by James, Ella
The slope she’s hiking up is steeper than the one we just came down. At its peak is an arc-shaped rock formation, rising up alongside several steeple-like spires. Off-the-cuff, I’d put this peak at maybe two thousand feet. Behind it and back some distance is the infamous volcano—formally known as Queen Mary’s Peak. I can’t see it for the clouds.
I shield my eyes from the rain and squint up at her. What’s she doing anyway? Trying to escape me, or looking for more straggling sheep? I wonder what’s on the other side of this peak; I don’t know the landscape yet.
I decide she’s probably heading to the high ground to have one more look around before she heads in for the night. Does she know more rain is coming?
I don’t want to spook her, so I hang back as she climbs, keeping maybe forty yards between us. And I watch her. I watch the way she gathers her hair, braiding the loose strands even as she weaves around boulders and navigates the river-like runoff that’s flowing down around the deeper gulches. I watch the way she hefts her pack up higher on her back, stopping for a second to do something with the strap.
When she reaches the top of the grassy slope and the bottom of the rockface that marks the peak, she leans her head back, as if tasting raindrops. Then she turns slightly to look over her shoulder, her face turned toward the Patches.
Looking for me?
Maybe.
I pull out the infrared binoculars Mac sent with me and watch as she flares red and yellow. That’ll be my cover story when I catch her: I forgot to hand these off as promised. Hopefully I’ll get to offer more apologies, maybe help her herd a few more sheep. As we walk back toward the Patches, I can broach my dark topic.
It’s not a solid plan, but it’s the best I can come up with. Of all fucking people, why does she have to be the stand-in for the doctor?
Serves you right for being a dickwad.
I follow her until she slows at the spot where the cliffside goes sharply vertical, pointing toward the archway and the spires. Then I close the distance between us, coming up on her as she pauses to shift her pack again.
“Hey…just me.”
Finley whirls on me with wide eyes, wobbling back as she holds up her hands. “Why are you here?” Her voice is shrill and very English.
“Sorry.” I hold out the binoculars. “Mac sent these with me. I forgot to pass them off down there.” I wave down the hill as Finley reaches for them slowly. She grabs the binoculars and takes a hasty step back.
“You’re not— Are you afraid of me?”
In the moonlight peeking through the clouds, I see her lips purse. Her pretty eyes are wide and wary. “Oh, of course not. I’m completely at ease. I have known you since we were wee ones in our nappies, after all.”
Fuck. “I’m sorry.” I run my hand back through my wet hair. “I…” I shake my head. “That was thoughtless.”
“I always find it reassuring when someone follows me silently up a mountain after dark. So it’s lovely you did that. Thanks for these.” She holds up the binoculars. “Have a nice hike back now.”
“Actually, I want to see the rocks up there. Is that a natural arch?” I point to the rock formation fifteen or twenty yards above us.
“It only looks that way. It is, in fact, a hologram.”
I grin. “Someone’s a smartass.”
“Don’t slip on the way down.” She turns to go, and I move with her. “Wait.”
She turns back to me. Rain starts falling harder again, and I watch her tighten her hood. “Yes?”
“Why’d you come up this way?”
“Why do you think?” Her voice is harsh—derisive.
“To look for more strays?”
“Clearly.”
She sets off again, picking her way over the sheer rockface, moving slowly at times as she finds her hand- and footholds. I hum softly so she knows I’m still behind her, feeling like a fucker even as I know I can’t turn back without her—without at least talking to her. If she won’t help me, I’ll be in the bed by tomorrow.
After she hoists herself up onto the small plateau where the archway and the spires are, she disappears behind the arch’s left side.
Touché.
I shouldn’t be surprised, though. Why would she want to spend time with me?
I lift myself onto the plateau and blink down at the slopes below us. Fuck, we’re way up in the clouds now. From up here, the fields look postcard-sized, the six-foot-wide gulches like tiny trickles. I can barely make out the herd down near the mouth of the valley. The huts scattered all about the Patches look like soda cans. I’d say this is two thousand feet—easy.
I turn and look behind me, at the archway, which rises twenty-five or thirty feet above me, and at the area around it. The plateau looks no larger than a spacious great room, but the moon has gone behind the clouds again, and I can’t see the space well.
“Finley?”
“Up here!”
I look up.
“Atop the archway.”
I crane my neck, and sure enough, I think I see a shadow up there.
“What the fuck?”
“Don’t try to climb it, Homer. You’re quite a bit too large. The column might break. Just go back down.” I hear her airy laugh. “Or I suppose if you’re the foolish sort, you could attempt it.”
The arch’s “legs” are maybe three or four feet in diameter. They’re grooved, and actually they look pretty sturdy. I chuckle as I wrap my arms and legs around one. Even as I get started, I know it’s not a good idea, but…fuck…can’t hurt to try. I’m a pretty fucking competent climber—I summited the Matterhorn, Kilimanjaro, and Denali in an off year before college—so I press forward, grappling for each divot for my hands and feet.
By the time I near the top of the thing, the rain has petered to a sprinkle, a little bit of moonlight is beaming through the clouds, and I’m sweating like a motherfucker. My foot is wedged into a crevice that doesn’t feel quite steady, and my hand aches as it clings to a groove that’s barely big enough for one finger. To get up to the top of the arch, I’ll need to put all my weight on the unsteady nook under my left foot and grab something else with one of my hands.
Fuck me.
I grip my handhold tightly, even tucking my chin against the cold, wet stone, and find a spot that feels pretty decent for my right foot. Then, with my hand stretched up toward a notch in the stone, I shift my weight to my left foot and lunge.
The rock crumples so fast I don’t have time to readjust my grip. I slide halfway down the column, my palms getting sliced to shit as I grasp for another hold. My mind see-saws between plans to spread-eagle myself—in hopes of landing solid on the plateau—or go ahead and tuck, because odds are, when I hit the plateau, having fallen twenty or so feet, momentum’s gonna make me roll on down the slope.
Then my fingers catch on something. Fuck—I’ve got a hold.
“Declan!” She’s above me. “There’s a metal bar! By your left hand—stretch up a bit—maybe three inches! There’s a metal bar, you see it glinting? There’s metal bars all in the arch for climbing! Just hang on until you get your footing!”
I straighten that hand, my right one shaking with the effort to hold on. I feel around where she said to, and my fingertips brush something hard and cool.
“That’s it! Grab that!”
Gritting my teeth, I grab onto the little metal bar. So that’s how she climbed up without falling.
“You’ve got to find another spot for your feet.”
No shit, Sherlock. My arms scream; my right shoulder is blazing. I’m going to fall. I try to find a spot for my foot—there’s one—but it crumples. I let my body dangle as she screams. When my legs are slightly bent and my soles feel parallel with the plateau, I relax and let go.
I land on the balls of my feet—the impact gets me mostly in the shins and ankles, making me yell out—and tuck into a roll. Then I spread out like a starfish to slow down. Rain hits me at a bunch of different angles as I tumble, gaining momentum. Som
ething smashes into my cheek. Shit fuck! Stars float in my eyes, and then I’m on my back, the hard rain blurring everything. I’m laughing from adrenaline, even as it makes my face throb.
What a fucking idiot.
“I’m so sorry! Are you quite all right? I’m so—”
“Shhh.” I try to push myself up, but find I can’t. Her hand is on my cheek.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Can you see me? Do you know where you are?”
Something in my chest aches. My right cheek feels like someone’s stabbing it.
“Declan?”
I shift slowly onto my side. When nothing hurts too much, I push up on my arm and look around the flooded hillside. Her face swims in front of me—wide-eyed and a little fuzzy, like the hologram she mentioned before.
“I’m so horribly sorry!”
I try to swallow, but my throat feels locked up. I realize that’s blood I’m tasting. There’s a sharp sting in my cheek.
I spit some blood out. Finley gasps.
“Sorry.” I rub my aching head, realizing that the cold at my back is the water running down the slope; I’m fucking soaked now.
“What’s hurting? How can I help?”
I blink up at her just in time to see a vein of lightning spread behind her. “I’m okay.”
Lightning streaks across the sky again, a spider web, followed by a clap of thunder so loud, I think I feel the rock below us tremble.
“Fuck.”
“I’m so terribly sorry.”
“That lightning,” I rasp.
Her hand brushes my shoulder. “Can you get to your feet?”
I start to stand and feel her hands on my arm. I don’t mean to toss her off. It’s just…instinct.
I get to my feet and find her right in front of me. Lightning strikes again, illuminating her unhappy face. All around her, the rain-soaked landscape seems to pulse and writhe. Streams of runoff glisten as they flow down the slope across from ours. Muddy water gushes over our feet, on its way down to the valley, which sparkles like a lake.
Out to my right, beyond the flatland of the Patches, the ocean roils. The rain’s falling so hard now, it beats on my neck and shoulders like a waterfall and casts a veil between Finley and me.
I move my arms and legs, testing things out. My right shoulder burns like a bitch, but that’s normal. The rest of me feels…okay. “I’m fine,” I half-shout over the rain.
“My apologies again,” she shouts back. It’s hard to see her face in the deluge, but she sounds sorry. Even concerned. “Do you need help to your vehicle?”
“Nah. You want a ride back?” I remember what I’m here for, and I have the fuckwit thought that maybe I can hype the injury and get the help I need without admitting my issue. Addict.
She gives a slight shake of her head, leaning in closer as she cups her hand around her forehead. “I’ve got to get to the other side of this peak. The volcano’s that way, and there are likely some stragglers on its lowermost slopes.” I watch her mouth tug into a frown. Then the rain picks up—it’s painful on my aching head—and she leans toward me again. “I shouldn’t have urged you to climb the arch!”
“Ehhh, I didn’t have to.”
“You were goaded.”
“Still my choice.” I gesture to myself, realizing as I do that my pants are so wet and clingy, she can probably see the outline of my junk. I tug on one of the pant legs, feeling like an asshole. “I’ll go with you. We can leave together.”
Thunder booms, and something heavy hits the ground beside us. Her eyes widen and her jaw drops as a chunk of rock rolls past us. A pretty big one.
“Fuck…”
“You’ve the mouth of a sailor.”
“The sailor and the siren.” I flash her a painful grin.
Her forehead rumples before she shakes her head.
I wave at the peak. “Lead the way, Siren.”
For a moment, she looks unsure. I waggle my eyebrows, and her mouth tightens in what might be a small, reluctant smile, though I can’t tell before she turns and starts to climb back up the slope. She goes so slowly, I’m pretty sure she’s trying to be courteous—or insulting.
Even when we’re elbow-to-elbow, she moves at a snail’s pace. Our shoes slosh through the runoff, and she ducks her head, holding her jacket hood with one hand. When we’re back up level with the plateau where I landed underneath the arch, she hefts her pack onto her back.
I put a hand on it. “Let me.”
She snorts. “Did I just tumble down the slope?”
“No, but—”
“Thank you. Now proceeding.”
I shake my head, immediately regretting it when struck with a bullet of pain, and follow her under the archway. She starts down the slope’s back side; I stop to absorb the view. I can see the village off to the northwest: a few pinpricks of light beside the dark blanket of the sea. Pale pink clouds have covered up the moon, but even in the darkness, that huge volcano can’t be missed; it looms over to our right, its wide base rising from the steep valley in front of us, its massive slope tilting up into a thick blanket of fog.
Thunder booms, reminding me that I should get my ass in gear. Half a second later, lightning splinters the sky, gleaming off Finley’s raincoat. As if she can feel my gaze, she looks over her shoulder. I give what I hope looks like a friendly wave.
I’m at her side a minute later, watching my footing as we move through a sea of baseball-sized stones that make our descent tricky. A few times, Finley wobbles. Once, my hand darts out to grab her, but I manage to rein in the impulse. She seems prickly…or maybe it’s prideful. Hell, maybe she just hates me. Better not to piss her off again—yet.
The rain falls harder than it has since I’ve been on the island, like someone in the sky is emptying a bucket over us. The water racing down the slope-side hits my ankles and my calves from behind—hard enough to threaten my balance—and as I step forward, I’m riding blind, because the moonlight’s glaring off the runoff, making it impossible to gauge the angle of the slope.
Near the bottom, my foot comes down on a stone that rolls under my shoe. I pinwheel, and when I get my balance again, I find Finley smirking. Our eyes meet, and she arches her brows.
“That’s how it’s gonna be, huh?” I shout.
“Most definitely!”
I can’t be sure that’s what she said—the rain’s too loud—but the tilt of her lips as good as confirms it.
“Siren.” I grin.
That’s the last thing I process before the sky rumbles, a few octaves too low and loud to be thunder, and the ground under my feet gives way.
Chapter Eight
Finley
It’s like a film reel with a bit clipped from the middle. One moment, I’m working my way down the slope alongside the Carnegie, wondering what’s making me feel squirmy: his gaze on my rear end or my own antsy self-consciousness. Then that thought is overlaid by a horrible rumble.
The next scene opens with me lying somewhere dark and him over me. I squint, and when I try to move my head, a thunderclap of pain bursts behind my eyes.
“Oww.”
“Finley? Are you okay?”
Too loud.
I bring a hand to my face, surprised to find my arm feels weak and…heavy. And— “My head.” My voice is scratchy, near inaudible, so I try to swallow, struggling while my throat remembers how to work. I crack my eyes open again and find his wide as he leans, dripping, over me.
I look around, and dread slams through me. It looks dark and…cave-like. My eyes are blurry, but I see the dark walls and ceiling in the dim light.
Tears fill my eyes as my throat tightens. What happened?
He moves slightly in my frame of vision, shifting away from me as he sits back on his heels. “There was a mudslide. Rockslide. I don’t know.” He blows a breath out. “Maybe an earthquake. When it happened, we got knocked off our feet. I grabbed you and took off down the hill, and…I don’t know.” He shakes his head, not meeting my eyes. “Th
ere was a fucking ton of rock. Like part of that peak fell. It came down so fucking fast. I threw you over my shoulder and just ran…until it got right on us.”
“Where are we now?”
I sit up—or try to. I feel weak and strange, and can’t seem to coordinate my limbs. He leans in and helps me. The cave spins slightly as I feel his hands on my upper arms. A cold sweat sweeps me, and I wonder if I’m going to be sick. “Where are we?”
I look around, my stomach churning. I don’t recognize this place, and my head feels odd and foggy.
I watch as his mouth tightens. He shakes his head once. “I don’t know.”
I look around again, gauging the space. It’s bigger than the living room at Gammy’s house, but probably not as big as her living room plus kitchen. The walls are damp, the air smells dank as caves do, and the curved ceiling is not far overhead—maybe just six or seven feet above the cool stone floor. I hear the tinkling of water, likely from a stream, as most caves on the island are intersected by small rivulets of water.
“I don’t think I understand. How did we get in here?”
He looks as confused as I feel. “I ducked underneath some rocks and—” he exhales, shaking his head— “into here.”
I feel ill as he looks away, trying not to meet my eyes. “What’s it like now outside?”
He blinks, and I know the truth by the roundness of his eyes, the stillness of his features. In the space between that look and his words, I turn my head and see a pile of rubble rising from the cool floor into the ceiling. It’s perhaps a meter and a half away, this six-foot-tall rubble pile that’s mud and grass and rock.
My stomach bottoms out as I look at it.
“Listen—don’t be worried. I know it looks like we’re blocked in, but I can get us out. You woke up pretty fast. I haven’t had a chance to start, but I can get the rocks and mud moved quick.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. My chest aches as if it’s cracking.
“Does your head hurt? I think a rock hit you right here.” His fingertip brushes my forehead, near my hairline, and I struggle not to recoil.
