CHAPTER 94
She rowed Mr. Wilson towards town as fast as she could while Kallias pushed from behind.
She was worried about Kallias’s cut attracting sharks, but he assured her he was fine and keeping watch for them, so they hurried along to town.
He ducked back under the water though before any buildings came into view, and it was a good thing too.
She could feel curious eyes on her the second she even came upon the first houses.
It was one of the things she hated most about a small town: nothing could be done without everyone knowing it, and seeing the lighthouse keeper row in when she wasn’t supposed to show for nearly a year was certainly one of those times.
And when the first curious souls saw a very injured, wan-looking carpenter in her boat, why, one told another told another, and by the time she got the boat to shore, they were surrounded.
“What happened? What happened?” chorused the voices—children, women, old and young, fishers, sailors, even the butcher. All seemed to surround them.
On the boat ride here, Mr. Wilson had said it was best to claim he had come to give her the gun given his worries from Mr. Runington’s behavior yesterday, only for the man to show and attack, leaving Mr. Wilson no choice but to defend himself and Miss Wains’s honor.
It wasn’t too far from the truth, he had claimed, and better than them claiming she had done it.
She already made people uncomfortable by living alone and saving people as only a man should.
If people thought she had the ability to kill, they might well declare her a witch, he’d said.
Sadly, she was sure he wasn’t wrong. She was definitely not most people’s favorite.
So now as they got out of the boat and she helped support him and the people surrounded them, he told the story of the deranged Runington, shooting first without warning and declaring he would marry Miss Wains without her acceptance.
Even weak and tired, he had them in the palm of his hand, speaking as they slowly walked toward the doctor.
And she could tell everyone was enthralled by him in a way she would never have.
He made it look so easy that she was sure no one could tell most of his weight was leaning on her.
Why no man offered assistance was beyond her; perhaps they were all so enthralled with the words they forgot she was there, for no one claimed impropriety at the touch either.
She could not stop watching their faces light up, how they seemed to hear it like it was a mere fable—as if a man had not attacked, as if a man was not bleeding before them, as if a man had not died, as if a man had not been forced to kill.
To them, it seemed like just a story, even as the blood still poured forth.
She didn’t know how they did it as much as she didn’t know how Mr. Wilson so easily enthralled them, for her heart hurt at the mere thought of any of it, at the mere idea of whatever Kallias had had to do under that sea.
No one, but especially not a soul so gentle as his, should have to kill, and she hated Mr. Runington all the more for making him do so.
It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that one man’s greed could take so much.