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The fire was out in the sitting room.

Lamb was stretched at the bottom of the stairs. Perhaps he had been struggling through his sleep to come after me, to do as Aunt Minnie had told him. But the potion had defeated him. His giant body stirred as he breathed. I stepped over him.

My aunt had tipped from the chair and lay sprawled on the floor. For a terrible minute, I thought that I had killed her, but as I watched, frightened, one of her feet moved. I went no closer.

Wind tore at my cloak and almost lifted me from my feet as I pushed through the door of Raven’s Roost for what I prayed would be forever.

I stood uncertain. How could I leave without seeing Eli one last time? The words
one last time
echoed over and over in my mind. They must surely be the saddest words in the world.

But how could I stay?

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I
T WAS DEEP DARK
on the cliff path.

Below me, on the beach, the bonfire still burned, the flames and smoke spiraling skyward. There was no rain to quench it, and its fury turned the air around it a fearsome red.

Where was Eli?

The pistol in my hand disquieted me. I kept its muzzle pointed at the ground. Perhaps I should throw it away? But again, it and its one bullet could save someone, could save me.

The horses on the strand stood passively, their carts piled with wooden sidings and barrels and other merchandise. I saw a long, long piece of rounded wood and knew it to be a mast from the broken ship. They would need a team of horses to carry that.

Would Eli be at his grandmother’s house? Going there would delay my escape, but if there was a chance to see him, I had to try. Maybe he would hold me. Maybe he would even say, “I will come with you.”

There were three bodies spread out on the shingle now. I turned quickly away, but not before I saw another bundle of clothing come smashing in on the surf. I bit my lips. Was it another body? I did not want to look more, but I was unable to help myself. After one last crash of the wave, I realized that it was indeed a person in the water, alive still and waving his arms.

A man waded into the wave that broke over him. It was my uncle, reaching for the supplicating arm that was stretched toward him. I saw him take that arm, roll the man face-down in the water, and hold his head under while those close to him watched in silence. None tried to stop him.

For a second, I was paralyzed. Then I raised the pistol and fired it, not at my uncle, not at anyone, but above their heads. My ears hurt with the noise, and for a second I was unsteady. But would the shot stop them? Would it save the man in my uncle’s grasp?

They were all staring out to sea as if an explosion had occurred in the water. Something off the ship, perhaps.

I closed my eyes, and when I opened them, that fourth body lay next to the others and was already being stripped of its clothing.

The horror of it made bile rise in my throat.

I had wasted the shot. I had wasted time.

With all my might, I threw the pistol as far as I could into the brush behind the path, took the sleeping potion from my pocket, and threw it, too.

Shuddering, I gathered my cloak tight around me and, without another look at the misery below, ran along the path to Eli’s grandmother’s house. I prayed he was there.

A faint light shone through the window.

No smoke came from the chimney.

I stumbled up the path and banged on the door.

“Mrs. Stuart? Mrs. Stuart, it’s Josie.”

There was no answer from within.

I tried the door.

It was open.

The room lay cold and empty.

Could she possibly still be abed and asleep through all that was happening?

I called her name, again and again.

“Eli!” I shouted. “Eli!”

Only silence surrounded me, save for the ticking of the clock.

All my senses told me no one was there.

I hastened past the settle where I had slept and raised the wick in the lantern.

The room was tidy, though something in it was different. Her potions and herbs were gone. The table where she’d mixed them was bare.

I ran into her bedchamber. It was empty too, the bed tidy and unslept in.

I must hurry.

I must not miss my chance to get away.

But where was she? Where was Eli?

I ran outside again and into his private room where I’d been before.

There was just the desk where he sat to write. The red leather book with the names inscribed in it was gone.

I stood uncertainly, breathing in the air he had breathed, touching the chair he had sat in, asking myself questions for which I had no answer.

I had to go. No time for wishing or hoping or mourning.

Eli’s shells shone, bleached white, as I ran down the path. I bent and picked one up, touched it to my lips, and slid it into my dress pocket.

I ran, bent over against the gale, through fickle moonlight that came and went at the will of the clouds.

I ran till the pain in my chest bade me slow. The guineas and my father’s christening cup banged against one another in my pocket. The shell felt ragged around its rim when I grasped it in my hand. My eyes streamed wind tears.

I walked close to the hedgerows, at times breaking into a run again, ready to slide under cover should my uncle come after me. I saw no one, but there were rustlings in the undergrowth, and I thought or imagined that I glimpsed shadows in the darkness. Once a low black shape darted across the road in front of me. Fox? Or wolf—but I knew from my readings that the last wolf in Scotland had been killed long ago. More likely badger. I felt myself ill in body and mind.

I stumbled without warning onto the main street of Brindle. Every house was dark. No one home. All were on the beach of Brindle Point. One of these shadowy dwellings was Jackdaws. It would have new merchandise for sale very soon.

The sign in front of the Fisherman’s Inn slap-slapped against its post. It was a drum, beating out of time.

I was tiring.

My legs and hip ached where my uncle had thrown me to the floor.

However much I tried, my mind refused to stay away from the ship on the rocks, the bodies on the beach, my uncle holding that head under the water, the man’s legs kicking, splashing weakly. Would I ever be able to forget?

Alone, at the mercy of the thoughts that jittered through my head, I thought of the past, my parents, their hopes for me. I thought of my aunt and uncle, the blackness of their hearts. I thought about the pistol. I thought about Eli. If only . . . How could it be that I’d met him, loved him, only to lose him? From the beginning, I’d known that he was forbidden. Maybe love doesn’t listen to what you know, only to what your heart feels.

Cold seeped through my cloak, through my shawl. Despair was seeping in too. I had started off bravely, filled with determination, but now I doubted. Would I ever make it back to Edinburgh, or would I be found and returned to my “rightful guardian”?

I blew into my hands to warm them, willing myself to take one step to follow the other.

Something loomed on the side of the road. It was a cart, tilted lopsidedly, abandoned.

I approached it warily. Everything, everyone, was a danger.

The cart was old and missing a wheel. I pulled myself into it, so weary I could think of nothing but sleep and an hour of forgetfulness. The cart sides gave me some shelter from the wind and an illusion of safety.

Wrapped in my cloak, I slept.

“Josie? Josie?”

I awoke with a start. Where was I? What was happening? Memory came and, with it, fear.

I’d been found!

I cowered against the side of the cart, then pulled myself up to better face whatever menace stood over me.

And saw Eli.

The surge of joy that came with the sight of him made me forget my pain and despair. I held out my arms, and he lifted me from the cart and held me up, for I would have fallen.

“Is it really you?” I gasped. “Oh, Eli. You came for me! I was sick with sorrow, thinking not to see you ever again. I got away . . . I saw—”

“Shhh! Shhh!”

I buried my face in his shoulder. Through my cloak and my shawl and my other clothes, I could feel the length of him, the Eli strength.

I felt, too, his pulling away.

“How did you find me?” I asked, though indeed I did not care. He had searched for me and found me. That was enough.

“There is only one road from Brindle Point. You had to be on it.”

I clung still to his arms.

Wasn’t he cold, this cruel, windy, gale-swept night?

I opened my cloak. “You must be frozen. I took your coat. It is back in Raven’s Roost. Let me wrap this around us both.” I paused. “Oh. I forgot. You do not feel cold.”

“I do not.” His words were crisp, with nothing in them of affection or wanting.

The realization that I had been leaving seemed insignificant to him.

“You cannot go yet,” he said. “When you see the end, you will understand. Come back with me.”

“No, I understand enough,” I said, though in truth I understood little. “My uncle will find me. He will see how I tricked Aunt Minnie and Lamb. I have told him I will set the law on him when I leave, and he will never let me go. He knows I will bear witness against him.” I made my voice as unemotional as his. “I must leave now.”

“Your uncle will not be looking for you. He will be occupied with other things. If you want to help put an end to the murders on Brindle Point, you will come with me,” he said.

I tried to see his eyes, but the clouds had again shrouded the moon. “How can I do that?”

“We will tell you. We will keep you safe.”

“We? Who is we?”

“Can you just trust me?”

“I cannot trust you. I don’t think I even know you. But if you speak the truth, and I can help stop this, then I will go with you.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

S
OMEWHERE I FOUND
the strength to keep pace with him as we hastened along the road that led back to Brindle Point. I could hear my own forced breathing, feel the jabbing pain in my ankle.

He did not ask if I was hurting or too exhausted to continue. When there was sufficient moonlight, I glanced up at him, at the somber set of his face, the grim line of his mouth. What was he thinking? Not of me, certainly. There was an unreality to this night. To everything. Was it possible that I was still the ladylike Josephine Ferguson who had come, unsuspecting, to Raven’s Roost not even two days since? That Josie Ferguson who had been safe and cherished since the day she was born?

The wind was still blowing, though not as fiercely. Once there was a savage snorting from the hedgerow. A wild pig? I was too tired to be afraid.

The dark bulk of Raven’s Roost rose before us. Were my aunt and Lamb still asleep behind those walls?

Two dark shapes lay on the scrub grass at a distance from the house. I would have tripped over one had it not been that Eli held my arm.

I stared down and gasped.

“Eli! Eli! It’s Lamb. And oh.” I jerked away from him and bent over the other shadowy figure. “My aunt Minnie.”

“Come, Josie! We have no time to linger!”

“But, Eli! Are they dead? Did they crawl out to die? I think I gave them too much sleeping draft.”

He leaned over them. “They are not dead. They are still asleep. I brought them from the house.”

“Why? Why do I have to always ask you why in everything you do?” I knelt and felt along my aunt Minnie’s face. It was cold, her skin smooth and soft. She felt young. I had not touched her before, and she had not touched me in affection or kindness. “Should I get a cover for her? It is so cold, and she wears no shawl or cloak.”

There was for a moment the hint of softness in his voice. “Dear, dear Josie. You show no animosity toward one who has treated you so badly.”

He moved a strand of my hair from my face to behind my ear. How could just that tremble of a touch fill me with such strange pleasure?

“Your aunt smells so sweetly of brandy that I doubt the cold could even find her,” he said. “Time is wasting, and we have none to spare. Already I am late.”

“Late for what? You are making me demented . . .”

We were moving fast again, and I had no breath for further questions.

Eli stopped abruptly at the path leading to the beach, and I perforce stopped with him. I stared down at the scene below. Someone had kept the bonfire stoked. The three dead men and one dead woman lay as I had last seen them. Not exactly the same. The woman had been stripped of her green sparkled dress and lay naked, save for her pantaloons and stays. A dark patch surrounded her left hand, and Eli, as if reading my thoughts, said without any emotion, “Sometimes the rings are hard to remove. The sea has bloated the fingers. Best then to take the fingers, too.”

Mrs. Kitteridge had benefited.

“Why must they kill those who get ashore?” I whispered. “Is it not enough to rob them?”

“A law was passed. It says if a man or beast is still alive on a wrecked ship, nothing can be taken. They make sure none is left alive, on the ship or on the shore.”

I shivered. How could there be such monsters?

Some of the good people of Brindle Point were still jostling with the waves and with each other to snatch whatever the sea offered them, though not much was coming in now. Two men fought over a siding of wood, tugging it between them. Most lay around the fire, spent from their efforts. We could hear laughter and the burst of songs. A hogshead of liquor was being passed in celebration. The smoke, the flames that lit the faces could have been straight from Dante’s
Inferno.

High on the hard sand, the horses stood, perhaps half asleep, their heads drooping, their carts piled high with loot. And with them, head drooping, was little Dobbin.

I saw my uncle. The sight of him sent a wave of nausea through me.

I saw others that I recognized. I saw Esmeralda Davies, the proprietress of Jackdaws; I saw Mrs. Kitteridge. And Daphne.

“She has brought Daphne!” I whispered.

“Look no more, Josie. It is close to the end,” Eli said.