Chapter 52
Sleep was a wave that pulled Harper into its undertow.
She felt her body completely surrender in a bone-weary exhaustion that had laid dormant in her tense form for a decade.
She found her sleep-self aboard a boat, not Meg’s ship, but a modern research vessel, a wooden deck laden with equipment, an opening leading to the sleeping quarters below.
The air had winter’s bite, smelled of frost and salt.
Behind her, voices ebbed and waned with the shrill whine of the wind.
Harper could not make out the words, but in dream-fashion, knew the intent of the speech.
A deep and low voice felt bad about what was to be done that day.
Another voice was insistent, full of authority.
What was the harm in letting them be? asked the first voice.
Are you willing to find out? The question hung in the air.
The woman is a native, the islanders won’t take kindly to her loss.
The response hung in the air. We can write our own future, any university, any country, anything we want, the sacrifice is necessary.
They trust us, the deep and low voice whispered softly.
We will not be forgiven for this. The words lifted into the current and swirled around Harper’s ears and throat.
Harper felt the silky-soft comfort of the tentacles at the base of her neck, the phantom sensation stroked her neck.
Without words, it murmured that these happenings were long past, she was only a voyeur, and could change nothing.
She turned in a slow circle, the corporeal forms attached to the voices were long gone, only their words remained in this place, an imprint of the horror that had occurred on this vessel.
Belowdeck, she knew an amber-haired woman and her husband stirred, they were restless, their energy was frenetic, zaps of light that permeated the air around Harper’s ears and eyes.
As Harper looked to the sea, she saw the outline of the shoreline.
With a start, she realized that she knew this place.
It was Bell Island, far off the eastern shore, where the shape of Bell was only a trace in the mist. The woman and man were coming there to warn the others, to stop them from a thing that would tear a hole in the very fabric of the island.
Harper could feel their fear, their courage, the sense of inevitability that guided their passage.
The two male voices were now distant, far off to sea on a pixelated dot that Harper knew had been a motorboat.
They had left something behind on this vessel, something that would turn into fire and death.
Something that would change Harper’s life forever.
Something that would one day bring her to Bell to finish the work her parents had started.
Harper jolted awake as a scream from belowdeck echoed through her ears.
She stood abruptly, toppling the chair and creating a clang that reverberated through the massive library.
The tentacles on the back of her neck gave her one last caress and faded to nothing.
Harper leaned against the desk, her breathing heavy and fast, her thoughts racing.
With shaking hands she packed Meg’s journal and tucked it away in its safe drawer.