PROLOGUE

    The sky had vanished behind a pale grey cloud that seemed to envelope the earth. Even the sea had lost its vibrancy, fading as it was lost in the fog. The only sign that sun had risen was the slow brightening of the landscape.

    A lone figure emerged from the mist. A boy, tall and windblown. Earwyn Fernhan walked carefully, his steps dodging the waves that swept up towards him. His face was turned towards the open sea, dark eyes scanning the horizon.

    There was nothing to be seen. Not at this time of day, not until the fog lifted. But there had been nothing for weeks now, and that had not stopped his endless pacing.

There was an urgency in the lines of his face; a sorrow that made him look older than he was.

    “Where are you?” His words were just above a whisper. “There’s no time left. Please...”

The scream of a gull was the only answer.

    For a brief moment, he thought he saw the outline of a ship coming into the bay, and he took a step towards the water. Could it be a billowing sail that was rising high into the air? He squinted. As suddenly as the vision came, it was gone and he was pulled from his imagination by the cold curl of the tide about his toes. He stepped back and spat at the waves.

    You know where he is. The thought taunted him.

    “It’s not true,” he shouted, trying to drown it out. “He’s coming home!”

    He turned and ran along the shore, each step leaving a little hollow behind. He ran until his lungs burned with the effort. But the thought followed him. He slowed, and kicked at the splashing tide. Sand arched into the air, and the wind blew it back into his face.

    “You took him from me!” His voice cracked. “But you won’t have me. I vow, you’ll never have me.”

    Sinking to the ground, he pulled his knees to his chest.

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    Earwyn Fernhan hated the sea. This hatred had not come flooding in all at once. No, it had stealthily grown alongside him until they were inseparable. It had been beside him as he watched the sea steal his father. Year by year, through the ache of each separation, through each goodbye, it was there. Each time the glare of the sun hid his father’s retreating ship from view, he had found consolation in its bitterness. It had never failed him.

    Lachlan Fernhan willingly left his family to sail. This did not mean he did not love his wife or son, but he loved the sea a little too much. It was a fact of life that he could not hide from them, even if he had tried to.

    As soon as he stepped onto solid ground, he began to itch for the water. That listlessness was only silenced when his feet were planted on the deck of a rocking keel. So, as sure as the moon would rise and the tide would sweep back, the sea would pull him away again. Earwyn learned to count the hours, to steel himself for each goodbye. He knew that he alone would shed a tear.

    Sorcha Fernhan had been swept off her feet by the sailor with windblown hair and a quiet smile that was reserved for her alone. He called her ‘my pearl’, and made a home for her on the grassy flats that rose above the shoreline. She didn’t know that he saw the turbulent billows of the sea mirrored in her deep blue eyes. Or that the shade of her hair reminded him of the sun breaking over the water at dawn. She only knew that he loved her, and she believed that was enough to bring him home again.

    When Earwyn was born, Lachlan made a promise. This child was an anchor that would hold him down, keep him from wandering quite so far. For a while it seemed true.

   On summer evenings, the two could be seen pacing the shores together. Tall sailor swaddling the babe in his arms as he whispered to him about tides, currents, and navigations. It was a lullaby that Earwyn couldn’t understand yet; but as he grew, so did his knowledge. Before he could read, he knew the constellations in the night sky. Before he could write his own name, he could point out the parts of a ship as his father sailed away, yet again.

   Knowledge and familiarity were no substitute for love. Not when Earwyn knew that the sea was taking his father from him, piece by piece. Every time Lachlan came home on leave, there was a little less of him, and a little more of it. It wedged itself between father and son. The salty smell clung to him, it stained his clothes, its glare reddened his cheeks. Eventually the deep swallowed him whole.

    Even that was not enough to satisfy its greed. It forced itself into Lachlan’s memory, until Earwyn couldn’t tear two apart in his mind. His father’s smile beamed down at him from the rigging before plunging into the waves. When Earwyn blinked the image away, he saw his father standing on the foamy shoreline as it enveloped him. Daylight left him staring into the distance, hoping that his father wasn’t dead, and night left him fighting the nightmares that assured him that he was.

    A month passed. Sorcha donned black clothing, as was the custom. She and Earwyn watched as a tombstone was set in place, the name Lachlan Fernhan carved in marble. But it was only a pretence. The grave below it was as empty as they felt.

   That very evening, Sorcha sold the cottage. She would miss the small things the most. The helm that decorated the wall, the seaweed that dried in the windows, and far beneath the waves, her heart. There was only one reminder of this life that she allowed herself to keep. A small conch shell, stored at the bottom of the trunk she packed.

When it was time to go, she walked down to the beach. The fog had lifted, only traces of it seen far in the distance. She found her son by the water, curled up and fast asleep. She stood silently for a moment, looking down at him.

   So like his father. Dark hair, crispy with salt. The same long face, though his was still boyish. And, he looked all too comfortable here, wandering the shores and the docks. They must leave, before he grew taller and stronger, and heard the call she feared would come.

    She crouched over him. “Come, we must be off.”

    Earwyn stirred and opened his eyes. She reached out a hand, and he took it. Together they stood and turned away from the endless horizon.