Migrations(18)

Later they take a break and demand that I sing, and it’s with no small measure of shame that I admit I don’t know the words to any songs.

“None?” Margaret’s son John asks. “Come on, you know something, all right. Shout out a name. Or just start away and we’ll follow you.”

“I’m … it’s not like this in Australia. We don’t really learn songs, not any worth singing. I’m so embarrassed.”

There’s a surprised silence.

“Well, then you’ve a homework task to complete. Next time you come to visit us here we expect you to have learned a song to share with us.”

I can’t nod vigorously enough. “I promise.”



* * *



It ends too soon. They all have to get home, and Margaret needs to get Michael to bed. I don’t know what to do or where to go. I keep lying and telling them I already have somewhere to stay, and I have no idea why I do this. I think the idea of imposing any further is mortifying.

It’s with a swelling of desperation that I pause at the front door, even though poor Margaret is so tired. “Do you know Iris Stone?” I ask finally.

She frowns and thinks, and shakes her head. “I don’t believe I do. Is she one of yours?”

I swallow. “My mother.”

“Ah, lovely. If she’s ever this way, love, you tell her to visit us.”

“I will.”

“No, ’tis a shame I don’t know more of you. The only Stone I know, come to think of it, was a Maire Stone, married to old John Torpey, my dear husband’s cousin. They were living up north a ways, last I heard.”

I’m not sure who these people are but I’m certainly going to find out.

“You get home safe tonight, dear,” Margaret tells me. “You’re sure I can’t make you up a bed?”

“I’m sure. Thank you, Margaret. Tonight meant a lot to me.”

I walk out into the dark night. I’m a long way from town, but I don’t mind. The night is mild with summer and the moon wide, and I like to walk. And perhaps this walk wasn’t one my mother ever made, but I feel a step closer to finding the ones she did.

It’s time to return to Galway, to where I’ll find Maire Stone and her husband, John Torpey.

And to where there’s a man, with his coverts and scapulars, with mantles and napes and crowns and birds dead or alive. Without my permission, something in me seems to have turned itself toward him.





5

The Saghani, NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN MIGRATION SEASON

There are bodies gathered around mine, pressing against me, elbowing for space. Everyone wants to see: on the laptop screen are three little red dots.

And they’re moving south.

“So these are what we’re gonna follow?” Mal asks.

I nod.

Samuel sees my expression and laughs, patting me on the back. “Well done, lass.”

“How reliable are the trackers?” Léa asks skeptically.

“They’re geolocators,” I say. “They measure light levels, which the software uses to measure latitude and longitude and get the location.”

“That doesn’t sound reliable at all.”

Given that’s the extent of my knowledge of the trackers, I can’t help but agree with her.

“Get your head out of the way,” Basil says, shoving Dae to the side so he can see better.

Together we watch the dots. After resenting the hell out of me, the sight of movement on the screen has the crew wriggling with eagerness. The birds are still farther north than we are, having only just left Greenland, but they’ll catch up to us soon, cleverly using the winds to hurry themselves along. After a while the three dots diverge a little, converge again, and then seem to be setting off in different directions.

“That’d be right. What do we do now?” Mal asks.

I take the laptop up to the bridge. I haven’t been in here before, have only spied from a distance and wondered at the decisions made within. Ennis sits alone at the helm, gazing out to where sea meets sky. This room is higher than anywhere else on the boat, save for the crow’s nest, and I’m struck for a moment by the sight of the world spread before us. Sunrise has cast both sea and sky a startling red.

“I’ve never seen a sunrise that color,” I murmur.

“Bodes a storm,” Ennis says. Then without looking at me, “How can I help you, Franny Lynch?” There is a crispness to his tone, his posture. Something in him mistrusts me, resents me, even dislikes me a little. I don’t exactly know why, but I can feel it.

“The terns have left Greenland.”

I place the computer on the big round desk at the center of the bridge. Ennis joins me and we peer at the dots. “See how they’re diverging?” Two of the trackers have headed east, while the solitary tracker has veered west.

“Is that unusual?” he asks.

“No. It happens. They usually take one of two paths. They’ll either travel alone or in small groups, and some will go east, down the coast of Africa. Some west along America. But never straight. They curve in big S shapes.”

“Why travel farther than they have to?”

“They follow wind and food, as you follow the currents.”

“The hot spots you mentioned.”