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“Nest nineteen,” she said. “One live chick. One egg, unhatched. Nest twenty... the second chick didn’t make it through the night;it’s not moving. One chick still living. Nest twenty-one...”
It went on like that for a while, with long pauses as Dr. Kapoor adjusted the binoculars and checked with Kenny that he was caught up. I shifted from foot to foot to keep my circulation going. Liam had put in earbuds and found a rock to sit on. Abby paced a short distance away, her camera out and clicking away as she took landscape shots.
Hardcastle had the headphones on, pointing at something on the laptop screen and talking to Lily. I tried not to watch him too carefully, too obviously, but I couldn’t help it—looking at him made my skin crawl, but looking away made me feel like I was turning my back on something dangerous. When he took off the headphones and looked up at me, I jerked, certain that my suspicion was written on my face.
“Why don’t you three go explore the rest of the island?” Hardcastle asked.
Dr. Kapoor’s head whipped up. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said.
“Why not?” he asked. “Sophia should know the lay of the land, at least, and Liam’s gotten the tour already, so he can show the ladies around.”
Liam popped out one earbud, looking hopeful. Abby kept her back to the adults, studiously examining her camera, but she looked as hungry as I felt to see this place.
Dr. Kapoor considered. Then she relented. “Keep your radio on you,” she told Liam.
“Got it.” Liam straightened up, stretching. The movement emphasized his long frame. My own build could generously bedescribed as skeletal, but the rain shell I’d donned over my usual uniform of a T-shirt and jeans made me look shapeless.
We left the others and tracked over the back side of a hill. It was good to move after standing still for so long, and it must have shown.
“I thought she’d leave you stood there all day,” Liam said. “You know, if you’re lucky, maybe she’ll let you look at a bird for more than two seconds by the end of the summer. But you have to establish that trust first. Prove yourself.”
I snorted. “I guess I was expecting things to be a bit more hands-on.”
“In a week or two they’ll do the banding on the chicks. That’s a lot more interesting, Kenny says. But most of the action happens back at the LARC itself. Kenny’s doing something with DNA, and Lily and Hardcastle are doing this whole study on the bird calls—apparently they’re unusually varied, or something? I was sort of tuning her and Kenny out at that point, I’ll be honest. They get a bit overexcited. Tend to ramble. Then again, I seem to be rambling, myself. So stones, glass houses, et cetera.” He slanted his smile at me.
“So can you show us around town?” Abby asked. She’d stopped to take a picture of Bitter Rock, beyond the channel of gray water and the black fangs of the isthmus, and she hustled to catch up.
“You mean Landontown?” Liam said with a frown. “There’s not much there.”
“But it is why I came,” she reminded him.
“I suppose it’s either that or an exciting tour of the island’sbest rocks,” Liam said with a shrug. “This way, then. So you know about the Cole Landon debacle?” He was asking me.
I feigned ignorance, shaking my head. “Isn’t that the guy who founded the LARC?”
“His widow founded the LARC, actually. He was an eccentric millionaire. He had this group of what you might call followers. They were all into this idea of getting back to the land and living communally. He bought Bitter Rock and brought all his people here. They built the Landontown Fellowship.” He pointed down the hill. It dropped away for a bit, then leveled out into a plateau before the hill fell away again to the sea and a barren beach. There were only a dozen structures standing; a few more that had collapsed or burned down.
“And they all vanished,” Abby said. Her camera clicked.
“Right,” Liam said. “There are lots of theories. Mass suicide—theywerekind of a cult. Storm. Murder. Cole Landon’s widow was the only survivor. She was visiting relatives at the time. She established the LARC and never set foot here again.”
Above the town to the north was a short, curved concrete wall with a gap running along the center. Something metal stuck out from the gap. “What’s that?” I asked.
“Artillery,” Liam said. “Don’t worry, it’s just decorative at this point. There’s a bunker, too, right over there.” He pointed out along the hillside. A metal door was set into the hillside, surrounded by more concrete and rubble that indicated there must have once been a wall a few feet in front of the door. “There was an airstrip here during the second world war. The bunker’s flooded or something, though—can’t get in.”
“Have you tried?” Abby asked.
“No,” he said. “Not being ahugefan of tetanus, I have somehow resisted the allure of a ruined hole in the ground.”
Abby raised her eyebrows. “I’ve got all my shots.” But she didn’t press the issue. We headed down the hill, taking short, careful steps over the dew-slicked grass. A signpost stood at the entrance to the town, but the sign itself was long gone. Abby strode out ahead, snapping pictures as she went, and Liam and I naturally fell back at a more sedate pace.
“You know a lot about the island,” I said. “How often do you come here?”
“Not very,” Liam answered. “Twice since I was a kid, that’s all. Usually quality time with Dr. Kapoor is arranged at some neutral third location, where my mum doesn’t have to see her, and Dr. Kapoor can rely on guided tours to supply quality content instead of filling the silence herself.”
“I’m picking up that you’re not very close,” I said.
We’d stopped, and Liam put his hands in his pockets, looking out over the ruined buildings. “My parents split when I was young. Right after Dr. Kapoor came to work here, actually. After that, quality time required several months of notice. My grandparents—her parents—fly out to see me for months at a time and help out, but she can’t be bothered. So, yes, we have issues.”
