“Bone Island.” She snipped the end of the thread after tying it off. “No one has been there for almost twenty years. Nothing but trees, water, and an abandoned lighthouse on an abandoned island.”
Abandoned, abandoned, much like me.
“I need to go there,” I told her, able to breathe steadier now that she had finished. If I could get to the lighthouse in the distance, I might find answers buried inside. I could find out what had happened to me and why Mother was haunting me.
Circe focused on wrapping a fresh bandage tightly around my waist. “And why is that?”
“I need shelter. It’s not safe for me here. Not until I’m healed.”
Circe was the only one immune to my cursed face, and I couldn’t risk stepping into town, unable to defend myself.
Also, it had only been days prior when she had told me not to leave the cave, and she hadn’t offered to take me to a doctor. If I was forced to guess, we were both keeping secrets. Whispers of deception and scratches of lies slung between every lull and flick of her eyes. For all I knew, this woman was a liar. So, how was she both crashing and calming like the sea surrounding me?
“If Bone Island is abandoned, I can stay there while I heal,” I added.
Circe sat back with her arms at her sides. “You will never make it across the ocean on your own. You don’t even have a boat.”
“Then you will be the one to take me.”
On her knees, she appeared to be in deep thought as she placed her things back into her bag, perhaps considering my request.
“If I do this,” she said, facing me again, “you must eat something.” She pulled a red apple from her bag and held it between us. “I know you’re hungry, and you’ll need energy for the long walk to the boat tomorrow.”
I gritted my teeth, facing the lighthouse in the distance.
“I stayed by your side for three days while you were unconscious. If I wanted to kill you, I would have simply done it then so I wouldn’t have to look you in the eyes.”
I settled my gaze on her. “Why would a beautiful woman like yourself bother with the trouble of cleaning up blood afterward? Poison is far less messy.”
“Beautiful ...”Circe raised a brow and her mouth parted slightly. “You really don’t know me at all.”
“And this is my point. I know very little about you, yet I am utterly dependent on you.”
“You’re right.” Her eyes slid between mine. “Maybe I should tell you something about me.”
“Perhaps you should.”
Her shoulders softened, and she settled in place, rubbing her thumb across the glossy apple. “When I was seven, I stole a bracelet,” she said.
My eyes darted between hers. This was not what I expected her to say.
“There used to be a quaint store in town ... the Mad Hatter,” she continued. “The walls were covered in book pages and hats and clocks. It was like stepping into a museum of lost things, and the owner was such a genuinely kind woman. Odd and somewhat animated but kind.” She paused, and though I couldn’t see the memory passing through her, I knew one was there, taking shape, drawing lines, painting emotions. “Mrs. Madder could hold heartfelt conversations with just about anyone who walked through those doors, and you just don’t meet people like her anymore.”
I stayed quiet, interested in how this story would end.
Because Circe was a part of it.
“She had one-of-a-kind items in her shop you couldn’t find anywhere else, and as a child, I’d stop by every Sunday morning to see everything she’d collected from the week. But then one Sunday,” she continued with a grin, “I came across a bracelet made of black pearls. Mrs. Madder told me a tale about a boy who swam from Bone Island to the mainland in search of oysters with these rare black pearls.”
“Why would he do this?”
“For a girl, but it was probably a lie. Mrs. Madder was a great storyteller and an impeccable saleswoman, but I just had to have it. Not even because it was attached to this story but because it was something found in the sea.”
“Why was this important?”
“Because”—she leaned in, another secret—“things are only lost at sea. Nothing is ever found. So, when she wasn’t looking, I stole it.” She shook her head. “That same day, I swam in the ocean, and it slipped right off my wrist.” She shrugged a small shrug and dropped her head. “I guess, in a way, the pearls are finally back where they belong. In the end, the ocean always takes back what’s hers.” When she looked back up, her gaze tangled with mine. “Now you know something about me. Something no one but the sea knows.”
“Murdereranda thief,” I said with a sigh, and if it weren’t for the slight lift in her smile, I was afraid she may have been offended by my comment. “If there comes a day you decide to use your dagger on me, would you do me the honor of waiting until I can put up a fair fight?”
