He looks away. Is that a flush to his cheeks?
“I had a flair for the dramatic in the first few months. In truth, I could be rather a terror to your sister. Though, I’m sure you understand, not undeserved.”
I tell him what Elle told me the night we arrived. That we were headed to an abandoned island, that he was dead before we’d ever arrived. As I say it all, more tears well, but I blink them away. I don’t want his pity for being a fool, and I’m not the one suffering here.
“No wonder you don’t trust me,” James scoffs. “It’s hard to remember you don’t know me when I’ve known you for so long.”
I step forward. This man holds no malice. I know the tension of a body that wants to hurt but holds it back. He has none.
“Then what really happened?” I ask. Will I believe him over my sister? Yes. She had a year of chances to let me into her darkness. She chose for it to envelop her instead.
“I didn’t know who your sister was when she knocked on my door.” He looks back to the bones. “She asked for shelter. I was putting a kettle on for tea when she did this.” He leans his head back to expose his neck. Beneath the line of his beard, a broad gash runs from side to side. It’s jagged and exposes flaps of skin. Within lies a mess of cords and bone. The cavity inside darkens and blood drips out of the wound. Ruby-black blood forms a river down onto his chest.
Bridget’s breath hitches while I take a step back. The last time I sawthat much blood, I’d nearly been killed.
“Sorry.” James adjusts the collar of his shirt, sheepish. “I don’t control it.”
“She attacked you after you’d welcomed her?” I fight not to hold my nose in the copper-tinged air.
“She was vicious. Wild-eyed. She slayed me before I could offer more. I’ve been tethered here since while she undoes my duties.”
I can’t tell for certain in the dimness, but there’s a contradiction in James’s face when he speaks of Elle. There’s anger and pain, but something else slips into the crinkles of his eyelids or the twitch of his mouth. Admiration? Begrudging pride?
“How did your body end up down here?” Bridget asks.
James laughs, hollowly. “She threw me down the trapdoor before you arrived. After you’d gone to sleep, she crept down and hauled me back up with a rope around my waist. She took me out to the ocean, but I kept floating back to shore. She tried to weigh me down, rowed out until the island was a blip on the horizon, but I always came back. I didn’t mean to, but I haunt the lighthouse.” He shrugs. “Eventually she brought my body down here and boiled off everything until only the bones remained. She did a remarkable job. Not a scrap of sinew left.”
I hold back a gag while Bridget places the bone back down on the pile and wipes her hands on her skirt.
“I forgot; my apologies. I’m not used to speaking to the squeamish.”
“Have you seen others like you here?” Did he see Chamomile? I try to imagine them together, but their pieces don’t fit.
“There are other forces at work.” He nods downward. “This island is on top of something dangerous, Li—Miss Caroline.”
“Were you about to call me Liney?” I can’t help but smile.
“It’s what Elle calls you,” he says simply but keeps his gaze away from me.
“Have you spoken to her?” How did Elle hide a third person, nomatter how incorporeal, for so long? Then again, so did I.
“Near every day. Often in unbecoming ways.” James looks away as though ashamed. I imagine she deserved any cross word this kindly man threw at her. “Though we’ve been much more civil these past weeks. You understand Elle’s complexity. Stubborn as the night is dark yet quick to act. Often against her own self-interests, if it means protecting you.”
I hesitate to respond given the tone in his voice. What has led to such tenderness? Elle was never a charmer. Were it any other pair, in any other circumstance, I might entertain that James held affections for her.
“That certainly recontextualizes things,” I finally say. How is it harder to understand whatthiscould be than his murder? “To think that you’ve been alongside us all this time, helping where you can.”
Dare I believe he’s been courting his own murderer from beyond the grave? Impossible. And yet there’s something soalivein his eyes when he says my sister’s name.
“I didn’t mean to overwhelm you.” Each word rushes after the next. He’s nervous. “Until now I never knew if we’d speak. There’s much wrong in this place. Evil. If you heed nothing else from me, leave. As soon as you can.”
“I knew it!” Bridget peers around the room as though a ghoul might jump out at us from the stones any second, now it’s been spoken. “I knew I felt something.”
“Whatis wrong?” I prod, keeping us focused.
“Devil work with your sister at its core. I’m so sorry. I’ve done what I can, but she may be too far in his clutches.”
His? Devil? My instincts return to me.Run, get out, run.The words press into my calves and rattle the lantern.
