6 Elle To Bargain
Elle
To Bargain
It will be a long night.
The rotating light jolts me awake whenever my head droops. The mirrored beam is hundredsfold stronger than the candles we use downstairs. On a normal night I’d occasionally roam downstairs, but tonight I need it to keep me awake.
Normal. The concept is bizarre considering the circumstances that led me here.
Yet when I focus on the rhythm and patterns of our life, the mundanity itself is precious.
Mornings lolling in bed while Liney combs the beach.
Afternoons preparing meals and swapping barbs with Douglas.
Him promising it’s not my fault I can’t cook—I’d need an intact soul to make anything palatable.
Me shooting back that he’s welcome to try some if he’s able.
Him looming over the stove and threatening to bleed into the meal.
Washing up after supper while he quizzes me on the names of the sailors of the last wreck I caused.
Evenings rotating between cranking at the gears and gazing out into the dark waves.
The winds aren’t kind to the ships that enter our harbor. We are the first piece of land sailors spot after days or weeks at sea. And for some, the last.
A few ships here and there are easy to make disappear. With no report to the mainland from the lighthouse’s logs, they’re assumed to have been lost at sea. That vastness can swallow any depth of sin.
They were lost at sea. In a sense. Closer to shore than anyone knows.
Those nights of sacrifice haunt me as much as my ghost. Douglas questions me endlessly after every sacrifice. Why this ship? What right do you have? When will it be enough?
What will you become when it ends, girl?
It’s been months since my last offering. A small fishing boat during a summer thunderstorm. Barely a nibble to satiate the hunger below. Delaying an offering had been a test. How far can I push this before he takes notice?
The beam sweeps across me again. I straighten slower this time. I can see the ocean when the light shines out the opposite end. Otherwise, the night is eclipsed by the crimson glow.
I cross my aching arms. I forgot how it feels to siphon the island’s power. His power. The pure capability is addictive. I’m no longer a young woman fearing capture. I am what captures men.
If I shut my eyes, the howls of the wind and the pelting rain against the glass panes behind me could lull me into sleep. They used to frighten me, as they still do Liney. But when you endure enough storms, you make a friend out of fear. My eyelids flutter as the light moves on.
I run my tongue over my top row of teeth. There’s a heaviness, the kind felt upon waking. Did I doze off? Nothing has changed. The mirrors still spin. The sky is still a maelstrom of swirling ink. My heartbeat stays slow despite my bleary-eyed panic. A bad sign.
A harsh rush of wind shudders the glass pane beside me, but I don’t stir. My head falls to the shoulder of Douglas’s wool coat.
I wake, in a way, outside. I’ve not had a dark dream in so long I forgot their heat. I’m standing a few feet away from the lighthouse. Its red light sweeps over me and onward toward the sea. The storm is at its height, but it doesn’t touch me. My vision is crisp and dyed crimson.
Great waves crash against the rocks but don’t reach me. I peer over the edge. The water’s surface reflects no moon. Only a deep expanse that churns, pulling the current into something beneath.
The presence pulses through the earth and into the soles of my feet, nearly hot enough to scald.
The same heat that the tendrils wove into my blood.
I wore thick wool socks in the lighthouse, too large and drooping at the toes.
Here I’m barefoot. Instead of the wool coat, I have only a cotton shift.
It feels wrong. Meant for the soft and delicate.
My broad shoulders stretch the fabric, while the lace finishings of the long sleeves tickle my wrists.
This is how he sees me. The rain should’ve seeped through the light material, but it remains crisp and dry. Small mercies.
“Eleanor.”
The months since our last meeting haven’t softened his voice. Behind me, in a deliberate choice to disorient me, is Mr. Pratterman. I lift my gaze from the sea-foam to the horizon line. Red below, red above. This is a world of wax and blood.
He doesn’t step forward onto the folded surface of the rock. Our dance has begun. My turn.
I turn away from the sea. He’s a darkness here, a void against the bright lighthouse behind him. Only his eyes, twin lights, are distinguishable.
“We have unfinished business,” he whispers into my ear despite our distance.
He waits for my approach. My groveling. But it’s never done me any good. Mr. Pratterman doesn’t need anything from me but my work, and he won’t pity a failure.
“We have nothing to discuss, sir.” I will my voice to be as strong as the island’s core, as the roots of the trees beside us, as the red light’s beam silhouetting the Devil at my door.
Wax spreads across the rock around him and grows into the same candles as in the room where we first met. Forever boiling.
His eyes misalign, signaling a tilt of his head. He doesn’t look like the man from little more than a year ago. He used the mask of a gentleman to lure me. Why keep pretending?
“I hadn’t considered you dim. Should I reconsider my evaluation? I’m usually such a good judge of character.” The twin flames spark into white flashes, then settle back to red.
I clutch my fists tight but loosen them just as fast. There’s nothing to hide here between us. What sin could I hide from the Devil himself?
There’s relief in being free of goodness. I must act as a protector around Liney. I keep a self-righteous distance to counter Douglas’s aura of guilt. But with Mr. Pratterman, I must admit to my corruption. He, above all others, understands me.
“Say it.” I take a step forward. The heat under my feet flashes painfully, unlike in any other dream. “How many more souls do you need?”
He tosses his head back and laughs. The sound is crows at dusk, grinding steel, the last gasp of air before the depths claim you. His long, thin nose cuts a line above his face. When he grins, his teeth are brilliant red. “This is no longer a transaction. This is your debt.”
A gust roars between us and snaps off a thin layer of the rock outcropping into the water. The darkness condenses into a thick haze. It surrounds us, hiding the lighthouse and clinging to my back. Mr. Pratterman’s candles illuminate the fog in flickering crimson.
“It’s unlike you to be irresponsible,” he continues in a quiet simmer that promises the rage he’s too proud to show. “You need a reminder of what’s at stake.”
A chill runs down my throat and into my fingertips. The heat of the dream dries my mouth as soon as I’ve opened it. “I’m willing, but you never gave me a number.”
It is the ambiguity of our contract that keeps me under his control. If I knew the exact quantity he needed to be repaid, I could work the rest out.
“So long as you tend the lighthouse. That was the deal, though you’ve been so neglectful that I fear you’ve incurred additional debt. A ship is close. Nearly fifty souls.” His grin glistens. “Perform the ritual before they reach the rocks, and your sister will be safe.”
Liney? She’s never met Mr. Pratterman, let alone become part of my deal.
“She has nothing to do with this,” I spit at him.
He scoffs. The ground’s heat pulses as he steps forward. The edges of his fine clothes are coated with a thin layer of ash and leave a trail behind him. “Your sister has everything to do with this, Miss Forsyth.”
“Elle,” I correct, an instinct now from my time with Douglas.
Something shifts in his face. A gear set in motion. “Exactly.”
He’s only a few feet from me. The candles illuminate his gaunt face. The same face I found boyish last year behind a door I never should’ve knocked on.
“You’ve denied that surname over a dozen times in as many months. Do you think Caroline would do the same?”
Any time Douglas spoke to me, attempting formality, I corrected him. I didn’t realize how close to home Mr. Pratterman has kept or how much he’s heard.
I don’t move one muscle in my face. I was a pupil of stillness my whole adolescence. It’s as natural as breathing.
Mr. Pratterman shrugs, looking back at the lighthouse. Candlelight flickers to life in the window of our living quarters, and a figure appears in profile. Liney. Her button nose and stubborn chin. A steam of breath is out of my mouth before I can stop it.
“Caroline would still answer to Forsyth,” he continues. “She did nothing but follow you. Certainly didn’t murder her parents.” He grins. “While you’ve given up the surname, she remains.”
“You made a deal with me. Not her,” I seethe.
Liney’s silhouette turns away from the window. But she was never there. Nothing in the dark dream is real. Not her, not the lighthouse, not the red wax spreading around my feet.
“When we made our deal, I was promised Miss Forsyth,” he reminds me. As if I could forget. As if I don’t dream of boiling candles and his lips on mine and wake up shivering. “She…could be argued to be the last remaining Forsyth.”
“I’m Miss Forsyth. Legally. You can’t take away my name for telling a ghost—”
Laughter drowns me out. His Highness of damnation holds too much merriment.
“It’s not that simple, Elle.” His face rearranges to feign sympathy.
Lightning arcs above us. It lights the pallor of his face plainly: No shadows to hide within, no masks.
Skin pulled taut over the bones underneath.
Skeletal. “Words on paper don’t change the truth.
You’re a kin slayer. But Caroline, darling Liney, belongs at home. With her fiancé.”
I can’t hide my scowl at Liney coming from his mouth, but I bite back a retort.
“Have you considered”—he pauses to catch my gaze with his white-beam eyes—“that if you’d left without her, she’d be Mrs. Seymour instead and wouldn’t be touched by our contract? In a way, this is your fault.”
My dream heart pounds. That’s not true. It can’t be. I saved her.
But there’s no use arguing with the Devil. It’s reverence he’s after, not pleas for mercy or semantics about surnames. Our truth is simpler. I wronged him, tried to cheat our agreement, so he’s hurting me. He once searched me for strength; now all he requires is compliance.
I kneel. The rock burns holes into my chemise. I swallow down a gasp at the pain.
“I’ll sacrifice the ship. If she’s off the table permanently.”
The fog around us whips into a flurry. Waves mix with the boiling wax. Mr. Pratterman’s clothes remain untouched, as do his stony features.
“I prefer the old Eleanor,” he admits, rubbing his palms together slowly while the edges of my vision blur. “You’re useless to me burnt out. Show me your fire. Then I’ll consider new terms.”