The wind that brushed the surface of the sea was cold. It billowed out the curve of the sail and it lifted little flares of white foam out of the undulating waves as the boat cut its way through them. The ferryman frowned at his passenger as she sat in the bow of his vessel, shivering in the wind’s caress. She wasn’t exactly dressed for a boat ride; she’d appeared at the dock wearing little more than a strappy sundress and a lacing of sandals - attire which might have been suitable for walking on the beach at midsummer, but was far from appropriate for a trip out to the islands in the middle of January. At least the day was still bright, although the sky was building threatening clouds low on the horizon and the bite of the wind had the weight of rain in it.
“Are ye aright, lass?” the old man asked, concerned by the pinched whiteness of her face and the way she was rubbing warmth into her bare arms. She was what he might call a bonny wee thing; her hair was long and very blonde, and the body beneath the thin fabric was delicate and slender. Too slender, he’d have said, studying her with a fatherly – or perhaps a grandfatherly eye. She was thin and her features were drawn with too many cares. It was more than the simple matter of the winter cold, he thought. There was something about her that suggested she was chilled though – not just to the bone, but to the soul itself.
“I’m fine,” she assured him, not bothering to look back in his direction. Her eyes were on the horizon – or rather on the low curve of the island that breasted the horizon, its dark rocky cliffs and heather strewn slopes little more than a hazy shadow against the looming clouds. “How much longer until we get there?”
“Oh,” he answered, leaning on the rudder to swing the small boat in towards the lee of the island, “not long now, lassie. We’ll beat the rain in, that’s for sure. Are ye certain ye want me to just drop you off at the place? The man might be out a fishing, or gone to Invaree – and if there’s storm in the air, he might be away a while.”
“He’ll be there.” The young woman’s words were certain, the one thing about her that held no doubt. The ferryman wondered who she might be; the man’s daughter, perhaps, although she had none of his look about him. None of his accent either. He was a sassanach and no mistaking it. She spoke with a soft American twang, one as filled with sunlight as the drape of her dress and the tumble of her hair. There was none of that light in her eyes though. Those had the same, haunted quality that’d he’d seen the man wear the day he’d first brought him out to the island. As if they were both lost, adrift without an anchor or a safe harbour to call home.
“Aye, well, if you’re sure.” He didn’t want to leave her – and he hadn’t wanted to bring her out to the island at all, not with the storm threatening, and her dressed for August – and no case or travel bag with her either. But she’d insisted – an odd, distant insistence, with her eyes already turned to the island and her thoughts ahead of her journey. And he knew the man would have a care of her, if he were there. He didn’t know how he knew, but he knew; knew it with the gift his family had owned for generations, and which had given him cause to put the man’s bags in his boat and take him out to the Sully all without question or charge. He’d felt the power in him that day – and he felt the power in this one too, a quiet strength firmly linked to the old ways and the old patterns of things.
“I’m sure,” she said.
“And will he welcome ye, lass?” The old man didn’t know why he asked, since he already knew the answer - but ask he did, concerned about this fragile creature. Concerned too about a haunted man and the shadows which constantly beset him. She might be *made* welcome – but he wasn’t sure that there would be good in the meeting, or joy in the words which followed. The man had been running away from pain – and here it was, running towards him, for good or for ill, wrapped up in nothing but flimsy cotton.
“I – I don’t know. But I have to see him. I need to see him.”
“Aye,” he acknowledged warily. “But after that? I can wait if ye wish it. Bring ye back, if there’s need.”
She turned then, dragging her gaze away from the looming shape of the island to look at him with haunted eyes. “There’ll be no need,” she said, her voice as pale as her face. Her words were colourless and empty, as if she’d no hope or heart to fill them. “I have nowhere else to go.”
The boatman shivered, a response both to her sorrow and the sudden flicker of fear that it inspired. Did he ferry a living soul, or a ghost? There was an echo of the grave in her eyes, a whisper of places far from the witness or knowledge of living men. She was no ordinary traveller, that was certain - but he had no idea what she was, or why she had come to this place. His hand crept to cover the ornate cross that lay hidden above his breastbone, seeking the reassurance of its weight. There was no sense of evil or fell purpose about her, but he trembled just the same. Perhaps she was a spirit, a summoning or a revenant, sent to seek the man in payment or punishment for some past deed. Perhaps she was what he was running away from.
It wasn’t his business – but he’d taken a liking to the man, for all his shuttered looks and the shadows that sat about his shoulders. He’d feel no pleasure in bringing him his doom, no matter how the fates determined it. His doom – or his destiny? He felt as if he were a witness to one of the old tales, a whisper of ancient heroes and older spirits woven around the wreaking of the world. Who was she?
And who was the man? Why had he chosen to bury himself in the ruins of the past, to disguise himself with scholarship when his soul was painted with sorrow, pain and power?
Old tales. Stuff and nonsense. She was just a tourist – and the man no more than a foolish sassanach, occupying himself with things better left well alone. It was none of his concern if she wanted to be abandoned in such a God-forsaken place, or that she’d chosen to freeze to death in the name of fashion.
The man had a good heart and would have a care of her.
No matter what it might cost him.
“Ye know your own mind,” the ferryman decided, nodding towards their destination. “I’ll drop ye at the old quay and ye can walk down to the beach from there. If his boat is up on the strand he’ll be somewhere to be found. Up among the ruins perhaps, walking the beach or working in the croft. And if there’s no boat … well, he’ll be away and you’ll need to find shelter where you can. I don’t think he locks his door, so – “
“He never used to,” she interrupted with an unexpected smile. “Thank you.” The smile faded. Everything faded. The sudden flare of life and colour which had crossed her face was lost as she turned away. The old man nodded. None of his business.
But he’d be back, come the weekend, carrying the mail and the milk among other things. Plenty of excuse to see the end of this tale, one way or another.
Or the beginning of a new one, perhaps.
“Not long now, lass,” he murmured, turning the boat towards the shore. “Not long at all.”
The wind had picked up a bitter bite by the time she stepped out of the boat and onto the weathered stone quay that jutted out from the island’s shore. The sky had turned grey, and the feel of impending storm was beginning to hang heavily in the air. The Sully seemed an unwelcoming place in the darkening light. Its jagged heights were stark against the sky; their peaks were draped with menace while beneath them the sea washed up onto a bleak and empty shore.
The ruins that draped the promontory added weight to that impression; the tumbled stone had weathered into ominous shapes, the remains of ancient towers jutting up like decaying teeth, or broken bones. Buffy Summers shivered as she stood on the quay, staring out at the desolate landscape with equally desolate eyes. The island looked the way she felt - empty, abandoned, bereft of all life and hope. It suggested exile rather than refuge; it was hard to believe that anyone would willingly seek sanctuary in such a harsh and unforgiving place.
“Away down the quay and across the beach, lassie.” The ferryman’s voice drifted into her thoughts with a warmth and a sympathy she tried hard to ignore. He was a creature from another world, a fey thing, tainted with life and the ignorance of the living. He knew nothing of her; nothing of who she was or what she had done. What right had he to feel for her, to offer her such care and concern?
“Hurry now. Before the rain comes.”
She threw him one last look – one that nodded thanks for his services rather than gratitude for his concerns. He nodded back, his weathered face creased in quiet concern – then kicked out and firmly pushed his boat back from the stone. She let out a small breath she hadn’t been aware she was holding, relieved that he was doing as she’d asked and leaving her. She hadn’t been certain that he would.
His departure allowed the emptiness to swirl back into her heart, let those last lingering hints of his concerns flicker and fade to nothingness in the depths of her soul. She felt as forsaken as the island, existing in a bleak and empty world which knew neither warmth nor comfort. She had fled from the suffocating attentions of her friends, desperate to escape their painful concerns, their well meaning if utterly misguided sympathies – and her flight had brought her here, seeking … Seeking, what, exactly?
She wished she knew.
She had been dragged from the bliss of death and brought back to a world that was harsh and unforgiving, one that was filled with noise and confusion and demanded an effort that she had neither the strength nor the will to face. Everything was too hard, too discordant, too challenging. How could she function as a friend, as a sister, as a human being, when even the need to breathe felt alien to her? She was numb, inside and out, sinking into a morass of nothingness, wading through a world of shifting, intangible sand.
And the emptiness in her heart, the yawning gulf that lay between her and the friends that had fought to call her back, echoed with a need she couldn’t define, with a desire that had neither shape nor definition. She had reached out to touch the fires of life – and had felt their warmth freeze in her veins and the chill of death enfold her like a shroud.
The bite in the wind was almost warm compared to that.
She walked down to the end of the ruined quay, skirting the place where part of it had slid away into the wash of the surf and trying not to slip on the dampened stone. Waves were curling in from the open sea, their foam topped weight breaking against the jutting barrier and painting the surface of the ancient stone with a swirl of water. Her feet were wet by the time she reached the chiselled rock which anchored the construction, but she ignored the discomfort, concentrating on making her way down the narrow steps onto the beach. The descent took her below the height of the quay, and for a moment or two its solid presence provided shelter from the rising wind. The beach appeared to be protected from the thunder of the open water by the line of the quay on one side and the jut of the rocky promontory on the other; their sheltering arms created a secluded bay filled with the whisper of the surf and the soft, haunting murmurs of the wind. The tide was encroaching on the curve of the sand, its long low waves rolling in with lazy confidence. Buffy felt as if she’d stepped out of the world altogether – as if she’d stepped down through time, and into the realms of myth and history.
There was a sense of sanctity about the island, one that went far deeper than the chill of the air and the bitter caress of the wind. The bleakness of the landscape held echoes of vaulting cathedrals, and the endless wash of the water against its shores spoke a soft and fervent prayer. She’d had spent too long in darkness, too much time in the company of demons and monsters to ever feel welcomed in such an atmosphere.
Another shiver possessed her as she stood there; this was an ancient, sacred place, and she was intruding on its secrets. She had no claim, no connection to this ancient realm, this place of sorrows and silences. She didn’t feel as if she belonged here – but it was her last hope, her all but final destination.
If there were no answers for her here, then - after this - there would be only one place left for her to go.
Even so, she hesitated.
Could she do this? Could she desecrate this sanctuary, invade its hallowed ground and lay her grief at its guardian’s feet? He’d come here to escape her – to escape her memory, the echoes of her presence and the emptiness she’d left him. They’d parted with unhappy words, ones forged between them by mutual love and unbearable necessity; he’d given her the only answer, and still she’d found another way – one that he might never be able to forgive her.
She wasn’t sure that she could forgive herself for what she’d done.
No matter that she’d had to do it, no matter that it had been meant, no matter how right it had felt at the time; she’d chosen the easy option, the way that had held no cost for her – only cost for those she’d left behind, in the need to live on without her, with the bitter festering wounds of abandonment and grief.
Was that why Willow had fought to bring her back? Because the cost of losing her had been too high, the price more than any of them were prepared to pay?
Was that the price she was paying now, her soul pulled from eternity and plunged into the ice of a living hell? Could she bring that here – here to this echoing, mournful refuge, this place of eternal sorrows that offered, not – peace, exactly, but certainly solace. Solace and sanctuary and solitude?
She nearly turned back. Nearly moved to retrace her steps, up the twisting stone and out, towards the thunder of the sea. The ocean would welcome her, she thought, feeling a sudden longing to seek its embrace, the need to bring everything to an end. No more confusion. No more pain. Just – no more.
It was then that she saw him.
It was only a glimpse – the vague shape of a figure walking across the far end of the beach. But his presence shot through her like a bolt of fire, like a lifeline flung at the final moment, catching her heart, anchoring her desperate soul. She was running before she knew it, running towards him, lifted by the wind, carried across the sand like a leaf torn from a storm tossed tree.