24 Liney To Bathe
Liney
To Bathe
Do I believe Elle?
It all happened so quickly. Yet the night is torturous. I don’t think any of us sleeps. Elle, alone in the bed. Bridget, on the couch, wary another attack could come. Me, curled up on the same blanket I brought back from the cave.
One thing was made clear by Elle. My position as sister, the object, will always outweigh my reality as a person with desires beyond the scope of a windy little island.
There are so many possibilities she’s shielded me from. What Bridget’s opened my eyes to. And Elle’s terrified I’ll take them.
She stands at the door, a small bag loaded with money and clothes on her back. Another bag at her feet is full of more bags to carry her spoils back.
“Good luck,” I tell her, icy. “Don’t forget the newspaper. If you think I still deserve that.”
Elle’s shoulders slump. As though she were the burdened one.
But I did nothing wrong. Elle chose this.
She flew off the handle, left bruises on Bridget’s neck.
For what? It’s all clear now. Elle’s controlling nature suits her, not me.
I always saw her as selfless, the pinnacle of sacrifice.
I was, by contrast, immature and foolish.
But it’s not unnatural to dream. To need more.
If this breaks what I have with my sister, perhaps it was never strong to begin with.
“Of course. This isn’t a punishment, Liney. When you prove you’re responsible enough—”
I wave the rest off. She’s told me near half a dozen times. Doesn’t make it true.
Elle opens the door, then looks back at me. Why won’t she leave already? I need space, time to process and decide if it was delusion or malice that made her nearly kill my…whatever Bridget is to me now.
“Can I…” She stumbles on her words, looking down.
What could she possibly want? “Out with it,” I mutter unkindly.
“Give you a hug?”
Oh. It disarms me. Underneath her cloak of harsh words and high expectations, she still wants my affection. I could dismiss her. Let her feel how it is to be pushed aside.
I glance back at Bridget. She matters here too. I won’t snub Elle if it will cause problems for her. She shrugs, as if to say, Up to you.
I grant Elle this little peace, hugging her close and without restraint. She hugs me back so hard my back cracks, though no pain follows. She keeps hold of me for a long time. A few tears fall onto my shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I lost control.”
I don’t say anything back, but there’s a crack in my newfound fear of her. She apologizes so rarely, I can’t deny that it makes a mark when she does.
She doesn’t linger after I let go. She hikes up her bags, heads outside, and closes the door.
A dark thought crosses my mind. If anything happens to Elle, she’s taken the lone rowboat. How would we survive alone? Our supplies could stretch only a few weeks with no way off the island. Elle’s need for control is stronger than her concern for my safety.
I pace the room, circling between counter and chesterfield. Every time I pass the latter, I glance down at the trapdoor. Something’s been pulling my attention in small moments, like that morning after the quiet dream.
“Sit with me,” Bridget calls, patting the couch cushion beside her. “Or sleep, please.”
I have another task first. When Elle’s away, it’s my one responsibility to crank the mechanism that rotates the light, the only element of keeping that doesn’t require going up the stairs.
Twice a day, morning and night. She promised that the oil problem is fixed.
The light has shone out to sea every night since.
The moment I’ve done the bare minimum of maintenance work, I come back and collapse in Bridget’s arms.
“I was so scared,” I choke out.
She squeezes back so hard we could merge. Waves crashing together.
“I know,” she murmurs against the dip where my neck meets my shoulder.
She’s warm and I’m whole, and this place is ours for this moment.
“How long until she’s back?” she asks when we finally break apart. She’s smiling again, that infectious grin that I can’t help but reflect.
“The journey into town takes a day, another day or two to buy supplies depending on what’s open. The way back is one or two days depending on the winds. Four days. At least. Let me run you a bath; it’ll help you relax.”
“Of the two of us, who stayed up all night staring at her sister like she’d sprout fangs?” Bridget asks, laughing, but I’m on a mission now.
She helps me carry the tin bathing tub out from the corner of the room and close to the fireplace. I set a large pot above the fire.
“Do you like lavender?” I watch the water for bubbles. It’ll take at least an hour to heat.
“Don’t go to all this trouble.” She smiles, though it doesn’t reach her eyes. “I’m fine, really. At least while she’s gone.”
“Let me go to the trouble.” I can be stubborn for her benefit.
“Then yes.” The glint returns to her eyes, mirth and mischief. “I like lavender.”
I gather the ingredients and mix them into the warm water. The room fills with an herbal, powdery scent. It takes me back to walks at the morning market, lagging behind my mother and sniffing at the flower cart bursting with lavender stalks.
I mix a bowl of sugar, palm oil, and the zest of the last remaining orange—the one Elle asked me to swear on. I have no eggs for Bridget’s hair, but Elle’s been mixing an alternative since we cracked our last egg, a combination of tea and vinegar.
“What type of tea do you prefer?” I ask, rummaging through our small store in the kitchen. “I’m making a rinse, but I can brew some to drink as well. We have black, green, a few herbal teas…”
“Herbal would be nice.”
I shift a few bags and reveal a small red box in the back of the cupboard behind a large sack of black tea leaves. I reach but barely brush its tin surface with my fingertips.
“I can’t reach.” I laugh and look back at Bridget. “Do you think you could?”
She grins as she comes over. She reaches around me to hold my waist while she grabs the small box with ease. That hand on my waist doesn’t release as she tilts the box to examine it.
“Hibiscus. That works.” She shows me a small label with cursive writing. “Take a sniff.”
Bridget pops open the tin. Delicate, dried flower petals are crushed within, a mixture of oxblood, crimson, and pale pink. She breathes in. Her eyes bulge, and her loose smile warps into a disgusted scowl.
“What?” I ask, taking the tin as she shoves it into my hands.
Bridget coughs hard, seeming ready to retch into the sink.
I examine the leaves, but there’s no sign of moisture or mold. I take a careful sniff. Sweet, tart, like pomegranates. Nothing offensive. But the smell also brings a memory. This kitchen, night, storm, violence. Holding my sister’s knife lodged into Chamomile’s throat. Her body collapsing.
It’s my handwriting on the tin. Hidden in a cabinet I never touched. How? Did I write it in a fugue state? Throw it onto the shelf?
“We’ll use the black tea.” I close the tin tight and stuff it to the back of the cabinet.
I prepare the hair rinse while Bridget fills the tub with hot water.
A natural silence falls between us, interrupted only by laughter anytime our eyes meet.
Inside, it’s easy to let go of the trauma of last night.
I put the rinse and scrub bowls beside the tub, then collect a few linens and the lighthouse keeper’s old bathrobe.
I planned to go upstairs to the storeroom to wait among the few sundries left until Bridget is finished.
Instead, when I rise from setting everything within the tub’s reach, I spot her already removing the outer layers of her dress.
“Oh, I was going to go—”
“It doesn’t bother me,” she says. She turns to look over her shoulder, and my lips are suddenly dry, my throat constricted. “Though, if you are bothered—”
“I’m not bothered!” I say too loudly.
She grins, toothy at the mouth and sparkling at the eyes. I’m a stuttering fool in comparison.
“I could use your help with my hair.” She removes her wool dress, revealing her matching dark petticoat, corset, and white shift underneath. “And reaching my back.”
I equally want to look at her and anywhere but her. We’ve kissed. I’m not a stranger to her, yet I am to this. The lines of her shoulders bulge slightly as she unties her petticoat.
“These need cleaning,” she says, placing each item neatly in a pile.
“I’ll do that after the bath. You know, you nearly drowned twice in the same dress,” I realize as I say it.
“Impressive, if I say so myself,” she says.
Our gazes meet in a charged silence, only for us both to laugh. How else can we be here, her half-dressed and me tongue-tied so soon after such a horrid scene? I move my stare to the ceiling as she unties her corset.
“You’re blushing!” she accuses, worsening the problem. “You’ve never seen—”
“I’ve seen!” I counter, crossing my arms over my hummingbird heart. In diagrams, in theory. “I’ve seen plenty.”
“I’d like you to see me.” Her voice is softer than silks.
She undoes the front lacing of her corset, undoing me along with it.
Keeping her shift on, she slides into the bath.
It does little to hide her shape, but a barrier between us helps my poor heart.
She settles in with a sigh that echoes in my own chest.
The water is clouded with the herbal mixture. Her knees pop above the surface, reddened from the heat. Her arms drape over either side, pleasantly pink against the steel of the basin and swirling pastel purple of the water.
“Dunk your head,” I instruct, serious from nerves.
She theatrically plugs her nose and sinks beneath the surface. Her features move in the shifting water, but her sky-blue eyes remain open. Her bare legs bob up, thighs glistening. I keep my eyes on her face. While she’s fiercely confident, I’m shy as a schoolgirl.