Page 96
“You don’t know?”
“No. My mother died when I was born. Which, I guess, makes me a murderer, in a way.” A chuckle dies in my throat. “Just … felt like it could be her. Sometimes, I catch feelings from certain things. Like this music? Nina Simone? It fills me with an inexplicable kind of warmth … like … when you’re a child and you think back on warm sunny days of play. Only, I don’t have too many memories like that. And nobody else I know listened to Nina, so I’m just guessing it came from my mother.” Keeping my eyes glued to my plate avoids having to watch his face morph to that all-too-familiar frown to which I’ve grown accustomed. The telling reaction of someone who’s trying to mentally calculate my level of crazy. “Anyway, my mother … or what I think was my mother … she was beautiful. In a macabre sort of way.”
“She looked like you, then?”
Frowning, I finally meet his gaze, only to find the same impassive stare as before. “Is that an insult?”
“Was yours?”
“No. I just meant, there was a creepiness about her, but beneath all that, she was graceful and gorgeous. And she had a strange marking on her hand. Like a tattoo. It was an inverted triangle, or something. Looked like the shape of some kind of animal. A fox, or a goat, or something.” When I look up, Thierry’s frowning, and he’s set his plate aside, as if he’s lost his appetite.
“A goat?”
“Yeah. Is that bad? You’re looking at me like I just spoke backwards.”
Shaking his head breaks him of the intense expression. “Just curiosity, is all. So, this ghost mother …. What’d she say that made you pack up and drive all the way from Michigan.”
Christ, I just realized how effortlessly I confessed where I came from. The wine. It’s gotta be the wine.
“She said that I would find everything I’ve been searching for here.”
“And have you?”
“I don’t know yet. I feel like some things make sense, and others don’t.”
“Does the word Antitheus mean anything to you?”
Double-blinking at that, I shake my head. “Anta-what now?”
The corner of his lips kick up into a devastating smile that entirely distracts me from the question he just asked, up until he answers, “Never mind. Maybe you need to stick around longer to find out these answers.”
“I can’t.” The longer I stay, the harder it will be to leave. And I have to leave. Whatever killed my father and Maw Maw Day all those years back still lives here. I can feel the unrest all around me, like a toxic cloud waiting to swallow me up.
“Well, I’m afraid you don’t have a choice now. This island isn’t that big. Word travels. If the men who are after you find out where you’re staying, or going, I suspect they’ll hunt you down before you even cross the bridge.”
“How do I even know you’re telling me the truth? How do I know this isn’t some Stockholm crap you’re using to keep me prisoner here?”
He gestures past me, and I twist to see the disaster I’ve made of his kitchen. “You think I can deal with this on an ongoing basis?”
Right. I polish off the rest of my wine and set the glass down. Without my prompting, Thierry fills it back up for me. “You think that’s a good idea? What if I get drunk and take advantage of you in your sleep?”
“I think I can fend you off.”
“You don’t know my strength. I’m small, but I’m like a .... Hey, you know what you remind me of?”
“Do I want to know?”
“Did you ever watch that movie, The Witch? Remember Black Phillip? The goat? Kinda evil. Kinda scary to look at. But super-hot, deep voice? Yeah. That’s you.”
“A goat with a super-hot, deep voice?” There’s zero amusement in his expression when he says this, and the way his brow furrows with a frown sends me forward on a burst of laughter.
Oh, no. The drunkenness is settling over me. I can feel it.
“It’s a compliment. Like, I remember watching the end and wishing I could see the human form of this thing. I think he’d look like you.”
“Somehow, this doesn’t feel like a compliment.”
“The women around here are so … dumb. Without all that voodoo and werewolf crap, I think you’d have them swooning over you.”
