Turn of the Tide | ONC 2023

[1] A New Face

    "Sally. Sally? Sally."

    A low groan slipped between Sally Tremaine's lips. With slow, resigned movements, she pulled down the bundled cream blanket until her sharp green eyes peeked out, her head of sunlit auburn hair skilfully tamed into smooth waves. If Ronan had not given up after witnessing her display of feigned ignorance, then her brother must have had something important to say for once.

    Judging by his soaked rubber boots and heavy blue raincoat, Ronan had just come back from the docks. "If Mam caught you dozing off like this, she'd bring the house down with her shouting."

    "I'm not dozing. I'm reading..." Sally mumbled as she rubbed her eyes, raising her covers to steal a glance at the paperback resting on her chest. The corner of the open page curled between her heather-hued cardigan and the book's spine, and she winced at the thought of the wrinkle being pressed into the page. "...The Tempest. Didn't you say you were going out with Dad today?"

    Ronan swiped off his wool hat and flicked his slick dark hair from his face. "Didn't you say you'd finish your reading before I got back, sleepyhead?" With a smirk, he passed over the top of the stairs and leaned against the short doorway to his sister's bedroom. "A storm warning brought us in early again. Old Norton was howling through the boat's radio, swearing he felt it in his bones. Dad told him it was just his arthritis talking, but the lads agreed we're better safe than sorry."

    Sitting up straight, Sally slipped her tangled blankets to her lap and stretched away the last dregs of the doziness that clouded her thoughts. "I thought we got a weather station to tell when the storms were coming in."

    "We had one, until a heavy wind tore it to bits. And guess who's meant to be getting it fixed?" A giggle escaped Sally's lips as Ronan gestured through her bedroom window to the distant lighthouse that loomed over the Steps, its beaming spotlight visible from all parts of the town. Somewhere in its weary tower, Old Norton called out to every vessel in the surrounding seas through a radio older than Sally herself. "Anyway, Mam's planning dinner, and she needs someone to go pick up the vegetables from Rosbannes Farm."

    The book's pages slapped shut as Sally set it on her scarlet pillow, her eyes cast towards the ceiling. "And I'm that someone, obviously," she said, tossing her blankets to the base of her bed and sliding into a pair of black high top trainers. Her phone poked out of the pocket of her deep blue jeans, and a simple silver ring glimmered from its chestnut rope around her neck. Sighing as she left her room, Sally paused and turned around, her nose wrinkled. "Because I'm the only one who doesn't reek of fish and sea spray."

    "Best not pass the pub on your way over. Dad took the lads straight there from the dock!" Ronan laughed, pulling his sister into a close, damp hug. "You look after yourself, alright? Old Norton might have had it right, with how windy it is."

    "When's it not windy?" Sally retorted, firing off one last fiendish grin before descending the stairs, numbed by exposure to the complaints released by the old wood under her feet. A glance over her shoulder at the foot of the stairs earned her a glimpse of her mother's pacing form, her brow knitted in concentration at the pages of another rediscovered recipe book. Dinner was coming courtesy of last century yet again.

    From the hook by the cottage's front door, Sally took a pine green scarf and looped it around her neck before slipping on a light grey wool coat that fell to just above her knees. As she turned to ask her mother what to pick up, she spotted a crumpled piece of paper on the chest of drawers by the door, a list of ingredients scrawled across its faint blue lines. A note on the rear side read 'PAID IN ADVANCE' in scribbled block capitals, the red ink burning the shapes of the letters into Sally's eyes. "Love you too, Mam," she sighed, folding the note to slip it into her coat pocket.