Jenni Fagan - The Sunlight Pilgrims

When it stops she lifts her head up.

Kids are scattered up on the slope; some have run back up to the top and others jumped the fence to get away from the cows, which are now clustered in the middle of the field. Lewis Brown is halfway down, picking himself up. He rolls over, sees her all the way down here, raises his arm straight up in the air.

— Fair play, Stella, he shouts.

Other kids look around and see she was the only one who made it down to the bottom. Stella Fairbairn is the only kid in the whole of Clachan Fells who has just sledged at 40 m.p.h. through a pack of huge Jersey cows. The farmer is out, getting the cows back into the barn again already; he let them out on purpose, though, to stop them sledging in his field — she knows it. He’s heading up to the top to shoo the cows back down the field.

— Well done, Stella, someone else shouts.

— Fair play!

— You’re fucking nuts!

— Her heart pit-a-pat in her ears and she has to hope that her mother up there on the slope did not see her do that.

Dear Mrs Constance Fairbairn ,

It is with deep regret that the Sisters of Beathnoch have to inform all parents that snowfall is now measuring thirty-four inches from the school windows. They are still unable to fix the boiler system, all the pipes are frozen solid. As such, we must continue to put the health and safety of our students first. We are aware the school has been closed since November, but we are unable to reopen now most likely until spring, when we hope these winter conditions should begin to thaw. We would like to ask that you maintain your child’s educational process throughout these long winter months. Focus on scripture may be especially appropriate at times such as these. We also suggest that each household places a candle in their window at night to guide and honour those who are displaced due to these harsh conditions. We are sending prayers and good thoughts to you all. If anyone is not safe in their home due to falling temperatures, then please do send them to the village hall at Clachan Fells. We will keep this resource open with basic camp-beds and we will provide cooked meals to anyone who needs them. Nobody will be turned away from our doors.

Wishing you all a safe and blessed winter.

Yours sincerely ,

Sister Mary Shaun

Constance passes the letter to her.

Stella’s nails are each a different colour with little stars painted on them and she is wearing a red polo-neck with an owl on the front and a bright-green cardigan that her mum found in the charity shop before it closed. She has her hair back in clasps with cherries on them.

— We should take the Christmas tree down, Constance says.

— Not until the snow thaws!

The tree looks dilapidated, so Stella sprayed it white and stuck wires in the branches to perk them up. It has a Japanese feel to it now and the fairy lights glow outside when they are walking home. It looks nice.

— What time will they be here?

— Any minute now.

— Do you think we’ll see it?

— I don’t know. How is Vito?

— He is fine.

Outside each snowflake is wide and slow. They fall steadily without hesitation. The sky is relentlessly heavy every day and it is beginning to have an actual weight to it. Days stretch out, each longer than yesterday.

— The snowfall feels different.

— Yup.

— I love you.

— I love you too.

The two of them glance out of the window, up at a sky that is already turning into a river of colours. There is a lemon-drizzle cake that her mum made on the counter. She spent two hours making soups and putting them in the freezer. There is a tap on the door. Stella runs to open it. Dylan swoops in. He tips snow off his parka onto the porch and gives her a grin and a hug; he seems more awkward and tired-looking than usual.

— The aurora is coming, the sky is already turning! He peers out the window.

— Dylan, you’re like a kid at Christmas, she says.

— I know.

— Was your cinema totally tiny?

— Totally tiny. It had red velvet curtains, one screen, old balconies, statues, stars gliding across the ceiling. If I couldn’t sleep, I’d lie in the middle of the stage just daydreaming.

— Were your girlfriends strippers? Stella asks.

— Because I lived in Soho?

— Aye.

— A few.

— Did you date any boys?

— Only good-looking ones.

— Really?

— Once or twice, he says.

— Dylan, why are you looking at me like that? Stella asks.

— I’m … glad to see you — you look great, he says.

— I don’t look any different than I did last time you saw me! she says.

Dylan places a clear bottle on the table. His first batch of gin. He has made a label for it and it has three suns on the front and underneath he has neatly stencilled The Sunlight Pilgrims.

— Is that for me? I’d say you shouldn’t have, but clearly you should! How many bottles did you make? Constance picks it up and turns it round, her face lit up.

— I made exactly the right amount to get us through an Ice Age.

Barnacle appears in the doorway.

— Is this some kind of party? Do you need an invitation?

— Come in, Barnacle, we’re just getting ready for our little aurora party. How are you?

— Crippled as ever, darling, but good. I couldn’t half use a drink, though!

— Of course Stella decorated outside for us and we’ve got the chimenea up on the roof, so it isn’t totally freezing — gin? It’s Dylan’s, he made it all by himself!

— Bloody well done, Dylan. A gin would be to die for! I brought my telescope, not that we’ll need it!

He has pleated his beard to keep it out of the way and he has silver rings on; a mouth organ pokes out of his pocket and he looks more like a sailor with his blue eyes and his lined face, glancing up at her, a little smile. Stella can’t remember any more why he used to creep her out.

— So, you’re still here then, young Dylan.

— No choice, mate, can’t get anywhere else.

— Charming, Constance says.

— It’s just as bad down south. The Thames has been frozen for months now.

— You must miss something from home, no?

— Sushi.

— That’s it?

— You could always catch some fish at Fort Harbour and chop them up raw, Stella giggles.

— Hilarious!

— What are those big holes in your ears? Barnacle asks him.

— Flesh tunnels, Constance says.

— It sounds so sexy when you say it like that, Dylan says.

— Dylan and Mum are a bit of an item now, Stella says.

— Not really, Constance says.

— Oh, stop resisting. You’ll be a normal woman one day, with just one old man and nothing exciting going on at all, Constance, Barnacle says.

— Really? Shoot me if that happens.

— What: the one-old-man bit? Dylan demands.

— The nothing-exciting bit, she says.

Outside the sky has turned green. Stella stands at the window and takes a photo for Vito with her phone.

A VAST road of stars trails across the sky. It looks like he could just walk along it to some other place. It feels like it won’t be much longer in these temperatures before they all might do that, but he has to shake away thoughts like that. He gets a brief image of that cloud on the mountain when he first got here, beyond the veil where there were barmen with long, narrow teeth ready to siphon the souls of humans and send the energy up into the universe to that … that river of green light.

He has chills down his back.

It is all rivers of green light in the sky, which turn purple, then red.

Constance has strung glass lanterns all round the back garden. They sway from branches, candle flames flickering. Stella is laughing at something Barnacle says, as he opens Constance’s door wearing a cap on his head and a glance to the right to make eye contact. Constance comes out behind him with her cheeks unusually radiant. She slips on her wolf. Barnacle hands Dylan a large glass of gin with ice and cucumber and Constance is smoking a tiny spliff.