They made it.
I nearly fall forward into the glass window in my relief. What was only hours ago my worst fear is now my salvation.
Liney will find her way. She’ll survive me. I forgot what she was capable of. Or never truly knew. I formed her into a precious doll, fragile. Mine. But she’s stronger than I ever was.
I have only one more task. To ensure there’s no one left to follow her.
I imagine ropes of power trailing from my arms, down the spiral staircase, across the wood boards of my home, and down into the basement. I increase the tension of that link between my body and the spiral’s entrance. The resistance carves dents into the creases of my elbows. Good.
I connect to the bottom of the spiral’s oil deposit. More than enough for what I need. I raise the drowned ocean floor like I pulled the stairs up. Though I can’t see it, I feel the hot, thick oil rise above the edges of its basin. Up the final stair, the whole pocket of hell flattens. Oil gushes out of the entrance into the lighthouse basement.
Time is short. Soon Thomas will cut through the chaos Douglas has made in the forest. I leave the lightroom and take the stairs down two at a time. With each step, I imagine the force of a wave in the oil beneath. By the time I reach the bottom and enter the living space, the basement is flooded and the floor is slick with an inch of the stuff.
I grip my knife with one hand and the doorknob with the other. The oil’s already wormed into a river beneath the door and out to its instructed path. Soon it’ll cover the lighthouse, the forest, and the entirety of Devils Island. The final act of the freed souls will light the forest aflame. This isn’t domination or force. It’s a partnership. An understanding. Love, in a way. That’s what keeps my muscles intact enough to move despite the rising taste of rot and ruin in the back of mythroat. There’s no going back now.
I open the door and exit the lighthouse. The cold air calms my sizzling skin. Above, in the open sky over the mainland, the sun has begun to set. Strips of brilliant reds slash through the sky and bathe me in golden light.
The screaming of the men has subsided. Either Douglas has finished terrorizing them, or they found somewhere safe to hide. Perhaps the cavern or the dock.
I know what comes next.
The oil courses over tree roots and shrubs, saturating everything in its wake. Neither water nor snow will deter it. All it needs is a spark.
I close my eyes. Communing with the light of the lighthouse, I redirect it. For the first time, its spinning beam peers down, directly at the middle of the forest. Within seconds I hear the crackle of burning oil and wood.
There’s nothing left in the spiral now, merely a room of stone and meat. Useless. Eventually the fire, once it trails back to the lighthouse, will consume it. To whoever comes here next, it’ll merely be a roughly hewn basement side room. Nothing special. Nothing worth investigating.
“Eleanor!”
I open my eyes. As smoke rises above the last resilient red maple leaves, my ex-fiancé walks through the tree line.
His clothes are soaked. Did he swim? He walks chest-first, half strut and half trudge. Somewhere between gorilla and peacock. His lips smear up in a sneer as he holds up a revolver at me.
“I’m here for you and Caroline.” There’s a wild glint in his eye. As though he can outrun his own fear, which he gives away with a glance behind him at the forest. “Come, show me to her.”
The fire spreads quickly. It draws on the oil’s power and on what’s left in me. I don’t know if I have enough left to fight Thomas while thefire blazes. One last time, I’ve taken on more than I can handle.
“Come now!” He shouts, stumbling slightly. Is he drunk? Or has his carefully crafted trap not gone his way for once? “You’ve had enough fun here, I daresay.”
I laugh in his face. “You’re too late.”
He slows, like a hunter who’s found his mark gone rabid. Does he realize how trapped he’s become? Red flames lick at the trunks behind him.
“Too late?” he repeats. His eyes narrow. He’s underestimated me before. Will he make the same mistake again?
“She’s gone, Thomas.”
He nods, rolling his eyes. Yet he can’t hide his bobbing Adam’s apple as he gulps down fear.
I grip the knife tighter.
“And you’re alone, still here? I find that hard to believe, given what ashared acquaintancehas informed me of your sins.”
I turn away from him, back to the lighthouse. I won’t be spoken down to by him, not now.
“I’m not done with you!” he barks.
He sends a shiver through me, one I haven’t felt for so long that I nearly forgot. For though powerful as I’ve become, that voice still makes me quake.
