Chapter 35
I am hauled onto the dock, dripping wet and barefoot, all pain forgotten save the one in my heart.
Horlick, disarmed of his rifle, rubs at his ruddy face, staring stupidly at the water.
“You! Why did you do that?” I ask hoarsely, feeling that root sin, anger, boiling out of control. “They weren’t hurting anyone.” Powered by anger, I shove the novice, gratified when he loses his balance. He falls backward into the water. Splash!
Doc, who is pulling the Lady Vee back toward the marina, glances uneasily at me.
I must look a sight, dripping wet and hopping mad.
Someone has tried to place a blanket on me, but it has dropped away.
Nash is crouched in the Lady Vee, drenched and wiping water out of his eyes.
He can’t have accidentally fallen into the ocean, as he’d landed on his seat when we stumbled.
He must have dived in after me. A very queasy-looking Eva is leaning over the railing of the Lady Vee.
Horlick bobs to the surface, sputtering curses. Water drips off his shocked face. Red offers a hand and hauls him out.
“Lucy! Calm down.” Koa strong-arms me away toward land, hat hanging off his back.
“Me, calm down?” I elbow Koa away, feeling my head about to explode. “Isn’t that the crow calling the raven dark? You were going to shoot Nash. And then you were going to shoot the sea wolves.”
“Well, I didn’t, did I? What happened to your hand?” His eyes look spooked, and his hair falls in wet waves around his head.
“Boar bit me. I’m fine,” I say, even though the seawater has made my wounds sting more than ever. My feet slow as we pass the Hure. The old fisherman is now standing at the stern, glaring out to sea. “Gilly has gone stark raving mad, and your Rifle needs a reprimand,” I seethe.
From the side railing, Jeddah gapes at me, his arms threaded through buckets.
“Let’s talk about it in the infirmary,” Koa says in a low voice, glancing up at a horde of washerwomen in their white uniforms, including the Quebedeaux sisters, standing on the banks.
As we pass, they shrink like blue-headed geese when a fox appears.
I can smell the laundry growing ranker as their estimation of me begins to plummet once again.
Koa hustles me to a white stucco building just across from the marina. The nurse is absent, but a chalkboard on the desk reads: In neighborhood making rounds. Be back at 4:30. According to the wall clock, it is nearly 4:20.
Koa closes the door behind us, and his calm evaporates. “What the hell just happened? Those beasts could’ve killed you.” He marches me past the reception area to a larger room with an operating table, simple wood chairs, and a desk that extends from the wall.
“But they didn’t. You saw. Scull saved me from the bull kelp.”
“Saved you?” he says, face incredulous. “How’d it know you needed help?”
A large ceramic sink occupies one wall next to a stove and a pot of water. Using some of the water, Koa mixes in baking soda from a shelf of medical supplies. Still frowning, he rinses my right hand over the sink.
The pain of the boar bite flares. “You won’t believe it,” I say, gritting my teeth.
“You’re right, but tell me anyway.”
“They feel me, and I feel them.”
His face darkens. “What do you mean?”
I explain about my sea-wolf sense, including my brushes with Jupiter and Feather.
“Swear you’ll keep that secret to yourself,” he says once I am done.
I cough out a laugh, remembering the washerwomen’s stares. “People already think I’m cursed.”
He yanks a towel around my hand. “If people know you’re talking to sea wolves, they might get you confused with something else that talks to sea wolves.”
The room suddenly feels shaky around me, and I sink into a chair. With people already stirred up and Gilly raving like a madman, maybe some would believe I am the Orkus. If I can talk to the sea wolves, why couldn’t I also command them to kill?
I shiver, brushing off the horror of that possibility.
“So one of those four-legged devils tried to take your hand off,” he says, briskly cleaning up. “Knew it was just a matter of time.”
Acid washes my stomach. “This boar was just trying to protect her litter, and I shot her with the Double Dee.” My voice goes high. “I wasted a bullet, then shot her in the wrong place.”
“What was that lunkhead doing?”
Anger stirs at my insides, remembering how Koa aimed his rifle at Nash. “Nash helped end her suffering.” I wind up to throw in another word or two about Koa’s latest provocation, but he sits back, surprise loosening his anger.
“At least he did one thing right,” he concedes.
I eye him warily, but he seems sincere. “Those boars aren’t out to get us. They haven’t attacked anyone, except for the one today, and she had a good reason. Remember that one on Consternation with the strange plant in its mouth?”
“Yes.”
“It was a mushroom, and I think it gave the boars some funny dreams.” I share what the botanist told me of China blue. “Spores must have made their way from Parish Isle to Nowhere.”
He shakes his head. “Funny dreams or not, was that boar worth risking your life over?”
“Yes,” I say with defiance, then tell him about the cradle.
Koa blows out a low whistle. “So your mother lived in that log cabin until she gave you up. Strange place to live. Most of Tavernish’s workers live north of Eastsound, closer to his estate. Maybe he built it as a survey station before he mined out Rooster Cove.”
He takes the chair beside me and exhales, as if temporarily setting down a heavy burden. His musky, damp scent soothes me. I stop myself from planting my face in his solid shoulder.
“I’m sorry about being an ass last night,” he says. “I know I don’t deserve you, but do you think”—he studies his boots—“you can ever care for me the way I care for you?” He gives his attention fully to me, his gaze soft as moonlight.
A hot ball of emotions collects behind my eyes. “I already care for you,” I say, feeling something break inside. “But we cause each other too much grief. I’m not a filly that needs reining in.” And you are not a horse that can be tamed.
The front door opens, and the nurse’s humming fills the silence.
“I need to take care of some things,” he tells me, tying back his hair with brusque movements.
“What things?”
“Remember that glove I found by seal number four? The name Nacht was stitched to the inside. It belongs to Gilly.”
It feels like someone has stuffed my head full of cotton. My right hand throbs, and my damp bandage needs changing.
Flossie stands by the breakfast tray#8212;though it looks more like lunch, sandwiches and chowder—staring out the window and kneading her hands. Scarcely two days have elapsed since the Gatheround, but it feels like a distant memory.
“What time is it?” My heart quickens, each beat calling my worries back from the dark. Horlick’s shooting of Shadow. My cradle on Mr. Tavernish’s property in Rooster Cove. The pinochle triad. Gilly’s glove.
Gilly couldn’t have killed Mr. Sanders, as he was out on the Hure all day; not to mention he worshipped Mr. Sanders. But he could be the one killing seals.
“Almost noon.” Flossie hurries over and presses the wall button by the bed that connects to Eva’s office. Then she puts a glass of water to my lips. “How are you feeling?”
“Alive.” I sit up awkwardly using my left hand, noticing her blotchy cheeks. Miniature spikes of lupine blue underscore her swollen eyes. “You’re not crying over me, are you?”
She presses the back of her hand to her nose. “It is allergies.”
“Allergies? Perhaps the nurse has something for that. Just don’t take the giant gray pill, unless you prefer to be knocked out instead.”
She doesn’t smile or even meet my eyes. “Eva told me everything. Now… well, people are saying you summoned the sea wolves. That you’ve got powers over them.”
I hiss, knowing such talk will come back to haunt me.
Someone knocks. Outfitted in a shapeless dress, with her hair in a loose braid, Eva looks different, wilder, like something that could hide in a forest. She didn’t even bring her notepad but carries a newspaper wrapped in a dishcloth under her arm.
While they pull chairs up to the bed, I tell them of my rescue in the water.
When I get to the bit about my sea-wolf sense, Flossie’s eyes go wide, and her freckles seem to jump in alarm. “You’re not a witch, are you?”
My face warms. “Of course not.” Perhaps I shouldn’t have told her; she was already distraught.
“Your sea-wolf sense isn’t something to fear,” says Eva. “It is a gift.” Her dark pupils twitch as if she is deep in thought, and the noon bell begins to chime. She shakes her head. “That said, the Quebedeaux sisters quit last night. They will be leaving on the afternoon ferry.”
I groan, not surprised but disappointed. The sisters have been part of Nowhere ever since I can remember. How many more departures will yesterday’s scene yield? I cannot blame them. I might have done the same in their shoes.
Eva opens the dish towel over her lap and unfolds the newspaper. “Nash asks to see you at your earliest convenience.” Her eyes slide to me squirming against my pillow. “I have assured him you are well and resting. Also, Nash may not be able to serve as our ‘president’ for much longer.”
Her dispassionate tone reminds me not to overreact. She shows me her newspaper. Beside today’s date, Monday, August 26, 1918, scrolls a headline: “Throngs Trample Kaiser’s Picture Underfoot in Berlin”; then a smaller headline to one side lands with even more impact:
Theodore Byre Indicted in Largest Betting Ring in State History
The paper crumples in my fingers. The article delves into the sordid details of Nash’s father’s illicit dealings. I catch only one mention of Nash—thank goodness for that. I fall back onto my pillow, body heating with guilt, barely noticing Flossie wiping my fingers of ink.
Is this why Nash has been selling his mother’s least favorite paintings?
I have been thoughtless. I assumed he could take care of his father’s financial woes with a bank note.
But clearly his wealth is not the “liquid” kind.
Giving up something as personal as his mother’s work might mean he has no fortune at all.
Of course, Nash hasn’t made it easy between his sarcasm and his chest thumping with Koa, especially that last infuriating stunt with his boater hat. But I still feel like a buckethead. And apparently he tried to save me from drowning too, even though he is afraid of sea wolves.
Eva rewraps the newspaper. “Gilly denies killing the seals. Koa still recommends an immediate discharge. The Hure didn’t go out today.”
Remembering the fisherman’s unhinged behavior, I can feel my jaw beginning to clench. “Please tell Koa I would like to talk to Gilly myself.”
The fisherman said the spirit wanted revenge. It knows you’re like him. What exactly did Gilly mean? Sure, he was ranting and delusional. But before casting him off, I need one last conversation with him. I will bring Koa. Gilly and Jeddah both trust him more than they trust me.
“Is it possible to arrange a fishing derby and find a new fisherman by tomorrow?”
Eva doesn’t even raise an eyebrow. “I will get right on it.”
Despite her confident reply, I sag with the weight of all that needs doing. Even the bed cushions seem stacked against me, pushing at me from every side as if to trap me in place.
Eva gives one of the offending cushions a thwack. “There is good news. Mr. Cosmos is arriving today. We can finally give him your letter for safekeeping.”
That hardly seems to balance all the bad news, but at least Mr. Cosmos will be on hand to answer questions like Do they hang women accused of witchcraft in the state of Washington? “Flossie, please see to that. And scouting duds for me today. I want to be comfortable.”
“Yes, miss,” the maid says from the carpet, where she seems to have dropped my water glass.
Another knock, and Flossie hurries to open the door. “Yes, Buddy?”
“I am sorry to interrupt, but the sheriff is most insistent he talk to Miss Lucy right now,” says Buddy, his usually calm voice pinched in irritation. “In fact, he is standing right behind me.”
All my thoughts skid to a halt. Has he discovered the killer already? Is it Gilly?
“Buddy, please show the sheriff to my office.”