Mr. Reed had told this story many times before, and rattled off these facts with practised ease.
“While the sailors waited to be rescued, they explored the island and found it pleasant enough, with extensive woodland and space for farmland, which would be sheltered from the harsh sea winds by hills. The embryonic Moth & Moon came to be the hub of a burgeoning settlement. It had been used as a drinking establishment from the get-go, given that the sailors had managed to salvage several barrels of rum and whiskey and had little else to while away the time awaiting rescue. When some ships did eventually come, most of the sailors decided to remain, sending for their families to join them, as well as for other materials necessary to start a new village. As for what to do with the shack, it seemed only natural to continue to use it as an inn once they decided to stay.
“They found the island had two things in abundance—apple trees and many varieties of beautifully patterned moths. The apples made for a particularly nice cider, as I’m sure you’ve discovered. No one knows who exactly it was that named the inn, though several local families have stories claiming it was their ancestor—Hanniti Kind will offer her clan’s version to anyone who’ll listen after she’s had a few—but the name has never changed in all the years since. Ownership of the tavern, however, changed several times throughout the generations, finally ending up in the hands of my family. And now my hands. And as for the future; who knows? Maybe it will all end with me.”
Mr. Reed took a mouthful of liquid from his glass as Eva watched him intently. That last part wasn’t in his usual spiel, it just spilled out of him. Too many brandies, perhaps.
“These moths you catch,” she asked, examining the little display case. “Why do you do it?”
Mr. Reed thought about it for a moment.
“Because they’re beautiful,” he said at last. “Because I want to…know them, I suppose. Recognise them. They’re different now, did you know that? When I was a boy, there were these lovely big blue moths on the north of the island. They’re all gone now. Nobody’s seen them in years. So, I want to catch the species that are around now and preserve them for…posterity, I suppose you’d call it. At least that way, I’ll be of some use to future generations. I won’t have wasted my time. I’ll have something to show for my life.”
Mr. Reed swirled his glass again before swallowing the brandy. Eva Wolfe-Chase sat the box and her glass back down on the little table.
“Come with me,” she said, rising to her feet.
She took Mr. Reed by the hand and led him through the bewildering tangle of lantern-lit corridors. Turning left and right and left again, up a handful of steps, and down some others. Over carpets, over mats, over naked floorboards. Past the ornately decorated rooms with gorgeously patterned wallpaper and carved furniture, past the sparsely decorated rooms with bare wooden walls and simple stools. Past the antechambers filled with exhausted villagers sleeping head-to-toe and shoulder-to-shoulder, and past the alcoves filled with even more. She trailed him out into the main bar, tiptoeing through the assembled, snoring masses. Lightning flashed and thunder roared. She stood behind the diminutive innkeeper, resting her delicate hands on his shoulders, and then she leaned down and spoke to him.
“Look around you, Mr. Reed,” she whispered. “The whole village is here. Without you, without this place, they’d be in danger. In their storm-battered homes, lying alone or afraid or injured or worse. But instead they’re here, in the shelter of this place, in the safety you provide for them. You’re the caretaker for the whole community, the keeper of its stories—one of many, in a long line of custodians. A link in a vitally important chain. You’ve given your life in service of this island, of its people. That is not a waste of time. That is something to be proud of. There are many people who would give everything they have for such clarity of purpose. You are the keeper of the Moth & Moon. You matter, Mr. Reed.”
Chapter Sixteen
IT WAS BEFORE dawn, and Robin had finally admitted defeat and gone to bed, leaving Duncan and Edwin to keep watch in the lantern room. They had hardly spoken a word to each other in hours. Duncan sat whittling a piece of wood he’d picked up from the supplies on the ground floor. He was using a knife he always kept in one of his seemingly bottomless coat pockets. As Edwin watched the splinters fall into a bucket by the toymaker’s feet, a feline shape slowly emerged.
“A cat?” he asked at last.
“Yes. I used to carve them when I was growing up on the farm,” Duncan replied without breaking his rhythm and, he felt to his credit, without rolling his eyes.
“Oh, I didn't know you were raised on a farm.”
Duncan saw this for what it was, of course—a transparent attempt to get him to open up, to make a connection between them. To break the tension. Under other circumstances, he probably wouldn’t have cooperated, but there was something about Edwin he liked, much as he tried to deny it. He had an openness to him. It was a trait he’d noticed was shared by many on this island, quite unlike their neighbours to the north. If he was being honest, Duncan would say he was feeling a little guilty for how he’d ambushed Edwin earlier that night. He had a tendency to act first and think later.
“I wasn't exactly a natural farmer, not like my brothers were,” Duncan said, continuing his carving. “I was the youngest of five. Well, I mean, I still am. My brothers all took to farming from the moment they could walk. All I wanted to do was make things. I carved constantly, every free moment I had. I used any scrap of wood I could find. Our farm was beside a large forest so there was always a good supply. Anything that didn't go for firewood, I squirrelled away to practice on.”
Edwin leaned in from the other side of the bench on which they were sitting.
“You’re very talented,” he said.
“My father didn’t think so. He wasn't pleased that I was devoting so much time and energy to it. He wanted me to be like him, to work the land, to use my hands like a man. When I told him I was still working with my hands, he…well, he didn't take it well. My brothers all took his side, as usual. When I wasn't getting berated by him, I was getting mercilessly teased by them.”
“What did your mother have to say about it?” Edwin asked.
“My mother died giving birth to me, and I don't think my father ever really forgave me. We tried to reach a compromise. He said if I liked carving so much maybe I should apprentice with a carpenter—put my skills to some use.” Duncan blew some wood dust from what was fast becoming a cat’s ear.
“We had a carpenter who worked on the farm, so my father arranged for me to apprentice under him. Which I did, for a few years, but I got bored. I liked making furniture, that wasn't so bad, but that sort of work was rare. Mostly, it was just repairing carts or preparing joists. I tried to inject some creativity into the work, but it was usually rejected by the master carpenter and word invariably got back to my father who would give me an earful, or worse. He kept telling me people didn't want fancy things, I should just be happy to do things the way they've always been done. Well, I just couldn’t do that. I kept carving in my free time and built up a small collection of animals. I fashioned models of our cats, our sheep, horses…anything, really.”
Duncan had stopped sculpting now. He sat staring at his reflection in the glass walls of the lighthouse gallery. He saw himself as he was back then—young but older than his years, short and brawny, dark hair cut tight as his father had always insisted. And unhappy. So unhappy.
“One day, I came back from collecting wood in the forest and found my father burning all of my carvings in a fire in the yard. He said he was sick of seeing them. That they were a 'frivolous distraction.' My brothers stood and watched silently; then they threw the last of them on the blaze. Right there and then, I packed my clothes and walked away from the farm, and I haven't been back since. The only thing he didn't burn was a little robin, because I always carried it with me, in my pocket. It was my favourite. So when I came here to Merryapple, and I met a man named Robin, well, I couldn
't help but take it as a good sign.”
Edwin smiled at this, and there it was again. That charming sort of innocence, that unguarded display. Duncan was beginning to see, aside from his obvious physical charms, why Robin liked him so much.
“I would have thought the same thing,” Edwin said. “That’s when you moved to Blackrabbit?”
“Yes. The farm was on the mainland, and I just wanted to get away, so I moved to Blackrabbit Island. I found a furniture maker there who was willing to take me on. I spent my days making cabinets and tables and chairs, carving intricate legs, elaborate cornicing, and so on. Exactly the kind of thing my father would have dismissed as pointless extravagances. When I found time, I made toys. Turned out I was good at it and I enjoyed it. Eventually, I started my own business. I made a decent living, bought a house, and was happy for a while. Unfortunately, I got into a bad relationship that ended poorly and left me in debt. I was too in love to see how I was being used. He was the son of a prominent businessman with political aspirations, which complicated things greatly.”
“Sorry, who had political aspirations, him or his father?”
“Both, as it turned out. I had to sell my home and my business. I took what I had left and moved again.”
“So, then you came here?”
“Yes. The day I moved here was the day I met Robin. I was so blown over by him. Well, technically, I was knocked over by him—you’ve heard the story—you know what I mean. My last relationship had been a nightmare by the end. I never knew what was happening, what to say, what to do. Every little thing was twisted and turned and thrown back in my face. It ended over a year earlier. It took that long to untangle myself from it.”
“Sounds horrible,” Edwin said.
“To say the least. So, to go from that to meeting Robin, someone who was so open and so honest and so caring it was a revelation. It's no wonder I fell for him so quickly.”
He reached into the pocket of his midnight-blue overcoat, which rested on the bench next to him, and pulled out another small carving tool. This one was curved slightly at the end to create a smoother finish in the woodwork. As he did so, a piece of paper fell out of the pocket and landed on the floor beside Edwin’s feet, who bent down and picked it up. Duncan wondered if he’d recognise the distinctive scrawl on the note as being Robin’s handwriting, and what he might say if he did. Edwin’s face gave nothing away and he simply handed the paper back. Duncan made a mental note never to play poker with him and tucked the note away, deep inside the pocket. He was mad at Edwin for giving nothing away in his expression, and madder at himself for having dropped it in the first place. He adjusted the armatures on his gold-rimmed glasses, flicking one of the tiny lenses into position. This magnified the finer details of his carving, enabling him to achieve a better finish.
“Those glasses of yours, I’ve never seen anything quite like them,” Edwin said.
“No, you wouldn’t have. They’re my own design—an idea that came to me one night as I was trying to paint tiny patterns onto a piece of dollhouse furniture. I drew up some plans and took them to Mr. Wolfe, the blacksmith. He huffed and puffed and said it wasn’t possible, that the joints needed to operate the armatures would be too small, too fine, to ever properly work, and it wasn’t worth wasting time on. Luckily, his nephew, Albert, had overheard us talking and wasn’t quite so dismissive. While Mr. Wolfe was concerned with things like wheels, axels, and horseshoes, Albert sees himself as a jeweller—interested in creating works of beauty, instead of practicality.
“He poured over my plans and for a few weeks, we worked closely together to create the final pair of glasses. Each lens is of a different strength, different magnification, and can be slotted into place and adjusted and twisted and combined in dozens of variations to achieve different results. I had originally envisioned using them only when I was working, but given that I seem to spend most of my time working on some piece or other, I eventually took to wearing them all day, every day.
“Albert and I have a lot in common, and we soon became friends. Just the other day, we were in the Moth & Moon discussing the possibility of him opening his own jewellery business on Hill Road. I really believe there’s a demand for work of the kind of quality he’s capable of, and I think he could easily sell his work on Blackrabbit Island, too. He taught me how to make the wind-up mechanisms for my toys.
“I don’t think I know him. I’m sure I’ve seen him around, though,” Edwin said.
“Oh, you would have done, he’s a bit taller than me, slimmer, walks with a cane? Some accident involving a horse when he young.”
“Is he the one married to Mrs. Kind’s niece?” Edwin asked.
“No, no, he was engaged to a young woman until she broke off their arrangement and left the island. Albert was devastated, threw himself into his work. Mr. Wolfe said I brought his nephew out of his shell, breathed some life back into him. I don’t know about all that. I just felt I was returning the favour for a friend. After Robin and I ended our relationship, it was the friendship and support of Albert, and Hamilton Bounsell for that matter, which had helped me through.”
“You weren't tempted to move again? After it ended?” Edwin asked, delicately.
“No. Not really,” Duncan said. “It was awkward, as first, when we parted ways. It's a small village so I’d see him almost every day. But it was worth it. I love living here.”
Duncan turned the cat model over in his small, fuzzy hands, inspecting it for any imperfections, any areas that could be improved. He found none.
“I heard you talking last night. Some of it, anyway,” Duncan said, causing Edwin to blanch. “It’s fine, don’t worry. It wasn’t easy to hear what Robin said, but I think I needed to hear it. I didn’t leave the island because I think, for all the pain after we separated, I couldn't bring myself to be completely apart from him.”
He sat the wooden cat on the bench, facing out towards the storm-battered village.
“I just wish that if it had to end, that it could have ended differently. Ended better.”
Chapter Seventeen
LATER THAT MORNING, while they waited for Edwin to return with the next refill of oil, Robin and Duncan stood in silence. The flame from the giant lamp flickered and danced as the wind howled and the rain battered the thick, aged glass of the lantern room. It may have been morning, but the sky was filled with heavy, grey clouds, and the light was still dim.
“You know,” Duncan began, looking around the glass-walled room, wrought from steel and iron, cast with bronze mechanisms, and centred around a pillar of flame and mirrors, “in another time, this would almost be romantic.”
Robin recognised this as Duncan’s attempt to raise a smile and assuage his guilt for any damage his careless words had caused the night before.
“Yes,” said Robin, avoiding his gaze. “Almost.”
“What happened between you two?” came a voice from behind them. Edwin had seen this exchange from the top of the staircase. He carried the copper container, now brimming with greasy whale oil for the lamp. “You were so good together, but then you couldn’t bear to be around each other. I know it’s none of my business, but no one knows what happened.”
Robin and Duncan looked at each other. Robin wanted to run away; every fibre of his being was screaming. He’d spent so long both wanting to have and trying to avoid this very conversation. In the past, he’d waited for Duncan to take the first step, but he never did, and so it gnawed away at him. The knot tightened. In his bed in the Moth & Moon, he’d resolved to speak to Duncan, to try to iron out what happened between them—but not now, not now, it was much too soon—he didn’t have time to think, time to find the right words, but it was happening right now, right here, in front of Edwin.
They had parted ways over two and a half years before, but they had never hashed out their differences. Never talked about what went wrong. There would be no better time to resolve it than now, but what if he pushed it too far? What if it just deepened the ri
ft between them?
“We drifted apart,” said Duncan, suddenly, his gaze fixed on the floor. “His work took him away early each morning; mine kept me up all night. We hardly saw each other, and even when we did, we’d hardly talk, except to argue. Whatever connection we had, whatever force brought us together, it wasn’t strong enough to keep us together. It wasn’t strong enough to overcome real life, I suppose.” He lifted his head and addressed Robin directly now. “You wouldn’t accept anything was wrong, that anything had changed. You found it so hard to let go. You made me say it.”
The pain was back in Robin’s expression. Suddenly, he felt all of his years rushing through his bones. All the wear and tear of his work pulsing in his joints, the weight of his life on his back. He stepped back, wobbling slightly as he slumped down onto the bench. His mouth hung open as he struggled to speak. Why did Edwin have to ask that now? Couldn’t it have waited? He wasn’t ready. Wasn’t prepared. More time, he needed more time; couldn’t he have waited just a little longer? But he had to speak now. Right now.
“I didn’t mean to, Duncan. I swear, I didn’t know that’s what I was doin’.”
Duncan sighed. “I know, Robin, but you did it regardless.”
Tears filled Duncan’s eyes, but he blinked them away.
“It made me the villain. It created an…air…around us. An aura. People in the village were reacting to it without knowing why. For weeks after, people treated me differently, because I was still the newcomer. You had the history, you had the connection, and I was just someone who wandered in, uninvited. Until they realised I wasn’t going anywhere—that I was staying in the village. And even now, whenever we’re together, we go right back to that day. Right back to me as the enemy. And damn it, Robin, it’s not fair. I didn’t deserve that. I don’t deserve that.”
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