Stormswept by Helen Dunmore

Author:Helen Dunmore [Dunmore, Helen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007468003
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2012-04-21T17:08:47+00:00

“It’s hard to understand him, isn’t it?” says Jenna as we hurry back along the shore.

“What do you mean?”

“The way he speaks. It’s like when French people think they are speaking English, but they have such strong accents you can’t understand them.”

“I think he speaks really clearly.”

I can almost hear Jenna shrug her shoulders. “Maybe it’s because their tongues are different from ours,” she says, as if Malin belongs to a different species. “Oh well, he seemed to like the samphire.”

There is something about the way she says this that stirs my sleeping anger with Jenna to flames. As if Malin were a dog that had been given a new type of dog-food.

“He didn’t have much choice, did he?” I snap. “He’s starving, and it’s all we’ve got to give him.”

“I wish you didn’t have to be so angry all the time, Mor. People get tired of it.”

“Do they? Which people? Or is it just you?”

“Not just me,” says Jenna in a gentle, “I’m saying this for your own good” voice. “It happens a lot at school.”

With superhuman self-control I manage to say only, “Well, we’re not at school now.”

No, Jenna, we are not at school. The sea is on my left hand, breathing and stirring with little waves. Eselda is out there, I’m sure of it. She won’t leave until Malin is safe. And all the others will keep a vigil too. This is another world and the things that happen in it are wilder and stranger than anything they dream of at school. And I’m glad of it. I don’t care if it’s dangerous. It makes you alive.

We are almost back in the village when a shape detaches itself from the deeper darkness and moves in front of us.

“All right, Jenna?”

“Bran!”

I say nothing. My mind’s working too fast. Has he been here all the time? Has he been following us in the darkness?

“Bran, where’ve you come from? How did you know we were here?” asks Jenna.

“I thought you were going back to the mainland,” I say, to remind her that Bran said he was leaving. He lies, Jen, even to you. Don’t you understand that?

“I can stay over with my nan, can’t I?” says Bran. “I don’t have to ask your permission.”

“Of course,” soothes Jenna. “But Morveren’s right, you did say you were going back home.”

“Morveren’s right! You say that to me? Isn’t this my home, as much as it’s yours? Don’t I belong here? I’m an Islander, same as you are, and your sister has nothing to do with it.”

There is so much anger and bitterness in what he says, as if it’s been stored up for years and is just waiting to explode. He barely knows me. Why does he hate me so much? Maybe he’s chosen me to take his anger, because I’m not Jenna. As if the more he likes Jenna, the more reason he has to hate me…

But that’s not what matters. I need to know what he’s seen and what he’s heard.

“I

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