Page 57 of The Midnight Secret

Archie stared up at it as he wrestled to keep the boat from turning in towards the coastline. ‘I can’t get up there,’ he yelled. ‘I have to keep my hands on this.’

Effie looked up too. It was high, but nothing to her. ‘I can go!’

Archie looked down at her as if she was mad. ‘...What?’

‘I can climb up there and strap it! Have you some rope?’

‘Effie, no!’

‘Arch, there’s no time. You have to trust me. I am not some delicate flower.’ Being so slight – ‘a strip of wind’, she’d always been called back home – had always meant she was agile and nimble. Here, a lithe body was prized only for wearing the latest fashions well, and she hated that she had been recast as fragile. Her strength, agility and skill on the ropes had defined her in St Kilda, but over here, no one knew or cared. It was as if her identity had been cleaved away. ‘Just hand me some rope.’

Still he stared at her, and she saw desperation in his eyes. ‘Effie, I can’t! If anything were to happen to you—’

She looked back up and saw the crack breach and widen again, the sail tugging on it. ‘You have to! Once it breaks, we’ll lose the sail, and then we’re both done for.’

With a look of disbelief that he was doing it, Archie reached under the helm and passed her a small loop of rope. Without hesitation she threw it over her head, the loop across her body.

‘Help me up!’ she said, reaching for his hand. The boat wasrolling and lurching in the swell, buffeted by the wind as the slackened sail pulled them off course.

He grabbed her, hand upon hand, just as he had when they’d reeled in Portree those four nights back. Then he yanked her up from the bench, his other hand on the helm. The boat lurched as they were caught side-on by a wave and she felt the deck run out beneath her as she was thrown into the open expanse of the bridge. She was still too far away to reach the mast, their arms outstretched at full reach, but Archie didn’t let go, gripping her tightly in no-man’s-land until they eased into the trough for a few short seconds.

‘Now!’ she shouted, and he released her, watching as she sprinted the short distance to the mast.

‘Dear God, Effie,’ he cried, helpless now that she was out of his reach. ‘Be careful!’

‘Aye,’ she replied, looking up the tall, narrow pole. It was slippery in the rain, no natural grip. She would have preferred a granite cliff-face, but at least there were some hand-and footholds: she could stand on the boom, grab the ropes...She hugged the mast like a monkey on a tree and, as she waited again for theLady Tarato hit another trough, took one arm off to tuck her long skirt into her underwear. The dress being soaked through worked to her advantage, as it flapped less and clung in position up her thighs.

She felt the boat level out and sprang up instinctively onto the mast, hugging it between her arms and legs as she shimmied herself upwards. It was slippery, but she was strong and had expert balance. It didn’t take her long to get to the top but she had to cling ever more tightly as she ascended, for the higher she rose, the greater the pendulum swing, side to side, of the mast.

She looked down and saw Archie watching with utterhorror as he struggled to keep the boat the right side of the wind. He looked so small from here, and from this vantage point she could see how truly vulnerable they were, the immensity of the sea roiling around them.

She made herself focus on the job in hand – panicking wouldn’t help them now. Up close, the crack was worse than it had appeared from the deck. It was going to fail at any moment...

She set about strapping it with the rope, looping figures of eight to bind it tightly and hopefully minimize the breach. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it absorbed some of the strain. As she fastened off the end of the rope, she watched the crack closely as they continued to roll left to right. The sail was certainly better supported now that the mast had been strengthened. She could see the almost immediate relief for Archie on the helm as it stopped fighting him, but with these winds so strong and relentless, she couldn’t risk leaving it and coming back down again. One particularly sharp gust might be enough to loosen the strapping, catch the sail at full throttle and send it all crashing down. There was nothing else for it.

‘I’m staying up here!’ she shouted down to him.

There was a pause as Archie processed her words. Could he not hear her clearly, or did he not believe her?

‘Effie, no! That’s enough! You’ve done enough! Get back down here.’ He sounded desperate, his signature laconic drawl lost to the drama.

She clung to the mast, trying not to let fear take over. With every pitch it felt as if she would be dunked into the raging sea. ‘I can’t! It’s too unstable!’ she shouted back. ‘Just keep going! I’m fine...I can hold on. We can do this!’

She saw him shake his head, but to argue was drainingthem both of precious energy, and he knew enough of her wild spirit now to understand she wouldn’t be talked down. He stared ahead at the horizon, facing down the storm as the rain lashed and the wind moaned and the sea heaved. And Effie clung on, an emerald button on a conductor’s baton – tick, tick, tick, marking time.

Chapter Fifteen

‘Dear God, what a sight you made, steaming down the loch like that!’ Gladly called up from the stone jetty, bundled in a mac and sou’wester as he wound the mooring rope around the bollard. The rain was still driving hard, the winds with no intention of letting up. ‘We thought it was pirates coming to pillage us! MacLeod’s gone off hiding all the family silver!’

Colly and Campbell ran down the path from the castle, fastening their coats too.

Effie, still atop the mast, closed her eyes with relief as she felt theLady Tarastand steady at last as she was secured fore and aft. She would never forget the welcoming sight of Dunvegan Castle, sitting atop a rock at the head of the loch: ancient turreted towers and thick buff stone walls promising safe haven.

She would never admit it to anyone, but she hadn’t known how much longer she could have stayed up there. As she had feared, the strapping was worked loose by the nudging wind; she’d had to re-secure it several times, gripping the mast with her legs as she worked with her arms. There had been nothing to hold her up there but her own muscles and willpower.

She descended slowly and carefully, lowering herself hand over hand until her bare feet touched the deck again. She was soaked through, her hair streaming rivers down her back, her dress now a second skin bunched around her thighs.

‘...What?’ she asked, as she saw the two men looking at her with astonished expressions. ‘Oh. I don’t look much of a lady, is that it?’ she asked, slicking her hair back and wringing it out like a towel.

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