Finn rose before the dawn, roused by creaking floorboards and his grandmother’s steps on the stairs. He heaved a small sigh and cast the covers aside, plunging into the cold.

 

Outside the wind moaned and the sea breathed - sounds Finn was growing accustomed to after a week at the croft. The sea never stilled here, heaving and hissing at the edges of everything, and the sky seemed bigger than back home. The croft itself was held together by string and stubbornness - all rattling windows, bare floorboards and faded rugs. A kitchen table scrubbed smooth and pale, hard-backed chairs and scratchy blankets, and a fireplace that Finn kept stocked and stoked.

 

He pulled on an old rugby shirt and scampered downstairs to rake the ashes. His grandma hunched over the old gas stove, seeing to the kettle. Wiry and steely as fence wire, she had a gruff kind of warmth - and Finn adored her for it. His visits weren’t quite holidays - he worked harder than he ever did at school - but he always counted down the days until he was here again.

 

The old woman set down two chipped mugs of tea as Finn swept the hearth and laid the fire, and the two of them drank in the companionable silence that comes before sunrise. Finn knew what came next: battling the sea wind to close the door behind them, then herding sheep across the island from the night pasture to new grazing.

 

As he emptied his mug and tied his boots, his grandma broke the silence:

 

“Your not wearing that thin thing, are you?” she grumbled, gesturing to his sweatshirt. “Have you nae got anything warmer?”

 

Finn shrugged. He’d packed his bag himself, his mum being busy with the baby. He hadn’t quite known what to bring. The rugby shirt had served him well enough for summer in the city, but it was no match for the island’s cutting winds.

 

“Right then,” his grandmother muttered, and disappeared upstairs.

 

Finn heard the scrape of a drawer, and the muffled rustle of paper and cloth. When his grandmother returned, she had a bundle of knitted wool in her arms.

 

“You’ll be wanting this,” she said. It was not a question.

 

Finn unrolled the garment and held it out in front of him. A thick, hand-knitted jumper, heavy and smelling of mothballs. In faded ochre, peaty brown and rust-red, rows of stars and chevrons took shape. It was an old person’s jumper, stiff and scratchy, and hanging well past his hips. Still, he pulled it on, wrinkling his nose at the smell.

 

He trailed behind his grandma on her rounds, boots all clagged with peaty mud, his young legs no match for her practiced stride. The sea fog was thick and the sheep were restless, noses to the wind. His grandma moved among them with familiar ease, calling out to each by name. Finn stumbled along in her wake, jumper flapping in the wind.

​

“Your Granda wore that jumper, you know,” she said, nodding at the garment as Finn opened the South gate. “All through the seasons, rain or snow.”

​

Silence followed, and Finn knew enough of his grandma to let it linger. If the old shepherdess had something to tell, she would tell it soon enough.

​

“I remember him carrying a breached lamb home, all bundled up in the jumper,” she continued as they checked the fences on the West boundary. “The whole thing was soaked in blood and muck.”

​

Finn blinked, staring down in alarm at the cuffs that had slipped down over his hands.

​

“Don’t worry,” the old woman laughed, “It washed up well enough. He fed the wee thing by bottle while the jumper dried over the fire. I said to let nature have its way, but he was a stubborn sort, and the wee thing grew up healthy as any ewe.”

​

Later, as they hauled sacks of feed from the shed to the barn, his grandma spoke up again.

“It’s one of your great gran’s, that is. She spun the wool from her own flock. And these ‘uns are descended from them.”

​

Finn pulled up the hem of the jumper, examining the creams and browns of the pattern. He smiled as he recognised the colours of the Shetlands he’d been herding.

​

“She knew all the old patterns, she did. Every stitch meant something. I had no head for it myself. Could only manage knots and tangles.”

​

Finn giggled, imagining his hardy, earthy grandma struggling with her gnarled-up knitting.

They worked together through the day, walking the cliffs, trading news with neighbours, knocking in loose fence posts. All the while, the old woman scattered stories like a breadcrumb trail. How his grandfather worked like a bee and danced like a breeze, wearing his favourite jumper to sprees and shearings alike. How his great-grandmother could knit a full sleeve of a sweater while walking to church. The time lightning struck the roof of the cottage, and they all slept in the byre for a week.

​

By the time the sun dipped below haze, milky and golden over the sea, the jumper felt different. Its warm weight was an embrace, keeping the wind at bay, warding him against bramble and burr. 

Late that night, after dinner and dishes and feeding the fire, Finn bent to kiss his grandma’s leathery cheek. As he turned toward the stairs for bed, a bony hand shot out to catch the dangling cuff of his jumper.

​

“You’ll grow into this just fine,” she said. And that was all. But Finn knew what she meant, and he beamed with pride.

​

He shuffled up the stairs into the tiny spare room and pulled the heavy garment over his head, then hung it carefully over the back of an old chair.

​

He sat on the edge of the saggy-springed bed and stared, tracing repeating patterns with his eyes. They seemed to move in the soft lamplight: stars and leaves and flickering waves. The wind pawed at the window, but here he was warm and cosy, counting crosses and diamonds until his eyes grew heavy.

​

He didn’t fight the drowsiness. After all, tomorrow he’d be up before the dawn. And there’d be work to do.