by Ella James
“Is that right?”
“Of course. Listen to the ocean and endeavor nature walks. Get lots of rest and use up all the bath salts.”
I nod at the trail ahead, which disappears around the cliffs that lead up to the plateau. “I guess I’m doing this all wrong, then.”
She looks up at me, and there’s this sweetness on her face; it reminds me of the looks she gave me in the burrow. Like she’s happy she’s here with me.
“Tell me more of your impressions, city boy. I’ve heard a bit about your comings and goings. What are you drinking at the bar? What Tristanian dishes have you tried, at whose home? Have you seen things you consider odd here? I’d like to hear it all.”
I squeeze her hand. “Hmm, well, I saw Mrs. White’s orchids.”
“All nine hundred ninety-seven of them?”
I laugh. “They were nice.”
“Oh, sure.”
“I like flowers.”
“Sure you do.”
“Mrs. White is a nice lady.”
“Sure she is.”
I can’t stop laughing. “Spitting fire today, Siren.”
“What does that mean?”
“I had an Alabama nanny when I was a little kid who would have said, ‘She’s in a mood.’” The memory makes me chuckle.
“My mood is perfectly fine.”
“Sure it is.”
She sticks her tongue out at me.
“I’ll tell you what I’ve seen—I’ve seen some homemade tinctures. Not something you see every day.” She smiles shyly. “I found out the other day there’s only two more bottles of Macallan 18 on the damn whole island. Kinda stopped that nightly routine.”
She laughs. “For the best, perhaps.”
Our dirt path takes us past the plateau that overlooks the village—and her cottage. I point toward it. “I’ve been up there some. Does that count as relaxing?”
“Vloeiende Trane,” she murmurs.
“What?”
“Cascading tears,” she says dramatically.
“What language is that?”
“Afrikaans.” She wiggles her brows. “Is it one you don’t know, Sailor?”
Sailor again now. I shake my head. “How dare you name your cliffs in a language I don’t know?”
She laughs, her eyes on her feet again, as if she’s too shy to look me in the face. When she looks at me again, she flashes me a pretty smile. “How many do you speak? How many languages?”
“A couple.”
“A couple is two. You’ve already admitted to Italian, German, and French. And English.”
“So that’s four.”
“Do you speak more?”
“Would you be impressed if I did?”
She laughs softly. “Perhaps.”
Our trail forks, the left side veering toward the little lakes I ran to a few times, the right tilting up into the fog. The sun is rising, but we can’t see it through the heavy cloud cover. It’s turned the darkness gray-blue, but it doesn’t offer any warmth yet. The air feels thick and cool around us.
“What about you?” I ask. “What ones do you know?”
“Only French and Spanish.”
“I like Spanish,” I say as we skirt a patch of muddy ground. She looks down at her boots, and I admire her profile. In the burrow, she looked beautiful—and more so because she was so fucking nice—but I couldn’t see her clearly due to how dark things were. Now that I’ve got a good view, I can’t pull my eyes away from her smooth, freckled skin, her wide, expressive eyes.
“You ever read Pablo Neruda?”
I watch as her mouth falls open in what looks like happy surprise. “Pablo Neruda? He’s my favorite!” She swings my hand. “You like him?”
“No,” I deadpan. “I just said the name to mess with you.”
“You’re smirking.” She laughs. “Why are you smirking?”
I swing her arm again. “I don’t know. Just had a feeling you might like that stuff.”
“And why is that, pray tell?”
I smirk down at her. “Because you say pray tell.”
She ducks her lips up like she’s pissed, even as she’s fighting a smile. I tug one of her braids. She swats me.
“How do you know of him?” she presses.
I shrug. “Poetry class.”
She wiggles her eyebrows and waves her arm dramatically. “No estés lejos de mí un solo día, porque cómo, porque, no sé decirlo, es largo el día, y te estaré esperando como en las estaciones cuando en alguna parte se durmieron los trenes.”
“Don’t leave me,” I continue, “even for an hour, because then the little drops of anguish will all run together. The smoke that roams looking for a home will drift into me, choking my lost heart.” I wink. “I learned this one in English.”
Despite my recitation in the wrong language, her mouth is open.
“Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach,” I recite, suppressing a grin. “May your eyelids never flutter into the empty distance. Don’t leave me for a second, my dearest, because in that moment you’ll have gone so far, I’ll wander over all the earth, asking will you come back. Will you leave me here…dying.”
She gives a little squeal and drops my hand so she can clap hers. “Bravo, you! I couldn’t be more surprised.”
I laugh. “Should I be insulted?”
“Absolutely you should not. I’m impressed. What woman doesn’t love a man who quotes romantic poetry?”
I watch her face twist up in horror as she realizes her faux pas. She blushes tomato red as she covers her eyes with her hands.
“Pardon me.” She stops walking. “I can’t walk with my face covered.”
I step in front of her, laughing as I try to pull her hands down. She fights me, so I let her leave them…but I pull her up against me. “I can’t see your face now,” I murmur, wrapping an arm around her soft back.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” I whisper against her hair. It smells like flowers. “The verdict is in, and apparently I’m pretty loveable.”
She shoves me. “You’re a clod.” Her face is still tipped down, but I can see she’s smiling.
I laugh. “What’s a clod?”
“A stupid person.”
That makes me laugh…which makes her laugh.
“Your cheeks are red,” I tease.
“Because I’m the clod.” She strides ahead of me, but I lunge forward and catch her hand. “Finley.” I lace my fingers through hers. “You’re not a clod.”
“I’m inexperienced and awkward.” Her words are whisper-hisses. She’s glancing down at just the right angle so I can see a teardrop in the corner of one of her eyes.
Shock moves through me, making my hands shake a little. Then my chest goes warm and heavy. I squeeze her hand. “Hey now. Let me tell you something. Experience is overrated.”
“Is it?” She peeks up at me, and it takes some effort not to pull her up against my chest again. To keep my tone light, like I don’t want to fucking hug her.
“Oh yeah. If I could get a redo, I’d go somewhere just like this. Appreciate the everyday shit. One type of gum. Mail runs every third month. You know everybody. Everybody looking out for each other.”
“Is that what you think it would be like?” I can hear the censure in her soft tone.
“I don’t know.” I rub my forehead. I know there wouldn’t be any covert trips to Mass Avenue. I know I’d never swerve around some fucker sprawled out in the middle of the road and foaming from the mouth—because even though I’ve got Narcan in my glove box and I’m certified at CPR, I can’t stop for him. Homer Carnegie isn’t supposed to be there with a bundle of smack at 4 a.m. on a fucking Tuesday.
I feel the heavy shaking start in my shoulders and vibrate down my arms. Her fingers squeeze mine as we walk toward a rocky ridge.
“You didn’t tell me you were mute.”
It’s the next thought that crosses my mind, and it falls out of my mouth with no forethought, surprising me and stoppi
ng Finley in her tracks. I feel her hand slacken in mine as her gaze snaps to my face.
“Who told you?”
I rub my forehead. Shit—my heart is fucking pounding. I can feel it right behind my eyes. I try to keep my voice steady as I say, “One of the guys digging. Asked what you were like, said he’d never heard you talk.”
“Who was it?” Finley’s tone is impassive, but she’s gone ghost pale.
“Mark Glass.”
Fuck. I feel like shit for blurting that out like I did—and even more so when one corner of her mouth quivers and she presses her lips together.
“He heard me at your ball game,” she says tightly.
“This was before.”
She blinks at the sloping field beside us, her chin raised, her face statuesque.
“Shit. I’m sorry, Finley. I wish I hadn’t said that.”
Her eyes shift to my face. She gives me a stoic look that makes my queasy stomach knot up.
“Quite all right.” She blinks down at her boots before locking her focus on me. “Not untrue,” she says softly. “I didn’t speak for ten years…after. I’m aware that I omitted this fact from my tale of woe back in the burrow. But who’s to say you wanted to know? Even if you had,” she murmurs, “I suppose I didn’t want to tell you.”
“Why?”
She tugs her eyes away from mine and starts to walk again, her arms rigid at her sides and her gaze set on the trail. I follow her for a long minute, hating myself for how bad my hands are shaking, for how hard it is to breathe. My heart pounds like a fucking drum, and I feel like my chest is empty. Like I’m only half here.
“To this day I’m—on occasion—” She shakes her head. Her eyes dart my way as she picks up her pace. “I’m referred to as ‘the mute.’ I suppose there are those like Mark who’ve never heard me speak. Even though it’s been years since that time.” She steps around a stone in the path, not looking back as I hang half a pace behind her.
“No one here before me ever stopped speaking.” Her words are forceful, almost harsh. “Some assumed the stint at sea had ruined my mind, but those who cared to realized that I wasn’t daft. I would write a note at odd times…although mostly I got on through nods and other methods. And still…”
She folds her arms across her chest as we walk through a blanket of fog. “Some treated me as if I couldn’t hear either. I’ve been privy to more secrets than you can imagine. Like a priest a bit in that way.”
Our path slants down into a grassy valley at the base of the peak, which looks large and dark, mostly in shadow. Her strides lengthen. So do mine.
“There are others who assume I’m simple,” she continues. “Some don’t speak to me, because for years they felt there was no point in doing so. They’ve checked the box beside my name that says non-entity.”
She looks over her shoulder at me. “Do you want to know the truth, Declan? The truth is no one ever courted me. I was never kissed under the arches. Others got sent off to university, but never me. I’m a fixture on this island but I’m never truly seen. I haven’t been since Mummy was alive and never will be again. It doesn’t matter how much pottery I sell and ship out or how often I bandage a mashed finger. When I’m buried I’ll be most known for lacking my voice—because someone like Mark Glass has failed to notice when I use it.”
Twenty-Seven
Finley
I tell myself to slow down, but my legs rebel. Perhaps because of my confinement to the boat for those days, I’ve become a runner of the worst sort. When I’m emotional, I flee. This is worse than usual, because I’m fleeing him.
The more my own words echo through my mind—the more I picture him on my heels, his handsome face contorted in shock and dismay—the more I feel I simply must keep moving.
I dart up the packed-dirt path as it tilts at the foot of the peak. My harsh steps startle a bird. I can feel mud spitting off my shoes.
The trail’s not marked because we locals know it, and we don’t allow the visitors to summit alone. So it’s possible that I might lose him if I’m speedy enough.
I duck under some vines that hang over the trail and dash around a wide rock. When I hear footfall, I move faster.
Now he’ll know how mad I really am. Not merely some unknown girl, but the island’s wretched outcast. I’m assuaged by a feeling of loss—the loss of something I can’t name. A sort of twisted hope, I suppose. Hope that sprung forth anew when I realized a bit earlier he doesn’t know my darkest secret yet. He hasn’t heard.
Still, I flee him like I should have fled the moment we escaped the burrow. Like someone who’s got everything to lose, whose life is altered each time she gets near him. My pack bumps atop my back, and my heart hammers.
If he turns back, that will be the end of things, and I can move forward on my life’s track…however desolate that may be. I could even go to him a bit before he’s due to leave and spill my own secret…and ask for help. A voice inside me screams “no” at that prospect.
My chest feels tighter than a rubber band, my throat a vice clamp as my poor, unfeeling body rushes up the cool slope. When I’m above the wind-bent grass and scattered stones, when the path before me has gone stark with elevation, I hear him. I feel him.
And then his footfall is too close, and his thick arm captures my shoulders, locking my back against his chest. My eyes close, and I feel the heat of him, the bulk of his thick body. I can smell him—the slightly spicy, uniquely Declan scent that stirs some sleeping dragon in me.
“Siren.” It’s an exhalation.
He turns me around to face him, and I do so like a good doll. I look at his face, his indecipherable face. His handsome features are impassive, but he always fails to lock away the feeling in his eyes. I hate his eyes the most—the kindness I see there, the concern.
“I don’t need your pity, you know. I’m pretty like you, and though I’m not absurdly wealthy, I am talented and clever.”
I watch as his face transforms, its hard lines bending as he grins, then gives a low chuckle. It’s a rich and husky sound that warms my bones.
I close my eyes and bow my head and pray perhaps he’ll just jog off and leave me be. But I have no such luck.
His hand captures my chin, his long fingers curving around my jaw. “C’mon, Finley. Look at me.”
“I can’t,” I whisper.
“Why not?”
Against my will, my lips quiver. I press them together.
“I’m looking pretty strung out for someone clean. You scared to look at me, Siren?”
I peek up at him, my gaze drawn to the dark circles beneath his eyes. “Don’t be moronic.”
His jaw hardens. “Finley, do you think I give a fuck about your past? That I would judge you for it? Me?” His eyes are so angry, my heart lurches a bit.
I freeze as he scoops me up and sets me on a nearby boulder, at the edge so that my legs hang off the side. He wraps his hands around my elbows and stands so close, my knees are forced to part around his waist.
He blows a breath out, strokes his warm hands down my shoulders. “Jesus, Finley.” He leans closer, wraps an arm around me. “Think of who you’re talking to.” He holds me fast against him as his hand crawls up my back, stroking over my nape into my hair. I feel him inhale as he tucks my head against his shoulder.
“I know who,” I whisper. “Homer Carnegie.”
It’s a catty thing to say, I know, but I can’t seem to help myself.
I feel his diaphragm expand on a deep breath. He steps slightly away, so that a cool breeze twists between us. When I look up at him, I find his face hard. “Have I ever said that’s my name? Homer?”
I look down, and his hand cups the side of my face. “C’mon, Finley,” he groans. “You don’t know the half of it with me.” I feel a tremor move through him. “I’ve been trying to outrun myself since I was fucking thirteen years old.”
I blink down at the space between us: a swatch of dirt where an ant hauls a bit of leaf atop its back. My eyes
well with relief at his desperate tone. I’m not the only damaged one for once.
Tell me more. Please, Sailor. I send a prayer up to that effect, but as I watch his shoes and feel him breathing, he says nothing. Finally he leans in closer, smoothing his hand down the back of my hair, caressing the nape of my neck.
“Don’t ever worry, Finley. Not with me.”
Something moves through me, a sort of dark force. I’d like to lash out at him, shove him away. What I’d really like to say is “you’ll soon be gone.” But I do none of that. I feel like a statue in a snow globe as I hear myself say, “All right, then.”
He lifts me off the rock and sets me back on the ground. Even now, when I’m so agitated, standing near him makes me feel like a lamb near its shepherd. I steal a glance at his face. I’m tired of resisting him. But when our eyes catch, his blue orbs are remote, as if he’s locked himself away a bit.
Something throbs below my throat—a sort of tightening sensation. Because I want to know—I feel I even need to know—about him. I feel like sand at low tide as I walk beside him: thirsty.
For his part, his strides are long and slightly brisk. His handsome face is perfectly impassive. He seems focused on the path ahead, which tilts more vertically as misty rain drifts over us. For not the first time in his presence, I don’t feel quite real as I trod near him. I need his eyes, his hands on me to be corporeal.
Finally, as the path cuts leftward in a zigzag toward the summit, he looks over his shoulder. Now his face is clearer…perhaps calmer. He reaches for my hand, his fingers catching mine and lacing with them as if nothing heated passed between us. We walk on, and I think oddly of the animals in Noah’s Ark. Two of each kind…
“Tell me something,” he says, low.
“What sort of something?”
His mouth is solemn, but it curves a bit as his warm eyes reach for mine. “What’s your favorite color?”
I can’t help a small laugh. “What?”
“Tell me all your favorites, Siren. Tell me everything.”
My body warms from scalp to soles as I smile at him. “Everything? I’m not sure there’s so much to me.” I feel my cheeks burn, and I hate that I can blush at my age.
