“Elle?” A quiet whisper from the staircase. Liney.
It’s all I need. I push back from the frame and slam the door. Wind, snow, and bloodthirst be damned. The hunger snarls inside me but knows it won’t be satisfied quite yet. I breathe slowly through my nose. Salted fish, doused fire, and leftover tea ground me.
“You can come down. We’re safe.” For now. I’ve only delayed the inevitable.
Liney descends the stairs, nearly tripping in my trousers. Like a child playing dress-up. She hugs me tight. I glance out the kitchen window. There, like a portrait, is Douglas. He nods to me, and then his gaze softens as it drifts to Liney before he begins blinking in and out of my vision.
Mr. Croxton is gone. Douglas helped me. We weathered the storm of my hunger, yet it was only the first pang of the night.
“Will you open a private letter box when you leave after the storm?”
I hoped she hadn’t heard the details, but that wish didn’t account for the old boards and echoing rooms.
“I’ll wait.” We’ll hunker down and weather both storms here. Liney stiffens her hold. “We have supplies to last through the winter. I’ll visit them in spring. Mr. Croxton will have other duties by then, I’m sure.”
Liney leans back, her eyes glassy. “No trip to the mainland? All winter?”
“One thing at a time, little ghost.” I change my tone, lower and faster. No room for rebuttal. “The storm is our priority. You secure the windows and clear driftwood. I’ll check the oil level for tonight. Then I have a treat for your supper.”
Liney doesn’t argue, but there’s clear displeasure in her slumped posture and heavy steps. We need a night in together, free from the worries of men living and dead. The gale will batter our home, but we’ll be safe as church mice. She’ll forget all the excitement of the day when we are alone, as we are meant to be.
The hunger remains, circling in my system. Biding its time.
4Liney
To Fight
Elle sends me to collect debris that the storm might pick up and buffet against the lighthouse, bundling me up against the cold as she finishes supper. She forces me to promise that I’ll run right back before the dark clouds of the storm proper cross the harbor’s mouth.
I can finally breathe once outside. I comb the small field and the black rock beach near the lighthouse for stray nets, driftwood, and clotheslines. I stop to check the kitchen window for Elle’s passing figure, but the glass reflects gray sky and treetops. The lighthouse looms, a plain octagonal building, leaning toward me on a slight tilt. Is it the never-ending wind’s influence? Dirty white wood shingles surround the only door, once bright red but turned a well-chipped maroon by the time we showed up.
My shoulder aches when I lift anything heavier than a few pounds. Elle would’ve done a more thorough job.
How dare she,Chamomile says as I take a moment to regain my breath.
“It’s not her fault. It’s mine for being reckless.”
Chamomile kicks at a stone and passes through it. I’d laugh, but I’llstart coughing again.
It’s not your fault! She said it herself. You warned her!Chamomile crosses her arms.Now nothing from the mainland, all winter? Nothing bad happened!
“Elle is cautious.” I pick up a long sock that blew off the clothesline and snagged on the sharp edge of a rock. It will need darning. “I can’t fault her for taking our safety seriously.”
If she’d let you go—
“She won’t, Chamomile!” I shout. The wind whips my words into a small vortex of frustration and browning maple leaves. “It’s not always a person at fault, only a circumstance. Elle is a force but a natural one. We can weather her.”
One sister should not weather another.
Chamomile never knew Elle before. I’ve long suspected that whatever gave my sister her edge happened while I was locked in dress fittings and seating arrangements.
Elle wasn’t always fearful and brusque. Before Thomas quelled her, Elle played in the boundaries of our parents’ approval to keep me entertained. She never crossed the line with them around, but she was another person entirely with me.
Elle would try to make me laugh at church, pinching my side and making faces out of sight of our parents. She was my light. I’d hang on to her dress and follow her everywhere. Father joked that we’d never need a cat the way I skulked after her. When night came and I was alone in a bedroom with tall walls and shadowy corners, somehow Elle knew I needed her. She’d sneak into my room with a cup of tea and a leftover pastry the cook had made that morning. She’d climb into bed with me, and we’d play a game:make a person. One of us would begin an imaginary person’s day and trade off building their life until it became a tale of a fantastical hero or dastardly villain.
No wonder I conjured Chamomile out of nowhere. I’ve done it mywhole life.
I used to watch Elle speak to others and wonder how she knew how to behave, which conversations to stoke and which to extinguish and all the intricacies of society life. Most of my life was that of an invalid, barely allowed out in the garden for fear of an episode. They worried I had consumption when I first showed violent symptoms at five years old. A physician diagnosed it as asthma, a chronic condition of the lungs. He suggested restricting me from activities that could cause intense emotion or shorten my breath. My parents took this to heart. They locked me in the house save for mass and a few homes of close family friends—until there was a financial reason to do otherwise.
