“I know?” My voice betrays my utter bewilderment. That night was before I ever communed with the spiral’s power. What kind oflookcould I have had then? He’s more tortured than when we were arguing. That was well-trodden territory. This is new.
“You were beautiful.” The words rip out of him like teeth. “You were soaked through with rain, your hair was gleaming, your face was flushed. Your eyes were so bright in the firelight, like warm honey. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was with you on my doorstep.”
That makes no sense. I focus on what I know.
“Then I…” Stalked up behind him. Stole his knife. Slit his throat. Murdered him.
“Yes. It was confusing.”
That was his first impression of me? Impossible. I was a drowned rat with malice in my eyes. While my fury has puttered down to the wick, I know the words I owe him. “I’m sorry.”
“That might be the first apology you’ve ever come to on your own,” he says.
That smile spreads across his face, a crashing wave against my burning shore. Breaking me into smaller and smaller pieces, crumbling theresolve I built up, bit by bit. He can’t be smiling now. He can’t have found me beautiful. None of that fits into our story.
“You’re not lost, Elle,” he says so softly I can nearly forget I’m standing beside his bones. “You’re scared.”
He’s right. No matter how hard the island, the spiral, has choked me into submission, it has never won my heart. Even now, as I try to commune directly, there’s resistance in me. That selfish part that needs my own control.
My next words are strangled in my throat as though casting a net into the sea. “It’s you I see when I try to be better. Not Liney. Not Pratterman. You.”
Douglas takes one tentative step forward. We’re worlds apart, yet he looms over me so close I can almost feel his breath.
“You see monstrosity in yourself; I see determination. You see rage; I see protection. You see cruelty; I see fear. And there’s wrong there too. I’m not blind to it. I see it all. And I’m still here, Elle. I still have hope for you.”
“Stop.” I step back, turn away from him, look to another blank wall, see the bones instead. “You can’t…”
“Why?” he presses. He’s so close to me. The last time we were this close, we were dancing. The time before, I was killing. “Because if you can be loved as you are now, there’s still something good in you?”
“I’m not…” I begin, a reflex.
“Because it’s easier, yes?” He throws his hands up, no patience left. “To throw the world away. To cast your eyes down and pretend you can’t stop the cruelties. Can’t stop yourself.”
“You don’t understand.” I make to move around him, to end this torture for us both.
“Yes, Eleanor, I do!”
I turn back. The break in his voice is too raw to ignore anymore.
“You’re not the only lighthouse keeper on this island who’s had these temptations,” he whispers: a confession.
I swallow, my mouth suddenly too dry. “What are you talking about?”
Douglas smiles mirthlessly, shaking his head. “He came to me once. Pratterman. Offered me a chance to see my mother again. To bring her back. He and I… I thought he was a gentleman. He spent weeks here. He tried to woo me. He did. I thought he cared for me, truly. I certainly cared for him.”
I can picture it. Mr. Pratterman, knocking on his door. All smiles and pleasantness, offering a fool’s bargain like it’s a gift. Acting as a comforting shoulder and admirer. Douglas considering the deal, missing his mother despite the distance he’d traveled since her death. He’d fled to the ocean to grieve, and the Devil brought her memory here to torture him.
Then I realize, heart stuttering, that Mr. Pratterman broughtmeto the island to finish the job. To collect what was owed, contract or no. Even denying the Devil gets you killed.
“You never told me…”
“By the time I understood what you were entrenched in, I assumed you were his, in contract and in heart. You sealed it with a kiss, right? It’s his way. I didn’t want to push you farther away from me, closer to him. Wouldn’t it have? To know you were in the company of someone who’d resisted his temptation? At least the sinful one.”
He’s right. I’d have seen it as superiority. I never regretted my choices. Knowing the consequences, would I change it if I could? Or did I ever have a chance of walking out of that wax room undoomed?
“I’m sure he laughed when you killed me,” Douglas adds, laughing himself. He leans back against the stone wall. “I suppose he did capture me in the end.”
“He didn’t.” I surprise us both with my ferocity. “I never sacrificed you. He has no claim.”
