It must be necessary. If it weren’t, I’d be to blame.
I want to toss the pot of bubbling water. Snap the wooden spoon in my hand. Break something so that the brokenness trapped in my chest stops clawing at me.
Is it Mr. Pratterman’s intention to drive me into madness? Scenarios stretch themselves out like branches of a tree, but I can’t keep each leaf of possibility in focus at once. I want to burn the tree and watch every leaf curl until it is all ash.
The water boils. I add peeled potatoes, portions of leek, and nearly-too-stale sections of bread to the pot and stir. A thought wriggles in as I add rice and a generous pinch of salt to the mixture. If Bridget dies of exposure, would that count as me killing her? I’d be the reason she didn’t survive, refusing her respite from the cold. It isn’t snowing anymore,but the bitter chill is deadly on its own. Is being the reason someone doesn’t survive the same as killing them? It likely wouldn’t work anyway. Anyone would take our boat before freezing to death.
I cover the pot and lean over the stove, the steam warming my cheeks. There’s too much room for interpretation unless my hand kills her. This is where the Devil turns a pinprick of doubt into a chasm.
I’ll kill her. And if she isn’t alive enough to count, I’ll find the first person on shore with a heart and rip the beating organ out of them. No room for wordplay or loopholes. I’ve come too far to risk a half job.
Douglas’s disappointment haunts me, not as a ghost but as a foul memory. Not even his guilting can confuse this clarity. Peace washes over me when I straighten.
The decision’s been made. All there’s left to do is enact it.
You stop worrying about the possibilities. Because you’re already a murderer. You move on to the next task.
“I need to step outside,” I tell Liney as I hand her a hefty portion of soup, careful to keep my knife out of her view. “Firewood. I won’t be long. Eat as much as you can, got it?”
Liney nods weakly. I smooth the damp hair out of her face. She’s barely conscious but dutifully lifts the spoon to her lips.
The island didn’t do well in the storm. In the full light of day, I see that there are many fallen trees in the small forest, rocks and sand thrown about, shingles broken off the lighthouse, and fish.
Dozens of fish litter the shore. Big ones, bloated and torn apart by the winds that stole them from the ocean. They should be frozen at this temperature, but the smell is rancid. Under a clear sky’s autumn sun, they must have decomposed. I see no flies, but I hear a buzzing.
I walk along the beach. The fish stretch from the edge of the tide to the first few trees. I throw some back into the tides, but it’s a fruitless venture. They’ll wash back ashore eventually. The current around the island tends to keep anything that gets too close.
I make a full loop of the island. The fish are most concentrated near the lighthouse, and already most of the ones I tossed back are back on the beach. I don’t find a shipwreck survivor.
The boat is still here. She’s not. Was she only an illusion?
Tears well in my eyes. I gaze out from beside the lighthouse at my corner of the Atlantic. The wind is harsh. The ocean is vast. The sky is endless. I’ve never felt so small. Alone, I give into the overwhelm.
Twin trails of tears fall into my mouth. It fills with the taste of rot.
16Liney
To Open
It’s three days until I’m well enough to get out of bed. Elle nurses me zealously. I hate how her face scrunches up when I cough and how carefully she tips spoonfuls of soup into my mouth.
Rest and soup won’t help resolve the most important question: Who did I wash ashore with? Every time I hint at leaving for a little fresh air, Elle shuts me down. She pretends not to know who I’m talking about when I ask about the woman from the storm, the one I saw through the window that is now permanently shut behind hammered planks. Elle says she herself saved me. That I was raving about hallucinations when she got me out of the water. That I’m ungrateful.
I’ve made someone up before. I felt Chamomile’s body against mine and heard her breathy voice in my ear. I punched her square in the face. Yet there’s no evidence that she was ever corporeal. The scars on my hand from the lantern’s broken glass cover what might be bruises from the punch. Is the discoloration around my neck from drowning or my self-suffocation?
Did I create a new protector after I destroyed Chamomile? It fits, yet why would I do that so soon after nearly killing myself with the first?
I try to broach the subject of Chamomile with Elle. I show her the marks on my neck, but my tongue’s tied when she asks what happened to this other person. She’s too calm about it. Shouldn’t she be upset at the idea of a dangerous stranger flitting in and out of my life these past months? I can’t get out that it was my thrust of the blade that finished her. Even if Chamomile came from my mind, it’s too ghastly a thing to admit.
“Don’t fret about this,” she says while perched on the edge of our bed. “It’s the stress that’s causing it. You’ll see clearer once you’re better.”
“You truly believe there’s been no one but us here?” I press. It’s like I’m six again and asking her to check for monsters in my closet.
“She appeared in the room with me, yes?” Elle asks, shaking her head. “I’d have noticed. I promise, little ghost. Nothing will hurt you here so long as we stay.”
Bedrest gives me the time to mull things over. Elle’s story makes more sense than a beautiful stranger saving me. But Elle didn’t dry herself off. How did she save me in the ocean and not need to change her clothes? Or do I misremember?
Elle has yet to find any evidence of the ship during her walks around the island. At least she’s thorough. I’ve not seen Elle leave the lighthouse so often since our first few weeks on the island. Did she realize my actions weren’t so foolish? Does she hold hope of survivors?
