The Spellcoats by Diana Wynne Jones Page B

at Gull to make sure he was safe. I was frightened.
    Hern and Duck became frightened, too, when we found we were not masters of the boat any longer. None of us understands the mass of contradictory currents in which the water flowed to the sea. Sometimes we were racing forward, sometimes we seemed hardly to move, and then, around midday, we were taken by the tide and borne back toward Sweetheart’s island. We kept the sail up and tried to beat on, but we found we were taken more and more toward the left. After a whole morning we had gone barely two miles.
    â€œI think we’d better keep leftward,” Hern said at last, “and try to land somewhere over there.”
    â€œOh, yes, do let’s land!” Robin said. She said it so desperately that we all looked at her and saw that she was ill. She was shivering, and her face was an odd color—almost like the lilac flowers in Aunt Zara’s garden. I think we did wrong to bring Robin to the sea.
    Hern said, “I’ll land in the first possible place.”
    Duck picked up a blanket and wrapped it round Robin. “Would you like the Lady, Robin?” he said. I confess now that I felt jealous at how kind they both were to Robin. I found it hard to be kind to her, and I still do. She looked so ugly, and she kept shivering for no reason. I hope I did not show my feelings. I put the Lady in Robin’s hands, but Robin seemed to forget her, and she dropped to the boards.
    â€œHave the Young One,” said Duck.
    â€œNo,” Robin said, with great firmness.
    After endless sailing in heaving gray water, we came near land. It would be midafternoon by then. Everything was bleached, brownish, and sandy-looking and smelling a new smell, like a fresh-caught fish. That is the smell of the sea. And the land was not in a solid line as we had thought, but in islands of heaped-up sand, with the true land just as sandy, some way beyond. In between the land and the islands the sand-colored water raced and sucked, while on the outer side of them it was all waves, crashing continually. How Hern got us ashore on the last island, I shall never know. He must be a better boatman than me.
    Here was our final island. It was made of crusty sand. Sharp-edged grass grew on it and bent prickly bushes, all twisted in the wind. The wind had dug out holes and hollows in the sand. We found the largest hollow, facing back to the land we had come from—from there it looked like blue mountains—and we made a camp, dragging the boat up to give Robin some shelter. Down below was a place where all the things in that part of the flood were hurled on the island and pinned there by the racing water.
    â€œUgh!” said Duck when he saw it.
    There were dead hens, drowned rats, cabbage stalks—many horrid remains—but there was wood and waterweed, too. We made a good fire from it. We wrapped Robin in rugcoats and blankets, and she still shivered. We offered her food.
    â€œI couldn’t!” she said. “Just water.”
    â€œWater!” I said. Hern and I looked at one another. There was a drop in the jar, but there was no water on the island. I went down to the gray flood and tasted it. The River here mingles with the sea, and the sea is salt. I do not know where the salt comes from, but the sea is not fit to drink.
    â€œWhat do we do now?” I whispered.
    â€œWe can’t take the boat,” Hern whispered back. “She’d be cold without it, and the current’s terrible. I can’t see any sign of a stream either.”
    We gazed at the low sandy land helplessly. Naturally Duck chose that moment to say in a loud voice, “I’m dreadfully thirsty!”
    â€œShut up!” we both said.
    But there was Robin heaving herself up on one arm, with rugs dropping from her and her teeth chattering in her blue-gray mouth. “Is the water gone? I’ll go and get—”
    â€œYou lie down,” I said, glaring at Duck.