The Dead-Tossed Waves (19 page)

I try not to blink; I try not to show any reaction at all even though my fingers begin to tingle and my blood seems to hum. It never occurred to me that the patterns on the blade could mean something, could be the top half of letters.

“Ever heard it before?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

I shake my head no, afraid that my voice will quaver if I try to speak, because I
have
. It was part of the song the Soulers were singing—they chanted it over and over again as the Mudo woman sunk her teeth into the boy. I shove a piece of bread into my mouth as an excuse to stay silent a moment longer.

Luckily the kettle begins to wail and I turn back to the stove, hiding my expression.

From the corner of my eye I can see Daniel shrug, then place a finger under the blade, testing its balance. “I wouldn’t think so,” he says. “It’s a Souler expression. You remember learning about them, right?”

The bread is suddenly dry in my mouth, sticking to my cheeks and tongue. I shake my head.

“Crazy cult that sacrifices people to become Mudo. Believes it’s the path to resurrection and eternal life.” I turn to get a better look at what he’s doing and catch him as he runs a finger along the sharp edge of the knife. “They go city to city trying to convert people. And if they ever came here …” He glances at me, drawing the weapon along an imaginary throat. “Odd that one just like it would end up with you,” he says.

I’m pouring water from the kettle and my hands jerk, sloshing scalding water along my thumb and down my wrist. Before I can react he grabs a towel and takes my arm in his, drying it. His fingers linger over the puffy cut on my palm.

“I found it on the beach,” I sputter. “The knife,” I clarify. “Washed ashore.”

“That doesn’t look good,” he says, his head bent over my hand ignoring my explanation.

“It’s fine,” I say, trying to pull away. I don’t want to be
touched, don’t want anyone to even be near me. I just want to crawl into myself and forget.

He glances up at me. “Your mother’s pretty good with plant medicines. Doesn’t she have something for this?”

He steps even closer, I can feel his breath; I can feel his skin and his smell and his want.

I drop the kettle on the counter, some of the hot water spilling out and dripping onto the floor by Daniel’s foot. He steps back, reluctantly letting me go. “It’s fine,” I say again. Even I can hear the way my voice shakes.

He tilts his head a bit, a sharp look to his eyes. “Where
is
your mother?” he asks. He sticks the knife into the counter next to me, its tip barely digging into the wood. I take a step back from him, reaching for a clean towel from a drawer as an excuse to put distance between us.

“I noticed the lighthouse isn’t lit,” he says, moving closer. His voice is deeper and there’s something about it that raises the little hairs along my neck.

I close my eyes, cursing myself again for leaving without lighting the lantern. Of course such an oversight would draw the Militia here. The Protectorate demands we keep the house lit even though traders haven’t tempted the pirates in years.

“She’s sick,” I tell him. “I’ll do it now,” I add as I hurry out of the kitchen and up the stairs to the lantern room. I open the lamp and adjust the wick, my hand still shaking as I listen to the thump of Daniel following me, his bad leg slowing him down. My shoulders sag; I’m relieved to be alone even for just a small moment.

But being alone means my thoughts stray back to Elias and the Soulers. I scramble over to the windows and scan the beach below, making sure Daniel won’t be able to see Elias if
he happens to glance outside. Nothing moves in the darkness and I wonder if Elias is still out there, if he’s looking up at me even now.

I shiver and glance past the Barrier into the ruins. Are the Soulers still out there? Is their sick ceremony still going on? I squint, trying to find the amphitheater, and I think I see a spark of light, a soft glow where they should be, and then nothing.

Daniel’s steps grow louder and I turn back to the lamp and light it quickly, then busy myself with winding the gears.

He steps into the room and immediately the space feels too small. Too tight and too high. There’s only one exit and his bulk blocks it. He holds the knife, the blade gleaming in the light.

I set the lamp spinning but Daniel’s presence unnerves me and I’m distracted. The tip of my finger catches between the teeth of two cogs and I cry out at the sharp pain. The glare of the light sweeps over us, the brightness almost a physical force.

Daniel steps farther into the room and I skirt the lantern, pretending to examine another set of gears while my finger throbs.

He notices my mother’s recent carvings on the low walls. Stoops to run his fingers over the first few words of the sonnet. “What’s this supposed to be?” he asks. He’s still gasping from the effort of climbing the stairs.

“My mother likes poetry,” I tell him, refusing to look up. The gears click under my hands, teeth fitting against each other and then gliding away.

He glares up at me, straightening. “This is Protectorate property.” The light slides over him and he’s silent until I meet his eyes. I watch as beads of sweat trail from his forehead
down his temples and along his cheeks to his jaw. My mother has carved pieces of sonnets into almost every doorway of the lighthouse; it never occurred to me she might get in trouble for it.

Before I can figure out how to respond he brushes a hand through the air. “The Recruiters are arriving the day after tomorrow. Hopefully your mother won’t be too sick—or too busy defacing property—to show up with the other advisors. The Chairman’s expecting her. He sent me to deliver the message personally. And to reprimand her for shirking her duty as the lighthouse keeper.”

The light makes another sweep around the tiny room and slaps me in the face, piercing my vision. I close my eyes, the darkness an explosion of bright spots. Cira will be gone in two days. The Recruiters will be taking her and the others away. I should have been going with her. “Of course my mother will be there,” I tell him. Hoping I sound convincing.

With my eyes closed I don’t realize he’s crept nearer until he wraps his hand around the railing next to me, his arm almost circling me. He’s too close, there’s not enough space. I can’t breathe, can’t even think. His chest presses against my shoulder, his mouth almost to my ear.

“Is your mother asleep?” he asks. And I can hear it all in his voice as my skin breaks out in goose bumps. Suddenly I feel helpless and trapped. I almost call out, hoping that Elias is still outside, that he can come to my rescue.

But then I remember how he left me alone to go back to the ruins. How he chose the Soulers over me. And thinking about the Soulers makes my stomach twist.

I need to get Daniel out of the house. I need to find a way to get him away from me.

His breath is hot on my neck, his body crowding me
against the glass. I turn my head away, cringing, but his hand grabs mine, his fingers digging into my palm. “Come on, Gabry,” he says.

And so I do the only thing I can think of to get him to leave me alone. “I saw the Soulers,” I tell him, my heart pounding.

He stops moving, stops pressing against me and I slip past him, stepping out onto the gallery. The air out here is so much cooler, not infused with the smell of Daniel and my fear. He comes after me quickly, his leg dragging over the grating of the floor and sending vibrations up through the metal railings.

“What are you talking about?” he asks, clearly suspicious. The light continues to spin, hitting us and then trailing away into the darkness. The wind whistles slightly as it shifts around the vent over the lantern room.

“Out there in the ruins,” I tell him, gesturing past the Barrier. I try to step away as he moves closer but he pins me to the railing again, his chest pressed to my side, pushing his cheek into the crook of my neck so that he can follow where I’m pointing.

“I saw lights out there earlier.” My voice is shaking and his flesh feels slick with sweat. “And during the day I think I saw movement through the binoculars—a group of people wearing white. It just occurred to me that it could have been the Soulers.”

As he squints his body presses against me even more, the railing digging into my hips. The only way to move away from him is to lean out over the emptiness. If I tip a little bit farther, or if Daniel pushes slightly harder against my back, I could flip over the railing and fall into the nothing. I glance down at the beach so far below, wondering if Elias sees me. If he’s
worried about me or if he hears me telling Daniel about the Soulers.

My muscles tense, waiting to see if Daniel believes me. Waiting to see if he’ll leave me alone. The one thing I know about Daniel is that he’s always had more loyalty to the Militia than to anything else. He would do anything to make himself shine in the eyes of the Council.

He turns his head toward me, sweat from his cheek dripping onto my shoulder. “Excellent work,” he says.
“If
you’re telling the truth.”

He pauses for a moment, his breath moist in my face. And then he just smiles, the light playing along his teeth. “Good night, Gabrielle,” he says, before limping back into the lantern room and down the stairs. I hear the thump and drag of his bad leg, the thud of every step down the lighthouse, until the door closes below and he struggles back across the beach to the path through the woods toward town.

I allow myself to collapse onto the gallery floor, the wind licking cool along the back of my neck. Swallowing, I twist my fingers together in front of me until my knuckles glow white, trying to figure out what game Daniel’s playing and what I should do next. Everything’s happening too quickly. I just want to sit here and pretend that nothing has changed. But I know it’s useless. Everything is changed. My best friend will be taken away. The Council will find out my mother’s gone. And Catcher will die.

The only question is, what will be left of me in the end?

When enough time has passed that I’m sure Daniel is gone I slip downstairs and outside into the darkness. The moon is disappearing beyond the town into the Forest and I feel the
need to wrap my arms around myself even though the night is hot. I peer into the shadows looking for Elias and even try calling his name a few times, but he’s gone.

I feel waterlogged and heavy as I climb back up to the lantern room and stand there for a moment, staring at the words of the sonnet my mother carved on the walls. I wonder where she is. If she’s safe. If she’s thinking of me.

Completely devoid of energy, I step outside onto the gallery and watch the beam of light cut through the night, illuminating the world around me. In the distance I look again for the pinpricks of the Souler lanterns but they’re well hidden. I brush my hand over my face, weariness pulling heavy on every part of me, exhaustion from the day creeping in.

I wonder what Daniel will do with what I told him. If he’s told the Militia and even now they’re preparing to storm out the gate after the Soulers. I feel a slight twinge of responsibility, as if maybe I should have thought longer before saying something. But then I remember what that boy looked like, bloody and broken. I remember the sound of his moans.

Pushing the thought away, not wanting to deal with it now, I let my head fall back, close my eyes and feel the rush of wind from the ocean.

I finally understand what my mother meant about forgetting. About how much easier it is to let the pain slip away and fade into nothing. If I could forget today I would. If I could erase every moment I would do so happily and without hesitation.

I
n my dream I’m sitting in my mother’s boat. My back is cupped by the bow and the sail hangs limp, barely rustling in the soft summer air. All around me is nothing but waves marching endlessly away. I can’t see land and I know I should be terrified but there’s something about the rocking of the boat that keeps me comfortable and safe.

Sitting at the stern, his hand resting gently on the tiller, is a large man I’ve never seen before. But somehow I know that it’s Roger, the man who cared for the lighthouse before my mother took over, the man who found my mother on the beach when she escaped from the Forest. He doesn’t seem bothered by the lack of wind and just sits there, his other hand holding the limp damp line. A rusty-edged shovel sits in the hull of the boat between us.