I pull the damp air into my lungs. I can’t believe I’m doing this. And I dive forward, ducking beneath a wave.
The water is bracing, seizing my thoughts, but when I come up fora breath, the air is sharper in my lungs than the water against my skin. I think I hear a voice behind me, Helen shouting, screaming for me to come back. But I don’t turn to look, I keep kicking, arms wheeling over my head. I was a swimmer in college, not competitively—I hated the idea of swimming against anyone else—I did it in the evening after classes. I liked the way the water felt, the buoyancy, the numbing quiet when my head dipped beneath that artificial blue waterline. And I think a part of me knew it also reminded me of the sea. A part of me wanted to be ready, in case this day ever came.
I lift my head, but the island is still a good distance off. I miscalculated how far I’d need to swim—the rising and falling curve of the waves is deceiving. But I drive my legs even harder through the water. I need to reach the island before it drifts too far away, before I lose sight of it.
I need to know that it wasn’t all in my head.
The waves toss and surge over me, the ocean becoming deeper—a depth that I try not to think about. I sweep my arms through the cold, pulling myself forward. I can see the rocky shore rising up ahead of me, the tide pushing me closer now, waves cresting and falling, but I’m so numb I hardly feel it. Two more strokes, three, I reach for the rocks, but a wave barrels into me, drawing me under. I kick to the surface, gulping in air, and my hand touches one of the rocks—slick, jagged—but before I can heave myself out of the water, another wave slams into my back, thrusting me forward against the rocks. I feel the sharp impact at my hip bone, a cracking pain down my leg and across my ribs. I cry out, gulping in more water, but the next wave throws me fully onto the shore. My hands reach out, bracing, but it’s the back of my skull that collides with the blunt edge of a boulder.
A cosmic burst of starlight spreads across my vision, blotting out the dreary sky, first turning everything searing white, and then a nauseating black that flips the world inside out.
CHAPTER SIX
I feel arms hauling me up from the slick rocks.
Eyes blinking, I try to peer through the rain, across the thrashing sea, to see if Helen is at the shore. I think I spot her on the beach, arms waving, shouting wildly, but then the thick fog and sea mist swallow her up. Maybe she was never there at all.
Warm blood courses down my thigh from where the rock tore open my flesh. The air feels strange in my lungs, as if I’m breathing in the rain… gulping it down like a fish.
And then I too am swallowed by the dark. A blotting out of pain and cold.
And nothing else.
The bed I lie in isn’t mine. It’s hard, the mattress curved in all the wrong places. The pillow smells of someone unknown. Wool and dirt.
I open my eyes, blink around the room, but it’s all watercolors and fractured light. My skin feels papery, wafer-thin, like the dampness might separate it from my skeleton. I wonder if I’m going into shock,the cold making my thoughts spin and darken, unable to settle clearly on anything, so I let myself sink back into sleep.
Time weaves around me. I lose track of the hours.
A shadow slides over me, a man.
Pain. Pain. Pain. It runs its dagger through me, straight down my leg, like it wants to see me scream. And I do, but it only comes out as a whimper. So I sleep again.
Amber light streams through a window, touching the side of my face, warming me. I pull the bedsheet up to my chin, stretching my legs a little, and pain crawls up my torso. My eyes snap open. I’m not at home. I am here, in this strange place.
Inhaling, I push myself up, back rigid against the headboard. My fingers slide down my side, finding the source of the pain. Folding back the blankets, I see the bruised, swollen flesh along my left hip bone. But there is something coating the wound, a balm, a waxy substance just above the line of my underwear. The man has been tending to me, touching my bare hip while I slept. I try to swing my legs over the edge of the bed, but there is more pain, a new source. The back of my head throbs so fiercely it feels like it’s being squeezed between two concrete walls, right in time with my heartbeat. Fuck. I sink back against the headboard, eyes pinched shut.
Get up, I tell myself. I can’t stay here.
I shift my legs slowly, biting down on the pain, and slip off the edge of the mattress. My feet find the floor, a dagger lancing along my rib cage. My head wheels, the room rotates, but after a moment of deep breaths, I blink and everything settles. I focus on the bedroom door.
Fresh air, I think. If I can breathe in fresh air, all the violent upheavals happening in my body will soften. I straighten up, take a step,and the pain in my hip stabs down into my leg, making my knees buckle. I hit the floor with a thud. Ears ringing. Lungs heaving. Muscles spasming.
The bedroom door swings open, footsteps, and then his arms are around me again, bracing my ribs, lifting me up and placing me carefully back into bed. “Gonny no dae that,” he mutters under his breath. Gaelic or some Scots dialect, words that melt into the pain.
I ease myself down to the rough pillow, head vibrating.
The man looks down at me. “That hip needs to heal,” he says, words I actually understand.
I relax my shoulders back, close my eyes, and let out a long breath before looking up at him. But my vision is still whirling, and he’s just out of focus. “Where am I?”
He walks to a wooden chest of drawers, pours a glass of water from a ceramic pitcher, then carries the glass back to me. “Nae where yer supposed to be.”
The water is frigid as it spills down my throat, but soothes me when it hits my stomach. I blink again, and the man’s face is a little less vague. “I need to get back,” I say, teeth feeling brittle and cold.
“Too late for that.”
Sunlight streaks through the bedroom window, golden like honey. The curtains, the color of wheat, are tied open beside the frame. The light touches his face, cheekbones, eyes—a piercing, painful blue—like they’ve seen the harshest of winters, known grief and anger and desperation. An overgrown beard covers most of his face—light brown, speckled with strands of red.
