Curses Are for Cads

by Tamara Berry

  I don’t bother answering. We all know what I’m thinking because it’s a sentiment we share. I knew we should have gotten them off this island days ago. I knew it was too risky to keep them on hand.

  “Oughtn’t we to ask the rest of the party to join in the search?” Elspeth reaches out and grips my arm with an intensity that makes me wince. “The more people we have out looking, the faster we’ll find them.”

  “No.” Nicholas says it for me. The familiar lines of his face are pulled taut with worry, his expression growing more troubled the longer we spend here. “Until we know who we can trust, it’s best to keep the search small.”

  This affects Elspeth more strongly than all the rest. As Nicholas takes himself off to continue his search, I take her by the hand. “It’s not a big island,” I soothe. “If they’re still here, we’ll find them.”

  I can’t imagine what made me choose my words so clumsily unless it’s the fact that I’m just as worried about those children as she is.

  “If they’re still here?” she echoes, blanching. “Where else would they be?”

  I’ve already plunged my foot in, so I see no use in backing out now. “I warned you about my vision, remember? I told you it wasn’t safe.”

  “But the curse has nothing to do with them,” Elspeth protests, though much feebler than before. Her nerves seem to be getting the better of her, her whole body shaking as the minutes tick by. “It’s only the Stewarts who are affected by it. I don’t understand. Why would it bother with the boys?”

  “It’s not the curse I fear. And it’s not the curse you should be worried about, either. The gold is safe enough where it is. What we need to watch out for is someone who would be willing to go to great lengths to get it.”

  When she glances up, her gaze is sharp. “What do you mean, the gold is safe?”

  I see no reason to lie. The more I can impress upon Elspeth the idea that our villain is of human rather than supernatural origin, the greater the chances that she’ll tie those boys to her apron strings and refuse to let them out of her sight.

  “I mean, I know where it is. I found it.”

  “The two gold coins?” she asks sharply. “The ones you lost?”

  There’s something about the shrill quality in her voice that gives me pause. It’s not the sound of a woman distressed for her lost grandsons; it’s the sound of a woman who’s being confronted with an unpleasant truth.

  I’ve been confronted with enough of those in my lifetime to know.

  “No,” I say, choosing my words carefully. “I mean the entire treasure. I found it.”

  “No.” That’s all she says—that one word, that one no.

  “Yes,” I counter as the next piece of the puzzle slips into place. “But there’s no need for me to tell you, is there? You already know where it is.”

  “Where are my grandsons?” Elspeth demands.

  “I have no idea,” I admit. “How long have you known about the gold?”

  “What have you done with them?”

  I shake my head. “How long, Elspeth?”

  She doesn’t answer me, but that’s okay. I don’t need her to. Her silence confirms everything I suspect. After all, she said it herself during one of our first encounters—she’s the caretaker here, the keeper of Airgead Island. As long as she lives, she has a home to call her own . . . a home in which an entire room is gilded with pirate gold worth enough to buy half a dozen such islands.

  I take a wide step back. Since I’m on the side of the kitchen without the stove, pots, pans, and knives, there’s nothing I can grab to defend myself. The closest thing I can find is a broom, but it’s so old that the wood looks as though it would snap at the first sign of struggle.

  Still, I reach out and grip the splintery handle. If I can’t take one sweet, old, murderous lady down with a broom, then I’m not worthy of the name Eleanor Wilde.

  “You took those coins from me that day on the boat, didn’t you? Smashed me over the head and stole them?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Elspeth says. “I’d never hurt a living soul.”

  I take another step backward, my shoulder blades brushing against the stone wall. There’s nothing left for me to do but raise the broom. Somewhere in the dim recesses of my mind, I know that this doesn’t make sense—that if Elspeth knew about the gold all along, then she couldn’t have been the one to hire Birdie to find it—but my fight-or-flight responses have kicked in by now. I care less about her motives and more about the fact that we’ve all been duped.

  “You won’t get away with this,” I warn. “Sid and Ashley will discover the truth eventually. So will Otis. He won’t be willing to give up all that gold without a fight.”

  “What makes you think he doesn’t already know?” Elspeth counters.

  This remark takes me so much aback that I don’t register the sound of footsteps coming down the hall. They’re lighter than those of Nicholas, with a random, frantic pace. They’re also accompanied by the squelch of sodden shoes. I’m about to call out and warn whoever it is, but Elspeth releases a sigh of relief.

  Not Otis, I pray, and am rewarded for my piety by the sight of a small, damp head poking in the door.

  “Ferguson!” Elspeth cries as she runs to her grandson with her arms outstretched. “There you are. You’ll be the death of me. Where did you and your brother go? I told you not to wander off.”

  In the normal way of things, this return to the scolding, loving grandmother would have had me heaving a sigh of relief, if not yet relinquishing the makeshift weapon in my hand. But there’s something about Ferguson’s upturned face, so despairing, so alarmed, that I throw the broom and drop to my knees in front of him.

  “Where is he?” I demand. “Please tell me he didn’t go in the water.”

  His face screws up, and huge, droplet-sized tears start trickling down his cheeks. “I told him not to, Madame Eleanor. Honest, I did. But we’ve been working on a raft for months and it was finally ready to go and he said you needed to find help—”

  “No,” moans Elspeth. She staggers where she stands, and with such force that I have no choice but to hold her up. Embracing a woman who lately threatened me might not be the wisest course of action, but I have no other choice. She looks as though she, like Harvey Renault, might die of a heart attack right here and now.

  She turns on me with a look of intense loathing, but I don’t dare let her go.

  “What have you done?” she demands. “What will happen to my grandson?”

  If there’s anything I can do to help it? Nothing.

  I shuffle Elspeth over to the nearest chair and drop her unceremoniously into it. Without waiting to hear her input on my plans, I turn to Ferguson. Shrugging out of my shawl and kicking off my shoes, I make one simple and terrifying request.

  “Show me which way he went. There’s no time to find the others.”

  * * *

  Several thoughts clamor for precedence as I follow Ferguson out into the dark, swirling, freezing air of the Outer Hebrides in November. Elspeth’s knowledge of the gold’s whereabouts is up there, as is the fact that she named Otis as a coconspirator. That I still don’t know who hired Birdie is also high on the list.

  But nothing compares to the idea that Jaime is on that raft because of me. Cold, alone, most likely scared out of his mind—if not worse. The rational part of my brain tells me to wait for Nicholas, warns me that to plunge into the ocean with all of two dozen swimming lessons under my belt is madness.

  The rational part of my brain, however, has nothing on my heart. There’s already been too much pain—too much death—in this place. I won’t lose someone else.

  “Ferguson, I need you to find Nicholas and tell him what you just told me,” I say as I reach the end of the dock. It looks ominous with the wreckage of Otis’s boat still moored to it, but I focus less on that pile and more on trying to gauge the distance between me and the raft in the distance. It’s difficult to make out anythin
g except for the relentless rain and the small, bobbing speck that’s carrying Jaime, but I figure it can’t be more than a football field or two. “Let him know I’m going after your brother.”

  Ferguson’s lower lip wobbles, and a splash of something that might be rain but is more likely a tear hits his upper lip. “He’s going to be okay, isn’t he? You can swim out to get him?”

  I’ve spent most of my life lying to people for my own ends. This time, the lie is one hundred percent for someone else.

  “Yes,” I promise. “I’m an excellent swimmer. I’ll have him safe and sound in no time.”

  Ferguson accepts me at my word. With a squaring of his shoulders and complete confidence in my ability to swim through ocean currents like a mermaid, he turns and dashes back to the castle to find my backup.

  I wish I could say that my own actions are as assured, but my hands are shaking, and it feels as though a rock has lodged itself in the pit of my stomach. There’s just enough time for me to hope that it won’t weigh me down any more than is necessary before I force myself into a diving position and plunge off the dock.

  There are levels of cold in this world, and I like to think that I’ve experienced quite a few of them. For example, the chill of a fall morning in Sussex is less severe than the windswept shores of the Outer Hebrides, but both are charming in their own way.

  What I feel as I hit the water, however, isn’t the least bit charming. This isn’t cold. It’s bone-chilling. If I were to place an icebox in the center of Antarctica and turn an air conditioner on high, I doubt it would touch the sensation that envelops me. For the first twenty seconds, I’m afraid that the numbing cold will literally kill me—not because of the temperature, but because my limbs are in such a state of shock that they don’t seem to be working. The water freezes my muscles into immobility and sucks any of the remaining oxygen out of my lungs. It’s more painful than I expect, too, like a deep punch to my solar plexus.

  But then I hear her—not Winnie, my champion and beloved sister, but Birdie.

  You think this is cold? she asks with a laugh. You should try being dead.

  It’s enough to get my heart pumping and my body moving again. I won’t die this easily. Not if it means I’m going to end up where she is, with nothing better to do than taunt every defenseless medium who happens by.

  Drawing on the buoyancy that’s genetically coded into my bones, I allow myself to rise to the surface. I don’t go nearly as fast as I’d hoped, but all that swim practice has strengthened my lungs. As soon as my head hits the air, I suck in a deep and grateful breath that’s only 50 percent saltwater. Angling my body in what I hope is the correct direction, I begin a slow, painful breaststroke toward the raft.

  The exercise does wonders in warming my body. I know, deep down, that this feeling won’t last, and that the moment I stop moving is the moment I’m likely to stop swimming forever, but I don’t allow myself to dwell on it. I can’t. It’s all I can do to fight the current that’s threatening to pull me under.

  Fortunately, I seem to have caught the water at slack tide. Although there’s much more to the pull of the waves than I was expecting, it takes me only a few minutes to make it past the break. Once I pass that boundary, the water becomes less violent, more like a cauldron set to simmer rather than boil. I’m even able to pause long enough to make a quick survey of my surroundings. I could wish for more sunlight to guide me, but I haven’t spent the past week in a dark castle for nothing. That bobbing mass to my right is the raft, I’m sure of it.

  Either that, or a shark. I’m heading that direction regardless.

  Distance and time stop meaning much after a few minutes. So too does the cold and the wet and everything except for the repetitive motions of my arms and legs. Unfortunately, I don’t seem to have gained on the raft by much more than a few yards. The same forces that are propelling me out to the vast nothingness of the ocean are doing their best to send Jaime on his way, too.

  As much as I try to subdue the image of his little body sinking through the waves, it’s my constant companion throughout the ordeal. It keeps my limbs moving even when exhaustion threatens to pull me under, forces me to breathe deeply and regularly even as waves crash up over my head.

  Fatigue and fear have started to set in when I see the boat coming to our rescue. It moves quickly and effortlessly through the waves, covering more area in a matter of seconds than I have in the entire past ten minutes. With a shout that’s immediately drowned in a mouthful of saltwater, I lift my arm and wave. I have no idea how or where Nicholas was able to track down a rescue vessel this quickly, but I’m not about to question it. Especially when a tight, painful spasm in my calf threatens to overtake me.

  “I’m here!” I cry, though I doubt Nicholas hears me. I’m forced to shift to the side in favor of my cramping calf, but now that I know help is on the way, my panic starts to ebb. “Get to Jaime first. I’ll be fine for a few more minutes.”

  I may as well not have spoken. Not only is it futile to try and shout over the sound of the boat’s engine, but it’s already making a beeline straight for the raft. All I can do is struggle to stay afloat and watch as Jaime’s rescue is enacted before me.

  Except . . . The cramp in my leg intensifies, forcing me to cry out and dip under the swell of an oncoming wave. The murky gray-blue of the ocean is all I can literally see, but the image of that boat is bright and clear in my mind’s eye.

  That doesn’t look like anyone I recognize piloting the vessel. McGee, maybe? Or, if I’m very lucky, a member of Her Majesty’s Coastguard?

  I manage to break up through a wave. My lungs hurt almost as much as my leg does by the time I return to the sweet, oxygenated surface, but I don’t dwell on it. I’m too busy trying to make out the details of the rescue. As if aware that I’m watching, the captain of the small fishing boat turns to face me. His form seems tall from this distance and, considering how my head is starting to swirl from the lack of air, particularly ominous. It’s impossible for me to make out his features, but I could almost swear that a dark, mocking smirk crosses his face.

  A devil in his sneer? I think.

  There’s no opportunity for me to discover whether or not I’m right. Just as I watch the figure help Jaime from the raft, my other leg starts to seize up. I’m half afraid that Birdie is going to talk me through the act of following the light, but that’s one mythology I’m happy to put to rest.

  There is no light. There is no tunnel.

  There’s just dark and cold and the burning sensation of all the air leaving my lungs.

  Chapter 18

  Like Sleeping Beauty, I awaken to a kiss.

  It’s not a particularly good kiss. After a year of tender embraces in the arms of a man like Nicholas Hartford III, I’ve grown accustomed to a certain amount of finesse. I like a little pressure, a little persuasion, and a lot of passion.

  None of those are taking place this time. The man with his lips pressed against my mouth is rough and brutal, and he seems insistent on pushing all the air from his own lungs into mine. When a tight band of pressure releases from around my chest and a splurge of seawater fills my mouth, I suddenly realize why.

  With a splutter and a cough, I empty what feels like the entire contents of the ocean from my lungs. My whole body is shaking with cold and adrenaline, but one thing I know for sure—I’m alive.

  “Jaime,” I croak, my throat raw.

  “I’m here, Madame Eleanor,” a small voice says. It sounds just as miserable as I feel, but I’m too grateful to find the boy alive to care. Even though my limbs feel weighted down with water and fatigue, I reach out and pull him into my arms.

  He’s wrapped in a blanket, but that doesn’t seem to prevent his small body from being wracked by shivers. His teeth chatter, and his lips are blue, and I rub my hands up and down his body to try and get his blood pumping. That’s when I realize that the shivering isn’t coming from him so much as it is from me.

  “Here.” A heavy w
ool blanket falls over my shoulders. “You’ll catch your death if we don’t get you warmed up soon.”

  I don’t recognize either the voice or the man it issues from. That he’s my savior, I know without question. He’s decked out in a waterproof slicker, a hood over his head to protect him from the spray. He’s an older gentleman, tall like a smokestack, and straight-backed despite his age.

  “Thank you so much for coming to our rescue,” I say. “A few more minutes, and I fear we both would have been lost.”

  The man’s only reply is a grunt. Since he’s steering the small powerboat back toward Airgead Island, I’m willing to forgive his taciturnity.

  I turn my attention to the boy in my arms instead. “What were you thinking?” I demand, wrapping Jaime in an even tighter hug. “You could have been lost or frozen or—worse.”

  The boy wriggles in an attempt to get out of my hug, but he gives up after a few seconds. I think he must realize that the embrace is more for me than him.

  “You said you needed help,” he says, a slight whistle in his speech from his newly gapped teeth. “I went to find some. Nanna says you should always help others, even if it’s scary.”

  An interesting sentiment from a woman currently hoarding a room full of gold, but I let that pass.

  “And so you did,” I reassure him. “You rescued us all.”

  Our savior at the helm grunts.

  “You, too, of course,” I say. “But you’re not going the right way. The dock is on the other side of the island.”

  “We’re not going to the island.”

  The cold and recent oxygen deprivation have slowed down my responses, so it takes a moment before this remark registers. When it does, I find I’m not wholly against it.

  “Yes,” I say through my chattering teeth. “Maybe that’s for the best. I can call the police, bring reinforcements back with me. But I’m not sure I understand. Who are you? And how did you know to come pick us up?”

  “That doesn’t concern you,” he says with another grunt. Although there seem to be a lot of guttural noises emanating from his throat, the accent is a cultured one. For some reason, I find this more alarming than the fact that we’ve now completely passed Airgead Island by. Seeing the castle in the daytime—even a daytime as overcast as this one—is a new experience for me. It looks just as forlorn and ominous as it did the night I arrived, but beautiful, too.