“Then I shall buy you ten to replace it.”
As I knotted strips of cloth together, I said carefully, “When you went down to the water, it seemed you might have learned something about Ruby that gave you some peace.”
His eyes came to my face. “My father told me the truth. He dismissed her for her own safety. She didn’t take it well; I think she may have been in love with him. When he left her by the pool to recover, Goosevar killed her.”
My fingers stopped working as I gasped. “You saw the memory?”
“The complete memory of her murder to go along with the fragments I’ve been seeing the last sixty years.”
“I’m so sorry, Harker. But also glad that ...”
“It wasn’t me? Yes. It’s taken a great weight from me.”
Once I’d bound his ribs, I made tea while he got dressed and dosed himself with an elixir of willow bark. We loaded a tray with cups, a teapot, and tinned biscuits and went down to join the others.
In the end, we told none of them anything of Harker’s affliction. As Goosevar was responsible for the deaths, there seemed no reason to leave doubts in anyone’s mind. It still bothered the constable that my own wound had been so different from the others, but again it was suggested that the attack might have been broken off early. That I’d saved myself by wielding Mum’s cross, even if I didn’t remember it. This was reasonable enough to be accepted by everyone.
Our talk of poor Mr. Roscoe made me wonder about him being left, ravaged, where anyone might find him, despite the fact Goosevar clearly understood that the killings placed him in danger. I supposed there had been desperation in the attack, made in the open and so near the road. My approach might have caused him to flee before he could cover what he’d done. All of which reminded me how easily it might have beenme.
Mr. Hilliard declared that he was obligated to tell the more senior policing authorities the truth of what he’d witnessed, and I didn’t envy him that. I also didn’t like that it would probably mean we’d all beanswering more questions. But I thought as long as we told them no more than we’d told Mr. Hilliard, we’d be all right. Let them make of it what they would.
Harker would have to talk about Ruby, but here, too, the truth (or almost the truth) would likely serve. She was his long-missing boyhood tutor, whom he’d recognized by her necklace. The timing of things might be cause for concern, except that the constable seemed to think the fact of her remains being long in the water would make further investigation difficult.
The way Jack kept eyeing me during the questioning in the chapel told me he knew that I was hiding something. I particularly felt his gaze when Mr. Hilliard made a teasing mention of “Tregarrick’s heroics to save his fiancée.” Jack would not have forgotten Harker’s unnatural quickness. My twin must also have been wondering about the nature of our strange bargain with Goosevar. Thankfully he raised no questions in front of the others.
But as the two of us walked home together later—with Goosevar gone, there was no reason to invite scandal by living at Roche Rock before the wedding—Jack asked me, “Will you be safe with him, Mina?”
I remembered when Harker had asked me the same question about Jack.
“Anyone can see that he cares for you,” he continued, “but I know there’s something not quite right about him.”
“Therewassomething not quite right about him,” I admitted. “But that changed when you killed Goosevar.”
He blew out a sigh. “I’m not going to ask how that can be. I don’t actually think you’d tell me. But if you’recertain...”
I met his gaze. “I’m certain. Can you accept that?”
He laughed and hooked his arm through mine. “I’m finished trying to control you, sister. I almost lost you over it, and it never worked anyway.”
“Two for Joy”
Harker
Seventeen days later
The final reading of the banns at last took place, and after the services, Father Kelly and I waited in the churchyard for my bride and our witnesses—Jack and Mrs. Moyle. Mina had asked the priest to marry us beside her parents’ grave markers. I had fully expected him to reject the idea as too morbid for a wedding, but Mina knew him better than I did, and he thought it a sweet and appropriate gesture.
While we waited, we watched a group of men from the village digging up the old wheel cross in the churchyard. That, too, I had expected him to resist, but he said the relic rightly belonged at Roche Rock, where it was originally erected. And all agreed it was better to be safe than sorry; the cross would be newly erected over the ground where we had burned Goosevar. And where he had murdered Ruby.
Ruby—after Mr. Hilliard’s constabulary colleagues had satisfied themselves as much as was possible in such a strange case—was buried in the Tregarrick family graveyard. I thought it would have pleased her.
Mrs. Moyle was the first to join us in the churchyard, dressed in her Sunday best, glowing with happiness and pride. My relief that Mina would not lose her dear friend due to the unseemliness of ourengagement could not have been overstated. In the end, we avoided all appearance of impropriety. Mina, awaiting the day of our nuptials at home with her brother, went to and from The Magpie as usual. The morning after Goosevar’s death, it brought a smile to my lips to notice her scent on the breeze just as I had nearly every day for the last two years.
The bloodlust had gone, but my sharpened senses had so far remained. I had given up my vital essence, as it was no longer needed, but the purplish tint to my irises, too, had remained. Perhaps both would fade over time. Perhaps not.
It was of no consequence to me either way. Because I had not once, over all the long decades, thought I would ever look to such happiness in this life. Not only the cessation of the bloodlust, but the prospect of a true marriage to Mina.
The priest, Mrs. Moyle, and I hadn’t long to wait. Mina and Jack arrived together, joining us under the hazel trees sheltering her parents’ graves.
