Migrations(52)

Niall and I glance at each other. Nod.

Shannon shrugs. “Well, you’re young, you have plenty of time. Give me a call and we’ll sit down and talk about what you’ll need to apply.”

Instead of explaining that I have no interest in doing that I just say thanks. They are all too happy to move the conversation back to things they’re comfortable with—currently the paper Shannon is about to publish on interspecies breeding programs—so I use the moment to edge out of the circle, place my untouched wine back on the table, and head for the door. It swings shut behind me and the sound from within is muted almost to silence. I take a breath of relief. The lift button turns yellow for down.

The door behind me opens and the sound of voices floods out once more. I don’t turn, but a hand takes mine and pulls me sideways into another room, a dark one, an office space, I think.

“Too pompous for you?” my husband asks. I can’t see him very well in the dark. I think he might be a wee bit drunk. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to find you.”

He spreads his hands: here I am.

“Was that payback?” I ask.

“What?”

“The crows. Giving away something precious.”

He is silent, and then he sighs. “No. Not consciously.”

“I don’t know how to do this,” I say, and my voice breaks.

“Nor do I.”

I move through the dark, wanting to distance myself from him. There are tall windows along one wall, and I peer through them to the grounds below. The park looks ghoulish in the darkness, its trees casting strange moving shadows. A car drives slowly past, flashing its headlights into my face and then disappearing. Something uncomfortable lives in the moment, waiting. I’m crawling out of my skin because I have never had to be responsible to another person, never had to tell anyone where I’m going. It is a kind of binding. “I warned you,” I say, and then hate myself for it.

“You did,” he says, moving closer. “And I still wasn’t … expecting it. Just tell me, darlin’, that’s all. Just let me know you’re off somewhere, and that you plan on coming back.”

I turn around. “You didn’t think I’d gone for good?”

“It crossed my mind, aye,” he admits. “You gave me a fright, Franny.”

The unease seeps out of me. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I’d never leave you for good.” With the words I realize it’s true, and a different kind of binding takes hold, a deeper, more ruinous one.

Niall moves close and holds me, his mouth to the crook of my neck. “I hate myself for the crows, for giving them away. I knew I was doing it. I think sometimes I’m conditioned for destruction.”

We don’t move, but outside the world is still shifting and breathing and living. The moon lopes her path over our heads. I live in his words, and in the vastness of his contradictions.

“But you’re holding me so tenderly,” I say.

“Does it feel like a cage?”

My eyes prickle. “No,” I say, and I feel that deep and terrible binding for what it is, I know its face and its name, and it’s not a binding at all, but love, and maybe that’s the same kind of thing after all.

“Will you go somewhere with me?” I ask him.

“Where?”

“Anywhere.”

Niall’s arms tighten. He says, “Aye. Anywhere.”





19

The Saghani, NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN MIGRATION SEASON

I wake from my delirious sleep feeling blurry. It takes good long minutes for me to work out where I am (Ennis’s cabin, his bed) and what happened last night (I stabbed a man). I don’t remember it well.

Niall, why haven’t you come to find me?

The crew’s in the galley, perched on various benches and leaning against walls, watching Basil stir a huge pot of oats on the stove and talking in hushed tones. All but Ennis. He’s never here, always apart.

There is fear in them as they spot me. I can sense it, just the flicker of it. An animal thing. A wariness of the unhinged woman they now share a small space with.

“How are you feeling?” Anik asks me.

“Fine.” I can’t access what I feel about last night. It’s already gone to live elsewhere. “So we’re on the boat. And it’s moving.”

Nobody replies to that. Their gazes say it all.

“Well, shit,” I mutter.

Basil hands me a bowl of porridge with a sprinkle of cinnamon and lemon rind on top. He doesn’t meet my eyes. I go out to the mess and sink into the leather booth. They follow me with their own bowls, sitting around me as though everything is normal. I miss Samuel’s big smiling presence.

Nobody speaks until Ennis strides in, folds his arms, and says, “Right, here it is. We’ve illegally left port. I’ve had a radio call from the maritime police telling us to immediately turn around and they’ll look leniently on us because the announcement’s only just gone out and we could argue we hadn’t clearly understood the new laws.”

I put my spoon down.

“There’ll be another giant reason the cops want to chat with us now,” Dae points out, and all eyes turn to me.

“Yeah, and maybe we should help them out with that,” Basil says. When nobody replies he speaks more loudly. “A woman we hardly know murdered a man last night. And instead of staying to report what happened, we just ran.”