Chapter 27
“What happened to your arm?” Kyle asked with concern as Harper pulled her sweatshirt over her head in the small kitchen.
She twisted her neck and arm to look. On the backside of her upper arm was an angry purple and red bruise, the sort of bruise from a healing lash mark intended for her back.
Harper froze, thrown back into her dream, the salt stinging the open wounds, the women chanting the ugly words, the pain that reverberated through her body.
“I … I … don’t know,” Harper stuttered, her words lost. She felt like her corporeal body was anchored to the ground while her consciousness floated high above.
“Did something happen on your run?” Kyle asked worriedly as he gently touched the area surrounding the bruise. “It looks like—”
“I know what it looks like.” Harper cut him off, saying it made it real and she couldn’t hear that yet. “I … must have grabbed my arm in my sleep, I had a nightmare.”
Kyle looked at her skeptically. “You’re super flexible and weirdly strong if that’s true.”
“Drop it, please,” Harper said as she crossed to her room.
“You got it, boss,” Kyle replied, his voice unsure.
Harper sat on the edge of her bed and took a deep breath.
With shaking hands, she pulled off her socks.
In her dream, her toes had been ice, unprotected against the winter air.
During her run, her feet had felt numb, but she had ignored it.
Harper caught her breath as she revealed swollen red flesh.
Her feet looked like they had been in an ice bath and left in the cold air to dry.
She touched the skin with a shaking finger.
It was ice cold, numb to the touch. For a moment the room spun, and Harper put her head in her hands.
She was driving herself crazy with her dreams. Whatever this was, it was her brain making it a reality.
She was causing physical harm to herself, convincing herself that shadows were real.
“I need a shower,” Harper called as she stripped off her clothes and pulled on a robe. As she crossed to the small bathroom, she paused. “Look, I’m sorry I snapped.”
“It’s okay.” Kyle looked up from his coffee. “You sure you’re alright?”
Harper nodded. In the shower she cranked the water to hot and let it breathe feeling back into her irrationally frozen feet.
The bruise on her arm was blossoming into bright purple and blues.
Harper wiped the steam from the mirror and stared at her reflection for a moment.
There was no one left to anchor her to the waking world.
Carli had been that person in Boston, the one who kept her mind from wandering off the edge of the cliff.
There was no one here to remind Harper that dreams don’t leave bruises and the hidden folk didn’t exist. Harper felt herself slipping on Bell, and she wasn’t entirely sure it was unwelcome.
Storm due to hit on Friday night—late. We’re running the water samples again, inconclusive results.
Good to get more for abundance chart—should have at least twenty-four hours of weather if you can secure a boat.
Parts for research vessel due to arrive Friday morning—we’re prepared that Weather may delay repairs—possible to use a fishing boat for samples? BSI will reimburse gas and expense
Harper stared at the text from Akiel. It was Thursday afternoon.
She and Kyle had spent the day on the lookout station looking for eiders and terns.
Kyle held a data sheet full of logs for the Puffin Project.
His face was unreadable. He hadn’t spoken much since the morning.
Harper felt bad about snapping at him, but she sensed his silence was more than that.
He was sitting outside the lab staring at the winter Atlantic.
“Kyle …” Harper started hesitantly as she sat in the chair next to him. He glanced her way, his eyes distracted. “You okay? I really am sorry for snapping this morning.”
“It’s not that,” Kyle said quietly. “I mean, it’s not what you said, it’s what happened. I …” He glanced at her and again stared out to the ocean. “I don’t like this place.”
Harper watched his face, his expression perplexed. “Something happen you haven’t told me about?”
Kyle looked at her, pensive. “Nothing that makes any sense.”
“Try me,” Harper responded. “I have a phantom bruise on my arm, I’m pretty open to things that don’t make sense right now.”
Kyle sighed. “Okay. I saw something, or rather heard it last night, before you left for your run, around four a.m.?”
Harper nodded. “What?”
“Knocking. Three loud knocks on my window, and then nothing, and then three knocks again. It could’ve been a tree branch, or the wind, but I don’t think it was either of those things.”
Harper held her breath. “What do you think it was?”
“That’s the thing, I don’t know. But it’s not just that, it’s something I found in the soil samples I was packing up this morning.
” Kyle hesitated. “I took a few rotary soil samples from the shoreline and then from the back of our house—for comparison. I needed a baseline for Boston. But I was preparing the soil from the back of the house near my window this morning and …” He stopped and looked out at the water again.
“And?” Harper prodded, gooseflesh starting to form on her arms and neck.
“Look for yourself.” Kyle stood and entered the lab, crossing to the work table. Harper followed to see a tray of full sample bags. He took one and carefully emptied it onto a metal slate. Harper squinted at the ragged object embedded in the dirt.
“What is that? It looks almost like …” Harper leaned closer.
“Nail bed, but not human, it was torn like it had been digging. But not human nail body, it was what you might see in non-human creatures, like apes or …” Kyle looked at Harper, his expression lost.
“Or something else that had fingernails,” Harper finished. “Can I assume you haven’t included this in your report to Boston yet?”
Kyle shook his head. “I meant to talk to you immediately, but it’s just so weird, and then on top of what I heard last night. That dead thing that Polly brought in—you don’t think …”
“I don’t know. But it’s okay, we’ll send the samples out on the evening ferry.
You need to write it up, and we’ll send it together,” Harper said softly.
“Your report will be no weirder than a phosphorescent octopus that saved me from drowning as a result of a rogue wave that only hit our research boat and nowhere else.” She smiled hesitantly, and Kyle begrudgingly returned it.
“Fair. They’re going to think we’re on something out here,” he said, but there was a lightness in his words that hadn’t been there a moment ago.
“Possibly,” Harper said as she stood and stretched. “I think there’s merit in revisiting those files from the New Brunswick team. I suspect there’s strange whatnot in their reports too.”
Later, after Kyle had hit send on his report, Harper walked the soil samples back to the dock.
She’d secured through Murphy a fishing boat for water samples for Friday morning, just an outboard motor dinghy so they couldn’t go nearly as far out as the New Brunswick coordinates asked, but they could possibly revisit the site of the wave.
There were explanations as to fingernail particulates in the soil, a gardener, a kid messing around.
What rolled around in Harper’s head was what Kyle had said: “non-human creatures.” …
Every time she blinked, Harper saw the bark-covered creatures from the shrubs, or the twisted remains that Polly had brought her, the description of what Shuri had seen.
… She should have told Kyle, maybe. She shook it off as she approached the dock.
No point. If it was non-human, the lab in Boston would confirm it soon enough; let him sleep at night until then.
Einar took the package with a gentle smile.
“All good your way?” he asked.
“Yeah, so far,” Harper replied.
“Storm coming, morning ferry will be the last for a couple days if the weather report is true,” Einar said, a knot in between his eyes.
Harper nodded. “I figured. Be safe out there.”
Einar waved as he headed back onto the ferry. “Always am.”
Harper started to turn and jumped to see Nigel standing on the dock.
“Jesus, Nigel.” Harper breathed through her surprise. “How do you do that?”
Nigel looked amusedly at her. “I simply do not make any unnecessary noise.” He pulled an envelope from his pocket. “I have an invitation.”
“I’m honestly and sincerely honored,” Harper said as she accepted the envelope.
“Lady Bell would like to know if you would care to wait out the coming storm in Bell Manor,” Nigel said with precision. “As of tomorrow evening, we are expecting some rather inclement conditions and Lady Bell is correct, I assume, that you will be unable to do much work here in the village.”
Harper nodded. “She is correct. I would love to, but I have a teammate, and he’s not doing too hot. I would feel bad about leaving him alone.”
Nigel nodded. “I understand. Unfortunately, the invitation is for you alone, but if you change your mind, please do so by midday tomorrow. We would need to transport you to the manor before the wind picks up.”
“How will I let you know?” Harper asked, staring at the creamy envelope in her hands.
Truthfully, she wanted nothing more than to spend a few nights at the manor, the offer was like an invisible line that tethered her to the sloping hill upon which Bell Manor reigned.
But the idea of Kyle, alone in the house, already rattled …
“We will know,” Nigel said simply. “Good day.” With that, he turned and gracefully drove off in the cart, heading for the manor road.
As Harper walked back to the village, she scanned the countryside for whatever was waiting in it.
The things that Kyle feared left her intrigued.
Whatever creatures lived in this place were no worse than what was in her own head.
She rubbed her arm where the mystery bruise was now a rainbow of dark and unsettling colors.
Although she could not see an obvious reason for it, she felt the answer to her dreams and their increasing intensity was at the manor, if only to talk to Lady Bell about them.
She was hit with a memory sensation of the grand formal sitting room, a cup of steaming liquid before her, a sense of warmth and home overwhelming her, a face devoid of details but emitting the same familiarity as Lady Bell presents, the idea that no one would harm her again.
Harper stopped and breathed in the twilight air.