The raiders were truly gone.
Now she must bury her sister.
CHAPTER 5
T HIS HOUSE had a name, and Freya remembered it from the solicitor’s letter. Compline House, Findnar Island, near Portsolly, KA33, Scotland—a mouthful with a twist that seemed uniquely charming when first read.
Compline. She’d looked it up. In monastic tradition, the last prayers before bed were called by this name—prayers of protection against the evils of the night.
Freya raised the lamp higher. She was reflected in one window of the largest room, at the very front of the house. In daylight there would be a view of all the western sky and the strait between the island and the mainland. The letter had told her he’d died out there. That night, in the water, there’d been no protection for Michael Dane; no search and rescue had come for him.
Lost at sea; the words had never resonated before now.
Abruptly, Freya turned away from the glass. Holding the lamp higher, she saw faint marks on the board ceiling above her head. This must have been two rooms once, and there would have been a corridor where she’d entered from the kitchen; someone had taken the walls out to open up this graceful space.
The place was sparsely furnished, yet each item spoke of a clear aesthetic. The chair of stainless steel and leather, a small deep couch and matching armchair, a glass table loaded with books and magazines—even the old station clock over the fireplace had been chosen for its design and style, not just price.
So, he’d had taste, her father. Unaccountably that made Freyaangry—he’d not been around to show her how much he loved beauty.
She walked to the desk placed beneath one of the windows and ran her hand over the timber. Oak, planed and then meticulously sanded.
“Did you make this, Dad?”
From long ago, she remembered his hand holding a chisel as the other tapped on the end with a wooden mallet. He’d made her a bed once, and carved a bas-relief of her six-year-old profile on the headboard.
She banished that image. Concentrate.
Her father’s desk was still covered with working papers, and there was a stack of books on the floor beside the chair just as if he had, at that moment, got up and gone to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. And there was a VHF radio. Small and bright yellow, it was the size of a TV remote. Freya thumbed the On button; the screen stayed blank. Her father had died six months ago. Of course the batteries were flat.
Ruby light displayed a bloom of dust on the sprawled possessions, the pot full of pens and pencils, the stapler. There was even dust on the paperweight—a snow dome of the Sydney Opera House, the sort of thing you’d give a child as a joke present.
Could she see him shaking it, or was that just imagination? No snow in Sydney, Little Fee, except in here. That was what he’d called her, Little Fee. Was that her laughter she heard, a happy kid? Freya stared at the paperweight, reached out, almost touched it . . .
No. She turned away from the black glass, away from the image of her face, one side in shadow, one side bright. Was it a trick of that strange mirror—to see her face so haunted and so strange? And younger, the face of the lonely child she’d once been.
“This is rubbish. ” It was bracing to shout; the noise filled Freya with energy.
“What rubbish.” She said it softly the second time. Freya wanderedaround the austere and beautiful room, trying to take it all in, trying to smell out the truth of Michael’s presence.
What remained here? What was really left? His books—he’d collected them and no doubt knew the contents of each one. Floor to ceiling, the width of the entire front wall of the house was lined with his library, and there were even shelves below, between, and above each of the windows. “Lotta trips up that path, Dad. That must have kept you fit.”
Freya slid a volume out from among its companions—there was almost no dust. These books had been
Now she must bury her sister.
CHAPTER 5
T HIS HOUSE had a name, and Freya remembered it from the solicitor’s letter. Compline House, Findnar Island, near Portsolly, KA33, Scotland—a mouthful with a twist that seemed uniquely charming when first read.
Compline. She’d looked it up. In monastic tradition, the last prayers before bed were called by this name—prayers of protection against the evils of the night.
Freya raised the lamp higher. She was reflected in one window of the largest room, at the very front of the house. In daylight there would be a view of all the western sky and the strait between the island and the mainland. The letter had told her he’d died out there. That night, in the water, there’d been no protection for Michael Dane; no search and rescue had come for him.
Lost at sea; the words had never resonated before now.
Abruptly, Freya turned away from the glass. Holding the lamp higher, she saw faint marks on the board ceiling above her head. This must have been two rooms once, and there would have been a corridor where she’d entered from the kitchen; someone had taken the walls out to open up this graceful space.
The place was sparsely furnished, yet each item spoke of a clear aesthetic. The chair of stainless steel and leather, a small deep couch and matching armchair, a glass table loaded with books and magazines—even the old station clock over the fireplace had been chosen for its design and style, not just price.
So, he’d had taste, her father. Unaccountably that made Freyaangry—he’d not been around to show her how much he loved beauty.
She walked to the desk placed beneath one of the windows and ran her hand over the timber. Oak, planed and then meticulously sanded.
“Did you make this, Dad?”
From long ago, she remembered his hand holding a chisel as the other tapped on the end with a wooden mallet. He’d made her a bed once, and carved a bas-relief of her six-year-old profile on the headboard.
She banished that image. Concentrate.
Her father’s desk was still covered with working papers, and there was a stack of books on the floor beside the chair just as if he had, at that moment, got up and gone to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. And there was a VHF radio. Small and bright yellow, it was the size of a TV remote. Freya thumbed the On button; the screen stayed blank. Her father had died six months ago. Of course the batteries were flat.
Ruby light displayed a bloom of dust on the sprawled possessions, the pot full of pens and pencils, the stapler. There was even dust on the paperweight—a snow dome of the Sydney Opera House, the sort of thing you’d give a child as a joke present.
Could she see him shaking it, or was that just imagination? No snow in Sydney, Little Fee, except in here. That was what he’d called her, Little Fee. Was that her laughter she heard, a happy kid? Freya stared at the paperweight, reached out, almost touched it . . .
No. She turned away from the black glass, away from the image of her face, one side in shadow, one side bright. Was it a trick of that strange mirror—to see her face so haunted and so strange? And younger, the face of the lonely child she’d once been.
“This is rubbish. ” It was bracing to shout; the noise filled Freya with energy.
“What rubbish.” She said it softly the second time. Freya wanderedaround the austere and beautiful room, trying to take it all in, trying to smell out the truth of Michael’s presence.
What remained here? What was really left? His books—he’d collected them and no doubt knew the contents of each one. Floor to ceiling, the width of the entire front wall of the house was lined with his library, and there were even shelves below, between, and above each of the windows. “Lotta trips up that path, Dad. That must have kept you fit.”
Freya slid a volume out from among its companions—there was almost no dust. These books had been
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