Free Isle of Tears by Deborah Challinor Page B

boots,
    wrinkling her nose as she set them neatly beside the mat: they needed a good airing.
    She lay down again, but was unable to relax, and presently two women entered the hut and set about preparing for sleep. One of them stripped to her chemise and lay down, while the other, who was not wearing anything beneath her skirt and bodice, settled herself on her mat naked. Embarrassed, Isla kept her eyes averted, although she’d seen little more in the lamplight than the shadowed hollows and curves of the woman’s rounded body and the mass of her hair as it fell around her face.
    The women talked and giggled among themselves before they settled to sleep. Isla listened to the slowing rhythms of their breathing, but still could not fall asleep herself: her mind was too crowded with images of her dead parents, of their lovely home left to be ransacked by passing travellers, and of Tulloch, the man with blood in his beard.
    Some time later, two more women arrived, waking the others. A lively conversation began and, feeling excluded but not wanting to join in, Isla turned her back to them. At her movement, the women shushed each other and lay down on their mats. Isla tried valiantly not to, but after a few minutes she began to cry, as soundlessly as she could manage.
    A rustling sound came as someone stirred, and a moment later she felt a hand on her shoulder.
    ‘Can I be of help to you?’ a gentle voice asked.
    Isla rolled over and looked into the face of a girl perhaps a year or two older than herself.
    ‘I am Pare,’ she said. ‘You are weeping. Shall I fetch your mother?’
    ‘Ma mother?’ Isla whispered, hope flaring in defiance of reason.
    ‘Ae, Merearani.’
    ‘Oh.’ The disappointment almost took Isla’s breath away. ‘No, thank ye. I’ll be fine. But thank ye.’
    Pare nodded understandingly, and receded into the shadows.
    It took a long time after that for Isla to stop weeping, and finally slip into a fitful, haunted sleep.
     

Chapter Four
    O ver the next few weeks, the McKinnons settled at Waikaraka with unexpected ease. Jamie and Jean, in particular, seemed to take to life with the Ngati Pono, and Isla presumed it was because, at only six years old, they were still very adaptable. They missed their mother and father deeply, but the women of the village, and Mere especially, went to great lengths to comfort them and keep them occupied with food, and little chores and games, and fantastic stories of Ngati Pono ancestors, which rendered them both awe-struck and round-eyed.
    Niel was less willing to allow himself to be absorbed into the new way of life, alternating at times between sullen withdrawal and bursts of anger, which, to the credit of the villagers, were generally ignored. He also belligerently declared a distrust of the Ngati Pono, fortunately only in private, but such was his grief and anger at their parents’ deaths that Isla doubted he wouldfind it easy to trust anyone who was not family.
    But during their third week at Waikaraka, he had come to Isla with a rekindled light in his eyes and told her that Harapeta had promised to teach him the skills required of a Ngati Pono warrior. Then, he’d said with barely restrained vehemence, he could hunt down Tulloch and avenge their parents in a fitting manner. Isla, observing his renewed energy and the flush of excitement on his cheeks, had worried that it wouldn’t be good for him to dwell on such a morbid thing, but she couldn’t bring herself to deny him when she dearly wanted vengeance herself.
    Of all of them, Laddie had perhaps settled the most successfully, but really, as Isla said to Niel, his life had barely changed at all. The wound on his flank was healing well, and he was able now to romp about as he always had. He still enjoyed the delights of rolling around a dusty yard, or chewing on a particularly satisfying bone for hours at a time, and the village dogs had accepted his presence, if somewhat reluctantly at first. But now he had only