15
Salem
Greenhouse
I was soaked to the bone by the time I made it up the hill into the manor gardens. Shivering, glancing over my shoulder every other second with fear, I nearly screamed when I heard a sudden rush of footsteps approaching from my right.
“Salem? Where the hell have you been?”
“Rayne, I—” My words were muffled against her coat as she threw her arms around me, smothering me in her chest. Instantly, I melted.
She was the warmest thing I’d felt for hours and smelled so good.
The exhausted urge to cry nearly choked me up as I said, “Something is wrong. I don’t know what happened, I saw Martin and—”
“Your teeth are chattering too hard, I can’t understand a word you’re saying,” she muttered, hurriedly stripping off her jacket and wrapping it around me.
She led me into the greenhouse from which she had emerged, the warm air hitting me with such relief that I moaned.
“You’re going to catch your death out there. ”
Dripping as I walked, I let her guide me through the plants to a small seating area.
Soils and fertilizers were stacked in bags on nearby shelves, the damp, rich dirt putting the smell of minerals in the air.
A large workbench held a plethora of baby plants, an old photo, and to my delight, an electric kettle.
Rayne promptly turned it on before coming back to me.
“Jesus, you’re freezing!” She seized a chunky knit blanket from the back of my wicker chair and wrapped it around my shoulders.
She took my hands, holding them tight in hers, even leaning down to blow her warm breath onto me.
“Are your fingers always this cold? Am I going to have to knit some mittens for you?”
With my shivering finally under control, I told her about my run-in with Martin, the butchered deer, and George’s mysterious absence.
I didn’t mention the thing I’d seen in the shed.
Now that I thought back on it, I suspected it was probably an animal.
Or, just like when I’d “seen” something in the bathroom, maybe it had only been my imagination.
Rayne listened with an intent frown.
When I finished, she said, “I’ll report it to the sheriff.
He’ll get someone out there to look for them.
Don’t worry.” She gripped my hands tighter; I was ashamed of how clammy they were.
“Martin and George may not look like much, but they’re more experienced with the outdoors than you might think.
They’ve been to Blackridge before, they know their way around. ”
But by the expression on her face, I doubted she believed her own words.
She went to the workbench, picking up a large, brick-like walkie-talkie. “Keatin, come in. It’s Rayne.” The silence drew out, and she tried again. “Keatin, wake up. A guest is missing.”
This time, after another few seconds of silence, a sleepy voice responded. “I hear you. Go ahead.”
Rayne relayed everything I’d told her, from Martin’s injury to George’s absence. The sheriff’s staticy voice responded intermittently, clarifying information, until he ended with a heavy sigh.
“I’ll get someone out there to search,” he said. “This ain’t good. This late in the year—“
Rayne abruptly cleared her throat, cutting him off. “I’m not alone. Talk to you tomorrow. Let me know if you find anything?”
“Will do. Over and out.”
She returned the walkie to its cradle, leaning against the workbench for a moment in silence.
“They know their way around,” she repeated, but I didn’t feel as if she was talking to me this time. “They probably just had a little too much to drink and got turned around.”
She turned back to me, arms folded, and her eyes narrowed. “Are you still shivering?”
“Yeah, I have the shakes, it’s—I’m just a little anxious.”
She quickly took down two stained mugs from a shelf and dropped in a couple tea bags. As I watched her prepare the hot beverages, my brain finally caught up with everything she’d said.
“Did you say you knit?” I held up the edge of the colorful blanket. “Did you make this?”
“Yeah. Surprised? I do have some talents besides giving head and being an asshole.”
I laughed, thankful for the distraction from my shattered nerves. She finished preparing our tea and pulled over a stool so she could sit facing me. Holding the mug in both hands, I deeply inhaled. Peppermint and honey flooded my head, slowing my pounding heart and shaky breathing.
“Do I make you anxious?” Rayne said suddenly as she stared at her teabag slowly swirling round the mug.
“No. I mean, kind of. A little. A lot.” My sweaty hands were evidence enough of that, despite how cold I was. “But it’s in a different way than, like... bad anxiety, if that makes sense.”
I rarely tried to explain this to people. To those who didn’t experience it, an anxiety disorder typically didn’t make much sense anyway. I just needed to “calm down” or “have a more optimistic outlook.”
Fighting my anxiety didn’t work. It would beat me down every time.
“I got diagnosed with an anxiety disorder when I was fourteen,” I said.
As much as I didn’t like explaining it, I desperately needed to do so.
“It, um... explained a lot. And I was able to get on medication, which didn’t help, but I’ve switched prescriptions a few times. It’s just something I live with.”
“So, I make your anxiety act up,” she said. “But it’s not a bad thing? What happened to trusting your gut?”
I snorted. “Yeah, my gut is not to be trusted. It’s way too paranoid.”
Silence stretched until she said softly, “You should trust it about me, Salem.”
Immediately, I responded, “I do.”
My gut didn’t tell me to stay away from her.
She drew me in like a magnet, and I trembled as I tried to resist. It was my heart that warned me to stay away, tender as it was.
The waves of nerves that washed over me when I saw her, the way my heart clenched when she spoke—I hadn’t felt like that when I looked at Colin.
And that scared me.
As I sipped my tea, I took a closer look at the photo on the workbench. A beautiful woman with long brown hair held her child close, cheeks squished together as they smiled for the camera. The beach was behind them; the rocky sand and driftwood told me it was Blackridge’s craggy shore.
“Who is she?” I said.
“Melanie Balfour. My mother. She was murdered twenty years ago.”
I choked on my tea.
“It’s okay,” Rayne said quickly, looking at me with alarm. “It’s been a long time, and I’m... I’m okay.” Again, I didn’t believe her, nor did I think she believed herself.
My curiosity burned, but I didn’t push for more. Instead, after a minute of silence, Rayne continued, “My mom used to walk out to the old lighthouse in the evenings to watch the sunset. She’d climb up to the gallery for the best view. And one day... November first... she didn’t come back.”
She recounted it like a history lesson, a tragedy long past. But her eyes grew distant, fogged over with an emotion she wouldn’t give voice to.
“She was found by that evening, near the lighthouse. Her throat was cut. She bled out. She... crawled... before she died. Tried to get away, I guess, or get help. I was eight years old.” She cleared her throat.
“It was just me and Dad after that. He never wanted to be a father, he didn’t know what the hell to do with me.
His life was the church, and with Mom gone, that was all he ever focused on.
He wrote his sermons as if they were for the murderer themselves. ”
“Who did it?” I said, and shivered when she shook her head again.
“We don’t know. We’ll probably never know.”
Slowly, carefully, I moved my hand on top of hers, hoping she wouldn’t pull away. She didn’t.
“Dad thought Blackridge deserved to be punished,” she said.
“We were all wretched sinners and he hated us. All of us. He used the pulpit like a judge’s podium and his Bible like a weapon.
Growing up with him was lonely. This island is already an isolated place, but in this big house, it was worse. The quiet is so loud.”
She took a deep breath and straightened up. But she let my hand remain on hers.
“Hatred changes a place. It builds up, it festers. All the anger and pain becomes a curse. It’s like a scar the island can’t heal, a wound we’re always ripping open again. Even with him gone, it’s still here.”
She paused, her finger brushing pointedly over the indent left on my own by my missing engagement ring. “Well, I told you my tragedy. Now it’s your turn.”
Still absorbed with what she’d told me, I responded slowly. “He didn’t die. He just broke off our engagement a month before the wedding. Turned out he was cheating on me.”
“Shit.” Rayne shook her head in disbelief. “I feel like a tragic accident would have been better.”
Shrugging, as if I was entirely over it, I said, “I can’t complain. According to the plan, I should be in Las Vegas right now, partying it up as a newlywed. Instead, I’m here.”
“With me.” Her words were so soft, I barely caught them. “You don’t seem like the type to go for a Vegas wedding.”
“Can’t you tell I’m a total party animal?
” I teased, and she gave me a skeptical look.
“You’re right. Vegas wasn’t my idea. It actually made me really anxious.
But that was what he wanted.” I sighed. “I spent too much time only focusing on what he wanted. But I was afraid if I didn’t, he’d leave.
Find someone else. Turns out, he did that anyway. ”
“Then tell me,” she said. “Where would you get married?”
I’d thought about it so many times. Still, I almost gave my usual answer: For the right person, I’d get married in a cardboard box. Location and a big party weren’t what really mattered to me.
But I still had a dream, a wedding day I desired even if it was unlikely to happen. I’d gotten so used to brushing off the things I wanted, talking about it felt scary. As if merely admitting what I desired was too demanding of me.
“I wanted a small ceremony,” I whispered.
“Just our family. A few friends. In the mountains, at sunset. That was how I always imagined it. With lanterns and candles to light the dusk. And I’d wear a long dress even though it would drag on the ground.
” I thought of the wedding dress I’d ordered, then swiftly canceled.
Even that dress hadn’t been exactly what I wanted, short and tight to fit the Las Vegas theme.
Rayne kept holding my hand, her finger stroking back and forth. I wanted to ask her the same question.
I didn’t dare.
Finally, without looking up, she said, “We should get you out of those wet clothes.” But she didn’t get up and neither did I. I didn’t want to leave this moment behind.
Our eyes met. Her hand tightened on mine.
“Don’t tempt me,” she whispered, words ground out as if in pain.
“I’m not.” My heart hammered when she leaned closer.
“Oh yes, you are. You always do, and you know it. You’re always...” She slid her hand over my wrist, gripping my arm with a desperate hold. “Watching me.”
“As if you don’t do the same?”
She shook her head, laughed softly—but she didn’t deny it. I wanted her to tighten her grip again; I wanted her hungry words.
She had tempted me every damn day from the moment I arrived. The way her eyes lingered when she looked at me, the low octaves of her voice when she spoke. I was a yo-yo in her hands, returning even though she pushed me away, but only because she refused to let me go.
After Colin, I refused to go where I wasn’t wanted, or to cling to things that wouldn’t have me. But I felt her want, her need. I saw it in her eyes and heard it in her voice.
“You don’t understand,” she said. Her words tossed me down, but like a string wrapped around her finger, she pulled me right back. “I’m not safe for you, Salem.”
“I don’t run from risks.” I leaned toward her, as much a challenge as I dared to muster. “I learn how to work with them.”