33 Liney To Distract
Liney
To Distract
Snow crunches under our feet as we enter the Devils Island forest for the last time.
While the trunks of the red maple are sturdy, the wind has ripped most of their leaves off. The undergrowth provides cover, but our heads are easily exposed between the trees.
“Maybe they’re…” I search for a possible other explanation for the men.
“Tourists?” Bridget mouths back, raising a dark brow and shaking her head.
She’s right. The snowstorm was too strong. Whoever left in that weather wanted cover so no one would spot them. No one with good intent would come like this.
Bridget steps around me to the next trunk, her back to it and head whipping from behind her to ahead of us. Quick. Like a squirrel smelling predators on the wind.
I reach out and squeeze her hand. She squeezes back, and then we move to the next trunk.
The forest is long but narrow. The landing group could come within feet of us. Did we choose the correct side to hide? Both of us instinctively took the left, toward the cave. But to the men, that would be the right.
I peer over to the water’s edge. Which side should we hide on to avoid them? Is it my imagination that the waves change and push forward as though telling me to switch sides? Perhaps only a change in the tide for the time of day. Either way, a decision made.
“Bridget.” She’s already two trees ahead of me. I crunch forward. “This way.”
I cut across the width of the forest and, thankfully, I hear Bridget’s quiet steps follow. The men will come up on their right. Sailing’s right of way—too many instincts would tell these harbor men to trample over where we’d stood.
“Liney,” Bridget whispers once we’ve crossed, nearly out of the trees and on the rocks on the other side. “Will they see our footprints? In the snow?”
I’m about to answer when I hear the first branch break ahead.
We cower low. Coins jingle in my pocket. My breath comes out in foggy puffs. The loudest sound is my heart’s rhythm in my ears.
I’ve been wearing James’s boots and trampling over fresh snow. So easy to spot. I take them off, slipping each foot out easily and holding them in my hands. Bridget does the same with hers.
This doesn’t solve the problem, though. The bootprints are still there, and our new footprints will be no less conspicuous.
“Go ahead, crouch at the forest line,” I instruct her. It’s a risk but less than if we’re together. If they catch her, I’ll yell out and distract them. I’m the prize; she’s a stranger to their efforts. “Hide near the boat. Wait for me there.”
“I don’t want to leave—”
More branches break ahead. Loud crunches herald the men moving. They’ll soon be too close to do anything.
“Bridget, trust me. I’ll reach you.”
She slips out of the forest and onto the rocks, then out of my sight for what could be the last time. A surge of love and rage breaks through my surface. Do we have room for one last miracle? I’ll never ask again.
The men will break the tree line in seconds. I sidestep—if I can reach the beach, maybe I can flank them too. Something has changed in the air. The wind. It’s blowing into my right ear instead of the left.
A pinprick hits my cheek. Then a second. It can’t be. Can it?
It’s a downpour.
Rain collapses through the canopy, so heavy and sudden I nearly fall over from the water’s force. As though the ocean were reclaiming the island.
Shouts ring out ahead and to my left. The ocean’s rain—surprisingly warm for November—has melted the snow and our prints with it.
The rain pelts my back hard as I move forward. The noise of my footsteps is masked by it. Carefully, I edge around each trunk. I know this forest better than any other soul.
“It’s not warm enough for rain, Hugh!” someone shouts too close. I grip the trunk. I know that barking voice. Almost married it.
“The winds!” another calls back. “They change, sir! A strong southern wind can rip up the Atlantic.”
“And carry such… Wait. Taste it.”
Silence stretches across the forest. I grip the boots in my hands so tightly my knuckles whiten. They’re slick from rain. Don’t drop them.
“That’s salt. The rain is salty.”
Rain is normally brought over the ocean, not from it. But what conclusion could they reach from this?
“That Pratterman is an odd fellow,” Thomas finally decides, and once again they march forward. “Soaking us so. I should’ve known a few tricks were part of the deal.”
Pratterman? Douglas mentioned him. The man Elle killed downstairs. The man she broke free from. Does Thomas know him? I hold my breath. A poor choice, given my condition, but I can’t let the puffs of air escape and reveal me.
The footsteps are so close, dulled with the rainfall. I could look right in his eyes if I peek around the tree trunk.
“He’s odd but worth it,” Hugh corrects him. He must be only a few meters away. Relief and terror run equal courses through me. I’m so close to escape, even though I’m closer to my hunter than I’ve been in over a year.
“If you’re wrong…” Thomas warns. I could reach out and touch him. One more tree over and he would’ve trampled me.
“You’ve seen what he can do. The work he did with her father,” Hugh reassures him. “And with Eleanor under his influence, we have all we need.”
“Well, one way or another, I won’t wind up like Forsyth,” Thomas says with a laugh.
Father? A chill shoots through me, and I gulp down a breath. So many secrets beneath the surface of our family. Was Elle targeted by these men? By Pratterman?
My boots weigh heavy in my hand. That same impulse that resides in Elle nearly overtakes me. To strike. They’ve come to capture her, do only God knows what else. Who am I to turn my back on her now?
But I think of Bridget waiting for me. Of Elle, holding me close yet letting me go.
“What was that?” another man calls.
Ice shards prickle my spine. They lock me in place like a rabbit who’s heard the padding of a fox. The rain stops as quickly as it started. Silence rings through the forest. Beneath my feet, rainwater trails across the sand. Soon the forest will be dry once again, though salt-encrusted.
“Did you see something, there? In the trees?”
I scan my options. The sea? My last time in its depths stops me diving in. The ocean won’t save me thrice.
I grip the boots tighter. Why didn’t I bring a weapon with me? Because I have no idea how to use one. And no resolve for one either. I peer around the edge of the trunk. Are they about to strike? Cloaked figures stand still. All of them carry revolvers and swords. Armed to the teeth. All for us.
Their backs are to me. They didn’t spot me. Now. It must be now.
I softly step to the next trunk, then the next. My breath is shallow in my mouth.
Nearly to the edge of the forest, I hear a scream. Not Bridget. Not Elle. A man’s. I can’t tell if it’s Thomas or Hugh or one of the other men, but quickly a chorus of chaos erupts within the trees. Screams of terror, as far as I can tell. Elle’s doing? Douglas’s?
I sprint across the final rocks to the dock.
“Bridget, it’s me!”
A head pops up from the other side of the beached boat. She smiles, shaking her head to knock back the hair dripping rivers across her forehead.
“C’mon, I put the supplies in already. And don’t mind, uh, that.”
I look back. A man is slumped against a tree where she’s pointing. A broad red mark across half his face paints a picture as Bridget sets down an oar she’d been gripping.
“I don’t think I killed him,” she says.
That’s good enough for me.
I follow her lead. The men’s panic continues. I fear they may turn back to the boat, but nothing comes out of the trees. We push off the shore in the tiny dinghy that brought me here all those seasons ago.
The ocean blesses us with a strong current. Bridget rows, but the water provides most of our momentum. A wave jostles the boat, spraying us both and making me gasp from the cold. The prospect of capsizing seizes me for a moment, yet it ebbs away just as quickly.
There are far worse fates than drowning.
I blink, and we’re already far enough that the island looks as small as it truly is.
A spit of land, a copse of trees, and an old lighthouse.
I’ll turn to look at the city lights that have always tempted me across the water.
I’ll tell Bridget of the lavender stall, the wonders of city life we should try before we move on.
I’ll close my eyes and feel the salty wind against my cheeks.
I’ll wonder out loud if the Pacific coast might need lighthouse keepers.
But for this moment, I look at the lighthouse. Perhaps it is a trick of the light. Surely, I can’t see so much detail from so far away.
The red light flashes across the island. In front of it, looking out at the harbor—at me—is a burning brightness in the shape of my sister.
That red light. My warning and my danger. My sister. My home I’ll never forget.
Bridget takes a break from rowing and holds my hand with hers, squeezing it.
I don’t know the future for Elle. I may never know.
Nor do I know my own fate or that of the marvel of a woman I’ve fallen for and followed out of the maw of hell. An uncertain world ahead may not look kindly on us.
But we’ll search for the gentler edges of its map.