Tears streamed her cheeks in silence, down Flora’s too. Both were trembling as they gripped hands. Ma Peg’s lament grew louder as she sang as one voice for the villagers, the ship steadily pulling out of Village Bay, away from the protective embrace of Dun, until they lost sight of the stoic settlement.

Immediately the sea began to heave and breathe more deeply as their horizon expanded to give them last views of Boreray too, where Donald McKinnon had almost died this spring; of the towering, ancient stacks – Stac Lee and Stac an Armin – feathered white with birds, where the men would hunt for gannets. She could just see the iron peg at the base of Stac Lee where they would throw the rope to disembark; one of many everyday feats of bravery and skill, the simple acts of heroism required to feed their families.

The ship began to pitch and roll, though they were sailing beneath a flawless blue sky. It was barely past eight in the morning and they had ten hours ahead of them. Effie watched the birds whirl in the sky, a dancing confetti lifted on thermals. She took in, for the last time, the avian kingdom on the cliffs of which, she realized, she had been a part: the gannets roosting on the highest perches and the fulmars below them; guillemots and razorbills on the ledges below and the kittiwakes darting in and out of the caves . . .

Gradually, as the boat steamed away, the isles changed colour, fading from green to grey; details became lost so that only shapes remained. The women were waving their handkerchiefs at it, as if the rocky archipelago was watching their retreat, scornful and imperious as they abandoned her. She grew smaller and smaller, and it looked to Effie like the mountain itself was slowly sinking back into the sea.

She felt an intense yearning to place her feet on the jagged rocks one last time; she wished she had taken a moment to grab the rope and swing over the top for one final thrilling play – but it had been a risk she couldn’t take. This entire last week, she had made sure there wasn’t a moment she could be caught off guard, by shadowing her friends and neighbours’ actions closely: she fetched water with Jayne, carried the furniture with Fin McKinnon, brought over the sheep with Lorna. She had waited in terror all week for the factor to set foot in the cottage and tell her father what they had done, but it hadn’t happened. Poppit had been her protector, baring her teeth and growling, her hackles up, any time she saw him, near or far. He had regarded her distance with suppressed rage, giving only bewildered shrugs as the villagers questioned what he had done to trigger the gentle dog’s ire . . . Her dog had kept her safe.