Page 3 of Her Creation

I looked at Mick beside me. When had he moved there?

“That chilling, sinister feeling of doom, like the sea itself is going to drown us now, even though we’ve sailed her peacefully this far—it’s the land,” he muttered softly as his eyes focused on the men in the distance.

“If you mean to comfort me, you are doing a horrid job of it. I will be on that land tomorrow, practically alone.” A lack of response forced me to turn and see his dual-colored eyes on me and not the men.

“I’m not telling you anything to comfort you, Clara. I’m telling you, this land gives me a feeling like no other place I’ve been to—for Christ’s sake, look what it’s done to that man. It’s no place for men to live; even I can see that.”

The muscles in my jaw ached until I forced myself to unclench.

“What is it you’re saying, Mick?” I sharpened my gaze at him and dared him to say it.

“It’s only you, the doctor, and the lieutenant. It’s obviously uninhabitable. We turn back and you—”

“What?” I glared at him, unable to believe I’d recently thought him the only sensible man on the ship.

“Tell them it’s uninhabitable. Look at it, Clara! Are ya daft?” he snapped, his normally soft Irish accent bleeding into his words. “This place is evil. It’s in the water and the air and everything. I know you feel the fear. It’s pushing out from beneath its soil and onto us; you’re not immune, no matter how brave you are.”

I whirled away and moved, but he followed right behind.

“It’s cursed land,” he continued. “There is a reason a population has not taken it up. Look at it. Mark my words, woman, no good will come from that land, and we’d be the wiser for getting away from it as fast as possible.”

“You’re as bad as they are. I thought I was the only bad omen this ship needed to worry about?”

“Clara—”

“Mick,” I snapped. “It’s land. It’s not cursed, nor is it evil. You sailors put too much weight on feelings. What good has feeling anything ever done?” I held up my hand to cut off his protests. “We anchored at twilight on a night that was abnormally still and silent. You, like everyone else, forgot it was empty land. You were expecting sounds of the populace you’ve grown accustomed to greeting you at ports and busy places you arrive at; this is just different from what you were unconsciously expecting, and therefore your mind infers that it’s empty and evil. Everyone has been restless and eager to head back ever since the fever, that’s it. Wild imaginations don’t help with anything, believe me, and I’m certainly not going to give up the biggest and, frankly, only meaningful opportunity of my entire life because it was quiet…and a little unsettling.”

He tilted his chin down and glared at me from under thick brows. He looked for a split second as though he might beg me not to go.

“Here we go, boys,” shouted Captain Sheamus from behind us.

They had returned.

There was a significant struggle to get the injured man up the ladder. It took four men to hoist him enough that the men assisting him could get his body onto the deck.

A slow wave of murmurs flowed across the crew. I struggled desperately to see the cause of the murmurs, but the darkness of the night and the many men shut me out of view.

“What are you doing?” The captain’s uniformed chest cut off any further attempt at viewing the man.

“I’m on my way to the sick bay now, sir,” I said with a respectful dip of my chin. Even though I wanted to fight and scream that any of the men would be better suited to play nursemaid to the man, I knew it would be useless.

“The sick bay reeks of the fever still; he will go to your quarters. You’ll be gone at first light, anyway.”

I sucked icy air against my teeth. “You can’t be serious? You’re suggesting that a strange man should stay in my room? I will be back aboard the ship at dusk; we are too small a company to sleep unprotected on the land. You know this; we’ve discussed it many—”

“Now your propriety is at risk? You’ve given me many a speech to be treated just as the men are.” His eyes hardened on me.

Loud gasps from the crowd behind him stole both our attention momentarily, though he was the only one tall enough to see anything. My low curse dissipated in the freezing night air. His head snapped back from looking over his shoulder, his brows pinched together oddly.

“I’m not being treated just as the men are by you forcing me to be a nursemaid—” I protested.

“You either share a room with one injured man, or you share a room with thirty uninjured, Miss Bulkley. The choice is yours to make. Upon my first inspection of the man, I presumed he would either die tonight or become well enough to join the crew for the journey home. Once he’s cleared by the doctor, he may join the others in the hammocks—that should motivate you to tend to him appropriately.” He glared knowingly before turning away but doled out a few last-minute orders of the supplies I was to grab before joining them in my room.

Despite my bones aching and my skin burning from the cold, I somehow could not bring my legs to move. Several men had brought the injured man to stand, supporting him under his arms, and he was moving. I caught myself stepping back and away from the steps, clearing the way so that I could gawk at the odd figure as he moved past me and headed toward my room.

My eyes fastened onto the man and widened until the icy air watered them painfully.

He was enormous, in presence as well as body. Something about him, even in his slouched, half-dead stature, reminded me of a cathedral: taller than anyone I’d ever seen with the build of something made of stone and an unmistakably haunting, damning energy. Even in the state he was in, the air around him felt so filled with a spirit that it was a mere whisper away from unholiness…or possibly a step over.