Isla is a nomad who has reached the end of the road. Desperate for a new life but unable to shake the shackles of all that’s come before, she can only stand still and wait while the rural town spirals around her.
From the gossip who gives Isla room and board to the local builder who is far more soft than his rugged exterior suggests, she is welcomed unreservedly. They are community; they are friends. However, as time ticks on, it is unclear who will make it through unscathed.
Something dark is coming.
Excerpt
They met on the beach at midnight, where the short stretch of fine Canadian sand hardened into rock. The waves crackled home on these parts, jubilant to finally have made it. The outline of a bouncy castle sat deflated in the distance. The children had gone to bed, the festivities cleared away, and no one was around to shake them from their precipice.
A small cave hid amongst the rocks beneath the cliff face; somewhere she would never have found without his experienced hands to guide her. His confident stride and the gentle pull of his entwined fingers showed that it was not his first time guiding a girl to this spot. Still, she was better than anyone else he had ever known.
“Let’s stay out here,” she whispered. “We can go up to the path that goes behind the brush. No one will see us there.”
But he kept on going, inside. She followed.
The light from the Dempsey farmhouse was extinguished as the walls closed round, cocooning them in their burrow under the rock. It was a small space that narrowed quickly until only a tiny crevice kept on going, leading to the centre of the world. If they chose to follow it that far. She did not want to. She wanted to stay exactly where she was, surrounded by the spirits of the other women who had walked these shores, stealing towards lovers and creating private stories that would be washed away and forgotten with the tide.
He pushed her down onto the moss-covered ground, still damp from the retreating ocean. If the moss on the walls was anything to go by, the water level at high tide was past her head. Like sitting in the woodland oasis of her childhood picture books. Hansel and Gretel. The forest adventure had carved an enduring place in her mind since the long days spent playing pretend in the muddy lane by the lade, winding forwards and backwards with her imagination for hours on end, pretending she was on a great adventure and not so alone. It was just as green and lush in the cave, and the trickling remnants of water brought it all home; the memories of heroes and villains who accompanied her until that one day when Fliuch had shown up and she had a real friend to play with. Good old Fliuch. Her mom called him the Wee Man. Her best friend. She had no idea where he had come from and, as her own avenging fairy creature, she could not have cared less. Splashing through the lade and strutting up the lane on those ball-breaker hind legs that were such a contrast to the wide eyes and wet nose up front. How quickly had the wizened witch disappeared then, back to her turret in the gingerbread cottage of her dreams.
She welcomed the darkness and the unknown, waiting cross-legged for something. Anything. What would be would be. She was doing this for Debbie, she told herself. No one got away with speaking to her like that, trying to spray on her like a dog, even if they were dour and miserable.
