Free The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman

need to be careful about other things. Sea urchins, say. Watch out when you’re walking on submerged rocks, or the spines can snap off in your foot and get infected. And stingrays bury themselves in the sand near the edge of the water – if you tread on the barb in their tail you’re in trouble. If it flicks up and gets you near the heart, well …’ He noticed that Isabel had gone silent.
    ‘You all right, Izz?’
    ‘It feels different somehow, when you just reel it all off like that – when we’re this far from help.’
    Tom took her in his arms and pulled her up to the shore. ‘I’ll look after you, sweetheart. Don’t you worry,’ he said with a smile. He kissed her shoulders, and laid her head back on the sand, to kiss her mouth.

    In Isabel’s wardrobe, beside the piles of thick winter woollens, hang a few floral dresses – easy to wash, hard to hurt as she goes about her new work of feeding the chickens or milking the goats; picking the vegetables or cleaning the kitchen. When she hikes around the island with Tom she wears an old pair of his trousers, rolled up more than a foot and cinched with a cracked leather belt, over one of his collarless shirts. She likes to feel the ground under her feet, and goes without shoes whenever she can, but on the cliffs she endures plimsolls to protect her soles from the granite. She explores the boundaries of her new world.

    One morning soon after she arrived, a little drunk with the freedom of it, she decided to experiment. ‘What do you think of the new look?’ she said to Tom as she brought him a sandwich in the watch room at noon, wearing nothing at all. ‘I don’t think I need clothes on a day as lovely as this.’
    He raised an eyebrow and gave her a half smile. ‘Very nice. But you’ll get sick of it soon enough, Izz.’ As he took the sandwich he stroked her chin. ‘There’s some things you have to do to survive on the Offshore Lights, love – to stay normal: eat at proper times; turn the pages of the calendar …’ he laughed, ‘and keep your clobber on. Trust me, sweet.’
    Blushing, she retreated to the cottage and dressed in several layers – camisole and petticoat, shift, cardigan, then heaved on Wellington boots and went to dig up potatoes with unnecessary vigour in the sharp sunshine.

    Isabel asked Tom, ‘Have you got a map of the island?’
    He smiled. ‘Afraid of getting lost? You’ve been here a few weeks now. As long as you go in the opposite direction to the water, you’ll get home sooner or later. And the light might give you a clue too.’
    ‘I just want a map. There must be one?’
    ‘Of course there is. There are charts of the whole area if you want them, but I’m not sure what good they are to you. There’s nowhere much you can go.’
    ‘Just humour me, husband of mine,’ she said, and kissed his cheek.
    Later that morning, Tom appeared in the kitchen with a large scroll, and presented it with mock ceremony to Isabel. ‘Your wish is my command, Mrs Sherbourne.’
    ‘Thank you,’ she replied in the same tone. ‘That will be all, for now. You may go, sir.’
    A smile played on Tom’s lips as he rubbed his chin. ‘What are you up to, missie?’
    ‘Never you mind!’
    For the next few days, Isabel went off on expeditions each morning, and in the afternoon closed the door to the bedroom, even though Tom was safely occupied with his work.
    One evening, after she had dried the dinner dishes, she fetched the scroll and handed it to Tom. ‘This is for you.’
    ‘Thanks, love,’ said Tom, who was reading a dog-eared volume on the tying of rope knots. He looked up briefly. ‘I’ll put it back tomorrow.’
    ‘But it’s for
you
.’
    Tom looked at her. ‘It’s the map, isn’t it?’
    She gave a mischievous grin. ‘You won’t know until you look, will you?’
    Tom unrolled the paper, to find it transformed. Little annotations had appeared all over it, together with coloured sketches and arrows. His first thought was