Read Online Finder's Shore by Anna Mackenzie - Free Book Online Page B

changed. They changed right away.”
    I shy from the bitterness in her tone, and all it implies. I’m not ready to hear how I’ve hurt her. “You’re out early.”
    “I was hoping to find mushrooms for my breakfast.” The lie slips easily from her tongue. 
    “It’s the wrong time of year,” I say flatly.
    Sophie’s smile is sharp. “You remember something of Dunnett then.”
    “Going away didn’t stop me remembering. I had no choice, Sophie.”
    “You had more than you left us.”
    The last thing I expected from my cousin was resentment. I try not to let it overwhelm me. “How’s Ty?”
    “He was apprenticed to a tanner in Dunn three years ago. I’ve not seen him since. It’s too far to visit, even if we were allowed.”
    “A tanner? But surely —”
    Anger sparks in her eyes. “When you left, did you even think about the chaos you left behind?”
    “Sophie.” I reach for her hands but she tucks them behind her back.
    “What is it that you want, Ness?” I can only gaze at her. She shrugs. “I have to get back.”
    “Are Marn and Tilda well?”
    Something shifts in her face. “No, Ness, they’re not. They’re neither as you might remember them. Nothing is. I’m mistress of Leewood now.” She rightly reads my confusion, and something in her stance softens. “Everything changed, Ness. Tilda lost her grip on reality. She seldom leaves the house.”
    “And Marn?” My voice comes out squashed.
    “He’s a tenant here now.”
    “Of who? Not Colm Brewster!”
    “Of course Colm.” She sighs. “Your defection nearly destroyed us, Ness. I’ve salvaged what I can.” 
    I don’t understand her words, or the harshness behind them. “My defection.”
    “After you left, the Council held a trial. We were all called as witnesses, along with the Barritts and Shehans — all our neighbours.”
    “The Shehans spoke against me?”
    She tosses her head impatiently. “It didn’t matter who spoke! There was only one possible outcome. And because you weren’t here to suffer the sentence passed against you, the farm was taken in forfeit.”
    “Leewood is Marn’s farm! It has nothing to do with me.” Pity flickers across Sophie’s face, but I’m too consumed by my outrage to attend it. “So it’s come to that: Colm can take whatever he likes as his own and no one tries to stops him?”
    Sophie looks suddenly weary. “It’s the way things are, Ness. Marn had either to accept it or be thrown off the farm. We’ve all had to live with the choices you made.”
    The resignation in her voice cuts me as much as her allocation of blame. “Would you rather I’d stayed?”
    We both know what it would mean if I had. She says nothing.
    “Are you happy, Sophie?” I ask at last.
    “Are you?” she demands.
    Her question shakes me back to my purpose. “Sophie, what the Council says about there being nothing left beyond the island: it’s not true. There’s so much! Things couldn’t be more different: people and books and technology — new technology, only some of it from old-teck . We —” 
    “I don’t care, Ness. I never did. I don’t want a world beyond Dunnett.” Her braid slaps against her back as she tosses her head. “I’m getting married next summer.”
    My mouth gapes like a hungry nestling. “Married? You’re too young! Sophie, surely that’s not —” A sudden dark image looms from my memory. “Not to Jed? Sophie, they’re not making you marry Jed? To keep the farm, to —”
    She cuts me off. “It could have been that way. Ton might have insisted, after the way you humiliated him. But no, not to Jed. Jed avoids me these days.”
    It was Sophie, not me, who brought about Jed’s humiliation. “How was what I did so terrible?” I demand. “I saved Dev’s life, because it was the right thing to do. You helped me.”
    Irritation flares in her eyes. “I did what you asked of me! I was young. I looked up to you. But you were wrong, Ness. Saving a stranger was wrong, just as