in their panic. The wind was blowing their hair around, blinding them for moments, Hanna’s slight frame sinewy and rigid with tension.
They got to the crater and stared down the sheer drop, Hanna giving a cry as they saw the basin was full of rough, slapping water, no sand visible. No beach.
‘Linus!’ Hanna screamed, her eyes white like a horse’s in battle. ‘Tilde! Elise!’
Max was ahead of them, on the far side, already scrambling down the rill. Emil was maybe a hundred metres behind him – not as fast, not as strong.
‘I can see them!’ Max yelled, his voice faint as the wind conspired against them and threw his words back over him. ‘They’re okay! They’re on a ledge! They’re okay!’
Hanna gasped, her body giving out at the news, adrenaline overwhelming her, and she sank to the ground. Bell rushed over, holding her. ‘It’s okay, Hanna. Max has got them. They’re safe now.’
‘I can’t lose them, Bell.’
‘I know, and you won’t. Max is getting them. It’s all going to be okay.’
‘Oh God, my babies,’ she moaned.
Bell looked down and saw Hanna’s hand curled over her stomach. A mother’s instinct. ‘They’re safe. But this one needs protecting too. You’ve got to look after yourself.’ And she placed her hand over Hanna’s.
Hanna stared back at her, the question pale on her lips. ‘How . . .?’
‘I saw the pregnancy test in your drawer, that day when you’d lost the ring.’
Their eyes met. They both knew now it had never been lost at all. Hanna had already been trying to control Emil the only way she felt she could, keeping her love for Max a secret still, buying time.
‘. . . I only took the test yesterday. I knew confirming the pregnancy would only complicate it all further and I wasn’t sure how far I would have to go to keep Emil on-side . . .’ She swallowed, looking ashamed. ‘You must think I’m terrible, to have done what I did.’
‘I think you were desperate, Hanna. Anyone would have been. You were protecting your family.’
‘As soon as it came up positive, I knew I couldn’t keep trying to persuade him or fool him anymore. I had resolved to tell him once we’d got through today. I was prepared to go to court over it.’ A tear slid down Hanna’s cheek as she bit her lip, trying to master her emotions. ‘But it wasn’t all an act. I do still love him, you know, in my own way. In spite of it all. How could I hate him? He gave me my son.’
Bell bit her lip. ‘Just try to relax now. The kids are safe, Max is getting them and you heard Emil – it’s all going to be okay. They’re going to work it out.’
Hanna gave a weak smile and nodded, closing her eyes as they both waited for the men – the two fathers – to bring the children back up.
Bell felt herself trembling too, her own body unwittingly depleted by the frantic chase across the island and as she sat on the ground, she closed her eyes, trying to control her shock. She did what she’d done after Jack had died and closed the world down to darkness and just sounds – she listened to Hanna’s still-frightened breathing, the birds singing, the wind moaning, the sea’s rhythmic slapping . . .
And then one more – unexpected, unwelcome, unnatural.
A scream.
In the final moments of his life, it was her face that filled his mind. Images spun round and round, of the light catching their pale spun hair, heads thrown back in laughter, his three girls, his three graces. Everything about them was radiance and beatific grace, as though they were not solid at all but heavenly conceits, constellations of stardust fallen from the skies into deft, perfect forms . . .
In seeing all this, there was much that he missed – the frond of strife dropped by a passing gull, the slickness left by a high wave, the ragged gasps that pulled brokenly at the air and tore down the archipelago’s sky. He knew none of it.
For him there was only light.
And then darkness.
Epilogue
Auckland, NZ, four months later
‘Emergency! We’re out of milk!’ Bell yelled in panic.
‘But I only got some yesterday!’ Mats replied, his voice – and then bewildered face – appearing through the galley door.
‘Yeah, but did you have more of your shakes last night and this morning?’
Realization dawned as he gave an apologetic grimace. ‘. . . Oh.’