Forbidden (10 page)

By Thy great mercy . . .

I opened my hands and crashed down.

Instinctively I tried to favor my sore ankle, landing jarringly, my left foot and leg taking the brunt of it. I was drenched both by the falling rain and the wet grass I had tumbled into, but I was there, and comparatively unhurt.

A splinter of glass was embedded in my hand. I felt for it and found it large enough to grasp and remove.

There was the pungent smell of wet manure that the horses had left behind. Below me the great swelling blackness of the sea churned on the sand and shingle. Way out, almost where angry sky met angry sea, I saw lights. Was it a ship sailing in the storm? God help those on it if that was so. Or were those lights from lanterns carried on the boats of my uncle and his associates? Did they launch their boats to help a ship they knew to be in distress? Was this the prize that Angus MacCormick had told them about? Were they to guide it to safe harbor and hope for a rich reward? But nothing in the tone of the voices I’d overheard fitted with that thought. Their words had not been righteous.

For a moment, the unreality of the night consumed me. How could I, Josie Ferguson of 133 Victoria Street, Edinburgh, be here, with a limitless sea below me and a sky filled with storm? How could everything familiar to me have disappeared? How could I be a witness to something I deemed suspicious, even ominous?

I held to the railing of the path so I would not be hurled away. My eyes were accommodating somewhat to the gloom, and I saw people, forty or more, massed on the strip of shingle. The white frills of depleted surf gleamed, almost fluorescent, at their feet. What was their business on the beach on a night such as this? Were they simply drawn to what they thought an exciting happening? Was Eli Stuart among them? I thought not. Some shameful instinct told me that I could have picked him out in a crowd twice this big on a night twice this black.

I saw the horses, still hitched to the carts, high on the dry sand. This was where the men had taken them.

Far out on the sea, the lights of the ship vanished, reappeared, vanished, reappeared as if the sea sucked the vessel down then threw it up again.

On the cliff’s edge farther along the Point, I became aware of another light, bright and friendly, swaying along the edge of the bluff.

I rubbed the rain from my eyes. What was I seeing?

Then, like black moths on a black sea, the four fishing boats came into view. They were heading toward the ship that I could see was in great distress. From where I was, the boats looked so small, only shadows that tossed and churned on the boiling sea. If only they were going to save the passengers on the sinking ship. But a terrible disbelief filled my mind. I knew, without any substantiation, that they were going out to the ship for another purpose, though I could not fathom what it might be.

Below on the beach, the crowd stood motionless. Rain pelted them. Spray rose in a mist around them.

Still they stood.

Still I stood.

The world seemed hushed, holding its breath, and then a giant cheer erupted.

What . . . ?

I limped farther down the path and stared out across the sea.

The ship’s lights still glowed, but were there fewer of them? Did they tilt low at the stern, high and motionless at the bow, as if resting on something solid?

It was then I remembered that the Sisters were located somewhere there, that long line of rocks, covered now by the fierceness of the high tide.

Wasn’t there a warning buoy or bell? Something to show the danger? I had heard nothing. The ship had hit them and in all likelihood was sinking.

“Oh, help them,” I shouted, my scream blown back on the wind.

“Hurry in the boats! They are sinking!”

There was new cheering now on the beach. Had one of the boats already reached the foundering ship?

Lanterns flared below, and by their light, I saw dark figures running back and forth, ankle deep in the surf, stumbling out again. Even from this distance, I could see the merriment, the delight. They were shapes in a magic lantern show, strange and sinister. There were women among them. A few. The hems of their skirts dragged heavy with salt water and sand. Their shawls trailed, forgotten, behind them.

A small flame flickered on the sand; the wind caught it and it became a fire and then a bonfire, bright tongues shooting into the sky. Flames and sparks and smoke billowed outward, and the magic lantern figures pranced and danced, alone or with another.

I was bewildered.

But then I wasn’t.

What I was witnessing needed no further interpretation.

I could no longer deceive myself.

They were happy. They had hoped the ship would wreck, and now their hopes were realized. And what of the fishing boats, hurrying toward the wreck? They were not there to save but to pillage.

Up on the bluff, the small light I’d earlier noticed had ceased to move. A lantern was held aloft, its yellow beacon moving in circles, which elicited fresh cheers. I realized that light had been shining for a reason, and it had succeeded. It was in direct line with the Sisters and could be mistaken for a safe harbor light. It was not by bad chance that the ship had hit the rocks. It had been lured onto them. By a light bound fast to Dobbin’s tail as he was led along the cliff’s edge. I remembered the conversation I’d overheard.
Are we takin’ Nag this night, Caleb?

My heart was a painful lump in my chest. Such wickedness! Such fiendish arrangements. And my aunt and uncle were engaged in it all.

A man below had plunged into the surf, waist deep, a wave catching him and tossing him up like a seal, tumbling him over and over onto the sand. He held something above his head. A chair. Others rushed in then, wading fully clothed into the surging water, fighting among themselves, the great rollers smashing them down, carrying them in to toss them on the shingle. Some of those who staggered back out were empty-handed. Some carried mysterious objects, only a few recognizable: a round life belt, a crate, a plank of wood. Two men jostled with a trunk, the surf seizing it, taking it from them while they struggled to get it back.

These were the treasures they had come for, the God-sent riches, brought in from the death of a ship. Taken by the sea from those who had drowned out there on the rocks and brought to the greedy watchers from a ship that had been lured to its destruction.

My hand clutched the railing so tightly that I could not feel it. I was shuddering, and though I gritted my teeth and hunched my shoulders, I could not seem to calm myself.

There was chaos as more and more objects washed in.

Two women scuffled over something, tugging it between them. Was one of them Mrs. Kitteridge?

I closed my eyes. I had become a spectator of avarice such as I had never imagined. Did they give no thought to the poor souls struggling or drowning out there on the sea?

I could no longer watch. But I could not look away.

And then, while my mind grappled with what I was seeing, something else came plunging in on a wave.

I pressed my hands against my cheeks and tightened my body.

No, no, no.

It was a man, lying now at the edge of the sand, waves hissing around him.

Soon I couldn’t see him because he was surrounded and hidden by the crowd.

Then I did.

Someone had removed his coat and was waving it like a flag in the air. Someone else tossed a boot over the heads and onto the high sand.

They were robbing him! Was he alive or dead?

I could stand it no longer. With no thought of what I could accomplish, I was limping, running, and shouting down the path toward the multitude below.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

A
HAND SEIZED MY ARM
and pulled me off the path onto the scrub grass and nettles that covered the cliff.

“No,” Eli Stuart said. “Do not go farther. You will be in danger.”

I struggled against him. “Let me go!” I kicked at him and tried to wrench myself from his grip. “They are—”

“I know what they are doing. But you cannot aid the sailor. He is beyond help,” Eli said.

“I don’t care . . .” Tears, rain, wind, muffled my words. “I have to.”

“No.” He was pulling me back, dragging me up the incline, my feet slipping in the wet earth and grass, small stones rattling down at every burdensome step.

I twisted around so I could glance again at the beach.

The body of the man lay inert on the sand. The crowd had finished with him. They were back, waist deep in the sea. The bonfire had been replenished, and by its light, I saw his bare feet, both boots and socks gone, his only clothing now underdrawers and a ragged shirt. He had a beard, black against the dead whiteness of his face.

I could not contain the whimper that spilled from my throat.

“They have not noticed you or us,” Eli said. “They are too intent on their business.” His voice was sharp, but it gentled when he put his arm around me and helped me to the top of the cliff. “Not far now, Josie.”

I could see Raven’s Roost. One of the horses on the beach whinnied. I remembered the carts that were hitched to them and knew now why they had been brought.

Instinctively I glanced back at Dobbin’s enclosure. It was empty. He had been taken by Bruce, on my uncle’s orders.

Eli interpreted my glance.

“The horse has played his part tonight, if unwittingly,” he said. “He had a lantern—”

“Tied tight to his tail with a fisherman’s knot,” I finished.

“Aye. It’s a practice that has worked for them before.”

“You’ve never tried to smash the lantern? Or pull it off his tail before it is too late?”

“Aye,” Eli said. “I saved two ships that way. But I’ve been told to wait.”

“Who told you? My uncle? Who?”

“Others,” he said.

I pounded on his arm. “What others? Tell me!”

But he did not speak. Instead he stopped at the shed. It was closed, but the chain and heavy lock hung loose to the ground. Eli let go of me and pushed open the door, guiding me through.

There was only blackness inside, and I stood, dazed and blind. Then I heard a hiss and blinked in the sudden glow of the lantern that he lighted.

The storm battered the walls and roof. I stared around, at first in bewilderment and then with understanding. This shed was where the stolen goods were stored. It was a miniature Jackdaws, filled with chairs and oaken chests and ornaments of all kinds. There were pictures in frames, pictures of woodland scenes or farmlands or the sea in sunlight.

I tried to take it all in, but I was shuddering and my stomach was so distressed, I felt I would surely vomit.

I reached out for Eli, my hands almost touching him and then his arms were tight around me, my chest pressed against his.

It was just a moment till he let go.

“I thought you were about to fall,” he said hoarsely. “These souvenirs have yet to be sold,” he added. “To Jackdaws. Or in secret to those who come to buy from far and near.”

I recovered my senses.

“They are monsters,” I moaned.

We were both soaked. For the first time, I saw that he had on a coarse jacket, roughly sewn. His hair was slicked against his head, and this close, I saw how rain beaded his eyelashes.

“He was alive, and they let him die,” I whispered. “They could have comforted him, made him warm, talked—”

“I know. I know.” It was like the voice of my mother, kind and gentle.

“Maybe, when he felt land under him, he thought he was saved . . .”

Tears choked me.

Eli reached out across the small space between us and ran his hand across my cheek. And there, in that den of thieves and murderers, where I was still shaking from what I had witnessed down on the beach, I felt his hand on my skin, and a tremor rippled through my body that was from his touch and not from the horror that had convulsed me earlier. Was I losing my reason?

“We must get you into the house,” he said, stepping back. “You must change from those wet clothes, or you will sicken.”

His words were so commonplace that I was mortified. How could I have felt as I did? At a time like this? I was a disgusting creature, allowing my foolish feelings to obscure, for a few moments, the horror of the night.

“Illness seldom comes near me,” I said, in a tone as level as his own. “But perhaps it would be best.” I paused. “Lamb, though, is still on guard outside my room.”

Eli shrugged. “No matter. I will take care of him. How did you pass him earlier?”

“I broke a window.”

He nodded, extinguished the lantern, and closed the door of the shed behind us.

“The ghost of the man on the beach will haunt them,” I murmured. “He will not rest.”

“I believe you are right,” Eli said.

The fire was out in the sitting room, and the place had an air of gloom and damp. It smelled of ale and unwashed men and wet clothing.

Empty jars and jugs littered the table, and the chairs were spread untidily around the room. This was where the planning had been done earlier. This was where they had accepted me to be part of their villainy sometime soon. It had been my father’s wish that I come here and remain here. But he had no understanding of the fiendish ways of his brother.

“I am not sure what Lamb will make of it, seeing me outside the room he is guarding,” I said. “Perhaps you will come and ask him politely to move so I can enter my chamber?” I was proud of my well-mannered voice.

Eli would never know how he had troubled my heart, there in the shed.

He went ahead of me up the staircase. Lamb rose as we reached the top step, saw me, leaped forward, and stopped. His demeanor changed in an instant.

“Come with me, Lamb,” Eli said, and Lamb belly-slid over to him, a strange submissive moan coming from his throat. Eli turned and went down the stairs, Lamb sidling behind him with drooping head and trailing tail.

What strange power did Eli have over the devil dog? What strange power did he have over me?

The gale screamed in through the empty window space. The corner of the bed with the flowered quilt was soaked from the earlier rain. My aunt had not made it. Some hand, now lifeless, had sewn it, and I had rested beneath it. I discarded the trousers I had bought in Jackdaws and the heavy jersey my aunt had given me. They lay in a sodden pile. Had they come off the bodies of young men, dead and dying? I rubbed my hands along my legs and my body, as if rubbing could remove the horror I felt. The wrapping on my ankle was sodden, the ends of it trailing. I peeled it off.