She stands on the shoreline. One arm is at her side, the other to her forehead. She shades her eyes with her hand. The palm faces outwards, towards the sea. She watches me sail away. She is the only one who watches. I look at her too: the woman who loved but not enough.

I see her again there. Now she is older. Perhaps she is grey. She scans the sea with her hand held to her face. I wonder what is behind her, behind her on the plains, across the mountains, through the barren fields to the white walls of the settlement of Bran and the story of my future.

Days into the trip the sea becomes like glass. I think back to the ruined city, the statue at the bottom of the ocean. I wonder if I sail above it again. I look over the edge. I think of how it would be to drop silently down through the clear water, breathing water, swimming like a fish and then to stand on the streets of a long-forgotten settlement with buildings around me reaching up into the gloom. What would I find there? Around the corners of narrow streets, deep within abandoned buildings, would I find our story, our beginning? Deep in the murk shapes appear. We drift across them. Again I can see ruins floating beneath us. I look out for the statue, leaning over as far as I can. In the distance, too far to see properly, a shadow appears near the surface. I wonder if that is him. Still sleeping beneath the ocean. It flickers and is gone. We drift onwards.

Three days later we pick up some speed. I am hungry still. I too trail my fingers in the water. I try not to look at Andalus. Once he stood up.

I screamed at him. I have not shouted like that for years. He cowered and I apologised. ‘It’s for your own good,’ I told him. ‘Just sit down.

We’ll be there in a few days.’

This was a guess. I have my compass to tell me the way to go but I do not know how far we have come. The only markers I have are ruined buildings at the bottom of the ocean. We could arrive tomorrow, we could arrive in a week. I think the pace is quicker overall than last time but the currents seem to be against us. Perhaps on the outward journey I caught one of them which bore me all the way to the island and now we are sailing against it, struggling against it. We point one way but the ocean moves the other beneath us, the island just over the horizon, waiting to suck me back in. Perhaps we have not moved at all.

But today I know this cannot be. Today I wake to sunshine. Before I even open my eyes I can feel it. I stand up and drink it in. I take off my shirt. I spread out my arms and lift up my face. I stand like this for what seems like hours. Standing on top of all this water, for the first time in ten years, I am dry. The boards of the raft begin to steam.

Andalus lies unmoving.

Three days after the sun breaks through I see land.

5

It takes most of the day to reach the shore. About half-way through the day I begin to recognise the coastline and head for a small cove I remember.

It is a landscape vastly different from my island. There it is all water, sedge, mud, peat. Here it is all sunlight, red rock and gnarled trees most of which are barely taller than I am. The water in the cove is a deep blue. I can see the ocean floor metres below. There are shoals of fish and growths of seaweed on the white sand.

The cove is sheltered. The tides are not big here and I trust that the raft will be safe. I start to wonder whether I will need it again, wonder under what circumstances I might have to return here. I am used to being prepared though, which is why I keep it safe. I put thoughts of return to the back of my mind.

It is not the beach from which I set sail a decade ago. That is half a day’s sail away down the coast. Once I recognised the coast I headed for this cove because it is further away from the settlement.

I can take precautions to protect the raft from the elements but not from people. There were no people living here when I was Marshal but that was ten years ago. Any sign of habitation and I will move on and anchor even further up the coast. I do not want word of my arrival to reach the settlement before I do. I do not want them to have a chance to prepare a response before I have made my case. For the moment at least I must hide from curious glances, from prying eyes.

Andalus will make it difficult. It is difficult to hide a fat white grub in a desert.

I step ashore. Something hits me when I do. I feel dry rock beneath my feet. I breathe in and taste dust, heat, a dry heat. It is only a smell, only a sense but my skin tingles. This air I breathe is home. As I tie the raft up I have a smile on my face.

Once the raft is secured I waste no time. I find a hollow amongst the rocks and lead Andalus to it. I tell him to wait in the shade. I tell him I will be gone for a little while looking for people. He is not to go anywhere, not to show his face, stick to the shadows. I have to lift his face to make him look at me. I cannot tell if he has understood but I leave him with some food and go.

I climb the cliff face. It is slow going. I am not used to the heat and the sun and I have been supine on a boat for three weeks with little food. My heart is pounding. There is a dryness at the back of my throat, something I have not felt for years. It is as if I am drying out.

After being soaked in the peat waters of the island for years, all the water is now leaching out. I am a sponge left in the sun. Home or not, still a fish out of water.

At the top I sit and rest for a while. For miles there is nothing, no sign of habitation, no smoke trails, no cultivated fields. It is dry scrubland here: a few trees, dry grass, stunted bushes. In the distance are mountains, blue on the horizon. To the left and right the cliffs stretch as far as I can see. I was not expecting to see anyone but it is still a relief. I can breathe again.

I see an eagle. It swoops down to the plains and climbs again, clutching what seems to be a rabbit or a rat. Suddenly I feel my mouth watering. I have not eaten meat since my last meal in prison.

The eagle’s catch is evidence of meat. That is unusual. In some of the sparsely populated areas a few wild animals survived the famine and our relentless search for things with which to fill our stomachs but not many. And there were laws against unlicensed hunting. Anyone caught breaking the rules was subject to punishment. All adult members of the family had their rations suspended for two weeks. For some of the older people it was a death sentence.

It was a way of life that suited us and probably still suits the settlement. When life is threatened by its environment, there is little sense in antagonising it, little sense in testing a known breaking point.

Rather rein in life than fight an omnipotent force. It was the thought behind the Programme, the set of rules of which no one wanted to speak but that saved us. Saved while killing.

I can almost smell the fire, the wood smoke. I can almost hear the crackling of dry branches and see the flames brighter than any on my island. The heat, the smell, the sound, those of a dry country free from the soaking waters of the island. I can smell the singed flesh of a rabbit.

I know it was a rabbit the eagle had caught because I can see their burrows now. It will be risky to try to catch one of the rabbits. The last thing I want now is to be caught plundering the settlement’s reserves.

But I have to. We have another four days on foot and we have few provisions left.

Four days. The mountains I see in the distance are two days away and Bran lies another two days’ march from the pass we will use to cross the range. Four days. It will seem like an eternity.

I can see no sign of humans around me and I can see for miles. If I am to catch food, this is a good place to do it. I return to the boat and to Andalus. He sits with his head down, his knees held to his chest.