I must find the truth below, myself.
25Elle
To Shop
Warmth creeps across my face as morning light filters in through my room’s window. Aches across my body wake along with memories of last night.
The rowing was rough. I’m still recovering from the power surge. It took a full day to reach the beach that I haul the boat onto and hide in the bramble. It was the right decision not to bring the girls. Relying on them for directions while I’d be blindfolded in my original plan, so I wouldn’t spot another living person, could’ve landed us out to sea.
The wind was pleasantly bracing. And seeinganythingnew after months of the same land and waves excited the mind. Someday I’ll share this with Liney. When it won’t beg at disaster.
The evening walk into town was quiet, peaceful. While there was once a time that I feared the dark, now there’s only mutual understanding with the shadowed wood. I can’t call on the island’s full power while on the mainland, but I’m dangerous on my own. Night animals in mypath scurried to the safety of the underbrush. Instinct told them a truth that men won’t understand:She holds violence in her.
Terror doesn’t require cruelty, only conviction.
The city streets were quiet when I arrived past midnight. The inn too. I paid a yawning keeper double rate for this tiny room. A few extra dimes could mean the difference between prying eyes and privacy.
I part the curtain and peer out. The city’s already awake. Vendors shout out their wares, carts and horses clop down the cobblestone roads, and a distant ship’s horn sounds. Stairs creak behind me as guests descend to the common rooms. The soft thud of footsteps above heralds a nervous pacer. The scent of sizzling sausage drifts through the cracks of my door.
I dress, starting with a light cotton shirt and stays. I lace it tight enough to press my breasts close and create a masculine silhouette. I like the shape it gives me and the support it grants my back, since I’ll have plenty to carry by the end of the day. It’s secure, grounded.
I spread oil on my hair from root to tip. I create gentle waves with pomade, fashionable on gentlemen these days. The pattern also shortens my hair, though it’s tricky to evaluate the back of my head. For once I’m thankful for my thin hair, as it gives in easily.
I take a small brush and tin of ocher pigment while I wait for the waves to set. Leaning so close to the mirror I must hold my breath not to leave fog, I stipple a shadow along my jaw, strengthening its natural angle and creating the illusion of recently shaved stubble. It’s more ginger than blond, but it’ll do.
Liney didn’t enjoy this part of her training. It felt wrong to her in a way I can’t understand. While I wouldn’t rather be a man, I don’t connect any less to this than myself in dresses and bonnets. Sometimes I wish I could be neither. Something my own.
I put on a fisherman’s cap made of brown corduroy. As I don woolsocks, a striped cotton work shirt, dark trousers, black suspenders, a brown vest, and leather shoes, I realize just how unfashionable Douglas is. Was.
It’s bizarre to be haunted by him even on the mainland. If he knew the truth of his connection to me, perhaps he’d try to accompany me. It’s remarkable how much a few carefully constructed lies can limit him. Instead, his presence will be faint on the island.
He’s all I see in the mirror. His clothes, his hat, his ginger beard—I’m a shadow of the man. He’ll despise me by the time I’m finished here. I feel the echo of his hand on my back, the slightest pressure of his lips to my lifted spoon, the weight of his eyes on mine.
We’re ghosts of each other. Every tentative grasp twisted in macabre fashion by fate, by sin, by me.
Never to touch, only to mourn.
But I blink and I’m me again, alone in the guest room. There won’t be forgiveness a second time. I can’t grieve what I never should’ve glimpsed in the first place.
I focus on my plan. Supplies, a newspaper, and a solution to my rotting insides. I pack up the bags and my coin purse, then grab the wool coat and drape it over one arm.
I’m no longer Elle as I walk down the narrow staircase and the innkeeper asks me what I’d like for breakfast. By the time I’ve had two pieces of toast with blueberry jam and a small cup of coffee, there’s not a trace of the demoness lightkeeper left in me. Simply a person of no particular importance, interested in only a good meal and their shopping list.
The smell of Halifax is singular when I step out into the street. It’s a mixture of sweat, coal, salt, yesterday’s liquor, and something sweet-thick, like honey. The wind is calm within the port town compared to the island. I forgot how my face feels outside without a stiff breeze.
Seagulls screech and fly in aggressive circles around the few cafés with outdoor seating in the cool early morning. Carriages transport the upper crust down the center of the street, while the rest of us crowd the uneven edges. My errands require a few trips up and down the treacherously steep hill the city is perched on.
First the tailor for fabrics, then the food stalls for fresh produce and preserves. A general store would be more efficient, but I don’t want to forge my name or leave a traceable order on record. My first round of the city ends at a butcher’s market to collect salted pork, smoked ham, and an armful of sausage links.
The shopkeepers barely look at me except to take my coins. My back aches more with each item added to my load, but my mood’s finally relaxed. It’s been so long since a plan has gone right.
With supplies collected, I grab a newspaper from a passing newsboy and stuff it between a bag of grains and a block of soap in my bag. It’s the next best thing to bringing Liney here.
I pass near the docks on the way back to avoid the steeper hills now that my bags bulge at the seams. The landscape of the city shifts to industrial here. A glassblower’s shop stands proud beside a fishmonger. I stop to admire the pieces in their display window: glittering swan bobbles, wine goblets with fine etchings, sugar bowls, and decanters with delicate tulip-like molding. I walk slowly, taking in each marvel. The early afternoon sun casts them in rainbows.
Then I pass the door and the notice plastered on it.
REWARD: $10,000 for information on the disappearance of Caroline Anne Forsyth (18) at the hands of Mary Eleanor Forsyth (24), sister and parricidal fugitive. Last seen October 21, 1861, on the eve of parents Charles and Mary Forsyth’s murder at their residence on Brunswick Street. Contact Thomas Seymour immediately with any available information on the whereabouts of his fiancée or her kidnapper.
