The latticed-wire gate in the tall fence was propped open, so Nina trundled the car directly into the compound. They passed a man in a white wide-brimmed hat and then a young couple wearing baggy trousers and loose shirts.
‘Over there,’ Tammy said, pointing.
Nina parked up alongside three vehicles in the shadow of the main building. Two were battered four-wheel drives, the other a filthy flatbed truck. Nina stepped out of the car and gazed up at the main building. Now she saw that it was in a far more dilapidated state than she had realised. All of its windows were dark and several of the shutters hung loose. The horizontal grey boards of its walls – a visual continuation of the grey tiles above, as if the roof were gradually enveloping the entire structure – were warped and untidily overlapping. Through the upper windows Nina could see glimpses of the sky.
From somewhere, she heard the sounds of construction. A screech of metal against metal.
‘Wrong way,’ Tammy barked behind her.
Nina turned to look at the small church. Structurally, it was in as poor condition as the mansion, but its white paint must have been applied recently. Even where the struts bent away from the front porch, no longer supporting its roof, thick paint covered the snapped ends. The sight made Nina unaccountably nauseous.
Laurie exited the car and grinned as Tammy gently plucked the earphones from her ears. Tammy then put one of the buds to her own right ear, her nose wrinkling at the music. She shook her head and handed it back.
To Nina, Laurie said, ‘Dad says this place will be nice when it’s finished.’
‘We’ll have none of your cheek,’ Tammy said, prodding her in the ribs.
‘You’ve been here before?’ Nina asked. ‘You’ve been to the church?’
Laurie stared at her blankly.
Tammy gripped Nina’s shoulders firmly and spun her around. The three long, low prefabricated buildings formed a rough semicircle, a visual echo of the crescent-moon shape of Hope Island itself. The construction sounds seemed to be coming from the open double doors of the middle cabin. Like the periphery fence, the prefabs would have looked more at home on a construction site. Correspondingly, the man who emerged wore a lime green high-visibility jacket and goggles that covered most of his face. He pushed the goggles up to become tangled in his blond, chin-length hair.
‘Tammy!’ he yelled. ‘It is around time!’
He was younger than Nina, though the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes suggested worldly experience or, at the very least, dedication to some outdoor occupation. His nose must have once been broken and then set oddly. Far from making him appear threatening, Nina thought the lack of symmetry made him unconventionally handsome.
‘And who have you brought here for us?’ he said with a grin. His teeth were bad. It occurred to Nina that everybody she had encountered in Maine so far had perfect smiles.
She held out a hand, determined not to let Tammy relegate her to a passive role. ‘I’m Nina Scaife. Me and my daughter are staying with Tammy for a while. We’re visiting, over from the UK.’
‘I am Clay,’ he replied, taking her hand in a dry grip without shaking it. ‘Your voice is good. Strong.’
For the first time, Nina detected his accent. ‘You’re not American?’
‘Finnish. I am born in a town named Uusikaupunki, which is funny for you to say. It is a small town, but not as small as Hope Island, and it is on the coast, but a coast not so beautiful as Hope Island.’
Nina recalled Laurie’s fact about there being three Hope Islands in the Gulf of Maine. Were the other two as picturesque, or as large? Might there be a Sanctuary on each of them, and a Clay, and now a Nina?
‘And what brought you here?’ she said.
Clay looked around, taking in the church, the mansion, the ocean. ‘All of this. But this same question to you. What brings you to here?’
‘Like I said—’
‘Here here.’ He jabbed a finger downwards. ‘The Sanctuary.’
Nina looked at Tammy.
‘I was determined to show Nina the old place,’ Tammy said. ‘It’s important. To me.’
Clay beamed, his skin crinkling concertina-like at the corners of his eyes. ‘That is good enough for me too. Come, we have coffee all ready for the cups.’
The interior of the prefab smelled like burning. Nina winced as the shriek of an angle-grinder grew to an unbearable volume. It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the dimness, during which time she was aware only of a suggestion of clutter and the flash of sparks at the far end of the cabin. Clay moved to a bench upon which stood a kettle and a collection of mugs. The room was filled with timber beams and metal struts, piled up or leaning against the metal walls.
The angle-grinder powered down. Now Nina realised that another sound had mingled with it to produce the cacophony she had heard from outside. Chaotic guitar music and a vocal delivery that was more a bellow than a melody came from some unseen stereo. Nina had always assumed it was a cliché that everybody in Finland listened to death metal.
Something moved in the gloom. From behind a workbench appeared an enormous man several decades older than Clay. He wore a grimy white vest, and beneath the wiry white hair of his upper arms was an array of tattoo smudges. In his right hand he held a long steel bracket.
Tammy greeted him with a hug.
Clay handed Nina a mug. When Tammy extracted herself from the newcomer, he said, ‘My pleasure is to introduce to you Mikhail Zieliński.’
Nina nodded at Mikhail, who only blinked at her over Tammy’s shoulder.
‘He is Polish,’ Clay said. ‘But he does not speak.’
Nina waited for somebody else to say something. The death metal continued blaring from somewhere in the darkness. She looked at Laurie, who appeared unflustered.
‘Is it a vow of silence?’ Nina said finally.
Clay laughed. ‘Is it hell. Mikhail used to speak plenty. He got sick of his own voice, am I right, Mikhail?’
Mikhail smiled. He patted Tammy’s arm, then lifted the metal bracket to examine it. He blew on the angled joint, which turned from silver to crimson momentarily. Behind him on the workbench, Nina noticed a blowtorch propped up. That explained the smell.
‘I’m sorry,’ Nina said. ‘I’m not sure I quite understand the setup here.’
Clay tipped backwards and, as if by sheer luck, landed in a low armchair. He pointed at other chairs positioned in a ring near to the kitchen area. Tammy and Laurie took seats, but Mikhail held up the metal bracket and then slunk to the other end of the cabin. Nina perched on a stool, sipping her coffee. It tasted of washing-up liquid.
‘No setup,’ Clay said. ‘The Siblings are the Siblings. Family.’
‘A brotherhood?’
‘Women can be Siblings also.’
‘What denomination are you?’ When Clay only looked puzzled, she added, ‘What do you practise?’
Clay gestured towards Mikhail, who had bent to examine the bracket on the workbench. The roar of the blowtorch merged with the screams of the singer. Nina was impressed Tammy was remaining calm despite the racket. If anything, Tammy seemed more content in the cabin than she had been outside. Her mouth hung slightly open and her head nodded in time with the throbs of distorted guitar.
‘We practise this,’ Clay said.