The Madmans Daughter

by Megan Shepherd

Page 40

  Author: Megan Shepherd

  He let me go and crossed the floor on four shaky legs, his back feet bent and hardened like hooves. The church echoed with the sounds of his feet skittering across the ground. Montgomery crouched next to him, unafraid.

  “Where has everyone gone?” he asked gently.

  Caesar bobbed his head mechanically, the stumps of his former antlers scraping against the stone wall. His eyes were glassy.

  “We need the boat,” Montgomery said. “Did they burn it?”

  Caesar’s head snapped around, his eyes drifting to the burned shed outside. And then he started bobbing again, faster and faster, getting agitated. He jumped up, pawing around the room. His hardened, curled fingers rested on the lip of a bowl, which he flipped onto the ground. It shattered, spilling dirty water and shards of pottery all over the floor.

  With his hoof, Caesar nudged a curved shard across the wet ground, next to a piece of singed wood. He moved the wood closer, then looked at Montgomery.

  “What’s he doing?” I asked.

  Montgomery jumped up. “He’s telling us where the boat is. ”

  BY THE TIME WE made it to the coast, the midday sun had given us all a thick sheen of sweat. Montgomery led us to the murky edge of a mangrove forest. Thin, spindly trees grew from the swampy tidal waters like giant skeletons. The ground was spongy under my feet. Something clicked. I paused. Another click.

  “It’s the trees,” Montgomery said. “They filter salt from the water. Makes the roots contract and expand. ”

  I hugged my arms. The clicking sound echoed through the ghostly trees, as though they were telling a story.

  “He used to keep the rowboat tied here sometimes. The mangroves protect it from storms. He must have moved it when the regression began. ” Montgomery waded into the water, navigating through the tight trees. Mud sucked his boots down. The water was soon up to his waist, and then he disappeared through the watery tangle of trees.

  Edward and I stood alone on the shore, an uneasy silence between us. Ever since he’d killed Antigonus, a shadow had settled over Edward. He’d drugged my father so easily. It was the island, slowly corrupting his heart, as it was corrupting everything. We had to leave before it turned us into things we weren’t.

  Get off this island, I told myself. Then, sort out the mess of our lives.

  The water rippled in graceful arcs that spread across the tidal inlet and lapped at our feet. After a few minutes Montgomery returned, pulling a blue-and-white-painted boat through the water. It looked too cheerful for a bleak, savage island. He beached it in the soft silt. “Climb in. We’ll row to the dock and tie it there. It’s too heavy to carry overland. ”

  Edward helped hold the boat. I bunched my skirt and climbed in, trying to steady myself. My foot slipped, and warm seawater flooded my boot. Edward climbed in with considerably more grace. Montgomery tugged us free of the shore and pulled the boat through the tunnel of trees until the water was at his waist, then his chest, and finally his shoulders. We broke from the trees.

  Oh, the open sea. Freedom felt so close. I wanted to tell Montgomery to just keep going, farther out to sea, to never turn back to the island.

  Edward was watching me keenly. “We won’t last a day without shade and water,” he said, dashing my hopes.

  Montgomery hoisted himself into the boat, water pouring off his massive shoulders. He wiped his face and picked up an oar. The other one he tossed to Edward.

  “Hug the coast,” he said, pointing ahead. “The beach is on the other side of the mangroves. ”

  The tide dragged the boat away from the island, but Edward and Montgomery kept it steady. From outside, the forest of mangroves looked dense and impenetrable. Every few breaths, I heard the roots clicking, reminding us they were living parts of the island.

  “We should leave tonight,” Montgomery said. His face was hard, making it impossible to tell what he was feeling. “Edward, pack as much food as you can in the rucksacks and fill the waterskins. Juliet, go through your mother’s things. We’ll need parasols. Shawls. Anything to keep off the sun. And take everything you think is valuable. We might have to buy our passage back to London. ”

  “Assuming we find a ship,” Edward said.

  Montgomery studied the sky. “The full moon was last night. The Polynesian traders might still be out. Their course takes them five miles from the island. The tide will bring us just south of their shipping lane. We’ll have to row a few degrees north to cross their course. ”

  I was starting to feel faint. My insides clenched, threatening to bring up bile from my empty stomach. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something would go wrong.

  Montgomery rested a hand over mine. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I know the way. We’ll find a ship. ”

  The mangroves clicked louder. A shadow passed overhead, giving me a sudden shiver. The wind made the water shimmer as if something swam just below the surface.

  We rounded a bend and saw the long dock stretching out ahead. I let out a tight breath. Soon the whole beach was in sight.

  Tonight, I promised myself. It felt as unreal as a dream. My mind wouldn’t let me dare to believe it, but my heart pumped wildly.

  Edward’s oar hit something hard in the water. He jerked it, but it was stuck. I frowned. We were too far out to graze anything along the ocean bottom. “It’s caught on something. ”

  “Maybe a coral reef,” I said. “Or a shipwreck. ” I glanced at Montgomery, but his attention wasn’t on the oar. He was scanning the beach, body tensed, eyes narrowed like a hunter’s.

  “What do you see?” I asked, feeling creeping tendrils of fear crawl up my back.

  He shook his head, just a quick jerk. “Nothing. ”

  But he didn’t tear his eyes away. I sat straighter, gripping the sides of the rowboat. Suddenly we felt as small as a bobbing toy in the endless ocean.

  Edward leaned over the side, fingers disappearing into the water as he felt for whatever had caught the oar. The boat rocked, suddenly unbalanced by his movements. I clutched the sides harder, as panic made my toes curl.

  Montgomery tilted his head, his eyes still riveted on the shore. “Stop, Edward. Get your hand out of the water. Now. ”

  Edward started to pull back, but something quick and hard rammed the boat from underneath.

  I yelped. The sudden jolt pitched me into the bottom of the boat, scraping my wrists against the rough boards. Montgomery had braced himself to keep from falling.

  “Edward, get your blasted arm out of the water!” he growled.

  “I can’t!” Edward was shoulder deep in the water, causing the boat to pitch at a dangerous angle. His gold-flecked eyes were focused on me, unreadable. “Something’s got me. ”

  “What is it?” I said, not daring to lean and pitch the boat farther.

  Edward clenched his jaw to keep the panic at bay. “A hand. ”

  Thirty-nine

  I WAS FALLING. IT happened in an instant. I saw Edward going overboard, dragged into the deep by whatever malevolent hand held him. The sudden movement made the boat rock violently. Water stung my eyes, my ears, flooded into my mouth. I tried to scream, but there was no air.

  The boat had flipped. I was underwater.

  I couldn’t swim. It was the strangest sensation, like panic in slow motion. I kicked and waved my hands, but the water was just that—water. Nothing to grab on to. My flailing limbs brushed against slippery moving objects. Whether I touched Edward or Montgomery or something else, I didn’t know. Something slid by me, a person or an animal, with an easy undulation, like a jellyfish, only the size of a man. Scaly tentacles—fingers almost—tangled between my kicking legs. My scream was silent in the water, an eruption of bubbles in the deep.

  At last, my fingers latched on to something solid. Wooden. I pulled myself up, sputtering as I surfaced.

  The world had grown dark and damp. I took a few
hysterical breaths before realizing I was underneath the upside-down rowboat, with just enough room for my head.

  I clutched the bench seat above me, filling my lungs with air. I stopped kicking, but the churning in the water didn’t stop. Dark shapes moved in the water’s deep, violently, maliciously.

  One shape rose, coming up fast, and then its head broke the surface.

  Edward.

  I let out a shaking breath. “Here,” I said. “Hold on to the bench. ” His chest was rising and falling fast. Blood from a gash on his forehead mixed with the seawater pouring down his face. “What happened?” I asked breathlessly. “Where’s Montgomery?”

  “I don’t know. ” He panted for air.

  “What tipped us over?”

  “Creatures,” he coughed. “Creatures in the water. A different kind of beast. ”

  “Water beasts. Oh God, Montgomery . . . ” My voice echoed eerily with mounting panic. “Did you see him? What happened to him? He must be here, in the water. . . . ”

  Edward pinched the salt water out of his eyes. “He can swim. I’m sure he’s safe. ”

  Another undulating tentacle slid around my ankle, coiling like a snake. I kicked furiously, fighting the urge to scream. “You don’t know that! He could be hurt. He could be dead!” The darkness beneath the boat was terrible. Only muted sunlight filtered through the cracks in the boat, throwing dancing lines of light on the water, barely enough to see the blood trickling down Edward’s face.

  “Don’t just hang there, Edward. Do something!”

  “What do you want me to do?” he snapped, matching my tone. “I can’t swim. I don’t know where he is. ”

  “He could have drowned!”

  “If I let go, I’ll drown too! Is that what you want? For me to drown trying to find him?” Salt water and blood mixed as he spit the words at me.

  “He saved your life, Edward. Don’t you dare insinuate—”

  “Don’t pretend this has anything to do with me! It’s never had anything to do with me. If it was me lost in the water, you’d never ask Montgomery to risk his life to find me. ” But before I could sputter a response, he ducked under the boat’s rim, into the bright world outside the cavern of the upside-down boat.

  I was alone. Water swirled between the folds of my dress, legs dangling helplessly like bait worms into the deep, cold part of the ocean. Montgomery might be down there, a watery corpse, just below my toes. Edward had every right to feel hurt, but hadn’t I also a right to care about Montgomery? He’d been with me forever, tucked into the hollows of my heart, lodged like a precious secret they’d have to cut out of me. And now he might be dead.

  The worries churned inside me, trying to take shape, trying to find a voice. I squeezed my eyes, wanting to scream. To release the terrible knot of emotions that preyed on my soul.

  I loved him.

  The words came to me like a crashing wave, and I almost lost my grip. The sharp pain in my side loosened, turned into a low, constant throbbing instead. I’d fallen in love with Montgomery. Edward had read it in the worry in my face, and it had added yet another scar to his collection.

  The water around my toes grew colder. I squeezed my eyes closed and ducked under the edge of the boat. I was underwater only the space of a breath, but it was long enough to make my lungs burn. And then my head broke the surface into the dazzling sunlight. I gasped for air. Edward guided my hands to the wooden rim of the boat. The world was shockingly bright. Seawater stung my eyes. I looked everywhere, trying to take in everything at once. The mangroves, the beach, the sea.

  “He’s a good swimmer,” Edward said, a grudging softness in his voice. “He must have made it to shore. I’m sorry—for yelling. ”

  I had to blink to make sure I’d heard him correctly. The blood still trickled from the cut on his forehead, finding the path of his scar and following it to the sea. It would attract sharks, I realized. And anything else drawn to the smell of blood. “That’s all right,” I muttered.