by Kelly Powell
I want to ask after his night terrors. Seeing Connor down on the beach, it would be of little surprise if Jude’s nightmares return full force. What actually comes out of my mouth, however, is quite another thing. “I just wanted to say goodbye,” I tell him. “Thank you again for letting me spend the night. It was more than generous of you.”
That seems to wake him up. “You’re leaving already?”
“I’m sure I’ve kept you long enough.”
“Not at all.” He leans forward, holding my gaze. “Really, Moira, having you—having someone here—it’s a welcome change of pace.” His eyes look honest as he says it. “At least stay for breakfast.”
My guilt, deep-rooted as it is, branches in two directions. On one dark bough, I curse my efforts to drain our friendship bloodless, when neither of us desired the ax. On the other, I find myself reluctant to take advantage of Jude’s hospitality, fully aware he wouldn’t want me at his table if he knew what truths I’ve buried.
“All right,” I say. “Tea would be lovely.”
God, I am such a wretched creature.
Jude’s smile lights up his whole face. He wipes his palms on his trouser knees and gets to his feet, running a hand through his hair. It hurts to think of him spending night after night in this tower without another soul, taking meals and working the light with only himself to talk to.
What befell the Osrics is common knowledge on the island. It’s a history most prefer to forget, violent and horrifying in its suddenness. Seven summers ago, Llyr Osric went out on his boat, accompanied by Jude’s mother and older sister. Jude was left behind to watch the lighthouse—but ended up watching sirens drag his family into the sea.
Pieces of the boat washed ashore the following day, cracked and splintered, the bodies found later, just as broken. Jude’s uncle manned the lighthouse for a time, but Jude now manages on his own.
I watch him prepare breakfast in the sunlit kitchen. He has changed and washed up for the day, his shirtsleeves pushed to his elbows as he digs out bread from a yellow bread bin and sets the kettle to boil. I breathe in the smell of wood smoke from the stove, the warm, floral fragrance of dry tea leaves. It’s worlds away from the wickedness of last night, yet I can’t help but notice the repetition. My thoughts wheel back to the whispers I heard in the dark, and I ask him, “Who were you talking to last night? Did the police come back?”
Jude turns to meet my scrutiny. “I wasn’t talking to anyone.”
“I heard something—like voices. It was coming from that storeroom.”
Uncertainty sparks deep in his bright eyes. He laughs, high and light, so unlike his normal laugh it gives me pause. “I think you might’ve been dreaming, Moira.” The kettle sings for his attention, and he makes a fuss over taking it off the burner.
He carries the teapot to the table, sitting in the chair across from me. I stare at the coils of heat, thinking. It sounds like I’m not the only one with secrets, but as I’m in no mood to turn out my own, it’s only fair to let Jude fold his away.
His eyes shift to where my violin case rests near my elbow. “Will you be playing out on the cliff again?”
“Why? Do you wish to come along?”
I want to bite back the words the moment they pass my lips.
Jude looks taken aback by the question. He drops his eyes to the table and presses his knuckles to his mouth. I imagine his thoughts, like mine, have circled back around to Connor Sheahan.
The rest of the Sheahan family must know by now. They’ll be grieving, cursing the sirens for their loss, cursing the entire island perhaps. In the wake of Connor’s death, people might well be arguing for revocation of the hunting ban before the month is out.
Jude says, “I’d love to, Moira.”
His sincerity is almost too much to bear. He takes up the teapot, pouring tea into my cup, and I do my best to ignore the lump at the back of my throat.
When we journey out onto the moors, we head for the cliff’s edge. A quick glimpse over the crag confirms a beach empty of sirens—leaving Jude as my sole audience. He follows my gaze and turns back, offering up a smile. “None of the sirens.”
Well, I can’t blame him for being happy because of it. Especially after last night. Sirens are the cause of many wounds in Twillengyle, and few of them are deeper than Jude Osric’s. “The storm,” I mutter, certain he can draw his own conclusions.
“Where are we going?”
A good question. It doesn’t make much difference, really, without the sirens as my compass. Moor grass borders the entire island, a vast sweep of red and green falling away to dark rock and sand.
On impulse, I stop. “Here.”
He watches as I kneel, releasing the clasps on my case. I hold the violin gently in my lap, checking its strings before loosening the bow.
“Do you think you’ll ever go back to playing at the dances?”
“Heartsick without my music, are you?”
I glance up at him, and he doesn’t look away. Slipping his hands into his trouser pockets, he says, “I’ve missed it quite a lot, yes,” and I have the distinct feeling we are no longer talking about music.
Still, there is no part of me that yearns to return to the dance hall. After last time, I swore I wouldn’t. Let Peter and Flint manage the sets; let them deal with the swarms of tourists—I won’t lift a finger to help.
Standing up, I tuck the violin under my chin. I touch bow to strings in the opening chords of “Over the Moor and Heather,” closing my eyes in concentration, my fingers firm against the strings.
The song shifts, growing and changing out of the chorus, until it’s no longer “Over the Moor,” but the murmur of waves against the shore, cold wind at my fingertips, cliff grass beneath my feet. The music is in my breath and sings through my blood. I near the end and everything in me is still as I slide my bow across the strings in one long note. I exhale, open my eyes, and bring the violin to rest at my side.
I look up to find Jude standing as he was, albeit a little slack-jawed. It seems to take him a moment to realize I’ve stopped playing. “Moira,” he says, and his voice does not sound like his own.
I grin at him. “Liked it, did you?”
He rubs the back of his neck. “It was lovely.”
The words make me feel warm and agreeable. I’m reminded once more of when we were children, when I played music on the moors with the wind and the sea and Jude Osric for company. These past few years have put a distance between us that was never there before. We used to explore the tide pools together, run around barefoot, take up sticks in imaginary sword fights. Jude was loud and lively and quick to grab my hand. Come, Moira, I need to show you something…
Now he considers the horizon, solemn. “I ought to get going,” he says in a mournful tone.
“Yes.” I shift my grip on the neck of my violin. The cold has turned my fingers stiff. “If the police do come back…”
Jude smiles. “I’ll let you know.”
He starts back toward the lighthouse, and I look along the beach to the patch of sand where Connor was found. Nothing remains of the incident, the shore washed clean.
I still think it’s peculiar that sirens left him there. Closing my eyes, I call up the memory of Connor as I last saw him. The slice across his neck was knife-sharp, and it’s quite possible sirens were not the ones to take his life. After all, there are plenty of other ways to die.
It’s quite possible he was murdered.
CHAPTER FIVE
IT TURNS OUT I DO not need Jude Osric as my informant in police matters. I find what I’m looking for in the next morning’s Gazette, typed neatly into a narrow column.
A SAD TALE.—Connor Sheahan, aged twelve, was attacked and killed by sirens the day before last, on Dunmore Beach, as confirmed by police. Funeral services will be performed by Father Teague at St. Cecilia’s churchyard this evening at five o’clock.
Scowling, I toss the paper back onto our kitchen table. The more I thought about this yesterday, t
he more convinced I became that sirens weren’t responsible. Surely it can’t be that difficult to ascertain the true cause of death. The police ought to be looking for evidence of Connor’s killer this very instant.
Murder. It has to be.
My mother—sitting across from me—looks up to study my face. “Don’t let it wind you up, Moira.”
The words irritate me to an extent. I don’t like the idea of my expressions being so easily read. “I’m not wound up.”
“Yes, you are,” she replies. “And perhaps you wouldn’t be if you weren’t looking at the sirens through rose-colored glasses all the time.”
I press my lips together, staring down into my teacup. Whatever fondness I have for the sirens has nothing to do with this. This is ignorance in its highest form.
I look back at the Twillengyle Gazette, taking the page and folding it up into smaller and smaller sections. The words “killed by sirens” fill my mind, black as the printer’s ink. Connor Sheahan’s death had been printed like a well-worn formality, fit into a corner of the page. A local boy—the son of a fisherman no less—would know better than to wander so close to the shore without iron. Connor knew the hazards. The storm alone should’ve kept him away from the beach.
Clenching my jaw, I slip the article into my dress pocket. Perhaps they’re trying to keep murder out of the papers—wouldn’t want to scare off the tourists. The danger of sirens is one thing, but the idea of human violence? Best swept under the carpet with no one the wiser. Perhaps Twillengyle Council hopes ignorance will lead to bliss.
My silent rage is jarred as my mother scrapes back her chair. She crosses over to the counter, gathering two wicker baskets in her arms. They’re filled with the cakes she baked earlier, each wrapped tidily in cloth, ready to be sold at the market in Dunmore. When she drops one of the baskets in front of me, I give her a dark look.
“Take it, Moira,” she says. “I won’t have you sitting around here being morbid. You can help me at the stall today.”
“I’d rather not.”
“It wasn’t a suggestion, dear.” She touches her fingertips to the closed basket. “You spent all night at that lighthouse the other day. It’s time you did a few errands.”
“Jude needed me there,” I press. “The police…”
She doesn’t wait for the rest of the excuse but goes to stand in the entryway. I grit my teeth, snatch up the basket, and follow.
With her hand on the doorknob, she says, “It was good of you to visit Mr. Osric. It’s a terrible affair, Moira, but you should know better than to go off in a storm like that. What was I supposed to think happened to you?”
“I can take care of myself.”
My mother’s expression is pinched—because she knows it’s true. Pity the same couldn’t be said for Connor Sheahan. Terrible affair indeed.
She opens the door, and I duck my head as I step out onto the walkway. My thoughts are crowded with awful things, my fingers curled around a wicker handle rather than the worn leather of my violin case. Connor’s curt obituary burns in my pocket. It’s a counterfeit tale, the easiest to tell because everyone already believes it.
I will prove them all wrong.
* * *
Dunmore is one of two towns on the island, on the east side, with the other, Lochlan, located to the southwest. They are small, concentrated places from which the houses of Twillengyle circle around and scatter out toward the coast. Lochlan is the busier of the two, with a harbor that parallels the mainland. Dunmore is nearer to the coast and its cluttered appearance is something tourists would call quaint and the townsfolk would call shameful. In the summer, its streets are crowded with tourists having travel-worn clothes repaired at the tailor’s and gathering outside the dance hall in the evenings. It feels exhausting just to look at them.
With autumn leaves littering the cobbles, Dunmore is empty of everyone but the locals I know by face, if not all by name. I walk alongside my mother through the winding streets, stopping every so often to chat with this person or that.
Old women with pearl earrings pat my cheek, tell me how they’ve missed hearing my violin; won’t I come play at the hall this weekend? I smile, close-lipped, and bear it, making hollow promises through gritted teeth.
Soon enough a pupil of mine will play finely at the hall. I clutch my basket tighter, remembering how I’d once thought Connor might fill my place, and my stomach pinches at the realization that I’ll have to find someone to fill his spot instead. Without him I’m down to but a handful of students.
We’re next snagged by my mother’s friends. They call out to her—how are you, Lenore? I see you’ve Moira lending a hand today—and become benevolent shadows as they follow us to the market that curves along the main road. The air here is filled with the smell of fresh fish and salted butter. Stalls line both sides of the street, selling everything from trinkets and fishing tackle to baked goods and protection charms. Our own stall is slight and exposed, a plain cloth arranged over the counter. I smooth down the fabric and set my basket atop it.
I’ve already heard half a dozen whispers of Connor’s name. Rumors and curiosities alike.
What was he even doing down there?
A good family, but they’ve always been soft on those boys, you see.
Without any iron, it’s bound to happen.
I feel nauseous as I handle coins and pass over cakes. Any mention of the Sheahans cuts into me like wire, while every muttered oath for the sirens turns my stomach. Tourist deaths are to be expected, their blood darkening Twillengyle waters almost every summer. The death of an islander is different. When the sirens take one of our own, it leaves people shaky and nervous, spitting curses as we are reminded once more how closely we flirt with mortality.
There must be some way to set the police straight. If I can lay out enough evidence, they’ll have to admit sirens didn’t play a factor in Connor’s death. I straighten the assortment of cakes in front of me, biting my lip. The cool air nips at my fingers, but it helps numb my anger as well. I wonder if Jude has seen this morning’s article, what he thinks of the shoddy police work.
When I look up from the stall, I see the boy in question crossing the street toward me. He looks very fine in his town clothes: his wool sack coat buttoned at the top, his matching brown waistcoat, and dark trousers. He smiles, doffing his cap. “Good morning, Moira. I didn’t think you’d be at market today.”
“Nor did I.” I glance over at my mother—occupied with a customer—before returning my attention to Jude. “What are you doing here?”
“Just wanted to say hello.” He kneads his cap, a flush rising in his cheeks. “I’ve some things to get at the hardware shop.”
“Have you read the paper yet?”
A crease appears between his brows. “I have,” he says. “What of it?”
I press my palms flat against the counter. Anger returns in a wave, rolling through me like the nausea I felt moments ago. “Sirens didn’t kill Connor Sheahan.”
Jude frowns. He says, “Of course they did.”
“No, Jude. Think on it.” I lower my voice. “Sirens wouldn’t have cut his throat so clean. They wouldn’t have left him on the beach.”
He stares at me, lips parted. “I don’t understand,” he says softly.
“I think—” I start, but cut myself off as my mother comes to stand at my elbow.
Glancing between the two of us, she smiles at Jude. “Hello there, Mr. Osric.”
“Morning, Mrs. Alexander.” His eyes slide away from mine to meet hers. “How are you today?”
“Fine, thank you. I’m much obliged to you—giving Moira a place to stay in that storm the other night.”
“Oh.” Jude’s earlier blush returns in an instant. “It was no trouble at all, ma’am. I was glad of the company.” He swallows visibly, looks to me, and adds, “I wish only that it were under better circumstances.”
I drop my gaze to the countertop. Jude sounds wistful, kind, but the words drive through me
like a hot poker. My mother clucks her tongue in sympathy, pushing one of her cakes into his hand. When he tries to pay for it, she waves him off, and I fume silently at the whole exchange. My mother can be wonderful at public niceties when she chooses.
I tell her, “Jude was on his way to the hardware shop. May I go with him?”
She runs her fingers through her hair, seeming to consider the idea. “Very well,” she says. “But be back within the hour, Moira. I need you here.”
She doesn’t, really. Most days she manages selling pastries on her own. She only wants to keep me from doing anything useful with my time. I slip out from behind the counter, joining Jude on the cracked sidewalk.
Around the corner, I pull him to a stop. He looks back at me, and his eyes are troubled, nearly black. I take note of the dark circles beneath them, pressed into his skin like bruises. Keeping my voice quiet, I say, “I think someone murdered him, Jude. I think someone led him down to the sand and took a knife to him.”
Jude casts his eyes heavenward. “You’re not making any sense.”
“I’m making perfect sense.”
He lets out a little off-key laugh and looks in the direction of the street. “Someone murdered him. Right. Yes. Whatever were the police thinking? Of course he was—”
I give his sleeve a sharp tug, lifting my chin. “Are you going to help me or not?”
“Help you?”
I swallow. My resolve crystalizes the longer I hold the image in my mind: Connor lying on the beach, blood seeping from the slash at his throat. “I’m going to find out what happened to him,” I say. “I’m going to find the killer.”
“Moira…”
“Don’t Moira me, Jude Osric. In fact, forget what I just said. I’ll manage fine on my own.” I turn back in the direction of the market, but Jude steps into my path.
“Wait.” He raises his hands, palms out. “You can’t say something like that and expect me to… I mean, you can’t really think—”
“Yes,” I say. “I do.”
Lowering his hands, Jude bites his lip. He ducks his head to study the ground, and I cross my arms, waiting for his answer.
