Chapter One

A Prodigious Storm

Tara Whelan awoke from the first night of her fourteenth year to the sound of thunder. Her eyes burned as she blinked away the warm dreams of her birthday party and she squinted at the pale gray light that was too dim to be morning. Rain slapped angrily against the glass of her bedroom window, and a gust of wind boomed against the wall. The thunder clapped again, and she jumped at the sound. Storms can be frightening, even more so when you live on an island, but Tara had a particular fear of storms. Her father had been a sea captain, and storms sometimes meant that ships wouldn’t be coming home.

The wind whistled around the walls of the old house and drips of water plunked steadily into the large bucket in the corner beneath the leak in the roof. Tara’s brother said he had patched the leak, but now she was glad she hadn’t moved the bucket. She climbed out of bed and walked across the creaky wooden floor to look out the window. Tara’s bedroom was the highest room in the old house that stood at the end of a row of similar creaky old houses on the hill overlooking the port of Farswip on an island so small that it shared the name of the town. Her window looked down from one of the highest points in Farswip and, on a sunny day, she could have seen the whole town and every fishing boat in the harbor. Now all she could see was the night rain lashing at the nearby houses and the muddy lane below that looked more like a stream as the water ran down towards the bay.

Suddenly, a flash of lightning lit up the sky all the way from the harbor to the dark sea beyond, and Tara’s heart leapt. It was not a reaction of fear, but rather the painful experience of almost daring to hope something wonderful was about to happen and then, just as suddenly, to realize that it was not. She had seen, just for a moment, far out beyond the breaking waves of the barrier reef, a large ship. Just for a moment, Tara remembered what it was like to be the first one to spot her father’s ship when he returned from a voyage, but she had stopped looking for that ship a long time ago. Anyway, the ship she had seen tonight was bigger than her father’s ship had been, a real galleon with three masts maybe. Ships like that didn’t come to Farswip… not on purpose.

She watched a little longer, but the lightning revealed nothing more. After a while, the fury of the storm moved on. The night grew quiet but for the rain falling softly on the roof and the occasional drip of water in the leak-bucket. Tara did not see the mysterious ship again. She thought of waking her mother or brother, but now she wasn’t entirely certain that she had seen anything after all. She returned to bed, burrowed back under her blankets, and slept again, dreaming of happier times.

* * *

The following morning down in the kitchen, Tara’s mother made hot bread and honeymeal for breakfast which was Tara’s favorite. Tara sat in her place at the old, polished mahogany table and her mother set a full bowl before her. As Tara ate, she watched her brother Bill getting ready to leave for his week out at sea, fishing for bowfish with his friends on the small boat they had bought with their savings last summer. He always stuffed his canvas bag with as much of mother’s cooking as he could get his hands on before leaving on a trip, and she had made extra for him this time. Their mother hated it when Bill went on long fishing trips, but Farswip was a fishing town, and everybody fished. Tara considered telling them about the ship she had seen last night, but, just then, Bill’s friend Dane popped in at the door, seemingly very excited.

“Trip’s off, Bill!” he exclaimed.

“What’s the matter?” Bill demanded, and his mother asked the same.

“We’ve got guests!” Dane laughed, “The Prince’s fleet is in the harbor for repairs! He’s coming ashore today!”

“Which Prince has come to Farswip?” Mother asked.

“Prince Corbin, the adventurous one.” Dane said, grinning.

“What’s he doing this far south?” Bill wanted to know.

“I don’t know,” Dane admitted, “let’s go find out!”

Bill and Dane ran off then to the harbor to see the royal fleet and learn what they could of the Prince’s visit to Farswip. Tara wanted to go too, but mother reminded her that they both had work to do. Tara sullenly finished getting dressed. She and her mother each picked up a pair of empty tin buckets and a spade before leaving the house to make their way down to the lee side of the island where they gathered shellfish every morning.

The path to the west beach was rocky, and few people used it. Not many people thought it was worth the trouble to climb down through the rocks to the sheltered cove where the best smokers lived. Smokers were what the islanders called the tiny little clams with smokey brown shells that lived in the sand on west beach. They were difficult to get at and laborious to harvest, but they were delicious and brought a good price at the market. Tara’s family needed all the extra money they could get, now that her father was gone.

Nearing the beach they had to climb down a narrow stairway of rock with high walls on both sides that twisted and turned all the way down, until they reached the yellow sand of the little beach in the sheltered cove. Tara had always felt like this was a secret, magical place, and it was special to her. The deep blue waters edged almost up to the high rock walls, leaving only a narrow strip of sand that always seemed to be in the shadow of the rocks. The wind blew strong and steady over the rocks above but, down in the hollow, it was only a sweet, gentle breeze that played with her hair. Tara kicked off her shoes and walked, barefoot, across the cool, damp sand, looking for the little squirts of saltwater that marked a smoker’s burrow.

They gathered shells until about mid-morning when their buckets brimmed with tiny creatures with glossy brown shells, and Tara looked with foreboding back up at the rocky path to town. She hated the walk back most of all, now that they each had two full buckets to carry. She gathered up her shoes and prepared herself for the long climb ahead.

“Hullo, Tara!” a friendly voice called out from somewhere nearby. It was a voice she was very glad to hear.

She turned to see a battered old longboat with a makeshift sail slicing through the rolling blue waves of the cove as it aimed for the beach. A boy of about 16 stood, balanced precariously at the helm, with one hand on the rudder and the other waving wildly.

“Rick!” she cried out, waving back. Rick was her best friend, and he spent most of his days fishing and exploring in the patched up old longboat that he had found smashed on the reef. He had named it the “Nixie” and thought it the finest boat in all of Farswip. As far as Tara was concerned, it was.

He was grinning widely as he drove the boat right up onto the beach beside her. His skin was darkly tanned like all the islanders, but, unlike Tara and most of the people of Farswip who had raven black hair, Rick possessed a tangled shock of ash blonde hair that made him appear a little wild and unkempt. His eyes too seemed out of place for an islander, almond-shaped and fiery. Tara had long cultivated the cautious, narrow squint of a Farswipper, but Rick’s eyes were always wide, taking in the world around him, good or bad, with equal enthusiasm. People said that as a baby he had washed ashore, the sole survivor from the wreck of a foreign ship, and no one could quite guess where he had come from. It didn’t matter to Tara. He was here now, and she needed help with the buckets.

As the longboat skidded to a halt on the beach, Rick leapt over the side and ran, splashing in the wet sand up to Tara and her mother. His oil-stained canvas shorts and ragged fisherman’s vest contrasted starkly with the ladies white linen dresses, and, in their presence, he suddenly seemed to remember his manners. “Good day, Mrs. Whelan!”

“Good day to you, Richard.” Tara’s mother answered with a crooked smile, brushing a wisp of gray hair from her eyes with the back of her hand.

“I was wondering if you ladies might need a ride back to town?” he offered with a quick glance at Tara.

“That’s very kind of you to offer,” mother replied, “but I was actually looking forward to the walk back,” Tara’s heart sank, and she started to protest before her mother cut her off, continuing, “…but you might take Tara with you. She needs help taking these smokers to market.”

“I’d be glad to help, Mrs. Whelan!” Rick exclaimed, and he helped Tara load the two heavy buckets into the prow of the boat.

Tara had been aboard the Nixie often enough to know the routine. She wrapped her skirt a little higher and cinched it tight around her waist before tossing her shoes in next to the buckets. Then she helped Rick push the Nixie back down the slope of the beach and into the water, both laughing as they clambered aboard, getting fairly splashed in the process. Rick grabbed the oars and pulled hard, and soon they were back in the surf, waving goodbye to Tara’s mother as she made her way back to the rocky stairway leading from the beach. As they emerged from the shadow of the hillside, the wind caught the sail that now boomed full, blazing white in the sun, and the Nixie shot out across the waves of the inlet.