Shemaiah #2
“Mr. Roan.” Gray performs a shallow nod as the porter carting our bags loads them under the carriage.
“Gray, I’d like you to meet Miss Willoughby,” I say. “Pippa, this is Gray Broadchurch.”
“Did you find my boy?” Pippa asks. “Is he here?” She looks beyond Gray, peering into the carriage windows.
Gray’s expression softens. He’s got a little girl a bit older than Tobias. I’ve never met her, but he talks about her regularly when he visits the island or on the rare occasions I come into New Essik.
“He wasn’t at the home in Briarton.” He shakes his head. “But that don’t mean he isn’t in New Caldon. I was plannin’ to head there next.”
“But Mrs. Darning already checked New Caldon.” Pippa shakes her head, her hand rubbing circles over her heart the way she does when she’s nervous.
I step up and wrap an arm around her waist.
Gray’s face scrunches like a wrinkled apple. “Nah,” he says slowly. “She was here in New Essik the whole time. You told me to keep an eye on her, and I did.”
“What?!” There’s anger in Pippa’s voice, along with a note of panic. “But she said she checked Caldon.”
“You’re certain?” I ask Gray, my hand sliding back and forth over Pippa’s back, offering comfort.
“Aye.” He studies Pippa with a worried frown. His eyes are clear, and there’s no hint of a lie in his body language.
While Mrs. Darning has been embedded in our lives longer, I find I trust Gray more.
He deals in shady business, but he has his own moral code.
One that’s easy to understand, since it’s similar to my own.
He won’t think twice about breaking the law, lying, stealing, or even killing if it serves the greater good or protects someone he loves.
But he’s not self-serving, and he won’t do any of those things without a reason.
I can’t see any reason for him to lie to us now.
Mrs. Darning, on the other hand, has always been an enigma.
She doesn’t seem bothered by morality, never blinking when a Solstice ceremony led to the death of multiple women, had no qualms with my father locking Zarah up, and never once tried to help her.
She goes to the Mavarri goddess’s temple daily, but I don’t think it’s morality she’s seeking so much as favor.
I’ve sometimes felt like she reveres us and other times that we repulse her.
She’s impossible to read. I already know she’s a liar—she lied about not knowing where my sister was for years—but why lie about this?
“Where did she spend her time if she wasn’t in Caldon?” I ask.
“She stayed at The Sanatorium mostly,” Gray says. “I thought you sent her there.”
When we started bringing women from The New Essik Sanatorium to the island, Gray was the one we sent.
He knows we have a relationship with The Sanatorium, so it makes sense he’d think we had reason for sending Mrs. Darning there.
But seeing as Summer Solstice is still a month away and my father is dead—so we have no reason to continue retrieving women—I wish he would have questioned Darning’s behavior more.
“Thought you’d given up on finding the boy after I told you he wasn’t here in New Essik,” he adds. “Until Darning told me to go to Briarton for him.”
Pippa sniffles and pulls away from my shoulder, looking up at me with firm resolve. “We have to go to New Caldon.”
I agree, but this whole thing isn’t sitting right. A deep sense of foreboding settles over me like the dark clouds overhead. “What did she do at The Sanitorium?”
“Couldn’t tell you.” Gray shrugs. “They aren’t used to me showin’ up when it’s not Solstice.
I got an interview and asked after her, but they said she weren’t there.
I knew it was a lie cause I’d seen her comin’ and goin’ and takin’ a turn around the yard with Mrs. Potter and the head of the place.
” He snaps his fingers like he’s trying to think of something. “Dr. Reter, ain’t it?”
I nod, knowing the man only by name. I’ve never met him, but I almost had to once. He wasn’t happy that we were inviting women to Roan Island until Mrs. Potter spoke with him. I’ve never been sure what she said, but it worked.
“Could Darning be sick?” Pippa asks.
“Didn’t seem so,” Gray replies. “If she were, they wouldn’t ‘ave let her come and go so easily.”
Why would The Sanatorium lie about Mrs. Darning’s presence? My instincts tingle with the hunt, and I look down at Pippa, who’s chewing on her lip more intensely than normal. “How are you feeling? Are you up for going to New Caldon?”
Personally, I’m thinking we need a trip to The Sanatorium, but Pippa is leading this charge, and I know Tobias is at the forefront of her mind.
“I feel much better now that we’re off the water.” She pauses and closes her eyes. I get the sense that she’s studying herself. “In fact, I feel better than I’ve felt in a long time.”
When she opens her eyes, she blushes as if she just realized what that might mean and what led to that improved feeling. A warm sense of pride swells in my chest, knowing that I brought her that relief.
“I want to find my son,” she says. “And if there’s a chance he’s in New Caldon, that’s where I want to go first.”
I open the carriage door and offer my hand to help her in. “I guess we’re going to New Caldon.”
The Sanatorium will have to wait.