Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
My legs were shaking by the time the mist started to thin. I climbed until the sound of the water was a soft lapping rather than a heavy crash. The air grew colder, biting at my exposed skin, and a strange, earthy scent filled my nostrils.
I pulled my journal from the worn satchel and clutched it in my hands.
The cover felt warm against my dry, shaking palm.
It still struck me that this had been a part of him once upon a time, a morbid piece of the cursed man I’d grown to love.
Every chart I had trusted, every calculation that was supposed to buy me a life of my own, had been bound with skin he cut from his own back so the map would not disappear with his memories.
The knowledge sat heavy in my stomach, but I kept climbing.
A storm brewed on the horizon, swallowing the sun and casting eerie shadows across the ground. Lightning webbed through the black clouds, illuminating the craggy rocks of the cliff face. I shivered as a cold drizzle fell from the sky, and I wasn’t looking forward to the downpour it promised.
The climb was long, and I was panting as I reached the top. It was hard to see anything through the mist, but the farther I climbed, the more it cleared.
A small cottage sat at the top of the cliff overrun by greenery, its once-white stone cracked and crumbling as vines grew through the mortar.
The thatched roof sagged under moss and time.
The door, a warped slab of dark wood, hung precariously on a single hinge, beckoning me into the shadowed interior.
That feeling of familiarity nagged at me again as I approached the dilapidated home, raising the fine hairs on the back of my neck.
I stared at the withered door and contemplated my next move.
I was here to find the Stella Mortis, not search abandoned cottages.
I couldn’t take my eyes off it, though. Something within me tugged me forward, compelling me to open the door.
A faint scent of wood smoke clung to the air.
Dust motes danced in the dim light filtering through the grimy pane, revealing a hearth cold and empty.
A rough-hewn table stood bare, save for a single, tarnished candlestick, its wick a silent testament to a forgotten flame.
My gaze swept over the sparse furnishings, each object whispering of a life long past, yet strangely present.
The floorboards groaned under my feet as I crossed toward the hearth and crouched to take a closer look at the cold ash banked inside it.
A fire had been built here more than once, an indication of a life once lived.
I dipped my finger in to see if any warmth remained, but it was cold and damp. No one had been here for a long time.
I stood, spying a shelf along the window that looked out over the sea.
Most of it had collapsed, but one bracket still hung on.
A brass instrument sat at the center, tarnished near black, with a lens on one end.
A spyglass. I recognized it as a primitive star-gazer, something I would use to look for leisure rather than science.
The feel of it in my palm was a comforting weight, calling to me as only astronomy could.
I looked around before stuffing it into my satchel.
For reasons unknown to me, I couldn’t just leave it behind.
Marks scored the wood beneath, numerals in groups of four with a fifth crossed through the middle. There were dozens of them, going down the wall until one grouping stopped at three.
Were they marking days, I wondered?
A sudden chill, unrelated to the dampness of the ash, traced its way up my spine. My breath hitched, a silent gasp caught in my throat. My palms felt clammy against the rough wood of the wall I leaned on.
I straightened, wiped my palms against my skirts, and made myself keep moving before the ghosts of the cottage could catch up with me. What was it about this place that put me so on edge? I needed to find the Stella Mortis, and it was clear it wasn’t hidden in this room.
When I turned to leave, however, an armoire standing in the corner caught my eye.
Its door hung open and inside it, a scrap of fabric rustled with the chilled breeze that crept through the holes in the masonry.
Though it was sun-bleached and damn near destroyed by moths, the blue was recognizable as the same shade that Silas kept dressing me in.
I reached out, my pulse hammering against my ribs as I took in every laced detail on the bodice, the frills on the neckline, the—
Rain hammered the roof. I stood at that door with my hair plastered to my neck, watching a man duck in from the storm.
Water sluiced off his shoulders onto the floor I'd just swept.
He said something I couldn't quite catch over the wind, some complaint about the weather or the tide, and I let out a genuine and unguarded laugh before he'd even finished.
He crossed the room and reached for my hands.
For one suspended moment, there was nothing in the world but the cottage, the rain, and him.
My breath came back to me in a gasp, the image gone before I could make sense of it. My hand was still closed around the dress hanging in the armoire, my cheeks wet from tears I didn’t recall falling.
I ripped my hand away, looking around that ghost of a home. What in the hell was happening to me?
“That’s quite enough of that,” I whispered, my voice cracking on every word, which rather undercut the authority I’d been going for.
I turned toward the door and was thrust into another flash that came without touching anything at all.
I stood on the cliff, rain lashing sideways so hard it stung my cheeks as I watched a ship fight the waves out past the craggy rocks of the shore. My throat was burning, torn open and raw from the name breaking past my lips over and over again.
“Please!” I screamed. “Don’t go! Don’t leave me here!”
The sails filled with the raging wind. I ran along the edge of the cliff, mud sucking at my skirts as my feet slipped on wet grass and stone, but the ship only pulled further out with the tide no matter how hard I ran.
Somewhere on that deck was a man I couldn’t see anymore.
A man I would have bled myself dry for, who didn’t once look back.
The storm howled in my ears, drowning out everything but the pounding of my heart and the desperate rhythm of the waves below.
The sky split open with a flash of lightning, highlighting the ship’s retreating silhouette, swallowed slowly by the swelling sea.
My knees buckled, and I sank to the ground, mud staining my hands and knees as I clawed at the earth, trying to anchor myself to something, anything.
I gasped and grabbed the doorframe to keep myself upright, knuckles white, the splintered wood biting into my palm as my other hand pressed flat to my sternum like I could hold myself together. So I wouldn’t be swept away by the tide of memories crashing over me.
The musty air of the decaying house was oppressive, a stark contrast to the salty spray and biting wind of my vision. My heart pounded against my ribs, a frantic drumbeat against the silence. The memory of that man, a phantom on a doomed ship, clung to me like the chill of the sea.
I peeled my hand from the doorframe. The urge to flee, to outrun the echoes of abandonment, warred with an unwelcome curiosity. What was this place? What did it want from me?
I stumbled back out, chest heaving, and didn't stop walking until the cottage was behind me. Rain started pouring down in waves from angry clouds, soaking me from head to toe in frigid water, but that wasn’t what made the tremors wrack my body.
My vision swam as the edges blurred with unshed tears burned behind my eyes.
Before I knew it, I was at the edge of the cliff. I’d stopped a foot from where the grass gave way to open air. Through a rip in the clouds, the stars shone in an unnatural hue, as if they were shining just for me, just so I could see them.
The wind whipped my hair across my face, stinging my eyes, but I couldn't tear them away from the constellations.
It was as if the very air hummed with a silent promise, a whispered secret only I was privy to.
The churning sea below seemed to hold its breath, waiting.
I took a hesitant step forward, then another, only stopping when the edge of the cliff crumbled under my toes. When had I taken my shoes off?
Visions danced behind my eyes, broken flashes that I couldn’t quite puzzle together until the thunder crashed above. A torrent of memories assaulted me, and the only thing I could do was fall to my knees and let them come.