Chapter One
The ferry lurches and I grip my camera, searching for a glimpse of the city beyond the clouds. A seagull bursts through the mist with a cry. I flick my hair from my eyes as the gull hovers effortlessly on the brisk wind, a bright eye trained on me. Presumably to see if I have any food, but I also feel like she (this bird is giving ‘she’) wants me to photograph her.
‘Sorry, not interested.’
She’s persistent though. A natural model. She flaps her wings, arched like an angel in an old painting: magical and majestic. She’s a vivid force of life against the drab clouds hanging above the Irish Sea. She stares at me. Challenging me to not find her stunning.
Fine.
I focus on her beak, yellow with a lipstick smudge of red. My finger hovers over the shutter-release. Then she shifts in the wind and lets out a high-pitched shriek that slices through my head. I blink away the pain as she shrieks again and flaps her wings. I steady myself and take a pic.
It’s not bad. There’s a black mark in the top right corner of the shot, but I can edit that out later. The seagull cries out once more and disappears into the clouds.
Drama queen.
‘You look just like him, Michael.’ Mum appears behind me on the deck, hugging her arms in her long cardigan. Her eyesflicker to my head and she frowns. This could be because my hair (red like hers, but straight like Dad’s) is blown beyond what you might describe as windswept. More likely, though, she’s pissed I didn’t take her advice to wear a beanie. I shrug. I don’t want to discuss either option. I hate hats and I’m not in the mood to talk about my similarity to Dad.
‘You see that seagull?’ I say, changing the subject.
The corners of her mouth twitch as she shakes her head. It’s her in-between happy and sad smile. As she tucks a curl into her own beanie I spot a tear sparkling in the corner of her eye and a numbness seeps into my fingers that has nothing to do with the chill coming off the Irish Sea.
‘Can I have a hot chocolate, please?’ I wiggle my fingers with a smirk. ‘For the frostbite.’
She lets out one of her short, snorty laughs that always seem to take her by surprise. ‘Of course.’
The ferry from Cairnryan is weirdly busy. Like, why are all these people travelling to Belfast on a Tuesday morning? The cafe area’s rammed, but I eventually find us a table between a man with a thick grey beard eating a greasy-smelling fry-up that makes me both hungry and nauseous, and a guy a bit older than me slumped over a table. Dead or hungover, it’s not clear.
‘Michael,’ Mum calls from the counter, ‘would you like a wee muffin, love?’
My face erupts with the heat of a thousand burning stars and I shake my head.
The slumped guy sniggers. Not dead then. Good for you.
Mum shrugs and turns back to the counter. I take a deep breath, sit back and reread Ben’s message, just in case it’s somehow changed in the last twenty minutes.
I’m going to miss you
My stomach flutters at the directness of the message. He didn’t even put ‘mate’ at the end. He’s going to miss me. Does that mean…? I don’t know. But maybe…
Before I can stop myself, I start to type a reply.
I’ll miss you too!
What am I doing? He never wanted anything serious. Plus, I’m leaving. I’ve left. I delete it.
I check the photograph of the seagull. It’s actually pretty good. Feathers spread, eyes glinting. I’ve caught the angle well. That black thing though. What is it? I zoom in and –
Oh!
It’s a feather. A jet-black feather caught in the wind, its tip glimmering silver. Did I use a flash?
I remember the screech of the seagull and shiver. I zoom in on the bird. Her gaze is focused upward at something out of shot, beyond the feather. Her beak is open, eyes wide. She looks…frightened?
Sharp needles of heat prickle the base of my neck as I zoom out to see the whole image again.
The sound of wind and wings fills my ears and a desire to relive that moment draws me closer to the screen.
There’s something special there.
