Liney shows the girl around the room. They’re chatty, already close and giggling. Liney was always a likable girl, but she didn’t make friends easy given her circumstances. It strikes me that Bridget isn’t asking any questions about the building.
Almost like she’s been in here before. Of course she has. When she came in with me. Yet the bread crumb—has she snuck in? At night, while I’ve been upstairs and Liney’s been sleeping?
Bridget holds something I didn’t expect to fear. Her congenial demeanor walking around the room with my sister could sway Liney away from me. Who would a young woman pick if given the choice? Her controlling sister with too many secrets and rules or a pretty face with excitement in her eyes?
I need to find Mr. Pratterman. He won’t expect me to reach out to him on the mainland. I’ll ask him…what? To change my target? Isn’tpersonalexactly what he wanted? Perhaps there’s something more precious I can offer. Or a threat I can make. At least he must offer clarification of his terms, exactly as they were spoken. It benefits him for me to succeed and continue this work. Colleagues working out terms of service, that’s all.
“We can add some extra blankets to pad it out; it’s pretty saggy” I catch Liney saying when I return to the moment.
They get to work on outfitting Bridget’s makeshift bed. I can’t find something to do. If I go near the kitchen, I’ll be within arm’s reach of my knife. No matter how much distance I’m trying to put between myself and the spiral’s power, I can’t trust myself not to fold too close to my weapon of choice. It’d be so easy. I’d never noticed before how much energy it takes to keep focused on my goals. How dependent I’ve become on how good it feels to be something greater, no matter how terrifying that greatness becomes.
I owe it to Liney not to kill the girl so close that blood could splatter on her. A shiver runs through me at the idea. Mostly in disgust. A lump forms at the back of my throat.
Liney sends Bridget to the storage room to change into a nightgown I believe was once Douglas’s. The girl returns swimming in it.
“Do you want something to eat first?” Liney asks.
“That’s all right,” Bridget says. “I could really use some sleep.”
She’s not starving? More importantly, what was out there that she ate? Tree bark and snow? Or more bread from our coffers? We can barely support two through the winter, certainly not three.
She won’t last the winter. I can’t forget that. I’m watching a future corpse laugh with my sister. I can’t stand it. Absorbing the final thoughts of sailors before death was one thing. I was so removed from them. But Mr. Pratterman had it right. The intimacy of this changes everything.
“I need to go upstairs,” I say.
“To the lightroom,” Liney elaborates. “She watches all night.”
Bridget nods, already settled into the couch. I’m not used to a third, acknowledged, party in the room who needs explanations.
Douglas’s urge for me to try grates as I linger at the stairs.
“I’m sorry about the ship,” I tell Bridget. I am. To her, it’s a tragedy that will follow her until her death. Just as a bird’s clipped wing will haunt it until it becomes a fox’s meal. “If the light had worked properly, we may have avoided all this.”
Bridget gives me a tight-lipped smile of sympathy. “It’s not all bad, E—Miss… How should I address you?”
“Elle’s fine.” Mary Eleanor Forsyth could’ve been in the news, as much as I’ve been hoping it won’t be. Simpler is better. “Liney will use it; you might as well.”
“Thank you, Elle. If this disaster can give any kind of solace, I’m glad to have met you both because of it.”
I don’t say another word to the two of them. Their giggling follows me up the stairs and into the storage room, where I find an empty box. I retch into it, so violently I’m left gasping for breath after. It’s not porridge. It’s a gray, veined sack surrounded by a salmon-pink casing.
“I believe that’s a gallbladder.”
I whip around to find Douglas behind me, peering over my shoulder. “A—what? An organ?”
“Yours. Unless you’ve been eating them lately. I’ve hope yet that cannibalism is below you, though.”
I peer into the box, labeled for grapes on the outside. I can’t say I’ve seen a gallbladder in person. How does he know? I turn back to the ghost. “You truly believe I retched up an entire interior body part?”
Douglas shrugs. “Or a particularly raw sausage.”
The sack deflates before our eyes. Something oozes out, gray or green but hard to see in the low light. There’s something mixed into the liquid, lumpy.
“I spat out a blood clot earlier,” I whisper to Douglas. “What’s happening to me?”
Douglas shakes his head. “I’m not a physician. You’ll need someone from the mainland to check.”
Absolutely not. There are too few to trust that none would connect the dots. Plus, while we have enough coin for a few more months of supplies, I can’t afford both an appointment and whatever prescribed substance I’d be given.
