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I sat back down and took several breaths to settle my anger, part of which was directed at myself. He was right.
“Okay.” His hold on my wrist loosened, but he didn’t let go. “Ahone isn’t all good, Ellie. He made you sacrifice your father, for fuck’s sake.”
My simmering temper exploded again and I turned to him, livid. “That wasyourfault, Collin! You broke the curse! Daddy never would have died if you had left things alone.”
A tourist family gave me curious looks as they walked by but kept moving.
Collin watched me and waited until they passed. His face softened. “You asked me why I broke the curse. Do you remember what I said?”
My anger clung to me like a familiar friend. “You said you wanted it done! That your family had paid the price, but you didn’t give a shit about my family.”
“Ellie.” His voice lowered and there was no anger in it, only regret. “Did you ever wonder why I walked into your restaurant that day? Or how I knew where to find you? Did you wonder how I had the henna supplies ready the day I took you to Buxton?”
My mouth opened and then closed without emitting any sound.
“I didn’t just come up with this on my own, Ellie. Granted, I hated the fucking curse, but I never considered breaking it until about two months before I did.”
I blinked, amazed that he was finally opening up to me. “What happened?” I asked, my voice breathless.
“Something came to me one night while I was out on the boat.” He paused and glanced out at the water. “I had already forked over a ton of money on repairs for the engine, and Marino wanted me to work some big job. I’d been resisting because I was trying to distance myself from him.” He swallowed and let go of my wrist. “This ball of light appeared and told me that I could change things. That my family had been punished because of the deeds of my ancestors and that we didn’t need to suffer any longer. It told me that I could make things right. All I had to do was break the curse.”
“But—”
Collin turned and put his finger on my lips. “Shh. Let me finish. Then you can ask questions.”
My lip tingled where he touched it and fire raced through my body. My breath came in rapid bursts as Collin’s finger lightly slid along my bottom lip, his gaze pinned on my mouth. It took every ounce of restraint in me not to close the distance between our mouths. It couldn’t have been more than a foot.
David. Remember David.
My expression must have changed because the longing in Collin’s eyes turned to resignation. He dropped his hand and turned back to face the water. “I didn’t listen at first. My job was toprotectthe curse and keep the gates closed, but the seed of doubt had been planted. And I began to wonder: What if the curse was broken and I didn’t have to spend the rest of my life stuck around Roanoke Island? I could go anywhere I wanted. I could start over where Marino would never find me. After that, it was easy.”
I watched the emotion battle in his eyes.
“A month or so later, the ball of light returned with its whispers about how I could make things right. This time I was willing to listen. It told me that all I had to do was find you—I already knew we had to touch our right palms together. Then the curse would break, cracking the gate open, and after six days I could seal it so that it would never open again. And the curse would be done. Forever. The light told me that I would need to protect you until the ceremony because you didn’t have the mark of protection that the Manteo line wore. After the ceremony, you would be safe.”
Collin ran a hand through his hair, then leaned his forearm against his upright knee. “I still wasn’t sure. It went against everything I had been trained to do and believed.” He sighed and closed his eyes, then slowly opened them. “That’s not entirely true. My father was the Keeper before me. He was angry about his fate, and he always swore he’d break the curse someday. Then he disappeared when I was ten. He just vanished, and my mother didn’t take it well. She was in and out of mental health facilities and my brother—” he turned to me, his eyebrows lifted “—Connerand I were passed around from family member to family member when she was away.”
I stared up at Collin in disbelief. I couldn’t believe he was sharing so much with me.
His hand rested between us on the blanket. I placed my hand over his and he flipped it over, lacing our fingers together. I could feel strength from my body flow into his, and we weren’t even touching marks.
Our power had grown.
Collin’s eyes widened slightly in surprise before he continued. “I decided to get advice from my grandmother, who was the Keeper before my father. After he left, she took over responsibility for my training, teaching me everything I needed to know. She was only the third female Keeper in the Manteo line, but when I was younger my father told me that she was the wisest of them all. I suspect he was right. She has much wisdom about the curse and life in general. She instructed me with a firm hand and made sure I believed in the importance of our task. So I went to her and told her about the ball of light. She told me not to trust it.” He laughed. “Of course, I talked myself into believing it in spite of her warnings. The ball of light was telling me things I wanted to hear. So I went to Conner and asked what he thought. He told me that if I was conversing with talking balls of light, I was crazier than our mother. But I think a tiny part of him believed.” He grimaced. “Or was afraid not to believe. Rosalina was Conner’s girlfriend, and I knew she had access to henna supplies. After the wind god, Wapi, almost stole your Manitou, I knew I needed to step up to keep you safe. So I went to Rosalina. Conner had already warned her that I was going to come by for supplies, so she had them ready.
“By then I knew I’d fucked up and fucked up big, but the gate was open and I only had to keep you safe until the sixth day. Then we’d shut the gate and that would be that. But when Wapi attacked you in the ocean, I knew that the ball of light had lied.”
“What did you expect, Collin?” My tone was hateful and condescending. “Okeus is a liar. He’d do anything to get what he wanted. Besides, you told me that Okeus bribed you to keep the gateopen, not closed.”
Collin stared into my face with more patience than usual. “Okeus is agod, Ellie, and gods are by definition self-centered, egotistical beings who will do whatever they have to do to get what they want.”
“You’re defending Okeus again? After everything you just told me?”
My hand was still linked with Collin’s and he grabbed my other hand, searching my eyes. “After you had your vision of creation in the ocean, you told me the gate wasn’t thrown open all the way when you and I met, that it was only partially open and only a few spirits were let loose.”
“So? Okeus lied again. Why are you surprised?”
“Ellie, you told me who escaped that day. Okeus hadn’t.”
