“Wereyou.” I mirror his accentuation.
He laughs. Laughing with his murderer. “I was twenty-eight.”
“Oh.” I expected at least a decade older. Is it his condescending nature or how the ghostly translucency casts a gray sheen to his once-auburn hair? Or how much even a year living on this island could age a relatively young man?
When I think back to our only meeting with both of us alive…I’ve misremembered. I placed this ghost in that memory instead of the living vessel I stole from him.
“It creates a problem, yes?” he continues. “You told him you were twenty, so if he checks against my records, that won’t align. Wife mayhave been better.”
Wife.The word is surreal coming out of his mouth. Confusion outweighs my fear.
“I don’t like misunderstandings.” Douglas doesn’t react to my slack-jawed expression. “I wondered if we’d have more common ground if you knew.”
Four years older is much closer to my age than I’d imagined him to be. I can’t make sense of this version of Douglas, of me with him, and what we are together if we aren’t enemies.
Another piece slides into place in my mind. Weareenemies. Douglas isn’t chatting with me to make me feel better. He despises me and, knowing I doomed another ship of sailors, would never give me comfort.
Liney. He has been distracting me from going downstairs to find her. And I’ve fallen for it.
“You said Liney is all right? Downstairs?” I ask.
His smile drops. I’ve ruined another small, good thing, but I was right. He’s been lying.
I get up, but the floor shakes beneath me, and I nearly lose my balance. The shelves shake. Boxes and jars clink against one another, threatening to fall. The ship has entered the spiral. Even with a weak lingering connection to the power, I’m stilled by an immense surge of feral emotion at the demise of the sailors and their panic turned to despair. Soon it will settle into torment. The hunt is over. The feast has begun.
“I’ll find out one way or another,” I tell the ghost of the former lighthouse keeper.
“You will,” he agrees. “But who will she find?”
The tremors stop. I cross the room and grab onto the hole where the doorknob used to be, another reminder of my capacity to both save and harm.
I glance back. He’s already gone.
12Liney
To Pray
The lighthouse keeper’s coat isn’t enough.
My unprotected ears burn from the cold and cacophony. A high-pitched wail hits me first. Whipping winds deafen me. The salt in the air irritates my eyes. And the unyielding Atlantic cold shocks my blood-soaked heart.
Large fluffs of snow mix with ice pellets and leave tiny scratches on my cheeks. While my hands are safe in the long sleeves of the keeper’s coat and his boots reach up to my knees, my face is exposed. I cover it with one arm and hold the lantern aloft.
The dark was flat while I was in the lighthouse. Now it’s endless, dizzying black layers. The feeble firelight in my lantern illuminates a few meters of snow but nothing more. I can barely see the rocks I stand on.
I have no way of reigniting the lantern if it goes out.
Do I turn back? Was leaving the lighthouse as foolish as Chamomile believed? Why did she turn rotten? My hands throb as though stillholding that knife in her throat. Would Chamomile still be alive if I’d stayed inside?
Elle’s scornful face flashes in the sea gloom.This isn’t your problem to fix.
Then what is? I can’t pretend that my life is abstractly precious but functionally useless. I’m not the fragile lace my sister imagines, to be kept put away. My threads have unraveled in their solitude, their futility. My purpose can’t only be to exist correctly for her.
I’m more than her tagalong little sister. I can be useful. At least for one night.
I try to orient myself. In which direction was I looking when I spotted the ship up in the lightroom? The lighthouse stands along the ocean-facing shore, so staying on this side of the island should keep me pointed the right way.
Another shudder nearly trips me. It doesn’t feel like the crash of waves I’ve felt so many times before. It’s deeper. As though coming from the island itself. An earthquake? A tidal wave?
