I Will Find You

by Daniela Sacerdoti

Genres: Contemporary Romance; Scottish & Highlander; Science Fiction Romance

Synopsis

A woman on the run. An island of secrets. A love to defy all odds...

From the bestselling author of Watch Over Me, Daniela Sacerdoti's new novel is a romantic, heartrending, epic story that will sweep you away to the beautiful, mysterious island of Seal. If you love the novels of Rosanna Ley, Tracy Rees and Lulu Taylor, you will adore Daniela Sacerdoti.

Two different women, divided by time, bound by fate...

After her mother dies, grief-stricken Cora discovers she has been left a cottage, a crumbling shelter on a mysterious Scottish island. The moment Cora arrives on the windswept isle of Seal, she falls under its spell and is drawn to brooding Innes, back on the island to confront his past.

As Cora begins to trace her mother's roots, she learns Gealach Cottage has a dark, turbulent history. Another young woman has sought refuge here, fleeing terrible danger, and waiting for her lover to return. What became of her? Only by unravelling a forgotten story of passion and courage can Cora understand what has pulled her to Seal...and led her to a man of many secrets.

Release date: May 17, 2018

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 384

Sample

I’d run out of tears, and so had Stephen. It’d been strange seeing my six-foot-tall brother, who always had a way of making light of everything, sobbing like a child at our mother’s funeral. Now he looked young and vulnerable standing behind Mum’s armchair, his arms on the backrest, surrounded by boxes and black bin liners, his hair sticking up as it always did, making him look like an eternal little boy. I went to him: an irresistible desire to look after my baby brother, to make it all better for him like I did when we were children.

We were at the Holy Heart, the assisted accommodation where my mum had lived her last year; they’d kindly allowed us to keep her room for a little longer, until we were ready to sort through her things. And now it was nearly done. But Mum had been gone a long time, longer than the three weeks since she’d passed away. Her mind had been failing her, slowly at first, then faster and faster, until she didn’t know who we were any more; she didn’t know who she was any more. All that was left of my cheerful, vibrant, always-on-her-feet mother was a fragile shell, lost in a world of her own making. That was when my brother and I began wishing she would be freed of this life, and at the same time began to really face the possibility of our life without her.

Us without her.

The impossible, becoming real.

Every day as she fell into nothing, slowly forgetting who she was, my mum asked me the same thing: ‘Will you open the curtains, please, Cora?’ Except the curtains were already open. She couldn’t see the light any more; she didn’t know it was there. She didn’t know if it was night or day. But still she was hungry for light and life and air – open the curtains meant let the light in, deliver me from this darkness.

Even if looking after her was heartbreaking – the times she became confused and upset, and even angry, were terrible to navigate – my mind was full of happy memories as I did so. She’d given my brother and me the gift of a happy childhood, and she’d been there for us as we became teenagers and young adults. Always there, always smiling, like all her thoughts were in colour in a black and white world, and her love seeped from everything she did.

Funny, the things you remember, but right at that moment, standing among the boxes that had been my mother’s life, what came back to me was the time the house was flooded. It was my thirteenth birthday and I was beside myself with excitement – all my friends were coming, and I was wearing my best outfit: a miniskirt, and a green T-shirt from BHS that I thought was the height of glamour. It wasn’t long since my father’s death, and both Stephen and I were raw and vulnerable. That was also why Mum wanted to make my birthday special. She had the place decorated from top to bottom with balloons and home-made bunting and signs, and sandwiches and cakes and sweets were laid out beautifully on the tables we had carried up from my dad’s workshop.

Twenty minutes before the party was due to start, all hell broke loose. A few days earlier, we’d had some pipes repaired – I think the plumber must have used Sellotape, because now, suddenly, they all exploded, leaving us ankle deep in water, water dripping from the ceilings, water rising as if we were on the Titanic. I started screaming, while Stephen tried to protect the food with his chubby little hands.

My mum stood, eyes wide, immobile.

For a moment.

Then she sprang into action. She instructed one of my uncles to call the plumber and hold the fort; to tell all the guests that turned up that we would be in the park. She distributed trays and cakes and plates among all of us and instructed my other uncle to carry the tables, and off we went, to the modest little urban park two streets away. In ten minutes, my mum had ribbons and bunting on the trees, the tables up again and blankets on the grass. The Happy Birthday Cora sign hung between a tree and a lamp post. Just as the guests began to arrive, an ice cream van drove by, and my mum opened a tab for everyone. It was the best birthday of my life.

When we came home after the party to find every floor and wall and ceiling soaked, my mum simply crossed her arms with a smile and said, ‘I’m so glad you had a good time. That’s all that matters to me.’

This woman, widowed at forty, with two kids to bring up, was our strength; she was the reason we knew how to keep going when everything seemed lost, when everything seemed to be working against us. I couldn’t fall into a black hole now, even if she was gone and I felt so alone; it would have been against everything she had taught me.

As we packed her things, sweetness mixed with sorrow. My mum had lived a long and happy life. Happiness was her knack, actually. I can count on my fingers the times I saw her sad. She’d gentle ways and a soft voice – people thought she was a kindly, mild-mannered woman, and she was, but underneath her sweetness, there was a steely will, an unwavering loyalty to her heart.

In my hands, I cradled a framed photograph of my parents, looking impossibly young. My dad’s hair was combed to one side and he wore, awkwardly, a Sunday shirt – he’d been a shy working-class man who had, people said, punched well above his weight in falling for my mother: beautiful, educated, talented. Mum wore a gorgeous full-skirted dress and her usual smile, her hair curled and framing her face. She looked like a fifties beauty queen. In marrying my father, she’d gone against her family – her love for him had been stronger than the rules she was supposed to abide by. She had given up on an easy life and her art studies to struggle beside him; and, it seemed to me, she’d never regretted it, because they’d loved each other until the day he died.

He was young, he suffered much. Mum was broken herself, but she sheltered us from the pain.

My mum loved intensely.

My mum lived in bright colours.

And me?

Where were my bright colours, I wondered, looking at my parents’ fingers lightly entwined, if at thirty-one I’d never even fallen in love?

‘I’m going to do the chest of drawers,’ my brother said, breaking the flow of my thoughts. His voice had a strange note, and I realised how rarely through the years I’d heard sadness in his tone, or even just tiredness; he was always cheerful, just like Mum, and full of energy. Funny how my parents had brought up two children the same way and we’d turned out so different. I was quiet, solitary, allergic to change, just like my father, while my brother had inherited my mum’s taste for adventure and carefree optimism. He’d been in Malawi, working in an animal sanctuary, when Mum had fallen ill. I was a homebody; the only way I ever wanted to see Malawi was through David Attenborough’s eyes.

‘Hey. Have you been sleeping enough?’ I said, lifting myself on my toes and ruffling his straw-blond hair. Stephen was born when I was seven, and because both our parents worked, I took care of him a lot of the time. Maybe that was why I’d never really felt a longing to become a mother; I’d already helped to bring up a little boy.

‘Depends on your definition of enough,’ he replied, attempting a smile.

‘Mmmm. Listen, when we’re finished here, come back to the house and I’ll cook you something.’

‘Can’t. I’m on call from six.’ Stephen had just started working at a veterinary clinic. Not that his shifts ever stopped him from partying or changing girlfriends every few months; that was all part of his zest for life. I still couldn’t keep up with the latest Martha-Iona-Alison . . .

The thought made me smile, even if everything around me and inside me was sad. My brother had that effect on me. I stepped slowly, carefully through life, evaluating and weighing every move; Stephen glided, assuming everything would go well. And even when it didn’t, he shrugged it off and kept going. Just imagine the scene: a studious, shy red-haired schoolgirl, sitting at the kitchen table bent over books she had to work hard to understand; and a little blond boy finishing his homework in a moment, easily, his bright mind deciphering everything his sister couldn’t, then running out to play with his friends and coming home dirty, happy and without a care in the world. That was me and my brother.

‘Cora . . . what’s this?’ While I was lost in thought, Stephen had unearthed a little wooden box with a lovely geometric pattern on the lid.

I peered at it. ‘I thought I was sort of familiar with everything she owned, but I’ve never seen this before. Have you?’

He shook his head. I lifted the lid carefully – the box looked very old and the wood seemed worn. Inside, resting on a bed of yellowed paper, was a key, slight and unadorned, and a bit rusty.

There are moments in life that become etched in your memory: the summer day you first swim in the sea; the moment you’re handed a book you’ll grow to adore; your first kiss. Good or bad, such moments make up the jigsaw of your life, the essence of who you are.

Opening the mysterious little box was one of these.

Stephen picked up the key and handed it to me. There was a thin, yellowed label hanging from it, and I turned it over gently, as if it might crumble under my fingers. Gealach, Seal, it said in an old-fashioned slanted cursive. For some reason, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the writing. My fingers curled around the key harder than they needed to.

I was aware that Stephen was speaking, but I didn’t hear the words. I held the cold, rusty key until it became warm in my hand, warmer and warmer – and then suddenly cold again, so cold it was nearly painful. A strange feeling took hold of me, something I couldn’t put into words, something I didn’t understand. Sadness? No, not exactly. Homesickness . . . desire . . . longing? Yes, longing. Yearning. The feeling you get when you look at something very, very beautiful – an untouched forest, a misty landscape, a stormy sky, the vast grey expanse of the sea. Yearning, though you’re not exactly sure for what.

‘Earth to Cora?’

‘Sorry, did you say something?’ I forced myself back to the here and now.

‘What does the label say?’

‘I’m not really sure. Ge . . . Gealach? I don’t know how to pronounce this. What language is it? Ge-a-lach, Seal . . . No idea.’

Stephen shrugged and took the key from me. ‘No idea either. I think Gealach is Gaelic. Sounds like it. Remember Iona?’

‘Yes, I remember Iona.’ I sighed and smiled. Another girlfriend, one Mum and I had particularly liked and were quite gutted to see joining the well-frequented club of Stephen’s ex-girlfriends.

‘She spoke Gaelic. This looks like the stuff she read.’ He shrugged.

‘There’s something else in there,’ I said. Flattened against the bottom of the box was a photograph, slightly curled at the edges, with that seventies brown look to the paper. I unpeeled it carefully. It was a picture of my mum and a young woman whose face I couldn’t quite place, though she looked familiar and recalled in me a vague feeling of sweetness. My mum’s smile was broad and unclouded as ever, but in that picture even more so, as if all the happiness in the world was gathered in her face. The two women had their arms linked, their hair and skirts blown by the wind.

‘Hey . . . that’s Aunt Toffee!’ Stephen said, and gently took the picture from me.

‘Who?’

Stephen touched the slender, smiling figure. ‘Do you not remember Aunt Toffee and Uncle Skirt?’

I laughed. ‘Toffee and Skirt? Are you sure you’re not imagining these people?’

‘Absolutely not! Those weren’t their real names, of course . . . I called her that because she always gave me toffee. And Uncle Skirt came to a Christmas dinner in our house wearing a kilt. I think I was four and I ended up under the table laughing because I’d never seen a man in a skirt before. Mum and Dad were mortified.’

I shrugged and shook my head. ‘No. Doesn’t ring a bell.’

‘Honestly, you have the memory span of a goldfish, Cora.’

‘Probably that Christmas I was too busy making stamps with potatoes – you know, to decorate wrapping paper.’

‘You were always making something. Remember that year you glued your fingers together? We spent four and a half hours in A and E. A nurse gave me a chocolate Santa.’

I took the photo from him. ‘And you have a freaky memory. The things you remember!’ I turned it over, hoping to find out more, and froze. The words Seal Island were written on the back, in Mum’s careful handwriting. ‘Look, Stephen. Seal Island. Seal . . . You said Uncle Skirt was wearing a kilt that Christmas?’

‘Yes. I can’t believe you don’t remember.’

‘So he was Scottish?’

‘He must have been. And look . . . look at the wall behind Mum and Aunt Toffee. It looks like one of those places you see in the Highlands. And the wind . . . Look at their hair blowing . . .’

Yes. For a moment I could almost feel the wind; I could almost hear it blowing. It was like a jigsaw, the pieces whirling in front of my eyes and refusing to fall into place. All these pieces made a picture – but I had no idea what.

‘Cora, you okay? You look a bit pale. Shall I make you a cup of tea?’

‘No, it’s fine. Don’t worry. Just . . . it’s been quite a day,’ I said, and nearly without noticing, out of a sudden, primeval need for solace, I leaned my head against his chest and wrapped my arms around his waist. He’d been much taller than me since the age of thirteen, sprouting up while I remained small, just like Mum. He held me tight, and the comfort was immeasurable. My brother was a part of me. He returned my hug, then gently pulled away.

‘I need to go. I’m so sorry I have to leave you here alone . . .’

‘It’s work, you can’t help it,’ I said, and carefully placed the box, with the key and the photograph inside, in a bag by the door. Stephen looked around, and I with him. The room was bare, everything packed up. All trace of Mum was about to be gone. Everything had been loaded onto the van, clothes and books and knick-knacks, some to be thrown out, some to be donated, and some – the things she loved the most, our family memories – to come home with me.

Stephen seemed to fold his broad shoulders into himself, leaning towards me as if he wanted to shelter me from the painful reality.

‘So . . . it’s done,’ he said softly.

‘It’s done,’ I repeated, looking around the empty room again, and I could feel my eyes welling up. The day had been slow and painful, but even what seems to stretch for ever sooner or later comes to an end – and finally the sky was darkening outside, night was falling at last. Relief mixed with pain as this terrible chore was finally finished.

And life without my mother began.

‘Will you be okay?’ Stephen asked.

I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. ‘Of course. Of course. I’ll be fine.’

‘Yes, I know. I mean, I know you’ll be fine. You’re never not fine. Even when something like this happens, you seem to be able to navigate things.’

Did I? Because it didn’t feel that way. I looked out of the window beside me, so that he couldn’t see my face. My reflection shone vivid in the darkened glass, but the tears on my cheeks were hidden from sight. I stood there for a moment, my eyes moving to the anodyne prints on the wall – freesias, roses, a basket of fruit – looking at them but not seeing them. My right hand felt warm again from the key, my fingers burning. I flexed them, lost in thought.

The wooden box.

The key.

Gealach, Seal.

Something has called me were the words that exploded through my mind, unexpected, only partly understood.

That evening I sat in my living room, exhausted in body and soul. My dog, Sasha, lay at my feet, all silky fur and soft snoring. I had wrapped myself in an oversize cardigan, and the scent of melissa, orange and cinnamon wafted from a mug of herbal tea. I curled up in my armchair, too tired to do anything else, and undid the knot at the top of my head. My hair fell about my shoulders, like a curtain between me and the world. Every bone hurt from moving all those boxes – and from the grief of doing it.

I looked around me with tired eyes. I’d switched the lamps on, and a lovely fire was burning in my pellet stove – a rare thing in my neighbourhood – against the chill of early spring. With the bright, colourful tapestries I’d woven hanging on the walls, the bunches of herbs drying in the kitchen, every single surface covered with some work in progress – candles, soaps, the home-made skincare I sent all over the world – the warmth of the stove slowly filling the air, I should have felt so at home, so peaceful. I always did at 16 Pennington Road, not too far from Brick Lane, and still my haven from the world, the place where I’d lived all my life.

I seemed not to have noticed that the day had turned into night. I sat immobile, in silence. One by one the lights of the city went on: in the block of flats in front of my house, in the Sindhus’ curry shop across the way, in the launderette beside it, in the little Spar with the office workers flocking in after their shifts. I knew that two streets down, the vendors of the East End markets were packing up their stalls to go home, the remains of a day’s trading on the ground – bits of fruit and vegetables, leaflets and papers, empty boxes and food wrappers, all to be swept up early in the morning. Black and white and brown faces, jeans and saris and tunics, braided hair and headscarves, short skirts, suits and uniforms, the people of London were ending the working day. The familiar city constellations, made of artificial lights and lamp posts, were lighting up, and a new crowd, those who would populate the pubs and restaurants and work the night shift, was coming out. The chaotic, dirty, exciting hustle and bustle of an east London evening. The landscape of home.

Usually I enjoyed feeling the city all around me, contemplating from my window the crowds coming and going, looking at the silhouettes of people cooking and watching TV in the houses across the road; but tonight I was empty – there was no joy in my heart, and home just didn’t feel like home.

Once, when we were children, my mum went to visit a sick friend up north. She’d never left Stephen before, and at the age of three, he was very upset. At dinner time, he crouched on the lino beside the fridge and burst into tears of grief and protest. ‘This is not my house,’ he said between sobs. Mum wasn’t there, therefore this wasn’t his house.

I felt like that now.

A lump formed in my throat again. In spite of the heat from the stove, I shivered. I’d been sitting here for nearly two hours, I realised, in a sort of haze of grief – what to do next? I just wanted to not exist, to stop feeling so empty, so full of grief. I was in a fog of tiredness and pain. Enough. It was time to move, to stop this terrible sadness seeping into my veins and making me sink deeper, deeper.

I gathered what was left of my strength and filled Sasha’s bowls with food and water, then leaned against the kitchen table and surveyed the place. Mum’s things sat in the middle of the room, the boxes and bags carefully, lovingly lined up. My eye fell on her treasured statue of the Virgin Mary, Star of the Sea, sticking out of one of the boxes. I remembered her saying the rosary in front of the statue every night and wondering why she was so devoted to it when none of our London-born-and-bred family had anything to do with the sea. Funny, Stephen had just told me I could navigate things. Will you show me the way through this storm, Star of the Sea?

I took the statue out and placed it on the coffee table, then sat cross-legged on the floor. I knew it was a bad idea, because I couldn’t take any more emotion, but I decided to go through an old photo album. Images of my childhood – holidays, birthdays, Christmases – passed before my eyes, a tapestry made of many threads woven into each other to tell our story: my mum’s, my dad’s, my brother’s and mine. Tears fell down my cheeks – I’d thought I had no more, but I was wrong – and small sobs shook my chest.

Mum. Mum. What will I do without you?

This is the time I won’t make it, this is the time I won’t be fine.

Where are you, Mum?

Was she really in heaven, as she’d firmly believed in life? Was she really in the arms of the Star of the Sea?

I once saw a movie in which the earth had spun off its axis – a tiny movement, nearly imperceptible, that still brought on a near-apocalypse. People were running around trying to avoid falling ice blocks and lightning storms, migrating birds got lost and died in the streets, the sea swallowed whole cities. And all this for a movement as small as the hundredth part of a degree. My mum’s death had been like that – a tiny event in the big picture of things, no more than a minute shift of the axis, and yet it had brought a monumental change in my life, a change to everything I was, everything I loved, everything I’d built up to then. The axis had moved, the magnetic field had been disrupted – birds were flying aimlessly, the sky was sporting strange auroras, the sun was suddenly rising and setting in a different place. I existed in a world that had changed all its rules.

Sasha’s nose rested against my bare leg, trying to give me comfort, but I kept sobbing, trying to dry my tears with my hand as they fell.

‘Right, Sasha. Time to sleep,’ I whispered. As I moved the cardboard boxes from the floor to the table one by one, just in case Sasha decided that something in them looked tasty, an object slipped out of a box and fell on the floor with a clatter. It was the box, the box with the key.

I knelt on the floor, tucked my hair behind my ears and placed the box on the palm of my hand.

And it called me, again.

I had to open it once more; and so I did, slowly, as if I were performing a ritual. My fingers curled around the key, and again I was flooded with strange emotion, as if all the colours around me were suddenly sharper, the noises louder. The words Gealach, Seal danced in front of my eyes and in my mind. I could feel my heart beating and my blood running in my veins, while thoughts exploded in my mind like fireworks.

I needed to remember.

There was something I needed to remember.

And then it was finished, and the key lay inert and cold on my skin. All of a sudden, my lids were so heavy I thought I might fall to my knees, curl up on the carpet and sleep there among my mother’s belongings, like a baby falling asleep in its highchair. All the strength. . .