Islands of Mice by Lucy Jacobs

Author:Lucy Jacobs [Jacobs, Lucy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781068764707
Amazon: B0DGBDPM99
Goodreads: 218569512
Publisher: Alma&Albany
Published: 2024-10-08T22:00:00+00:00

The boat, with its scattered carpet of straw and sheep dip cartons and pellets and bits of rope, is too ordinary, too everyday, to row just yet.

Solveig’s heart is still hare-fast, darting here and there inside her chest. If she were to row now, with her head buzzing like this, like she’s drunk or mad, surely she’d capsize, drown, sinking into the inky night time waves. It’s movement she needs, a physical distraction, to calm herself down.

She can’t think when she’s moving, her brain occupied with simple commands: step here, breathe now. She walks briskly around the school, picking her way between the rocks in the dark.

The light from the windows spills out in long yellow rectangles, shadow puppets moving in its glow, and Solveig skirts them, sticking to the shadows. She wants to stay unobserved, unwatched, by the judgemental eyes inside the walls she circles. At each corner, she stops and shakes herself, urging her blood to flow normally again, to fill the hollow places in her legs and arms, to unknot the tension in her stomach.

It works enough to get her in the boat, to get the oars in their locks, to push off from land. Then, as before, she watches the lit schoolhouse retreat into the night. Only this time, Liv Sunde does not watch her go.

Back in the darkness of her bedroom, Solveig lets herself cry. She gave away information, betrayed a friend to certain punishment, and gained none in return. That’s terrible tactics, an awful waste of resources.

Idiot.

Willingly, uncomplainingly throwing herself headlong into a situation she should abhor because it might score her points with the Resistance. And because, on top of that, it would score her points with Liv Sunde.

And Liv had known.

That was the worst part - it shouldn’t be, but it was. It was almost as though Liv understood. She saw Solveig for who she was, who she really was, and instead of raising the alarm, of alerting her precious Leo, she sent her home.

Of Else and the Magnuses, of the other traitors, Solveig can believe the very worst. But surely not Liv, not really. If Solveig can see the cracks in their arguments, then Liv, intelligent, educated Liv, has to see through the carefully choreographed poise of it, the propaganda and lies.

Oh, she wears the uniform, sings their songs, hosts their gatherings, but it seems impossible to match the politics of it all - the intolerance, the supercilious judgement - with the other side of her: concerned teacher, foreign book collector, carefree picnic companion.

No.

She can’t believe it, won’t believe it.

She fills her mind with pictures of Liv, the hero. The other thoughts, those that crowd her stomach with cramping guilt, she buries under the brightness of her re-imagined world. And if Solveig admires this version of Liv, if she looks up to her, wakes slickly wet with a hand between her legs, there’s nothing wrong with that. After all, how could she not?

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