We churned out of Tenant’s Harbor, my arms shivering. Not even the lobsterman coat, with a smell that overpowered all leftover hint of chowder, could ease the cold.
Atticus and Salt stood one on either side, but I wanted them nearer. There was a protection in their presence, and I slipped my arm into Salt’s.
“Tell her, Atticus. Don’t do nothing to show without a tell.”
Atticus glanced over at me.
“You don’t need to,” I said. “You can tell me some other —”
“Elias was six, seven, maybe eight when his father, Elliot, took a job with Fish and Wildlife. It gave him access to all the lighthouses along the coast, but the man’s favorite was the light on Two Bush. It’s a solitary island, and few know of it, fewer still go near it. Elliot only had to maintain the automatic lamp, is all. But Elliot Phinn had a different love. Them stars.”
I slumped down in my chair. “Elias’s dad loved constellations.”
“To that man, everything important was up, and so he’d hire me to take him out to Two Bush, late at night. As I said, I knew where the shoals weren’t, and I’d get him in close. After some effort, he’d climb the light tower with his telescopes and I’d wait near the island.”
“There is no good way to climb up on Two Bush.” Salt stared out into the bay. “It’s a big, flat rock, a plateau wit’ cliffs all around.”
“Now, I don’t know what happened between ’m, that’s none of mine . . .” Atticus continued. “But Guinevere suddenly stopped comin’ round. Figured a divorce, but never pried,” he said. “After a bit, though, Little Elias started to come out with his dad, and they’d watch them stars together. Wasn’t legal, but I thought it quite a thing for a father to share with his boy. Besides, he paid me well.”
I swallowed hard. “It’s important for a father to be there for his child.”
Salt drew me close.
“That night, sure ’nough, seemed like the others.” Atticus’s voice seemed far away. “Exceptin’ that it was rough. Fifteen minutes turned decent water to choppy foam. I brought out Elliot to Two Bush, except this time he said he’d be spending the whole night, watchin’ them stars move. He told me to come out and get him in the morning. No problem there. The life of a lobsterman is a tough one, and I could take twice his money. But Little Elias was waitin’ at the pier when I came back, and asked me to take him to his dad. I didn’t see the harm in that — couldn’t just leave the boy there — and they always went together before, and so I did.
“We reached the island, and the lad clamored up them rocks. I drifted back, waiting, waiting to see him safe into the tower. As the wind’s howl picked up, Elias started to run for the door. I saw him stumble down, and I faintly heard his cry, but he was quick back on his feet. He reached the light, threw open the door, and disappeared.” Atticus sighed. “I set to leave, but then again I heard his scream. It was a different sound. It wasn’t right. I still dream it.” Atticus swallowed and looked off. “Elias came bolting out of the lighthouse with his undressed father in pursuit. A woman poked her head out of the door, and I saw right off it wasn’t Guinevere. Little Elias must have caught his father in the act.”
My knees buckled, but Salt held me fast. “Can you handle more?”
“Carry on,” I said quietly.
“The boy reached the rocky cliff line just as his dad caught up. And I heard all the excuses a man tries to give. Elliot tried to grab his son, I imagine to buy more time to right the unthinkable, but little Elias’s heart must’ve already broke, and he pulled free and shoved him. Don’t reckon a little kid can shove too hard, but I also don’t reckon Elliot was expecting it. With all the spray on those rocks, Elliot slipped off that cliff and fell.” Atticus sighed again. “He hit his head square on a rock. I checked him. He was dead, by his own doing and by his son’s hand. I left him and the woman, and Elias and I sped away that night. That boy didn’t cry the whole way back. He didn’t speak. He was . . . different. I waited a day to tell authorities, until Elias left town with his grandpa . . . I waited until he was in the clear. No boy needs to have that kind of guilt tied to him the rest of his life. Accidently killing his family? Where would he put that?”
“You don’t,” I said quietly.
“Now the woman . . . how she got off the island and who she was? Still a mystery.”
The salt breeze blew stiff across my face and my lips felt suddenly dry. I felt dry.
“He killed his dad. He killed the Keeper.”
“Man was fishing in foreign waters. There . . .” Atticus pointed. “Two Bush.”
I shook. I would have to face it, but I couldn’t, not without Elias.
“Turn around.”
“But your lighthouse.” Salt stared at me. “It’s right there, lass.”
“Turn around!”
We swung around the island in silence and returned to the harbour. I hopped off the boat and stumbled on the dock and ran toward Salt’s truck, stopping only to gasp on the way.
I threw open the passenger door, denting the silver Camry parked beside it, and climbed in.
Minutes later, Salt eased in beside me. “You all right? I gather Elias didn’t share this incident with you.”
“Who?”
“Elias.”
I burst into tears. Not tears, sobs. Wrenching sobs that ached in a stomach already pained. I grabbed on to Salt and squeezed, without time or place interrupting my thoughts.
“Wait! Yes. Yes he did . . .”
The sketchings.
A stormy night.
A horrid fall.
Looking down at a woman.
A horrified Elias fleeing from his father.
Elias’s father surrounded by a pool of blood.
“He’s been trying to tell me all along. Trying to let me in. But his events and my events . . . they matched so closely that I just assumed . . .” I rocked and shivered. “His emotions must match mine as well.”
I would not hide mine any longer.
Salt stroked my hair. “Sad story, to be sure, but I’m not following.”
“See, that was also me. I did it too. It was my fault . . .”
He squeezed his forehead, and rubbed his stubble. “Your fault?”
“Don’t you see? It has to be, or nothing makes sense!”
Everything in me screamed run, as I had so many times before, as I’d been doing since leaving home. But this time I would not run from, I would run to, to the one who did not hold my secret but knew my heart.
Dash back to Camden. Find Elias and tell him of my Great Undoing. He alone will understand.
The truck would be much faster.
“Salt, take me back quickly. I need to find him.”
Without a word, he pulled away from the harbour and onto the road. My leg bounced, and my mind raced.
Not even the car was by the car.
Elias had moved it. Somehow, he had started it, which only my Elias could do. I searched Camden, revisiting the route we had taken.
He was not at Laite Beach.
He was not by Camden Harbour.
He was not by the café.
Night fell, and I wandered back to where the car had been parked, peering at the old carriage houses that lined the road.
Finding Elias would be impossible.
Or not.
Lit up by a house light, and fluttering in the breeze, a single sheet of paper hung a few houses down from where I’d parked. I walked up the drive and removed the picture. A perfect self-portrait of Elias, above an arrow pointing to the carriage doors.
I walked into the garage, and quietly shut the door behind me. Elias sat on a cot, near the Porsche and the aeroplane.
I took my seat beside him.
“It’s a strange world we live in, Elias.” I breathed heavily, trying to sort my surroundings, but caring very little. “To travel to the other side of the world and find all you’ve fled from is actually waiting for you. To think I was helping you, and now you’re my last hope.”
“I know this town, Clarita.”
“You’re not listening to me. I’m trying to tell you something important. Something really important. And if you don’t listen . . . I need you to listen.”
“It started coming back at the beach —”
“Shut it! Are you going to accept my apology or not?”
I did the same. “Do not . . . say . . . a word. Not until I’m finished. I do, I want to hear everything you found, but if I don’t get this out, I will explode.” I rubbed my face. “I need to tell you about my mum.”
“I know all about the queen.” Elias sounded agitated. Definitely the Other One.
“She’s not a queen! She’s not . . . a . . . queen . . . At least not when I was younger.” I swallowed hard. “At that time she was just a woman, with a husband, living in London on Marbury Street, with a ten-year-old girl and a three-year-old son named Teeter and another just born, Little Thomas. And I was the girl. It was me.”
I paused, uncertain if Elias would interrupt, but he sat quietly, and I continued.
“Dad brought Mum home on that day. She’d been at the doctor who was examining Little Thomas, Down’s baby that he was, with Teeter and I in tow. There was such a storm! So much wind. So much chill.
“Dad wasn’t even supposed to be there — none of it would have happened had he stayed at work — but Mum fell ill in the waiting room. Suddenly, she was vomiting and so dizzy she could hardly stand. She always was weak that way. Someone called Dad, who left work early, arrived and helped her and Little T into the car, and drove us all home to our flat. ‘Help your mum get inside while I park.’ Those were his words. ‘I’ll bring Little T.’ But Mum insisted on carrying Thomas. She grabbed him from the car seat and I took hold of her, and we slowly navigated the ice patches on the walk. Dad hesitated and zoomed off, and we stumbled on, reaching the steps.”
Now would be a good time to stop. I quieted beside Elias, who bumped me with his shoulder.
“Keep going, Clarita.”
One minute, and several deep breaths later, I obeyed.
“I took my eyes off the ground and reached for the rail, and Mum . . . she slipped. It happened so fast. She was screaming and falling and reaching Little T toward me. I let go of her and grasped my brother. I felt him — my arms caught him — but he fell through. He fell through my arms and landed . . . and landed on his head on the pavement. Elias, the ice was thick, and I didn’t see it . . . I just didn’t see . . . Why couldn’t I hold on to him?”
My tears returned, and I pleaded in silence for Elias to hold me, but he didn’t listen to the words I didn’t speak, and I rocked until I found my voice.
“I led her right over the patch, and that’s where she fell. Mum screamed and crawled toward T. Dad’s shouts came nearer, and Teeter and I ran into the flat. I ran to my room and locked the door and looked out my window. Little T lay in a pool of blood and Dad draped his sobbing body over T’s tiny one and Mum hit Dad, and I blinked and the coppers were there, trying to pull Mum off Dad and Dad off T. But Dad wouldn’t go. He couldn’t let go of the son I dropped, and he slugged the copper, laid him right out, and just like that he was on his stomach, his wrists bound in darbies. Mum was hysterical, still screaming at Dad, that it was his fault, that all this was his fault, and all I had to do was run down and tell what happened. That it was me. It was all me and my carelessness and my weak arms. But I couldn’t move, and I watched my family splinter; Dad carried away by the cops and Mum and T whisked away in the ambulance. I heard Teeter wailing, and I became his new mum that night.” I paused. “Only Mum came back. And only half of her. Her mind, her body were never the same.”
Elias touched my face, and then his own. He softly began to cry.
“Clarita.” He drew his legs in and rocked. “You didn’t try to hurt him. Right? I mean, that was an accident.”
“Of course it was.” I wiped my eyes with the heel of my hand, and rubbed my tattoo.
“But accident or not, the world changed. I destroyed them all, from when I dropped my brother to when I stood silent as they took Dad away.” I leaned over and caught his gaze. “I need to know. Only you can help . . . How do you deal with the guilt?”
Elias did not speak. For weeks, he blabbed from morning until night, and now I needed from him one word, one word from this boy who knew the pain of it. The truth of it.
One word to change my life.
“Please.” I winced. “Haven’t you ever been part of an accident with huge implications? A large, life-changing variety of accident?”
He paused mid-rock. “What do you know?”
“Elias, I know that this Keeper, this quest, this is what remains of your father. He was a lightkeeper.”
The carriage house light flickered, and in the glow, Elias’s face changed. He looked helpless, just as I felt, and I reached out to him.
“You saw something, and there was an accident, and your father fell and hit his head. I know who you are looking for, but he’s gone. I know the lighthouse in your mind. I’ve been to Two Bush Island.”
Elias stood, his body stiff and his hands clenched. His face showed no emotion.
“It was no accident.”
His words swirled about me. “What are you saying? You were eight. You were only eight. You had no intention . . . you couldn’t have.”
He grabbed a small sketchbook and tossed it onto my lap. I slowly opened it.
There it was. The man from the east wall of his room. A woman in undress. The two together. Across his father’s photo, a giant red X. Around the woman, a red circle.
I dropped the sketchbook, slowly reached for my bag, and backed toward the door. “Why did we come, Elias? What are you looking for?”
He did not flinch. “The woman. She may still be here.”
“And if she is?” I fumbled with the door latch.
Elias was silent.
“Say something,” I stammered. “Elias . . . tell me we’re just following stars. Tell me this isn’t why you came.”
He took a deep breath. “Fine. It isn’t why I came. It’s why we came. We’ll finish it. Together.”
I turned and threw open the door and fled into the night.
“Clara! Clara, it’s me! Clara, I’m just back! Don’t leave me.”
A faint call reached my ears, but it meant nothing.
God, what have I done?