The Eclipsed Life of Luna Mischa novel · Chapter 21 of 32

Chapter 21: Half the Casks

We were out of the bed before the next crack.

I grabbed my jeans off the floor. Jago dragged on his and pushed his navy jumper over my head.

"Window," he said.

"The stairs..."

"The stairs come out in the cellar."

He shoved the window up. Cold air and gull noise poured in.

Below it was the flat roof of the cellar porch, then the quay.

He went out first and held his arms up. I climbed out and dropped into them.

Then we were on the cobbles, barefoot, and he threw his head back and howled.

It wasn't a wolf's howl to the moon. It was an alarm. Three short and one long.

Every light in the cove came on.

Doors banged all the way up the hill. Wolves came running down in pyjamas and wellies and nothing at all.

Smoke was pouring out from under the big arched doors.

The cooper got there first, in a vest. "The racks," he said. "The racks at the back."

"Get the doors open," said Jago. "Roll everything you can reach. Into the harbour if you have to. Oak floats."

"And the deep cellar?" somebody shouted.

I knew the answer before I said it.

"The tide door. Open it. Let the sea in."

Jago stared at me for half a second.

Then he grinned, black with smoke, and ran for the slipway.

It was high water. When the tide door swung back, the sea went into the deep cellar.

The oldest casks were down there. Stone above them, salt water round them. Nothing would burn.

Up in the main cellar it was worse.

The young wolves went in low under the smoke and came out rolling casks. Down the ramp, across the quay, over the edge into the harbour with a great slap of spray.

The pups lined the harbour wall and pulled the floating casks to the steps with boat hooks.

Jago's aunt ran a bucket line from the chippy's tap. The lorry driver turned up in his pants with a fire extinguisher from his cab.

I stood on the quay with a clipboard somebody had found me, and counted.

Someone had to.

"Sixty-one," I shouted. "Sixty-two. Keep going."

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