Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
A fter speaking to Lewis, Luke had returned to the bookshop and bolted the door against the visitors who were wandering around. He felt woolly-headed and had experienced a worrying urge to follow his brother to Tobias’s house. He had the strong sense that he would feel more himself if he spent time in the shop, surrounded by the comforting shelves of books and the smell of old paper.
The lights flickered in greeting, and he patted the counter. His foggy thoughts were becoming clear again, but a wave of tiredness was flowing over his whole body. He felt weak with exhaustion and he didn’t think he could stand up for another second. He sank into his reading chair, promising himself that he would just close his eyes for a few minutes. Just a short nap. Then he would walk to Esme’s and they could work out what to do.
Esme woke up to a strange new sound. Silence. For days, she had become used to Strand House being full of visitors with all of their life and noise. Doors opening and closing, toilets flushing, showers running, random coughs and voices and feet on the stairs. Now there was nothing.
She got dressed and went downstairs. The door to the yellow room was ajar and Esme peeked inside. The bed was still made from yesterday and it was clear that Mr and Mrs Carter hadn’t come back last night. Their bags were still in the room, though, which suggested they hadn’t checked out.
Then it hit her. The Carters ought to have left the island. It was their fourth day. Had they fled across the causeway without bothering to pick up their belongings? Or had they broken the two-night rule? The wards ought to have prevented that, unless they weren’t working. She shoved the thought away violently. The wards were fine. This was a mistake. She had miscounted. She was exhausted with the tension and not sleeping properly and the weirdness of it all. She would check the wards and find they were working. They had to be working. Esme packed her rucksack with shaking hands.
Hammer was asleep on a camping mat on the living room floor. She knew he didn’t fit on the sofa, and he had assured her that he was perfectly comfortable. Winter was lying along his side. He raised his head when she walked in and whined softly.
Jet was asleep in the kitchen and he began winding around her legs as soon as she entered the room. She fed him and stroked his blunt head and then wondered whether to bother setting the breakfast tables. There didn’t seem to be anybody around.
Hoisting her rucksack onto her back, Esme walked away from the village and Tobias’s house. The sky was blue, mocking her state of mind, as she looked out at the sea. The harbour ward was the nearest, and it took her no more than fifteen minutes to get there and check that she was alone. Holding her hand over the stones, Esme willed the ward to reply. But the answering tone was absent. The stones were silent.
The knowledge that had been growing was a lead weight, but she went to the church ward. If only one ward was broken, it was possible that she had made a mistake in the last renewal. It would be fixable.
The causeway was visible from the church ward and a line of cars were snaking onto the island. The sun caught the shined surfaces, reflecting back light from an endless stream of polished metal and glass. Whatever she had seen behind Lewis’s eyes was getting more powerful. It was drawing more and more people to him.
She held her hand over the stones. There was no answering tone. No vibration in the air that told her the ward was working. Esme unpacked her supplies. It wasn’t time to renew the wards, but she didn’t know what else to try. She pricked her thumb with a clean needle and squeezed a drop of blood onto the stone. It didn’t do anything. She couldn’t feel the island.
Her legs moved automatically, taking her to the next ward. She knew what she would find, but felt she had to check. For the sake of thoroughness. She wanted to laugh at herself. As if diligence mattered now? She couldn’t make up for her failure with attention to detail. Still, she walked to the ward at the far end of Coire Bay.
Cleaning her thumb with an antiseptic wipe, Esme’s mind was blank. She had failed. She was the Ward Witch, but without Tobias, she wasn’t enough. The island was no longer responding to her blood and the wards were broken.
Hammer was in the living room of Strand House, stroking Winter. It was calming for both of them. He really wanted to go to Lewis’s house to see how he was doing. Or, he could admit this only in the quiet of his own mind, to see him. Which was confusing. He still didn’t particularly like The Book Keeper and didn’t understand why he was being so tolerant of his twin. He didn’t think he had always felt this way, but when he tried to remember that version of himself, it refused to come into focus.
He held onto the things that were certain and felt right. Esme had asked him to stay with her, to protect her. So he wouldn’t leave. And Winter refused to leave the boundary of Strand House, whimpering when Hammer tried to get him past the garden gate, and he wasn’t going to abandon Tobias’s dog. Tobias. Where was the mayor? And why did he keep forgetting about him?
Winter lifted his head and barked an alarm.
Hammer got to his feet. He heard a door open and then a voice. Like Lewis’s, but not as pleasant. ‘Esme?’
Hammer went to meet Luke. He was standing on the mat by the back door.
‘She’s not in,’ Hammer said.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Looking out for her. It’s been fucking bedlam round here.’
The lane leading past the mayor’s house was packed with people. Visitors from the mainland kept arriving and, with the wards broken, nobody was leaving. Esme had thought things were easing, as the visitors had left Strand House, but it appeared they hadn’t gone far. She recognised the couple who had left their luggage. ‘Mr Carter,’ Esme said. ‘What are you doing?’
The man didn’t answer. Didn’t appear to hear her.
His wife was on tiptoes, trying to see over the heads. At that moment, there was a scuffle and a wave of movement from somewhere inside the crowd. A scream, cut off. If this was how bad it was outside, Esme didn’t want to think about what it had to be like inside the house.
Then she heard a familiar voice and saw a flash of a red checked shirt. Seren was in the middle of the crowd, determinedly working her way to the front door.
Esme called her name several times, but Seren either didn’t hear her or wasn’t listening.
Standing in the pale sunshine with the signs of spring just beginning to burst from the ground and the cacophony of a crowd of strangers, crazed by their blank desire, Esme felt hot tears build. She had failed the island. She had failed these people. She was supposed to protect them all, and she wasn’t strong enough. The wards were broken, which meant none of these people would leave. She could only imagine the state of inside the house. How many people were squeezed in? How long had they gone without food or water as they worshipped at Lewis’s feet?
She couldn’t see Seren’s shirt any longer. She must have fought her way inside. Esme couldn’t see a way she could rescue her. The tears fell hotly onto her cheeks, and her face burned with shame. She wasn’t a powerful witch. She was as useless as she had always been.