Blood-soaked, still gasping in air, I grab the lantern’s handle. I can’t allow this macabre spectacle to distract me, no matter how my mind whirls.
I leave Chamomile crumpled on the floor, soaking the kitchen. Betrayal bubbles in my stomach, but I can’t forge it into anger. Every second I waste here could be the last breath of someone in the storm. I won’t let this chance slip away. Not when I can finally do something.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
I’m not my sister. My rage isn’t righteous. It’s cold. Brittle. It breaks apart like a fallen icicle, worthless after the damage has been done.
I open the door and rush into the storm.
11Elle
To Exasperate
I finish the dark prayers. The ship is consumed, each shudder of the island a testament. I’ve done my part. Mr. Pratterman stands beside me until the newly fueled red light passes across me, blinding me, then he’s gone. Only the howling wind and pings of rain and ice remain.
I’ll tell Liney that the ship was saved. Passed us unharmed. She’ll find nothing on the beach. Then I’ll fulfill the last soul I’m indebted for, and we’ll finally be safe.
My sight remains red-tinged as I open the trapdoor and head down the stairs. The cold doesn’t touch me, yet my muscles ache from the power’s rush. The chalky taste lingers in the back of my mouth. I need sleep. I’ll reassure Liney, undo the damage I had to cause, then rest.
It takes me twice as long as it should to reach the storeroom, between my body’s weakness and the shudders of the island. I wrench the door open. Douglas stands in the doorway. How long has he been waiting?
“What happened up there?” he asks, hurried. Liney was probablycrying, and he’s scared her horrible big sister hurt her feelings.
“Nothing,” I mutter.
He doesn’t move out of my way. I don’t walk through him. Douglas and I are in a strange truce, allied from saving Liney earlier. Strange new waters for both of us.
“Your eyes.”
I hate how his features shift from hope to disappointment. It’s not my responsibility to become the person he wants me to be.
“What did you think I was doing?” I ask, flaring at his indignation. There goes our truce. “Checking navigational charts? Performing a shadow puppets show?”
“What was the outcome?” His posture rises to its full height. I never noticed that he tends to slump. I’m tall for a woman, but he’s a full head taller. The ruddiness of his large nose and gaunt cheeks nearly makes him look alive. Except for the light that flashes through him as another strike crosses the sky. It roars nearly instantly. The storm is truly on top of us now.
“It’s done. It had to be done.”
“We both know—”
“I had to do it!” My voice too loud. Liney can’t find me yelling at no one. “He tricked me.”
I surprise myself at admitting it. We’ve never spoken of Mr. Pratterman. Not directly. I’m breaking all the rules tonight.
Douglas gestures to a crate that once held a few dozen oranges. “Tell me.”
I hesitate. He’s being too nice. Something’s afoot. Could he be on Mr. Pratterman’s side?
He sighs. “We may be here many more years together, girl. Bickering over sins that can’t be undone.” Patience laces each word like delicate needlework. Easily broken. “Or we can help each other.”
I’m not fit for cooperation. Service, sacrifice, slaughter—yes. Butthis humanity from the man who lost his to me? It burns me harder than the spiral or Pratterman’s kiss. How can Douglas stand the sight of me, his end, let alone want to offer kindness?
I suppose anger can fuel a ghost for only so long. He was furious in the beginning, after he stopped pleading for his life back and I stopped panicking at the sight of him. He then tested what he could manipulate in the living world. I passed off his cabinet door shaking and his creaking footsteps to Liney as the natural rhythms of an old lighthouse.
Douglas cursed my name, in both English and French. He could drown out Liney on occasion with cutting words that warped into a Québécois accent I half understood at the apex of his anger. I had to lie to Liney that I had an ear infection once when he tried hollering inches from my ear for hours on end. While I learned how to operate the lighthouse, he scoffed and scolded my every move. He called me a treacherous demoness, a self-entitled monster, and a remorseless murderer.
I fought back at first. I called him cowardly, gullible, pathetic. I put my guilt into him. It took all my self-restraint to stop when I’d see Liney coming back from her excursions.
After the first few weeks, I realized it wasn’t a fair fight. He’d lost everything. I had taken it all: his life, his clothes, his knife—even his occupation.
