Where the World Ends Read online

  Quill prized the seal’s skull most of all, because if he lay it on its back, on a high-up ledge outside the cave, it caught rainwater that he could safely drink.

  As he lay down to sleep that night, he realized that he had no notion what day of the week it was, nor any way of finding out.

  “Well, let it be Thursday,” he said out loud.

  And lo, it was Thursday! Who was to say otherwise? The boy who lives all by himself in the world is king of all he surveys. The thought made him smile.

  Next day, Murdo came.

  “They sent me to see if you were here.”

  “Who did?”

  “Mr Farriss and Domhnall Don. They had us searching yesterday, but the rain came on too hard and we had to stop, case’n we fell in the dark. I knew ye’d be here. Have your bonnet.” And he thrust Quill’s woollen hat at him, along with his own knife and two sacks: one to sleep on, the other to sleep under.

  “Am I not to come back, then?” said Quill, staring at the sacks.

  “Best not. Col Cane is painting you up to be a rare devil. He has the little ones gathering stones to stone you.”

  Then the two friends lay on the landing place, sleeves rolled up, reaching into the freezing water to pick little blue crabs off the submerged rock.

  Next day Murdo brought a length of horsehair from inside a rope, and they tied it to the bent nail in Quill’s pocket, and took it in turns to fish using limpets for bait. Col Cane might have forbidden work, but the outcast demon living in the sea cave could fish and fowl all he liked, seven days a week. Being irretrievably damned had its advantages: a quiet life, birds, and fish-meat (if ever he could catch one).

  Each sowing season, after the barley had been sown, the boys and girls on Hirta guarded the rigs against gulls who came looking to steal the grain out of the soil. The stones they threw rarely hit the birds, but even so, what were the gulls doing after all that warranted such unkindness? It was the first time Quill had ever thought of things from a bird’s point of view. Perhaps, with living among them, he had turned part bird. Fit for stoning.

  Next to arrive was Davie, holding a puffin as a peace offering. He laid it just inside the door and enquired, in a businesslike way, if Quill still hated him.

  “For what should I hate you, man? For saying I talked to the garefowl? I did. Doesn’t make me a witch. ’Twas Col Cane did me that favour.”

  “You are not a demon.”

  “I am not.”

  Davie promptly sat himself down, leaning against Quill’s knees. Just as Quill’s dog Nettle had done, back home.

  Where was Nettle now? Quill wondered. Had the dogs, too, been taken up to Heaven? Or had the world been left awash with cats and dogs and cows and sheep, all abandoned and forlorn now that their owners had been raised to glory? Was Nettle standing on some Hirta cliff, barking out to sea? She had probably begun rounding up the sheep for plucking, even without the bidding of a shepherd.

  “Mine’s a good sheepdog,” he told Davie. “She knows to take ’em by the throat and throw ’em on their backs.”

  But when no shepherd came to pluck the fleece, would Nettle bite too deep and turn sheep-killer?

  “Truth is, she’s a poor herder. Every year she chases one of ours off a high place. We have mutton to eat, but we’re running short of sheep.”

  “I remember!” said Davie. “I had forgot Nettle scaring the sheep. Tell more stories about home.”

  So Quill told him the story of the Spanish galleon that tried to shelter in the lee of Hirta and wedged itself under a rocky arch and brought it down on top of herself, and sank in the channel along with fifty tons of rock. “And that was what won the war with Spain, because God so loved us Scots that He blew the Spanish fleet all over the ocean and dropped rocks on ’em.”

  “I don’t remember that!” said Davie, astounded that such a dramatic event could have slipped his memory.

  “It happened a while back,” said Murdo, ducking into the cave carrying a bladder of fulmar oil for Quill to rub on his bruises. “A hundred year. Three hundred? Like as not, you weren’t born to see it, Davie.”

  Then it was Niall who came calling.

  Up in Midway Bothy, hearing Davie’s garbled retelling of the Armada story, Niall guessed where it had come from and turned up at Lower Bothy, wanting a story of his own. He too had brought a puffin by way of payment.

  So Quill told him the story of St Kilda, who was thrown into the sea by pirates, to drown, but spread his plaid on the water where it turned stiff as any raft and, with his shirt for a sail, he sailed to Hirta and discovered it. “He built a huge kirk, but it’s gone now, alas, because when St Kilda died, the kirk carried him up to Heaven then turned into a cloud.”

  There were plenty of cloud spires and palaces to be seen in the sky once Niall started to look.

  “I heard St Kilda was a word writ down wrong in a book,” said Murdo when Niall had gone. “There was no such man.”

  “There is now,” said Quill.

  That evening, he caught his first fish – and then another! It was just a knack, after all. It just called for a little stillness inside. The catches made him hugely happy (for all he loathed the taste of fish); happier still when the garefowl swam up, like a big bandit duck with her masked eyes. He threw her one of the fish. As he watched it slide, lumpy, all the way down her gullet, he felt as if he had somehow made friends with the sea.

  The next morning it was John who came, as well as the littler ones. She brought, by way of an entrance fee, a small sack of feathers from one of the cleits. Now Quill would be able to sleep up off the wet, and wake without bruises from the rough floor. Davie said it was Quill’s “storytelling chair”, and plumped the sack up in the middle of the cave with the kind of reverence he thought due to a throne.

  John had stopped with the bleeding, but not with the crying, because now she was sorrowing about her mother. She had woken that morning to thoughts of home, as she always did. But the picture of her mother’s face refused to come.

  When she said it, Quill saw the boys close their eyes and check inside their eyelids for memories of friends and family: he knew that was what they were doing, because he had just done it himself. Remembered pictures are like water: the harder you try to hold on to them, the more surely they run away. He did not know what to say to John: it is unbearable to lose the memory of a face.

  But then Niall up and described John’s mother – in perfect detail – just like that – and went on to describe John’s grandfather, and their cow Flora, and the clump of wild iris by the door, and the polished boots that stood toe-to-toe with the fireplace, which no one wore except on Sundays. John’s mother was instantly restored to her, and even Murdo and Quill were momentarily transported to the fireside of her cottage, coveting those boots.

  “I pronounce you ‘Keeper of Faces’,” Quill joked, remembering Cane’s grandiose claim to be Keeper of the Tinderbox. But Niall started, and stared at him as if Quill had just made him Steward of some castellated mansion, its hall’s walls covered floor to ceiling with portraits. “Keeper of Faces?” he said, his own thin face memorable for its beaming smile. “Keeper of Faces!”

  Once his visitors had gone, scurrying back up the Stac, practising their alibis for being away, Quill tested his own memory, calling to mind all the people on Hirta and all those high above him in Midway Bothy. Apparently the “Minister” now called the boys his “flock”. But sheep are all the same: there is no telling them apart. Also, sheep are stupid: will jump off a cliff into the sea sooner than let dogs like Nettle chase them home. And none of the boys was stupid. Murdina had said…

  Quilliam stopped short. He could no longer tell whether he remembered Murdina saying things back on Hirta, or if he had imagined them spilling from the beak of the garefowl down by the waterside; or whether the imaginary Murdina had said such-and-such as she lay in his arms at night and they discussed the day, or chose names for their future children…

  Murdina had said:
r />   “We all need to be someone, darling, or who are we? Everyone is special for something. Every boy is some manner of a king.”

  So, Calum he made “Keeper of Music”. Calum’s voice had broken the previous year and, unlike his clothes, had mended into a marvel of bigness. To look at him, no one would have guessed he had such a voice inside him. He did not altogether believe it himself: Calum was embarrassed to use his new voice. But enthroned on the sack of down – now the “Keepers’ Throne” – wearing the title Keeper of Music, and fed with snatches of half-remembered hymns and laments, he swallowed them down then produced a rich, full rendering of each song. Soon it either had the boys in tears or dancing.

  John was declared “Keeper of Needles”. All the boys had been making needles out of the quills of fulmar feathers, stripping off the vanes and trying to make a hole in the stem with the only knifepoint still sharp enough for the job. The useable ones were going to be precious, Quill said; they needed to be treated with care and stored in a safe place.

  The boys’ clothes were falling into shreds and, with winter coming, they were going to need more covering, not less. Back in August, they had crammed twenty cleits with sackfuls of bird-down. If now they could somehow quilt their jackets and trews with feathers, they might not – they just might not – die of cold.

  “Mam sews a fine seam,” said John, as she struggled ham-fistedly to thread a needle with a strand of horsehair.

  The Court of King Gannet took a single sobbing breath at the mention of mothers. Niall asked, “What are the mammies doing now, Quill?”

  A rocking motion set in among those sewing. Calum, wielding the sharp knife, set it down for fear of cutting himself. Quill had to find some way to lift their spirits. Into his mind flashed an image of Murdina Galloway stepping off the boat, a parcel of old clothes bowling ashore ahead of her.

  “You mind that bundle come back from Harris?” he said. “Old Iain’s clothes? Well, the wool of the shirts was useless rotten. So the mammies are beating it into felt – a saddle cloth for the grey pony. Even now. On the gutting tables. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. Singing they are. An’ look! Suddenly Ma Cane’s bat hits something hard. Ma Campbell thinks it’s a lump o’ grit and goes after it with a needle. But it’s not! It’s metal, and it shines out the hole, all yellow and glinting. It’s a gold piece! An’ the more they beat the wool the more it chink-clinks. Old Iain sewed his riches into his shirt, see? And there’s four…five – no! – seven gold guineas! Ma Farriss starts talking ’bout buying a hat for Sundays with her guinea. But Ma Gillies says, ‘Nah, wait, Agnes! We should put this all by for our boys, for when they get back from the Warrior.’”

  Another sobbing communal breath – this time one of exultant delight. Chilly hands closed around the feel of an imaginary gold coin.

  Except Lachlan’s. “Not mine, won’t,” he snarled. “My da will have it off her ’fore she can spit.”

  The rest did not hear: they were too busy sailing with Mr Gilmour to spend their riches on Harris or in some such far-flung land. Momentarily, the End of the World had blinked out of sight, and Hirta was populated again with mothers, fathers and everyday routine. Momentarily, mothers had supplanted angels in the boys’ minds, and hopes of home had supplanted hopes of Heavenly rescue.

  When Calum brought Quill news that Domhnall Don’s raft was almost finished, it felt like proof: that hard work and common sense would carry them home, not whole weeks of Sundays, nor flaming chariots.

  All Quill needed of Kenneth was that he stay away. There was a corner in everyone’s heart for Kenneth, and it was small, dark and resentful. No one ever shortened Kenneth’s name: it took every sharp spike of it to depict the boy’s spite. They did not want his company, but of course Kenneth sniffed them out. They could hear him coming a long way off, as he cursed the rock ledges studded with slippery cockles and mussels. He entered Lower Bothy in mid-sentence, badmouthing the “Minister”, calling him “a tedious loon”. Apparently he had fallen out of favour with Col Cane. Still, this was the great snitcher, who used information like a crowbar to thrash his way through the world. He made an unwelcome visitor.

  He looked round at the assembly of boys. Taking the fishing line out of Murdo’s hand, he tried his hands at fishing but gave up within a minute. He snatched at a shred of down escaping the story-sack, blew it into the air and tried to keep it there with blowing. Tipping John off the feather-sack, Kenneth picked it up and balanced it on his head, and stood there for some time looking for all the world like a large mushroom. Then suddenly, out of the blue, he murmured, “What will I be Keeper of?”

  Quill pretended not to hear, because, frankly, he had no idea what Kenneth could keep. But in the silence that followed, they could smell resentment coming off the bully like the stench off a fur seal. Shoulders up round his ears, Kenneth turned to go, no doubt laden with venom to drop in the “Minister’s” ear – the names of all the sinners consorting with the witch Quilliam.

  “What day of the week is it, can you tell me?” Quill called as Kenneth ducked out of the mouth of the cave.

  A shrug. “Sunday again, ’course.”

  “But what day do you say it is?”

  Kenneth gave this serious consideration before shrugging again. “Wednesday?”

  And Quill thanked him. “Keep track, will ye? It’s rare important someone keeps track o’ the day and the date.”

  And Kenneth turned on Quilliam a smile so ferocious that it showed his bottom teeth. They were gleaming white from chewing on tough, dry bird meat. “I’m ‘Keeper of Days’, then?” he asked.

  “If you’re willing. ’S a burden, but it needs someone with a good head on his neck.”

  Kenneth gave a single nod. It was not a gesture of thanks, but a nod in the direction of the heap of bones. “What’s they?” he asked.

  Quill gave the most casual shrug he could muster. “Ach, I found a man’s carcass far back o’ the cave. Reckon it’s Fearnach Mor, yes? Washed up again after he drowned.” The look on Kenneth’s face was worth every puking hour Quill had spent getting rid of the seal’s remains.

  But at night, curled up on the Keepers’ Throne of feathers and covered in a sack, Quill was mobbed by dreams. Vicious as blackbacks, they drove their beaks deep into his head. It was probably the same for the other boys, he told himself. But what did they mean, those violent and terrifying nightmares? He dared not speculate: only witches try to interpret dreams. But he knew they were better out than in – like splinters, or a stone in the boot. Some waking moments found him tearing at his hair as if he might pull off the top of his head and empty out the pictures. His best nights were dreamless. His worst were full of demons and pitchforks; of falling, of ghosts, of a grave chockful of blood-red jellyfish. Whom could he ask to be “Keeper of Dreams”? In whose lap could he dump all those foul night visions to be rid of them?

  The day he told the garefowl about them, she plunged into the sea and swam away without touching the precious fish he had laid out for her as an offering.

  He told the boys about the garefowl calling on him, but they were slow to believe it. The bird never seemed to lumber past the Bothy when anyone else was there, and they probably thought it was another of his stories. But her visits gave him great joy.

  One day she did accept another fish. The next, she even took the fish from his hand, and the day after that she toddled up, swung her head and whacked his fist with her mallet of a beak, as if demanding another treat. Within the week, he woke to find her standing on his chest staring into his face with those white-circled eyes, beak gaping. It was petrifying, and a great hardship to breathe. But long after the heel marks faded from his chest, the feeling remained that he had been done the most immense honour.

  He promoted Niall to “Keeper of Memories” so that Niall would sit enthroned on the sack of feathers, asking what memories they had for him to store in his head. One boy’s reminiscence would spark off another’s: about Hirta, about dead aunts, about fishing trips and Ch
ristmases, about dances, heatwaves and blizzards. Soon enough, the cave was a-roar with cries of: “Oh, I had forgot that!” “Man, that was a rare game!” “My da says he remembers when…” “He never did!” “I never heard that before!”

  How Niall would keep hold of all the memories, Quill had no idea, but it probably did not matter, not while they perched around the Bothy like so many roosting birds, singing of better days.

  Quill thought Murdo would be far too old to be taken in by the daft ruse of dubbing the boys to arrive at: “Keeper of this.” “Keeper of that”. It kept the others happy, but Murdo would surely see it for what it was: a way to make them feel needed. But after his friend sulked for three solid days, asked for his knife back, and demanded to know who Quilliam thought he was, “handing out titles like the King of England”, Quill asked him what was wrong. Murdo bunched his shoulders and declared that he would not stand for anyone but himself being “Keeper of Ropes”.

  Quill said of course not, and told him, “It doesna take the likes of me to tell you what you are already.”

  “How are you all with the confessing?” Quill asked them one day.

  Lachlan spat on the ground. “Cane gives us penances to do: sends us out to sit in the rain. We come here instead.”

  “Better than catching a fever,” said Quill mildly, but inside him his chest cramped up tight with savage loathing for the “Minister”. How dare he risk the boys catching lung fever or a quinsy? He wondered what penance Cane would allot himself if he caused a boy’s death with his prying nonsense.

  “We tell him always the same thing,” said John. “We all agreed to. Cane gets so bored hearing it, he sends us away.”