Nightfire | The Whispering Wall #1

Two: Monster

"I thought...you said....this would be fun," Jordan gasped, staggering to a halt on the cliff path to catch his breath. Far – too far - below him, the sea was creeping up the beach. It wouldn't be long before it was licking at the bottom of the cliff and they would be stranded here until it rolled out again. Out on the water, their ferry had vanished from sight.

"It will be." Grace looked equally winded. Her short blonde hair was plastered to her face with sea spray and sweat. "When we get to the top."

"It better," Jordan grunted. "Or I swear to God..."

His sister grinned and began to walk again. The path was narrow with loose stones underfoot, and while she picked her way delicately along, Jordan lumbered with caution behind her, occasionally slipping and cursing into the wind. His hands were scraped raw and dirty from grabbing onto boulders and crags for balance, and in the cold air they smarted something fierce. Between swearing, wiping his hands on his trousers and stumbling about, he tried to remember when he had relinquished his free will and allowed Grace to drag him here. It probably had something to do with the three pints she'd plied him with the previous night.

The path grew steeper, and Jordan ended up on hands and knees in an effort to stay on it. By the time he pulled himself over the lip of the cliff, his palms and the knees of his trousers were bloody and his neck hurt from craning upwards. Grace was already on her feet with her camera out, but he stopped for long while on the ledge, sweaty and breathless.

He got up, wiping his hands on a tissue, and looked around. The island's surface was much smaller than its base, and longer than it was wide. Giant monoliths littered one end, some still standing but worn to stumps by the wind, others lying on their sides. At the other end stood the ruin of a tiny oddly-shaped church with a missing wall and empty windows. Chunks of fallen pillars lay everywhere.

There were no people here, just him and Grace and a cloud of noisy seagulls.

"Grace," he said, casually. She turned, smiling, as she lowered the camera from her face.

"Huh?"

"What's your definition of fun, exactly?"

She at least had the decency to look sheepish. "I really wanted someone to come with me," she said, plaintive. "I'll buy the drinks at the pub later if you promise not to hold a grudge."

Jordan scowled. "Buy two rounds and we have a deal."

She grinned. "Deal."

He forced his expression to be neutral, though it was an effort. It wasn't that he thought the place was a complete waste of time; he was more annoyed that this was the result of an hour's steep climb, and that somehow he was expected to occupy himself until the tide went out and the ferry came back. That was in five hours, if the ferryman chose to be exact about it.

"So," he said, "What's the big deal, then? You haven't told me."

"It was a monastery," Grace said. She swept her arms wide. "This whole island was an abbey once."

"Then what's with the church?"

"That's not a church, that's the remains of the chapel." She scanned the whole island through the viewfinder of her camera. "Those stumps over there are the arches of the doors. Though some of them might have been statues." She gestured at the pillars – or what was left of them. "This must have been the nave. They held up the entire thing, see the rows?"

"Just about." Jordan frowned. They were a bit too haphazard and tumbledown to call 'rows'. "And why here? Plenty of abbeys in driving distance back home."