When I arrived, Dad was next door, balancing on the top step of the ladder, driving a nail into a loose plank over Mrs. Madder’s window.
She was gone, but Dad couldn’t let her go.
“Dad,” I yelled, the wind picking up and carrying my voice. “What are you doing? Get inside. It’ll be dark any second.” The wind carried Dad’s reply. I shook my head, pushing open the front door, and a brutal wind knocked me from behind.
It was warm inside the cottage after closing the door. I hung Mrs. Cantini’s dress in the entryway closet and entered Mom’s bedroom.
It was dark with barely any light left from the day cascading down on her body. The steady heartbeat on the monitor should have put me at ease, but it never did. I approached the bed and laid my hand on her forehead, pushing her hair back, unable to erase all that Eleanor had seen.
“’Adora!’ she screams, but all I see is blue. The deep blue, the ocean, and bubbles and waves. It is the same hellish record, spinning and spinning. She’s splashing, and each time she makes it to the surface, there is no land in sight. Like a rat on a sinking ship, frantically swimming in circles, desperate to find something to cling to. ‘Adora!’ but she cannot hold herself up any longer, so she drowns once again, and all falls quiet, sinking down, down. Until she wakes up, finding herself in the middle of the ocean, with no land in sight.’ Eleanor says. ‘This is where your mom is. She’s in the deep.’”
Adora, Adora, Adora,Eleanor’s voice echoed in my brain, and I swallowed all emotion, exhuming any source of strength inside of me. To be strong for her, to move forward.
“Goodnight, Mom,” I whispered, then kissed her forehead.
I stole another second to watch her sleep, seeing her eyes flick rapidly under her lids. On my way out, I held my breath until I gently closed the door behind me. Then I let it go.
Shelves lined the walls in the hallway, displaying dozens of glass bottles with corks at the ends trapping wooden ships inside. Once I reached the kitchen, a fire flickered on the stone hearth.
Fable was standing in front of the stove in deep thought, staring out the frosty window at the lighthouse.
I dropped the bags on the island. “Making tea?”
Fable jumped, then turned to face me. Her usual golden skin had a pink hue, and she turned off the burner. “I figured Ivy would need caffeine,” she said with a yawn, then leaned back against the counter with bags under her eyes.
“Don’t tell me you’re tired. You snored all night.”
Fable’s eyes grew wide. “Did not.”
“Yes, you most certainly did. You sounded like a humpback whale,” I said with a laugh, unpacking the bags as Dad came through the back door. He shrugged out of his coat, and snow melted off his shoulders.
“Lies.” She couldn’t wipe away her shocked smile. “I do not snore.”
“You snore,” Dad confirmed. “Have been snoring since you were a baby. A drooler, too, if I may add.” He sat in the breakfast nook, leaned back with exhaustion, and looked up at me with a glimmer of hope in his eyes. “Make any sales today?”
I unloaded the ingredients I’d picked up to make stew. “At this point, it’s costing us more to keep the store open than what we’re bringing in. Everyone is too busy protesting in Town Square.”
Fable’s brows were pinched together. “Still?”
“After what happened to Mrs. Madder, people are only getting angrier. They’re desperate. They want answers,” Dad said. “I don’t blame them.”
Fable rolled her head back. “It’s not the Heathen’s fault that this is happening.”
I leaned into the island, my palms gripping the edge. “Fable, don’t you dare,” I seethed in a whisper, afraid if I spoke any louder my voice would buckle. “Don’t you dare say that when Adeline isn’t here.”
Guilt filled her eyes, and she cast them downward.
I let go of the island, my palms and splinter throbbing. “How many people have disappeared in the last five years? And that’s just the last five years. Imagine if we looked back ten years. Twenty.” She said nothing. “These are our friends, family, our coven, flatlanders, who can’t even protect themselves ... Adeline and River, these were your friends, too. And no one has seen River in almost three weeks. I’m sick and tired of the town staying quiet and the Heathens hiding behind a curse, not taking responsibility.”
“But they say the curse is broken now,” she whispered.
“Exactly,” I said, looking at her. “The Shadows didn’t come untilaftertheir curse broke. And now that it’s broken, those things that were in their faces are running rabid in our town, killing us. The Heathens got what they wanted, then left us to fend for ourselves. When does it end?”
Fable’s eyes flitted around the kitchen as her head shook back and forth. “They’re as much a victim as you and I.” And I looked at her dumbfounded, unable to understand how it wasn’t getting through to her. “They could be trying to figure this out for all we know. You don’t know what they’re doing in the Norse Woods.”
Dad jabbed a finger in the air. “No one does, that’s the point!”
“Do we even know for sure that their curse is broken?” Fable asked.
