Chapter Twelve
What He Knew — Tavish
“She went down the road before eight.” Isla had the bucket up on the counter. “Never took a jacket.”
I sat in the chair by the window and waited two hours for her, and the rain came at the glass the whole time.
She came in at ten with her hair flat to her head and stood on the flags by the door.
I had it off her face before she said a word.
“I met Callum Brodie at the harbor.”
“Aye.”
“He said you came ashore for the skin. He said you’ve known I had it since the first night I dragged you out of the water.” Her hand was still on the door. “He said to ask you. That you’ll not lie to me. That’s the trouble with your sort, he said.”
My eyes held hers.
“Is any of that true?”
She left me the room to deny it. She stood against the door and gave me every chance to say no.
Nine days of letting her think a thing by saying nothing was the same as saying it. I was finished with that.
“All of it’s true. And there’s more you should know.”
I went through it in order. I did not sit her down, and I did not soften any of it, because softening was a thing you did to move somebody.
“I knew the skin had come out of the box while I was on a beach a hundred miles north. I walked three days to get here. I was coming for it the night you found me on the rocks.”
“You were on the beach for it.”
“I was. And I knew you had it while you were dragging me. I had my face against your coat, and I knew it was in there. I let you carry me up that beach, and I gave you my name and nothing else.”
She did not move.
“The night after, I stood outside your door at three in the morning. I had my hand on the handle. I did not open it because a taken skin stays bound, and it would have been no use to me—that’s the only reason, and I’ll not dress it up as a better one.”
“You told me you heard the rain.”
“I did hear the rain.”
I gave her the corridor. I gave her the plan, the way I put it together at that window with the fire down: I could not take it, and I could not ask for it, so she would have to want to give it, so I would make myself worth giving it to.
“Starting when?”
“That night. Before it was light.”
“The cliff walks?”
“Aye.”
“The birds.”
“Aye.”
“The boat. The seals under the boat.”
“I did that without thinking. But I let it stand, and I let you see it, and I knew what it would do.”
“The wine and the fire and sitting there while I told you about Daniel and the flowers.”
“That as well.”
“The stones on your windowsill.”
“I didn’t put those there for you. I can’t tell you why they’re there. That’s the one thing on the list I can’t explain, and I know it sounds strange.”
“Did you open my drawer?”
“No. I’ve never been in that room.”
“And the cave.”
“I told you the law about giving before you told me you had it.” I made myself say the entire story. “And when you did tell me, in the passage, I already knew, and I acted surprised. That’s what you couldn’t understand.”
I told her because I love her. That’s the only reason there was, and it’s the worst one, and I’d nothing better.
She was quiet a while. I didn’t push her.
“The dog?” She lifted her chin.
“What?”
“The dog in 1971. Sitting outside a boathouse for two winters with a dog that wasn’t yours.” She stared at the floor. “Was that on the list?”
That one was real. That was the night I started feeling. If she asked me anything about that night, I should tell her what it did to me.
Every word of that would have been true.
And every word of it would have been the next move.
“I wanted to be worth something to you that night. The dog is real.”
She took a breath and let it out.
“Right.”
“Mara—”
“No, it’s fine. I understand.” She was steady. That was the terrible part. “You needed something, and you worked out what I’d need to give it to you.” She looked up. “That’s six years of my life. Done again in a fortnight, by something that isn’t even a man.”
I had nothing to put against that. There was nothing. She was right in every detail.
She stood there a while longer with her hand on the door and did not go, and did not say anything else either, and I understood she was waiting to see whether I’d get up.
Callum gave me until Friday, and he told me which window was hers.
I did not mention that. Saying it would have been a hand on her arm, and I’d have been using a man with a creel to do the thing I was not allowed to do myself.
The rain stopped, between one breath and the next.
I turned my head to the window without meaning to.
Out past the harbor wall, the water lay gray and flat with nothing running on it at all.
No swell. No break. Nineteen years that sea had answered me every day of my life whether I wanted it to or not.
Now it had gone quiet.
She went up the stairs. I heard the drawer.
When she came down, she had her coat buttoned to the throat and the shape of the bundle under the wool. Her hand was holding the front of it shut, the way it was on the beach the first night.
She stopped at the door.
I stayed where I was. Anything I did now was a move, and I was done making them.
The door opened and closed.
I got myself up and over to the window, which took longer than it should have.
She was out on the road going down toward the water with her head bent, but not due to the weather, because there was no wind left.
I stared after Mara for as long as I could make out the shape of her, a dark stitch unraveling down the lane. The window rattled once in its frame, as if the world itself had taken a sharp breath.
I put my hand on the window glass.
I wondered, truly, whether she would come back at all, whether she might vanish among the dark bungalows and the brined air, become a tale or a warning.
I wondered what Callum would say to her, and what price would be named.
I wondered if she’d ever forgive me for what I’d done, or if she’d spend the rest of her life nursing the old injury of trust, the new one of having been played by something not even a man.
And at the far end of the harbor wall, out where the stone runs into the flat sea, Callum Brodie was standing with his hands at his sides, waiting for her.
She walked straight for him, as if there were nowhere else in the world to go.
The sea was still quiet. And I had no idea if I’d ever see her again.