16. Pippi
“Oh…Sh—” I squealed when a rock careened out from under my foot, sending me thumping onto my keister and sliding a good foot or two down the meandering cliff path.
“—oot,” I finished when I came to a stop, precariously close to the edge. “Shoot. Ouch.” Blood glittered on my hands from the scrape the rocks had left on my palms. “I take that back. Shit is the word I need.”
“How did you get these cuts on your hands, babe?” I muttered in the best Jackson impression I could muster while my voice was shaking.
“Well, you know, Jackson…I was climbing around the cliffs in the dead of night to go meet the Loch Ness Monster in secret, instead of staying in bed with you where I belong. Why? Because I’m an idiot, apparently. ”
My stomach churned as I plucked little pebbles off my palm and did my best to wipe off the worst of the blood—thank all the stars I’d had the foresight to wear my lone pair of black jeans.
And it was my nerves, for sure, that had me so frazzled and miserable. Because only a few spindly layers of craggy stone separated me from the whooshing ocean below. And any time I was this close to the sea, getting suffocated by the brine, I wasn’t a happy camper.
But guilt also chewed at me because I hadn’t told Jackson about Alistair, and I didn’t know why.
I’d started to. Several times, during lunch, while we’d perused the little gift mart, when we’d wandered by to stare longingly at the exorbitantly expensive spa, and when we’d settled in for dinner.
But I’d never actually gotten the words out. And I should have.
It was wrong. To be here, while Jackson slept unaware.
It was wrong to be here in general. Especially when the fine print in the brochure stated:
“Many of our cottages border the inlet, and although it may be tempting to dip your toes into the water while the tide is out, we heavily caution against doing so. Tides around the isle can be unpredictable—the sea does not have a mind to be gentle to our esteemed guests, no matter how much we wish it so. There are paths winding down the cliff face, should you like to brave a closer look at the waters, but be wary—these paths are not so easily trodden, and Niverwick Isle is not liable for any damages to person or property from any of our island attractions or on our grounds.”
Which, the short explanation meant: It’s dangerous. If you don’t want to take our word for it, that’s cool. But just know you can’t sue us if you die.
Sweat creepy-crawled down my chest and congregated in a big, sticky vat beneath my breasts.
It made me itch, especially when the fine, silken material of my red and gold blouse plastered itself to my wet skin.
I fanned my non-bleeding hand in front of my face, getting at least some air moving. But gosh, it was humid tonight.
Or maybe my anxiety was radiating me from the inside out.
Or maybe it was a bit of both.
ROAR !
SMACK !
HISS !
Mist splattered over me as a wave pummeled the cliffs with enough force to rattle the ground beneath my butt.
I jolted and, for a terrifying moment, the world teetered sideways on me.
My bleeding hand pulsed with pain when I braced it on the ground, trying to keep my upper body from wilting beneath the vertigo.
It won’t come up this high. You’re fine. Even if it does, you can climb higher.
You already made it down, you can make it back up.
Pain lanced my chest. Breathe!
A sluggish breeze tickled my cheeks but offered no relief from the moist heat. I swore it’d not been this hot before. Muggy, sure. But not unbearably so. Not until now.
Maybe I took a nosedive off the cliffs, and I’m already dead. And got chucked into Hell for arranging a secret rendezvous behind my boyfriend’s back.
Gosh, wouldn’t that be a nightmare? An eternity spent in the fog, dangling just above the jaws of the sea.
My swallow felt more like an involuntary spasm.
“Pippi?”
I screamed when that accented voice blanketed itself over my brain.
“I’m sorry!” Alistair said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to s-scare you.”
“It’s…You didn’t. I’m just…” I peered into the dark, barely making out the undulating outline of the water below.
“You’re down there, right? Or, I guess you wouldn’t have to be that close, for your…
would we call it telepathy? The way you speak to me?
Oh, I guess it doesn’t matter. You probably can’t even hear me. ”
“I can. Hear you.”
I squinted again, and the shape of the curdling sea was a little clearer, with my eyes adjusting to the gloom, but Alistair’s behemoth outline was nowhere to be seen.
“I’m beneath the water.” Alistair’s voice caressed my brain, answering my unasked question. “I can’t surface here.”
“Is it the magic again? Preventing you?”
“Yes.”
I gnawed on the inside of my cheek. “It’s not hurting you now, though. Right? Or is the inlet completely off limits like the dock was?”
“I can be here. Under the waters. It will only hurt if I surface.”
“Good. That’s…I wonder why, though. They could probably make a killing and charge double the price for inlet-facing cottages if they came with the chance to get Nessie all to one’s self. Or, well…I guess that would be a massive liability though, huh?”
“Lia…lie-a-billl-a-tee.” He stewed over each syllable. “I know this word. Liability . I know it. But not its meaning.”
Something jangled inside of my chest. Sympathy, sure. Because I felt his frustration, and I knew how maddening it was to have something on the fringes of your mind that you just couldn’t quite grasp. But there was also this sense of…wrongness? Deja vu?
“It’s legal jargon,” I said. “Basically means you’re responsible for something or someone.
The isle is responsible for us—the tourists.
So, if something happens—like if one of us goes for a naked joy ride on their star attraction and gets hurt—they don’t wanna get sued.
So they write some half-baked warning in their brochure, and make sure you can’t pop up to tempt people, and…
Yeah. It’s a protection against stupid people doing stupid things. ”
“Ah. I see.” Although his tone suggested that he was still puzzling some of the details out. But then he chuckled and parroted one of my other statements. “‘N-naked joy ride.’ Is that what you’d call our meeting?”
“I mean, if the shoe fits.”
“Does it?”
“Doesn’t it?’
“I don’t know. What’s a ‘joy ride?’”
“Literally just going for a ride to find joy,” I said. “There’s no place you have to be, no destination in mind. You’re just cruising along the freeway to have a good time.”
“And you were having a g-good time?” I could hear the sarcasm in his voice, and my brain was flooded with an image of a posh, dark-haired man raising a skeptical eyebrow.
“I mean, no ,” I admitted. “It was an experience, sure. But I could’ve done without the broken ribs and sliced up feet.”
Silence stretched between us, fractured only by the rushing of the sea.
Worry curdled the air. Not mine. His.
“You were hurt badly?” he prodded.
“Yeah. Not from anything you did, though,” I said. “Honest. You prevented me from getting banged up worse. The ocean knocked me around pretty good before I got to you.”
“Ahhh…” He dragged the sound out.
“And you were hurt too,” I added. “Trying to bring me to the dock. That magic…it doesn’t hurt for long, does it?”
“No. The pain is q-q- quick. Quick. It doesn’t last.”
“Well, thank the stars for that.” I sighed and wiped at the treacly stream of blood still oozing from my palm.
“But even quick pain is no fun. And it doesn’t seem right, this isle, and the magic they zap you with.
” I blew out a breath big enough to ruffle the curls that swirled over my forehead.
“I’ve only been here a day , and I can’t wait to go home.
I didn’t even want to come , if I’m being honest. But Jackson was so excited, and I wanted to be too, but?—”
“J-Jackson?”
“My boyfriend. Umm, like a significant other. A mate?”
Alistair gave me another drawling “ ahhh .” “Didn’t you speak him… tell him? That you’re not…not… un . Happy. That you’re un happy.”
Unease crawled up my throat. “I didn’t say I was unhappy.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“Oh no. Do I sound miserable? Or look it?” I combed my hands through my hair and winced when I remembered one palm was covered in blood, and sighed.
“I’m not. Miserable. Honest. It’s just been a weird couple of days.
And the isle is weird. And I am terrified of the ocean.
I was getting heart palpations just sitting here.
And I came into this trip stressed—we had this crisis at work right before I left.
So I’m just off-kilter, I think. And everyone gets the urge to run back home when they’re off-kilter. Y’know?”
To this, Alistair said nothing.
But I’d said that all very fast, and he needed time to mull words over.
“Sorry,” I said after a long beat of silence. “That was a lot. I know. I babble sometimes. It’s a problem.”
“It’s not a problem,” Alistair finally said. “You don’t need to be sorry. I’m sorry.”
Which was not what I was expecting. “What are you sorry for?”
“That you’re u-unhappy. That you’re scared of the water,” Alistair said. “And that I want to k-keep you near the water. I like speaking—talking—I like talking to you. But I don’t want you to be scared.”
And there went that pesky jiggling in my chest again, the same as I’d felt when I’d first arrived on the isle. But it sharpened into a wriggling worm wrapped in barbed armor.
It hurt this time.
I jittered my hand, trying to shake off the excess feeling. And then I hissed a “sorry,” when I caught myself doing it, and turned to popping my knuckles instead. But then I smeared blood everywhere, groaned, and parked my hands under my bottom.
The wriggling in my chest continued. From Alistair’s emotions: sorrow and fear and hope and desperation.
But from my emotions too. The shame of what I’d been putting poor Jackson through the last couple of days.
Fear—always fear—when I could hear the rumble of waves and smell the stench burbling from the sea.
Curiosity, of this tentative new friendship, and desire, to see where it might lead.
“Pippi?” Alistair pressed gently.
And maybe it was his kindness that had my mouth spouting this absolutely foolish question. “Can you surface anywhere near the rocks?”
“I can,” he said. “On the other side.”
Likely, the part that faced the open sea, where there weren’t any tourist cottages.
“Could you take me there? If I…” Stars, this was absurd.
“If I climbed down to you, could you take me to a spot where you could surface? It feels wrong talking to you like this. Like I’m taking advantage of the fact that I can’t see you, so I’m just prattling on.
And I think I like talking to you too. But I want to converse properly. Y’know?”
An incoming wave chuffed and huffed, chortling at my brazenness.
Alistair said nothing.
Doubt and disgust wound thorny vines around my belly. What was I thinking?
I opened my mouth, getting ready to blurt a never mind. But the words shriveled when Alistair finally spoke, “I would like that very much.”