone else, so that’s why I mentioned her. If you see what I mean.’
