Then what? Look for her phone or run for it? The boat had to be somewhere. She’d glimpsed the jetty out of the door when Donna left before and it seemed empty. Wherever the boat was she would find it, the island wasn’t that big. She would find the boat, get back to shore and this would be over.
Donna coughed and rubbed at her nose with the back of her hand. Surtsey froze. Donna’s hand went under her cheek and she moaned, wriggled her shoulders into the sleeping bag.
Surtsey breathed three times, slow and easy, then began sawing again. More frayed ends of material came away, tiny yellow strands. She stopped and put pressure on the rope, tried to push her wrist through it. Didn’t budge.
She went back to cutting, methodical, up and down, concentrating, her eyes on Donna, glancing down at the rope at her wrist and seeing more strands come away.
She stopped and pushed against the material again. It strained but didn’t break. She tried again. Same.
Back to cutting. Come on you stupid fucking knife, do your work.
Donna shifted her hips inside the sleeping bag and Surtsey heard a fart.
She closed her eyes for a moment, felt her heart thump in her rib cage, as loud as thunder in her ears.
She opened her eyes and slid the knife against the rope again. Slow, methodical, then faster, more frantic as threads spiralled away from the knot. She stopped and tensed her arm, pulled it towards her, felt the burn of the rope against her skin, blood where it was raw.
She pulled again and her hand jerked a few inches as she felt the rope slacken. She heaved her arm again. The rope was looser now but there was still resistance. She examined it. It was cut through in one place but still tangled. If she could get her fingers into the frayed ends maybe she could separate the strands and free her arm. She placed the knife under the mattress, keeping watch on Donna across the room. Then she dug her fingers in to the half-knot at the inside of her wrist. She tugged and pulled but it was awkward, her fingers doubled back to her wrist, pain across the sinews of her hand as she strained. But it was loosening. She dug her forefinger into a gap that had widened between strands and hooked the top strand clear, and the rest fell away leaving just a pile of rope around the bed frame, her arm completely free.
She raised her hand in the air, flexed her fingers to shake the cramp away, twisted and stretched her arm about.
Then a noise. The plate on the table rattled, the water bottles juddered on the floor. Another fucking earthquake, Jesus. The bed shook, vibrations through her spine and legs. Donna shuffled in her sleeping bag. Surtsey grabbed the loose rope and draped a strand over her wrist, leaving her arm on the bed as if it was still tied up. This was a bigger quake, more than a tremor. Donna’s eyes opened and she clambered to her hands and knees. The walls seemed to breathe in and out, the table shuddered towards Donna, bumping into the bench. The bed inched away from the wall again as the water pan clattered from the stove onto the floor.
Donna stared at Surtsey the whole time. It took everything for Surtsey not to lift her arm up and cover her face as masonry dust fell from a crack in the wall to her right. The corrugated iron roof bent and flexed like a squeezebox, everything about the bothy suddenly transient, transforming from stable shelter to death trap.
And it kept going. Christ, this was big. A clatter and thud outside sounded like rock fall and Surtsey wondered how close it was to the hut. She imagined being crushed by a tumbling volcanic plug, all evidence of everything Donna had done flattened to nothing, the two of them included.
Donna was crouching on her knees, narrow eyes on Surtsey. No point in trying to stand up, she would only fall. Surtsey glanced at the rope over her left wrist, prayed it wouldn’t shake loose and drop. The bed was still vibrating, its legs chattering on the floor. One of the water bottles tumbled over followed by another, as the pile of clothes on the table flopped to the ground too.
Then stillness. The walls back to being walls, the roof still over their heads, the ground solid again.
Donna stood. ‘Wow.’
Surtsey puffed her cheeks and raised her eyebrows.
Donna went to the window and looked out.
‘That sounded like a landslide,’ she said, turning back.
She looked around the room at the stuff on the floor, the spread of water from the pan turned on its side next to the stove.
‘I’ll sort this in a minute,’ she said. ‘Better look outside first, check the building.’
She strode over to the door and left, letting it clatter behind her.
Surtsey pulled at the knots on her right wrist with her left hand, digging her nails between the strands, loosening them, but it was tight, several knots at once and her fingers and arm muscles ached. Blood ran down her forearm from her wrist as she worked. She was breathing hard, glancing at the door every few seconds. Eventually she dug a piece of rope free then the rest became easier. She whipped one strand then another up and out, until she had a last crossover to undo. She untied it and shook her hand free then sat up and began working on her legs.
Her ankles were tied separately, two knots to undo. She started on the left one first, easier now with both hands free, pulling at the ropes, unhooking the interlaced strands, fumbling for a second before getting the last knot undone and moving to her other ankle. Same again, hands trembling with the effort and exhaustion, fumbling for the free end of the rope, pushing it through,
