An act was passed a few years ago that allows any person to be incarcerated in the asylum if they can be proven insane, unsafe, or under unnecessary duress. With some greased palms and favors, a young woman disrupting her sister’s engagement could easily be found in need ofcorrecting. And once committed, I’d have no chance at freedom again. Either I’d die in a dozen-person cell meant for four, or I’d forever have the noose of another visit to the asylum around my neck. And if they were willing to sacrifice me, why wouldn’t they eventually do the same to Liney should she ever prove an issue?
It smarts like a bruise that I would’ve been committed for speaking the truth too loud. How delicate was their alliance, that a few words from me were a threat? The letters in my father’s writing desk told it plainly. The Seymours and the Forsyths would reap the benefits of our shipbuilding docks and their coal mines across the east coast. They’d secure a future for themselves—all at the cost of their daughters’ happiness.
The lighthouse keeper will never understand. No one was going to save us. I had to. I shove my hand into the chair and grip the knife like a life preserver. I won’t hesitate if the man proves a threat.
“Perhaps he didn’t intend to come to the island,” I say after an excruciatingly quiet moment. Where else could he go, though? From the city, there’s no other island after this. If he was going up or down the coast, he’d have already begun hugging the shoreline. Does he know about the storm? Raindrops patter against the window beside my chair, light but promising more. It’s the window whose shutters the ghost had closed, now open again.
“She’s shaking,” he whispers, much more tenderly than any words spoken about me. I hate that he can sense her better than I do, a floor above us.
“Check if he’s landed on the dock yet,” I hiss back. The ghost rarelyleaves the lighthouse, but every second of preparation I can grasp could help.
The lighthouse keeper turns to me in a fluid motion without joints or muscles. His eyes had been so soft before I drove a knife into his neck. A trusting man who opened his home to a poor girl lost in a storm. Now they stare, disdain attempting to pierce me back.
“Show an ounce of decorum if he arrives. For her sake.” He leaves without waiting for a reply.
He floats through the kitchen window and across the field, then disappears in the trees. I lay the knife carefully on my lap to not puncture Liney’s dress. It’s one of the few personal effects I allowed her the night we escaped.
I turn again to the window. A delicate web of frost has spread across the bottom edges, infecting the clinging droplets. Too soon. We weathered blizzards last year, but never before at least mid-November. We’re still in hurricane season. I haven’t even repaired some of the shingles from the last tropical storm.
The unseasonable weather brings forth an issue I’ve been ignoring. While our food will last us through the cold months ahead, my quota has run dry for too long. Mr. Pratterman will soon notice. Or has he forgotten us? It’s been months since his last visit. He congratulated me on my punctuality. Polite, removed. We’ve had no contact since. No messages on the wind, no face of flames in the fireplace, no dreams of a man in a coat of ash.
Perhaps he’s moved on to other desperate, fallen women. Am I sacrificing innocents to nothing now? Was my payment quietly fulfilled? Would he announce the end of our contract, or leave me drowning ships for nothing?
The papers in town have taken notice of my work, but there’s been no connection made to the lighthouse. Ships go missing all the time. Rough waves and rocky shores. There’s no witness but this island.
I always remove sections on missing and dead locals before giving the papers to Liney, especially about our family. It used to be frequent, as the mystery stirred minds. Barely a mention of the demise of our parents after the funeral. I used to chuckle at the wording they would use to suggest there was still hope for our retrieval.Miss Forsyth and Miss Caroline have been missing since October. Officers are certain their whereabouts will be discovered promptly with help from citizens across the county. These girls are scared, orphaned, and looking for shelter. If you have any information, contact the city patrol immediately.
They got two out of three facts correct. We have all the shelter we need here, so long as I can keep it.
“He’s nearly here,” the lighthouse keeper calls as he floats through the door. “He’s been traipsing through the forest, yelling into the wind. It’s picking up.”
A whistle at the window confirms it. Some of the maples may fall. The shore itself could change shape with violent enough tides. How far off is the storm?
“Don’t interfere.” I move to the kitchen counter. The cod lies covered to dry in the sink basin. I remove a piece and place it on the cutting board along with the knife as though the man has interrupted the final steps of my process. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt as thanks for the ghost’s cooperation.
The frantic knock on the door makes me jump. Twenty-four, hardened by salt spray and a wickie’s toiling, and I’m still a scared girl underneath. I open the door, which nearly slams back my hand against the side wall with a gust of wind, and begin the act.
He’s an unremarkable man in a thick wool coat. Only a few inches taller than I with a trim brown beard and blue-nothing eyes. A nobody to me, anonymous as a droplet in the sea. He places a hand against the frame of the door, breathing hard.
I lean back but don’t give him room to enter. The wind has no regard for manners, ruffling my hair uncomfortably against my neck.
“Miss, I apologize,” he says between wheezes. Not athletic. Good. “I have come to call on the lighthouse keeper here.”
The ghost’s presence behind me prickles my neck worse than the wind.
“I don’t know this man,” he whispers. He’s close to my shoulder, leaning down until his beard would’ve nearly touched me had it been corporeal. “Do not act rashly. You know you can’t take it back.”
A splash of blood falls on Liney’s dress. It won’t stain and she’ll never know, yet it’s hard not to recoil. He’s miscalculated, though. Reminding me of his murder doesn’t dissolve my resolve to keep the man before us from my sister. It hardens it.
“May I ask who’s calling?” I pitch my voice higher than my normal husky tone. I nearly sound like Liney.
“Where are my manners?” The man laughs self-consciously. Another gust rustles my dress. Like the wind itself wants him inside. “Hugh Croxton, miss. I’m a representative of the Society for Harbour Safety. We are the group responsible for petitioning the lieutenant governor for this lighthouse ten years ago. Made of mariners, tradesmen, merchants, and the like.”
“That’s true,” the lighthouse keeper says. Are we allies now? Forced on the same side for Liney’s sake.
I don’t budge. I need a reason the keeper’s away. The man’s eyes travel over me, attempting to be subtle. Not lecherous but lingering too long.
“Thank you, and the society, for your efforts,” I say. “But I’d like proof. You understand.”
