The End of the World Ch.1 Gull's Nest

The sign still dangled on its well worn post, proclaiming the cottage to be for sale, as Darcy guessed it had for a long time. She shuddered and drew up her shoulders; the air was strange here, smelling of the sea, salty and cold and nothing like the air in Bridgeport.

Her father locked the car door and she glared at him over her shoulder, she hadn’t spoken to him since before they left their apartment and didn’t want to start anytime soon. Their eyes met briefly before he turned his away, breathing out a sigh; she felt tears stinging her own and blinked angrily.

He came up next to her and cleared his throat hesitantly, but she didn’t acknowledge him. They stood in awkward silence, taking in the unfamiliar surroundings. Darcy’s unforgiving eyes roamed over the ramshackle, old cottage and what passed for its garden; she found nothing to dispel her doubts, quite the opposite, everywhere she looked she saw only ruins.

“Um, the realtor said she’d leave the key on top of the door…” her father ventured eventually, “guess burglars wouldn’t be a problem out here…” he almost laughed, but instead trailed off when she didn’t respond. “OK, so, should we go straight in, or do you want to look around outside first?” he asked attempting to sound cheerful.

As if the rundown, overgrown garden offered anything worth looking at; she suspected the prickly shrubs were poisonous and the weeds crawling with spiders. She pulled a face that he read quite accurately and he shook his head.

“OK, got it! Don’t rant and rave about it…” he muttered and brushed past her. She turned her back on him and pulled out her cell.

The reception wasn’t great, but not as bad as she’d feared. Still, there were no new messages. She stared at the display for a little while, willing something to happen, but it only dimmed and grew dark in her hand. She swallowed a painful lump in her throat and gritted her teeth.

Behind her she heard her father work the for sale sign out of the ground, making it official – the horrible hovel was now theirs and there would be no going back. It was as if a trap closed around her.

“Well, you can stand there and sulk until you grow roots, Darcy dear,” her father said as he made his way toward the house. “I’ll check if the movers found their way here already.”

He didn’t bother to wait for her to reply, knowing she wouldn’t, and walked up to the house. Finding the key easily, he battled with the rusty lock for a moment before the door creaked opened, the sound sending chills down Darcy’s back.

Throwing her a last pained look he walked inside and slammed the door shut behind him with enough force that the lamp rattled and swung on its hook. Darcy closed her eyes and wished as hard as she could that the house would fall down on top of him.

Her hand strayed into her pocket, fingering her cell. It remained silent and still. A bird of some sort cried out shrilly; a sorrowful laughter echoing the feeling bubbling up inside her; she bit back the sobs and shook herself.

The sound of the sea was carried on the cold breeze from beyond the house; the shore wasn’t far, but she wasn’t tempted to search it out. She’d seen the hostile cliffs plunging steeply towards the water’s edge as they drove around the island, trapping everything and everyone in a cage of jagged rocks and crashing waves.

At home she had loved watching the sea, the sight of the horizon making her dream of the world, but here it was only an unrelenting barrier, a vast empty nothingness between her and all she had ever cared about.

And for what? All for her father’s sudden obsession with finding peace and quiet so he could write on his stupid book. It was as if what she wanted meant nothing to him.

Her cell was in her hand again. Jenna, Ben, Rick – no she couldn’t think about Rick or she’d never stop crying – they had all promised to stay in touch, but so far the silence was deafening.

She tried to tell herself it was only a day, but somehow it seemed they were more like a lifetime away and that she was alone at the end of the world.

The door was caught by the draught as he pushed it shut behind him and the panes in the window rattled when it slammed into the doorframe. He lingered a moment looking at his daughter through the dirt speckled glass, wondering whether he did right to leave her out there alone.

But what else could he do? She had made it abundantly clear that she wanted nothing to do with him. Her last words before they left Bridgeport still echoed in his memory: “You’re ruining my life and I will never forgive you!” She had said it with a steady, bitter voice, her gaze flat and cold when she met his and it stayed with him.

If she had screamed that she hated him and thrown one of her classic tantrums he would have shrugged it off, knowing they would patch things up when she had had time to cool off, but this… she hadn’t said a word to him the entire trip.

He had hoped that driving here would give them time to talk, but instead every attempt he’d made at conversation seemed to have widened the gap between them.

He moved into the room; it appeared smaller than in the pictures on the website and the walls could certainly do with a coat of paint, but the period features were there, among them a charming fireplace that he couldn’t wait to see flicker alight and fill the cottage with it’s warm glow.

As planned their things had arrived before them. It seemed impossible to him now, looking at them, that their entire lives could fit into those few carton boxes. But he’d known there wasn’t much, their apartment in Bridgeport had been rented furnished and everything in it apart from some personal effects had been left behind.

The cottage too had been described as furnished in the add, but the realtor had warned him that the former owner had used this mainly as a vacation home and that the fittings were sparse and not in the best condition.

Heading over to the part of the room that held the kitchen his breath caught in his throat. Through the window before him, glimmering in the sunlight, the sea stretched out and merged almost seamlessly with the blue cloudless sky. It truly was more then he could have ever dreamed of when he imagined what it would be like to live here.

Tearing himself away from the view he turned on the faucet. It rumbled and hissed before the groaning pipes relinquished a jet of vaguely rust tainted water into the sink. Perhaps it would be best to drink bottled water for the time being.

He returned to the boxes, blowing out a sigh, not sure where to start. Squatting he used a fingernail to open the one he’d written “office” on in sprawling magic marker. First he checked that his well worn laptop had survived the trip, it seemed it had come away unscathed, but he didn’t find the charger for the battery though it had to be in there somewhere under the stacks of notes and other folders.

He took it with him as he explored the rest of the house. He would set it up and see if the promise of a wireless internet connection held true, that might win him a few points with Darcy.

The bigger of the two bedrooms held a double bed, a nightstand and a simple desk. Daniel put the laptop down on the desk and went to feel the mattress, the springs squeaked their disapproval as he leaned on his hand against them, but it didn’t seem as if they were worn out.

He turned on the lamp on the nightstand and flinched when a large black spider fell down on its foot and then scurried down behind the bed.

“Home sweet home, you don’t know what you’re missing, Darcy dear,” he mumbled with a note of sarcasm.

He wasn’t stupid, he knew how this place must seem to her compared to what she was used to, to what he had let her get used to. The modern, upmarket apartment in downtown Bridgeport had been one of the benefits of his life as one of the highest paid journalists writing for the Bridgeport Mirror; highest paid because he had guts, as his boss would put it, because he dared to write the truth no matter the consequences.

The truth… well, writing the truth was easy when the consequences weren’t yours to face. It was easy until someone else’s consequences became too heavy to bear. The pen might be mightier than the sword, but could you murder with a word?

He wiped some of the grime off the window and looked out at the view. Outside there was nothing but untouched splendor as far as he could see. This was what he wanted to offer his daughter, this pure world still unsullied, still filled with hope.

She would understand. She had to. She was all he had.

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