Precious Cargo

She sat bolshie, clenching her hands, teeth, and toes; Her billowing mass of red, tangled hair yanking at the heart shaped locket around her neck.

If her grandad was actually worried about every bit of flotsam that washed onto their island, he needed her help to patrol it, She might only be eleven but she could help.

“I can bloody do more than just keep watch on this frippin' hill!” She shouted, guttural, toward their near-derelict castle and the irksome mist surrounding it...Mum was in a window with Miri in her arms looking out at her with tired eyes and worry.

Anoushka cupped her hands to her mouth and shouted, “ Stop worrying mum!”

She got a meek smile, a slow thumbs up, and a puppeteered wave from her baby sister... And there he was, her grandad Bo, chopping wood in the yard.

Just because her dad hadn't made it back for Miri being born, or ever, didn't mean she would mess up too. She crossed her fingers and toes, that she would find something just so she could prove to them her worth.

Bo assumed she kept watch on the hill to look for her dad but she didn’t: She was too angry at him for going away and never coming back. She hated him for breaking his promise.

She scraped these thoughts around, engulfed and distracted, hacking stones full pelt down the hill. She didn’t see the something that pushed through the murked waves, against the sucking tide: a thing that sobbed and kicked, strength spent, pushing a casket to shore.

“Anoushka!” It was Bo shouting a growl up to her, telling her to come down and stop obsessing.

“Gaaaaaar...fine,” she growled back. It was getting cold anyway.

But as she stood and dusted her knees of dirt and spiky seeds, the dark thing with it’s cumbersome movement caught the edge of her eye... and her heart banged.

And she wanted to move but froze.

She closed her eyes and mustered a scream only a banshee could equal, until it rang clear across the island and straight into her family's hearts.

Bo paralleled Anoushka in demeanour and thought for only a second: he tore himself from the momentary fear to reach her.

“Anouk, calm down! ” His voice washed over her, deep and reassuring.

Holding her in his arms she unfurled like a fern to the sun and pointed to the beach below: A black mass lay where the sea stopped and the sand began.

From Bo's position it looked to be another of those wreaking creatures towed by the current from the mainland, pungent with death. It rested atop a box, lost cargo maybe, the only thing tempting him to delve further. The meagre daylight, however, was coming to an end and instinct told him to turn away...head for home.

But as he did, Anoushka lifted her head to face him. “NO!” Pulling away from him an adamant and determined granddaughter, brave from his hold, was telling him to go look.

He knew it was an unfathomable gamble; the mass and the box, an equal chance of hope and nightmares. But their minds would race, their eyes would remain awake, until it was checked out.

Anoushka's mother rushed towards them, baby in a sling on her back. She wrapped a blanket round her little girl holding her tight and nodded to Bo with eyes of stoic resignation.

They watched Bo approach the thing from the beach edge. His hunting knife was readied, spear jutted before him, to distance the inspection.

As he drew closer a part of his tense fear dissipated into the damp air; it was clear to him, at least, that this thing was not the size of a man.

“Bo...” Anoushka whispered...

“Shhhhh!” He put his finger to his lips.

He could see the thing was a creature of sorts, laying across a casket, covered in debris and ravaged by the whim of the sea. With tentative movements he drew closer and with the spear he touched it.

Nothing. Still.

Beaching waves and calm.

Delicately he pulled at the weeds and sea-waste covering it.

Feeling no threat, no immediate danger, he turned to his girls on the sand dunes and gestured for them to slowly, slowly approach.

“What is it Bo?”

“I don't know yet, but it’s not moving...”

Wrapped in her blanket, Anoushka watched Bo circle the thing and it's box, spear still extended. Anoushka's mother took a torch from her belt giving him some extra light: they were minutes away from sunset and lockdown.

“I'm going to attempt to push it off the chest, OK? So I want you two well away from it when I do so. WELL away, you understand?”

They nodded.

Bo put his spear in between the creature and the box and levered it up and over, rolling it with one big push.

As it fell to the sand it's coverings came away.

Aghast at what lay beneath he drew his knife, stepping backwards, warding off his family. Anoushka pulled away from him.

“Anouk!”

She could see and her heart screamed.

“ It's a boy Bo! It's a bloody boy!”

No answer.

Waves, calm, waves, calm...what to do, what to do.

Her mother put a reassuring hand on Bo's shoulder. “Anouk, take Miri back home and settle her in her crib, there's milk in the pan. No arguments. We'll take care of him I promise.”

“ I can help better here...”

Then her mother gave her that look and she knew there was no arguing.

She nodded, and with baby safe in her arms glanced a last time at the sleeping boy and walked away.

****

It was dewy cold and icy when Anoushka woke in her bed, snuggled under a woolly hat and blankets. Someone must’ve carried her there.

She’d fed Miri and rocked her to sleep in front of the fire, and then made a big effort to stay awake until her mother and Bo returned with the boy: She’d lit all the candles and put her dad's music on, grateful once again for his forward planning of installing a turbine, before the world had changed...Most people thought he was crazy, with his warnings of what was to come, but not Anoushka. His forward thinking, and moving them all to this tiny island had saved them.

Her plan to stay awake apparently hadn’t worked though, as obliviously, she'd been carried to her bed. She kissed the crumpled photo of her dad good morning, and tiptoed down the stone steps, grabbing her woolly jumper on the way.

She followed the hushed voices coming from the kitchen to her mother rocking Miri, and Bo leaning against the mantle, staring into the flames of a dying fire.

“Where's the boy?” She beamed, wide eyed. “Where is he?” She cast her eyes to the sofa, then the armchair, imagining him cleaned up and fed, sleeping peacefully somewhere.

“Can I see him?”

“No love, no...”

“Well, when can I?” she asked, manically looking from one drawn face to the other.

No answer.

As though a strong coffee had already worked its magic, it was then that the reality of her surroundings struck her; Her bubble popped and she saw their faces truly, and smelt the pungency of disinfectant.

“Where is he....?” Her question trailed off, her grandad lowered his head, “I'm sorry love...”

He was sorry before too. He was sorry when he came back without her dad. He was always sorry. “You said you'd help him-You said!” He spoke gently, “We tried...”

“What've you done to him?!”Anoushka looked at her mother, feeling anguished, betrayed.

She didn't answer her daughter, but her eyes glancing toward the courtyard gave it away.

“No!” Bo shouted, “Don't go out there!” But Anouk ran.

And there he was, like a slab of raw meat on a butcher’s block, discarded on the stone floor; The boy, no older than she with his dark hair and pale face, like a ghost in her dad's horror comics. She was shaking with anger and unknown words. Her bottom lip dropped and she sobbed: deep, overwhelming, heart-wrenching sobs. She fell to her knees next to him.

Wrapped in his heartless plastic sheeting, like all the others before him, he smelt of chemicals and hopelessness.

Bo and her mother were behind her. She spun around with vehemence, “How could you! He's just a boy! He wouldn't have hurt us!”

"It wasn't us, he was already dead Anoushka...There was nothing we could do; He was too cold, too much water in him.”

Bo went to hold her but she pushed him away convulsing with emotion.

“You've not even given him a blanket, ” She cried.

Her mother spoke, “Bo, he's just a little boy. We can surely spare one blanket to cover him.”

Grave and weary he nodded.

Anoushka spoke unhinged, monotone, “You have to bury him somewhere nice. Somewhere he would've liked.”

She looked beyond the wall of the castle to the copse on the hill. A rare, morning sun was fighting it's way through the fog, casting it's rays there. And for a moment she was playing with this boy, hiding amongst the trees, hunting for treasure.

Treasure.

“What was in the chest Bo?”

No answer.

She looked at Bo and he was crying.

Bo who never did.

"Grandad..?"

“ A most precious cargo, my beautiful girl.”

“What was it?”

He trembled, holding out his hand for her to take.

“No, you can't show her Bo, it's not right!”

He spoke sternly. “I want her to see what this boy did.” Bo turned to Anoushka.

She took her grandad's hand and nodded for him to lead her to the casket. She couldn't understand his tears and what could upset him so much.

Bo bent down next to her, “We don't know how far the boy has come or where he came from but he was very brave. He did an amazing thing to fight his way here through that sea protecting this box."

She looked up at her grandad, “What was he protecting Bo?”

He ran a hand over it's lid, stroking it almost tenderly. “ It was sealed with tar and made watertight except for the air holes on top. With your mother’s help I prized it open with my knife.”

He wiped his eyes and looked at her with a face that had seen too many dark things for one lifetime. “Go ahead." He gestured for Anoushka to lift it's lid.

She peered in and there amongst the fleece and woollen blankets, wrapped tightly in swaddling she saw a baby boy, who like his companion, would never wake.

The sun remained that day while they buried the two little boys, and now Anoushka sat on her hill as it set. She stared out to sea, at the end of her watch, thinking of her family, of her father.

Just like the boy, who stayed with the baby until his last breath, she would remain strong, she would be brave.