The Islanders

The Islanders Read Online Free PDF Page A

Book: The Islanders Read Online Free PDF
Author: Christopher Priest
Tags: Fiction, Literary, General
was never seen again on Aay and she had no further contact with the Academy.
    She died some fifty years later. Her body was discovered in the tiny cottage in which she had been living, in a remote part of the island of Piqay. The people who lived near her had known her by another name, but when the authorities cleared her house they found many papers and books, and these identified her. She had kept a journal for all the years she lived on Piqay, and although most of the material has never been published the journals themselves are now kept in a closed case within the Academy Library, on Aay.
    From the sole published section of her journal, which describes a period of roughly a year in length, a decade after she had arrived on Piqay, and from other papers which were found in the house and are available for inspection in the Academy, as well as certain artefacts discovered in the grounds of her house, it has become possible to gain a glimpse of the life she led in her self-imposed seclusion.
    The journal describes her decision to plant trees on the hillside behind her home. For much of the year she writes about she is concentrating on this. Not every kind of tree was suitable to be grown in the Piqay soil, and she chose the hillside site because it was exposed to the wind, and this further restricted her choice of trees. However, the planting went on throughout the period of the journal, and quite clearly for some time afterwards. There is now a whole arboretum, mostly mature, on the Piqay headland where she lived. It has become a protected zone administered by the Piqay Seigniory on behalf of the Academy of the Four Winds.
    Muy believed that each different species of tree responded to the pressure of wind in a unique way: the density and grain of the bark, the number of branches and the spread of them, the shape of the leaves on deciduous trees, the resonant qualities of the timber itself, the time of year that buds would appear or leaves would fall, the fineness and length of needles on evergreens, even the kinds of wildlife that might be attracted to inhabit the trees with their nests. All these would have an influence on the way the wind was received and responded to by the tree, and Muy believed she could identify many trees solely from the soughing they made.
    She described the sound of a cypress as similar to the mild harmonies of a harp, a tall pine in full finery of needle as an ecstatic clarinet solo, an apple tree in blossom as a frivolous dance of clashing cymbals, an oak as a baritone voice, a narrow poplar bending to a gale as a coloratura.
    The yard at the rear of her cottage was also put to use in the strong winds that flew across her headland. She hung one side of the yard with wind-chimes: wooden, glass, crystal, plastic, metal. They were rarely silent. More scientifically, Muy erected a number of wind measurement instruments. Five masts of different heights stood at the upper end of the yard, each bearing different types of anemometers and wind-pressure gauges. She analysed the results on data logging equipment in a specially built cabin, together with the readings from rainfall, humidity and temperature gauges. A tall lightning protector stood above everything.
    Although this laboratory has since been dismantled, visitors may experience something of its unique concentration on the winds, because a reconstruction of it is in the Academy Museum in Aay Port. Normal opening hours apply.
    Towards the end of the published section of the journals, Muy recorded a declaration that she wished to become a native Piqayean. According to the tradition of the island she said that she intended never to leave it again. She abided by that intent until the end.
    In the light of her scientific discoveries the role played by Dryd Bathurst in this long final sequence of Esphoven Muy’s life is now trivial. However, it seems that Muy did fall victim to an enigma of the heart. Although Dryd Bathurst never worked or set up a studio
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