I leave my ghost behind. The snow falls soft, sticking to my face. Iscan the tree line, hand over my eyes to protect them from the dying sun. Only red maples greet me.
I pass the tiny pond, the edge of water that makes up the spiral’s entrance, even the dock. The rowboat’s still there, which fills me with both relief and new dread. Nothing out of place. Within the forest there are only gray trunks and crimson leaves still to fall.
“Caroline!” I yell, standing in the middle of the island.
I could kill her for scaring me like this. How could she care so little?
I call her name over and over, turning in place to shout in each cardinal direction. Fluffy snowflakes fall in my face. Nothing answers.
I don’t know which end of the island I face anymore, but I head out of the woods toward the beach.
I could call on the island’s power, but the very freedom it’s afforded me could spell my doom. Mr. Pratterman is sure to feel any connection. I can’t risk him forcing a reunion to deliver my failure. All these tools, yet I’m forced only to shout Liney’s name.
Is it already too late?
Has the Devil come to take my sister, unannounced, while I danced with my ghost?
22Liney
To Wish
I didn’t kiss Bridget on that first day she knocked. Not at our next meeting in the cave, nor the rest of the week in the lighthouse, even after Elle would go upstairs for the night and leave us two giggling girls together. Yet my gaze keeps drifting to Bridget’s lips when she speaks, and I imagine leaning forward to capture them. Is it pure folly to see similar interest in her gaze?
Elle’s first kiss was months into her engagement, and even that felt scandalous. She came squealing to my room, gushing about the smell of his cologne and warm hands on her neck. Why didn’t I notice that she never did so again?
It’s not appropriate to hope for a kiss. But I don’t have the luxury of convention. Is there somewhere on Bridget’s maps she could point to that we could have a courtship? I imagine bringing her flowers and chocolates. Walking along riverbanks arm in arm, Elle a respectful distance away to keep an eye on us.
If tomorrow is a clear day and Elle brings us both to the mainland,will I have another chance? Maybe Bridget will continue on her journey, and I will return to my sister.
We lay out the blanket in the cave and imagine adventures together. On horseback running through prairie fields or camping atop mountains. Treks through the desert, glowing lights in an arctic sky, sloshing waist-high in bayous. Meeting the people of those lands, finding places we can help, or learn, or rest. Every story is better than the last, and none of them involve church services or high teas.
“Why do you want to be a cartographer?” I ask her. “How do youknowyou want to?”
Bridget brushes her hand through my hair. My head is in her lap, my eyes closed. She told me she could braid hair. She can’t with mine so short now, but that doesn’t stop her trying.
“Part of it is to honor my father,” she says thoughtfully. “It’s what I’ve known since my first trip to ‘map out’ a frog pond down the lane that I was fond of. We lived in my mother’s village outside Lismore. Barely two dozen people.”
“And you went wherever you wanted?”
Bridget shakes her head. “Some folks in town didn’t take kindly to the freedom my father gave me. I was allowed to study languages, mathematics, everything he needed on his travels. We sold the house after my mother died and took off. We weren’t always safe, or welcome, but it was always new.”
I nod with every word. She’s lived in ways I never knew I could wish for.
“Behind every hill could be another hill,” she continues, “or it could be a wonder no one’s ever seen. Those years sailing across the Mediterranean were my happiest. Researching texts, searching bogs and olive trees, marking down ruins and rivers. It was harder, after. Captains respected my father but didn’t know me. I booked passage here instead. Maps that get back home of these territories are full of assumptions and mistakes by men with egos larger than their drafting pencils. If I returnto Ireland with my own maps, maybe they can carve out the respect of a patron, or I could start my own guild, or continue west instead, or—”
I tug on a strand of her dark hair. “You’ll hyperventilate if you speak any quicker!”
“Enough about me then.” Bridget taps my nose. “What about you? What do you want?”
My throat is suddenly dry. “Are the crabs still here? We could—”
“There must besomething,” she urges. “You can’t be so dreamy-eyed for nothing.”
Bridget doesn’t understand. My world has never been big enough to hold my hopes. Pretty dolls are meant for tea times, not adventures. And I surely can’t admit she’s become the object of my dreams.
“You’re going to think I’m daft,” I warn. This has Bridget sitting straighter as a grin spreads across her face. “I’ve always been fascinated by—”
“Sea creatures?” Bridget interrupts, then grimaces. “Sorry.”
