Page 24

Tara was in.

She didn’t really know how to feel about that. Other than stunned, of course. The look on that Harriet woman’s face when she’d caught sight of Tara had been chilling. Though the residents of Solhaven had finished looking her over and vanished somewhere, thank god.

Tara adjusted her bag over her shoulder as Amelia helped her off the boat, trying not to look as unsteady as she felt. But she caught Tom’s smirk out of the corner of her eye. Welcome to Solhaven.

Amelia was already moving up the path that led away from the shore, motioning for Tara to follow. ‘It’s not far,’ she said, though her voice sounded distracted.

Tara took a deep breath and fell into step behind her, though it quickly became clear that Amelia’s version of not far involved a decent hike. The path wound through low hills dotted with scrubby trees and wildflowers, the sea constantly visible to their left.

As they crested a small rise, a bell echoed across the island. It was a steady, insistent ringing that felt weirdly doom-laden. The words, ‘Bring out your dead,’ came to mind.

‘What’s that bell for?’ Tara asked.

‘It’s how we summon people to the meeting hall. For important matters.’

Tara’s mouth went dry. ‘My arrival needs a bell?’

Amelia’s lips twitched into something that was not quite a smile. ‘Everyone has to meet you.’

‘Everyone?’

‘Yes. Everyone.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ she muttered anxiously.

Amelia cleared her throat.

‘Oh,’ Tara said, putting a hand to her mouth. ‘Sorry.’ She was seriously gonna have to watch her mouth.

Using blasphemy or foul language would not endear her to the locals. Which was a shame because they made up a good proportion of her vocabulary.

‘In private, you can speak to me as you normally would. I’m just making sure you don’t get anyone’s backs up,’ Amelia said.

‘Speaking of the big JC… How religious is it here?’ Tara asked.

‘Normally so,’ Amelia said vaguely.

That answer didn’t satisfy Tara, but she didn’t have time to ask more. As she scanned the landscape, the bell’s function was yielding fast results. The islanders had reappeared in greater numbers. From the path ahead, figures began to appear—men, women, children—making their way toward the same destination.

The closer they got to the village, the more eyes were on Tara. People stopped in their tracks to watch her pass, murmuring to one another in low voices. She caught flashes of suspicion, confusion, and even outright hostility. Her instinct was to keep her head down, but she forced herself to look straight ahead, even offering a stiff smile or two that went entirely unreturned.

Oh, this feels good, Tara thought. This is like winning an Oscar if the entire audience wanted to stone you.

Amelia, for her part, ignored the stares completely. She kept her pace brisk as though nothing unusual was happening, and Tara had no choice but to follow her lead.

Keep walking, Tara, she told herself. And try not to freak the fuck out. Also, don’t say things like ‘freak the fuck out’ in front of anyone.

By the time they reached the village, Tara felt as if she’d stripped down to her undies. The village itself was just as quaint as she’d imagined, with clusters of tidy brick houses, well-kept vegetable patches, and paths worn into the earth by generations of footsteps, all leading to a cobbled square.

In the centre of the square, a young man rang a large bell, its sound echoing through the still air. On the edge of the square stood a sandstone church, its imposing roof-mounted cross casting a long shadow across the cobbles.

‘We’re heading to the Long Hall,’ Amelia explained, pointing to a sturdy building of timber and stone at the far end of the square, opposite the church.

Amelia turned as they reached the door of the Long Hall. ‘Stay close to me,’ she said quietly.

Tara nodded. ‘You can bet your ars— I certainly will.’

The Long Hall was spacious and utilitarian. Along the walls, stacked crates and barrels were neatly arranged, evidence of the ongoing exchange that Amelia had described. Open shelves were filled with preserved goods—jars of pickled vegetables, sacks of grain, and bundles of dried herbs.

In the centre of the space, islanders gathered, their number growing quickly to what Tara guesstimated as between one and two hundred people. They were facing a stage where Harriet and three other people sat behind a long table, looming over the crowd.

‘Harriet has agreed to this,’ Amelia whispered to her, gently pulling Tara up the steps to stand on the stage next to the table. ‘She’s not going to like you, know that now. But she’s not the only Elder.’

Tara fixed her eyes on the infamous Harriet, her arms crossed and her expression unreadable as she tracked Tara’s movements.

Tara stood awkwardly at Amelia’s side, feeling like an intruder at a family reunion. A man with crazy eyebrows smacked a little gavel on the table, and the room went instantly silent.

It was all a bit dramatic for Tara’s taste.

‘Amelia, you may introduce this… person,’ Harriet said.

Amelia cleared her throat nervously. ‘This is Tara,’ she began, her voice calm but firm, ‘and she’s here to help us.’

There was a flicker of confusion and suspicion in the room, but Amelia pressed on. ‘I know you’re all worried,’ she said, ‘but the truth is, we’re in a precarious situation. The land lease negotiations are upon us, and things aren’t as clear-cut as we thought. The mainland authority that owns the island made it clear that we’ll need more than just good intentions to stay here, that we have to prove our value.’

The muttering rose. The eyebrow guy bashed his gavel again, and everybody shut up.

‘You might be wondering why we need a mainlander,’ Amelia continued. ‘But Tara is here to help.’ Amelia’s voice softened just a fraction, if not the volume. ‘She’s not here to judge, to change us. She’s here to help us tell our story, to help us show the outside world why Solhaven is worth protecting.’

There was a long pause as Amelia let her words sink in. The murmurs rose once more to a dull roar.

‘I wouldn’t have asked her if I didn’t think she could help,’ Amelia appealed.

‘Help us?’ someone echoed from the crowd, and a ripple of murmurs followed.

‘How can she help?’ another voice asked, sharper this time. ‘She’s an outsider.’

‘We don’t need her,’ someone else chimed in. ‘We’ve managed just fine without strangers meddling.’

‘We’re not in a position to be picky,’ Amelia added, her voice a little firmer now.

Tara decided not to take offence at that.

She felt the energy in the room shift from cautious to outright hostile. The murmurs turned into a steady rumble of unease, punctuated by the occasional bark of dissent. She glanced at Amelia, who was holding her ground but looked far less certain now.

‘Please,’ Amelia said loudly, raising her hands for calm. ‘Just listen. Tara can help us prepare the application that will prove to them that we deserve to stay here. She can give us an outsider’s perspective—she can help us see what they see and speak their language back to them.’

‘How do we know we can trust her?’ a woman called from the back. ‘How do we know she’s not here to spy on us?’

Tara’s stomach tightened as every eye in the room turned on her. The anger and fear in the crowd were unmistakable now, and for the first time, Tara felt a flicker of real anxiety. For the first time, she realised that she’d come to an isolated island without telling anyone and with no way to contact the mainland.

Tara cleared her throat, forcing a calm she didn’t feel. It was time for her to chip in. ‘Perhaps I should speak. I get the suspicion—I’m a stranger.’ Tara’s mind raced as she spoke, guilt making an appearance once more.

She wasn’t lying exactly, but she wasn’t being honest either. Just stick to what’s true, she told herself. Be honest enough to keep their trust. ‘But I could be of use.’

A tall woman with a stern face nodded slowly, though her expression remained guarded. ‘And what exactly is your use?’

‘I’m a journalist. A factual storyteller,’ Tara explained. ‘My job is to show people the truth.’

A low murmur rippled again, but it lacked the earlier venom. Tara saw a few glances exchanged—uneasy but no longer outright hostile. A teenage boy with a mop of dark hair whispered something to the woman beside him, and she frowned but said nothing.

Finally, a man with a bulbous nose sniffed and crossed his arms. ‘Stories don’t mean much when you’re fighting to survive.’

‘Maybe not,’ Tara admitted. ‘But sometimes they’re the only thing that can save you.’

The room quieted again, and Tara held her breath, waiting. She wasn’t sure she’d won them over, but the mood had shifted ever so slightly. Suspicion was still there, but it was joined now by something softer—reluctant curiosity.

‘It’s been a long time since anyone from the mainland has been here,’ said a woman with greying hair and a kind but wary gaze.

‘We’ve been left to ourselves for a long time,’ a kind-looking Elder said from the table. ‘But we all knew it couldn’t last forever. Things change on the outside. Even if we don’t.’

A younger man, the bell ringer, stood from his seat and raised a hand. ‘What if we don’t want the mainlander here? If we won’t accept it?’

Amelia glanced at Tara. ‘Then we run the risk of losing everything,’ she said.

‘We do everything for ourselves. Why not this?’ he retorted hotly. ‘Why can’t we write this application?’

‘It’s my understanding that you can’t produce everything you need,’ Tara said, finding her voice ever more in the din. ‘Somethings on this island are created off it. What if this is one more small thing you may need to outsource to a mainlander?’

A few murmurs of agreement rippled through the room. Solhaven might not have been won over yet, but the tension had started to ease. Just enough for Tara to feel that she wasn’t seconds from getting a brick in the face.