43. Pippi
Panic fizzed inside my gut, shooting a trickle of citrusy bile into my mouth.
I pounded at the door until my knuckles bled and left red smudges over the embossed wood and screamed until my voice mangled my throat, until all the sound I could manage was a wet rasp.
“A surefire way to get rid of a spell like this is to get rid of the source.” Jackson had said .
I walked, pacing the area between the sink and the shower, my breath coming out in strained wheezes.
Jackson wouldn’t—he couldn’t hurt Alistair.
He couldn’t .
Not by himself. Not without a boat, or a harpoon, or some big piece of weaponry.
Right?
Right?
So why did I have this awful, sinking, nauseating feeling that he was going to do something? And that poor Alistair was going to get hurt?ken
“Ouch!” I cried when I drilled my knee into the porcelain rim of the toilet.
Stupid.
Pain savaged my kneecap and rocketed up my thigh to brutalize my hip.
Stupid!
I yelled and smacked my hands against the top of the closed toilet seat. It discharged an awful, tinny twang that made my ears ring, and fanned the broiling agitation. So I kicked the toilet too, for good measure, and hit it again when a throbbing agony bit my toes.
I was a mess.
A shrieking, wild, messy- mess .
Calm down, Pippi.
I joggled my hands, sprinkling blood droplets all over the bathroom.
CALM DOWN!
I turned and plopped onto the toilet, pressing my forehead to my jittering knees. Breathing in the musky brine clinging to my clothes and skin—an odor that would’ve sent me scrambling for a place to upchuck a week ago, but was now so twined around memories of Alistair, it was a comfort.
Breathe, Pippi.
My lungs stuttered around each thin inhale.
Breathe. In. And out.
But with Alistair’s scent tickling my nose, I kept seeing a horrific image of him being impaled by a harpoon, ala Moby Dick style.
My gut lurched.
Breathe, Pippi.
Jackson can’t do anything.
Alistair is safe.
Tears splashed onto the tops of my knees.
He can’t do anything.
But if he does do something, I can’t stop him…
Because the selfish prick locked. Me. In. The. Bathroom!
And that… that …
The fact that Jackson had been so quick to jump on the idea that Alistair had bewitched me. So quick to believe the only reason I’d “changed” was because a sea beast had me in a thrall.
He’d refused to hear my side of it. Refused to listen to anything I’d said all week.
Because he didn’t care.
How had I not seen this before?
The only person Jackson truly cared about was himself.
Relationship. Bah. That wasn’t the word for what we had been.
A relationship was a thing two people built together .
Jackson had never built anything. He’d dictated.
Taken for himself. Left me to do the heavy lifting until I decided I was done breaking my back.
Then he got mad. Because he’d boasted about our relationship—this thing I’d built alone—and had taken great pride in it.
And I’d had the gall to take it away from him.
I’d empathized with him when I pulled that plug. My heart had bled for him. I hated hurting him.
But now I saw the ugly truth.
I hadn’t hurt him . Not his heart or his soul.
Just his pride.
A broken heart he might’ve endured. But he wielded his fractured ego as a weapon. He was lashing out, blaming an innocent creature for taking me away, rather than accepting the fact that I didn’t want to be with him anymore.
What a monster .
I cursed at the Pippi I’d been—the Pippi who’d tolerated his bullshit for years and called it “ love .” But I also mourned for that Pippi who’d wasted her heart and a precious chunk of her life on a terrible man.
He won’t do anything to Alistair.
He can’t. I wished I believed it.
Time trickled by. An hour. Maybe more—impossible to say, while swaddled in the dark of the bathroom, watching the candlelight gyrate on the walls.
Magical candles. They lit as soon as someone entered the room and burned until they left.
For a while, I distracted myself by trying to snuff the flames out. Blowing on them. Squirting water over them. Even squishing some of my makeup tins over them.
The magical flames continued their merry dance, never missing a beat.
After that, I sat and cried for a while, until a manic fervor sent me pacing and punching at the door again.
Nothing helped. I wasn’t strong enough to bust down the door. Whatever Jackson had barricaded against it refused to budge.
I tried, though. Until my body ached and my head spun. Then I leaned over the sink, watching as my shadowed reflection bounced and swayed unsteadily before my eyes, wondering if the tingling feeling in my face and stomach was a precursor to fainting or puking.
“He has her…bathroom…”
My head whipped to the door when a voice I recognized snaked underneath. “Marvin?”
“You’ll have to move the table,” Marvin the cat drolled. “It’s heavy.”
“It should slide. We’ll scuff the floors, though.”
“Fuck the floors. They can take it out of lover boy’s deposit.”
I recognized those voices too.
Melany and Sarah.
Relief flooded me as I staggered forward, knocking my bloody knuckles against the door. “Help!”
“Hold on, girl,” Sarah called.
“We’re coming!” Melany added.
Heavy thunks and knocks rattled the door. I took a step back. Waiting. Jittering. Twisting my knuckles until they ached.
“That should do it!”
With a soft click , the door swung open.
I bolted. Zooming past Melany and Sarah.
Past Marvin. Stopping only once I reached the cottage’s front door.
It took me several painful seconds, whacking my bleeding, shaking hands on the handle, before I was able to open it.
Then I was outside, in the dull pallor of a foggy morning.
Breathing the salty air. Feeling the tickle of the tepid breeze against my cheeks.
I braced my hands on my knees and focused on breathing—on keeping myself conscious.
“Oh, honey, you’ve got a lot of blood on you.” Melany reached my side first and rubbed at my back.
“I know.” I sniffed. “I banged my hands up.”
“Well, you certainly did. But most of the blood is from here.” She gingerly touched the side of my head.
I yelped when pain zapped my skull and pulsated down the side of my neck. And then I reached up to check my hair.
Tacky streaks of blood painted the strands.
I prodded the seeping gash arching along the crown of my head.
He’d torn some of my hair out.
That jerk .
Something soft brushed against my bare calves, making me flinch.
Marvin twined himself between my legs and sat in front of my feet, fixing me with that judgmental stare.
“Darling Marvin,” Melany said, “told us you were in a spot of trouble. And…Pippi, your boyfriend was in Brew & Bites raving about?—”
“Jackson?” I straightened sharply. Too sharply. My head fizzed. I staggered.
“There, there, honey. Take it easy.” Melany touched my arm. “Sarah was getting you a?—”
“Already have it.” Sarah strolled up to my side and shoved a glass in my hands. “Drink this.”
I took it from her, surprised at the fierce thirst scraping the inside of my throat, and downed the glass in a few big sips.
“What was Jackson doing?” I swung my gaze between the three of them.
“Telling lies,” Marvin said. “As he does.”
“He was raving about the Loch Ness Monster,” Melany clarified. “Said…Oh, it was awful .” She tutted as she touched a blood-streaked strand of my hair.
“He was saying the monster took you,” Sarah finished.
“ What? ”
“The way he told it, you wanted to explore the cliff trail. He asked you not to, but you went anyway. You slipped and fell, and the Loch Ness Monster took you away.”
“He seemed very upset,” Melany added. “Thinking you were dead. I believed him, Pippi. I was bawling my eyes out.”
“He said I was dead?”
“No. He worried you were dead,” Sarah said. “But claimed he didn’t know for sure. He’s a rotting bastard for saying something like that.”
“But it was very convincing.” Melany chaffed my arm.
“It was,” Sarah agreed. “That’s why he got so many volunteers.”
“Volunteers?”
“To hunt the Loch Ness Monster”—Sarah’s lips pursed—“and find you. More than half the isle went with him.”
My knees buckled.
Marvin hissed, reminding me he was beneath my feet. Melany and Sarah grabbed for me, keeping me upright.
“You should sit down,” Melany cooed.
“No.”
“Before you fall down,” Sarah added.
“No! I—” The glass slid from my numb fingers and shattered all over the ground in several big, bloodstained pieces.
Marvin flattened his ears as he shimmied away from the shards.
“I-I have to stop them.” I ran a hand through my hair, biting my lip at the pain. “They can’t hunt Alistair. He hasn’t done anything!”
“Alistair?” Melany and Sarah echoed.
“That’s his name,” Marvin told them.
“He’s my friend !” I exclaimed. “I…They can’t hunt him. He didn’t take me, I?—”
“They already are hunting him,” Sarah said.
I blanched.
“They suspended the ferry off the isle. As soon as it arrived to pick us up, they took it. Because the tour ship wasn’t big enough to hold everyone, and people wanted to see…” She stopped and sucked her lips between her teeth.
“What?” I asked. “Wanted to see what ?”
“Well, Jackson’s lie was convincing. Very. And Rune Bloodworth got concerned the magic containing the beast might have failed.”
“They wanted to re-brand him,” Melany said tentatively.
“No. No. No. No. No .” I shrugged away from them, shaking so hard my teeth clanked.
And at that moment I didn’t see Melany and Sarah. All I saw was an image—an awful, heartbreaking image of poor, gentle, goofy Alistair bellowing in pain as more of those malicious runes were seared into his skin.
“They can’t do this!” I yelled.
“They are doing it,” Melany said. “I’m sorry, Pippi, I—” She glanced down at Marvin as he skulked around, his eyes fixed on me. “Marvin told us you had a relationship with the Loch Ness Monster…you really do, don’t you? You care about him?”
I love him.
“Yes,” I said. “I need to stop them. Alistair is…he’s innocent .”
“Well now I’m wondering”—Sarah crossed her arms over her stomach—“is he being attacked because lover boy found out about your relationship with him?”
Guilt tasted like rotted eggs. “Yes.”
Sarah harrumphed. “So he’s one of those bastards, huh? Gets all prideful and spitting spite if his girl dares to look elsewhere.”
“I could’ve handled it better.”
“He still would’ve gone to an extreme,” Sarah said. “If he’s that type. Well now, you’re in a real spot of trouble, hun. No way to sugar coat that. Luckily for you, the captain of Valiant abandoned his ship.”
“Caleb?” I asked, remembering the kindly man who’d given me the peppermint balm on the ride over.
“That his name? He didn’t seem like he cared for Rune too much and wanted no part of this hunt. When Rune insisted on taking the ship, the captain stepped off. I don’t know how much help he’s going to be, but he might be all we have. You feel steady enough to walk?”
No.
But I gritted my teeth around a “yes.”
“Oh, hun, that’s a lie if I ever heard one,” Melany said.
“Alrighty. Well”—Sarah scooted to my left side, Melany to my right—“let’s see what we can do to save your friend.” They linked their arms through mine.
Gratitude ballooned in my chest, nearly choking me. “Thank you.”
Melany patted my arm.
But the little comfort I’d suckled from them perished as we started walking. Because radioactive panic spilled into my chest.
Alistair’s.
It was thin, with him so far away, but he’d been scared enough to shoot his emotions clean across the sea and land.
My stomach twisted itself into a pretzel.
Hold on, Alistair!