Chapter 47
Violet had never felt so cold. Her neck and shoulders ached from the way she tensed, but she held Benjy close and tried to use what little heat her body held to keep him from freezing.
Winter wouldn’t officially arrive for weeks, and there would be much colder nights than this, but the wind and exhaustion and, if she were honest with herself, the weight of despair made the chill so much worse.
“Malcolm,” she said, “it can’t be long until dawn. A couple of hours, probably less.”
He glanced at the horizon. Still dark. Still gray with low clouds and falling snow.
“We should have tried the bridge.”
“Just hit the gas, drive as fast as we can, and hope they don’t drag us out of the car?”
Violet nodded. “I know how it sounds, but you see how sluggish Maggie is now—this close to ground zero. We could make it.”
“No, Violet,” Jennie said. “There are too many of them. Too strong and too desperate and too hard to kill. If there’s another way, we have to try that first.”
And if it doesn’t work? She didn’t say that out loud, but it haunted her. If this didn’t work, there would be no time to drive back and cross the bridge to Shediak.
Benjy had his arms around her neck, holding on for dear life.
He hadn’t said a word in at least fifteen minutes.
In the back seat, Jennie watched over her mother.
The thing that had been Maggie Wise had drawn her legs up beneath her and turned sideways, fetal again, showing the handcuffs that cut deeply into the flesh of her wrists.
Her skin looked blue, either from cold or from death, or from whatever transformation she had begun.
Violet thought of Elias and what had happened to his skin.
“How do we bury her?” Violet asked, keeping her voice even to avoid disturbing Benjy.
Malcolm glanced at Jennie in the rearview and said nothing.
He focused on the road and on the coastline to their left.
They were driving southwest now, opposite from their destination.
Malcolm scanned the rocky shore. The road had turned narrow and winding.
Less snow had fallen here, but no plow had cleared the way, and Violet thought the Frazer’s tires might surrender at any moment.
“Are you ignoring me?”
He glanced her way. “No. I’m sorry, Violet. It’s just that you’re right—sunrise will be here before we know it.”
Horrible visions had begun to play out in her mind, images of what she imagined would happen if they failed.
Maggie had said there were dozens here, near Shediak, but Root had been hundreds of miles away and so had the others traveling with it.
How many more were there, scattered around the country?
And how many more would they have made, like Elias, just since they began to drag themselves from their burial sites?
She wondered what the country would be like afterward. Would they reproduce quickly? Would they begin a national slaughter, or hide among people and prey on them from the shadows? Violet felt numb from something other than the cold.
All she had wanted to do was sing. Make people happy.
Then Elias had come along with his smile and that charm and made her think he was capable of falling in love.
What a fool she’d been not to cling to music instead of a man.
Malcolm and Maggie had been so kind that they’d persuaded her bright days were possible.
Falling in love with Malcolm, being with him constantly but unable to speak her mind or share her heart, had made her realize what she’d felt for Elias had never been love.
This kind of yearning was the full bloom that grew from infatuation.
Only a woman in love would have been insane enough to come along on this trip.
That isn’t fair, she thought. Malcolm and Maggie had become her family. This was about more than love. If she’d stayed behind, she would have felt forever that she had abandoned them.
Malcolm sat up straighter behind the wheel. He’d spied a small house along the river. Behind it was an old shed, and behind the shed, right on the edge of the water, a run-down boathouse.
He turned off the headlights, then the engine, and let the Frazer coast to a stop at the end of the snowy driveway.
Malcolm turned to look at her and Benjy.
With the adrenaline that had been fueling all of them, momentum had been enough to keep their minds occupied.
Now she saw fear in his eyes, a silent and desperate confession that he wasn’t sure what would happen next.
Malcolm said her name. She could see he wanted to say more, but all his hope and regret, all his promises, were right there on his face.
“Our time will come,” she told him. “We’ll have our chance.”
Violet wondered if she sounded convincing. Doubt gnawed at her, but there was no going back now. Only forward.
“‘The best way out is always through,’” she said.
Malcolm managed a thin smile. “Robert Frost.”
Holding Benjy, she couldn’t embrace or kiss him, but Malcolm took her left hand and brushed his lips against her knuckles—warm on her cold skin. He gave her fingers a squeeze and then glanced into the back seat.
“I’ll be a few minutes. If anyone comes out, starts trouble, give it right back to them.”
Jennie coughed to clear her throat. “You know I will.”
Malcolm stepped out, closing the door quietly, and then darted across the lawn toward the little rickety boathouse. Benjy snuggled more tightly against her, half asleep, and she knew she had to get him out of the cold soon. Herself, as well.
In the back seat, the thing that had been Maggie Wise moaned in pain.
Violet watched the house as best she could through the snow, but all the windows were dark, and she doubted anyone would be awake to spy them out the window.
She thought she and Jennie must have something to say to one another, but nothing came to mind.
They were both completely drained. Benjy began to snore lightly, and she felt the tension in her neck ease.
The engine ticked, cooling, and she felt somehow safe in that moment, even with Maggie there in the car.
Minutes passed, but only a few, before they spotted Malcolm trudging back toward the Frazer. He went straight to the back door and opened it with a metal creak that seemed far too loud for the predawn hours.
“There’s a wooden motorboat in there, maybe fifteen feet long,” he said.
“Looks like they use it for fishing. It’s hoisted out of the water, but the motor’s still attached, so I don’t know if it’s in for the winter.
If it needs fuel, there are at least two gas cans, and there’s a shovel in the shed back there. ”
“You really think we can do this?” Jennie asked.
As if in answer, Maggie lunged at Malcolm. With her hands cuffed behind her back, she only succeeded in crashing to the snow outside the car as Jennie scrambled out after her.
“I think it’s our only shot,” Malcolm told his sister.
They wrestled Maggie to her feet. She hissed and snapped her jaws at Jennie.
“Why don’t you sing some more?” Violet asked.
Malcolm couldn’t seem to look at her. “Maggie’s in so much pain, I don’t think we’re in much danger from her from here on.”
That might have been true, but it didn’t feel true. As Malcolm and Jennie half marched and half dragged Maggie away from the Frazer, Violet opened the door, starting to reorient Benjy in her arms so she could carry him.
Malcolm looked back. “Hang on. You and the boy need to stay here.”
Violet froze. “I’m coming with you.”
He crouched to look in through that open rear door. “Not this time. If anything goes wrong, you’ll be safer here. The gun I took from Detective Hope still has some bullets in it. I’m leaving that with you.”
“What happens if you’re attacked? You can’t do that!”
“There aren’t any Morák out there. We won’t be completely empty-handed, but the gun stays with you. Just in case,” Malcolm said. He wasn’t going to argue the point. “Wait an hour past dawn, and if we’re not back, go without us.”
Out in the snow, Maggie grabbed a fistful of Jennie’s hair and tried to drag her down. Jennie had learned how to fight, twisted her mother’s arm, and in one fluid motion managed to get behind her. She drove her onward, toward the boathouse.
“This is supposed to be a new beginning for us both,” Violet reminded Malcolm.
His gaze did not waver. “We have to finish this before we can have a new beginning.”
Violet slipped out from under Benjy, settling him into the passenger seat.
She shut the door on that side gently and hurried around to Malcolm.
The horizon had a tinge of indigo, and she refused to delay him a second longer than necessary, but the kiss felt necessary, just to remind them both of the warmth and the possibility that awaited them when this was over.
She gave him a little nudge to get him moving again, knowing the burn of her lips on his would linger for a while. The kiss had no magic, but it might help keep him focused.
Violet watched him go. Watched even after Malcolm and Jennie had vanished into the boathouse.
Watched until she heard the grinding roar of a motor starting up.
The waves were churning out there in the Atlantic, but she’d seen worse and knew the saving grace was the barrier created by the many islands on this part of the Maine coast.
The boat tore off across the water. She wondered how much experience the Wise siblings had in a boat but knew at least one of them had done this before.
The proof vanished in the dark water and the falling snow, northbound toward Shediak.
Only then did she reach under the driver’s seat and pull out the gun.
She checked and discovered only four bullets remained.
Violet watched the house, sure the motorboat would have woken whoever lived there, but no lights came on.
After a few minutes, she climbed behind the steering wheel of the Frazer and pulled the door shut.
In the passenger seat, Benjy continued in deep sleep, but he whimpered a little and his brow had creased so that he looked more like a grown man than a child.
Something troubled him in his dreams, but at least nothing there could hurt him. She resolved to let him sleep as long as possible. The waking world held so much to fear.