November 24, 2020
65 days until the Crimson Eclipse
A winter morning had risen from a grave like a resurrection. Black snow to frosted white. Water to ice. The sun winked behind strokes of clouds, promising to stay a while. Although, I knew my reality, and the truth was we only had six hours of daylight.
For weeks, the boat docks were abandoned. The Order forbade fishermen from shipping out, afraid they wouldn’t return in time before the silvery day turned into a night of horror. The current and unfortunate events gave Stone and me the perfect opportunity to get to the jon boat unseen.
Stone had been silent the entire walk down the shore.
We stopped a few times so he could catch his breath and bear the pain. Like a pregnant woman would do when a contraction hit. He hardly flinched when I’d stitched him, so I knew something had to be terribly wrong if the agony was too much to hide.
“We’re almost there,” I promised as the cold threatened to steal my breath.
I glanced over at him as he stood with his head back and his eyes pinched.
I reached out my hand. “Give me the bag. I can carry a bag, Stone.”
He refused, gripping the bag around his shoulder. “Let’s keep moving.”
He was stubborn, painfully so, and the way he seemed not to need anyone reminded me much of myself. I wondered what made him believe he was all he ever needed. Had he escaped a place that held him too tightly or a person who made him feel like he was suffocating?
It was true that a man had many faces, but Stone only showed one.
He’d never smiled, never frowned.
He hardly gave anything about himself away.
Despite his strangeness, the gloves he always wore, and the way he spoke in a forgotten language, I couldn’t deny that he was handsome. But he was also precocious, a man of marble and brash in a chilling way.
At times, I caught him looking at me, but even as I caught him, he never turned or looked away. In those fleeting seconds tangled in a web of disarming stares, I imagined us together in a way that caused my core to drum and my flesh to turn to liquid and pool into the ocean. In my mind, I would lay under him, with the gentle curve of his lips tickling the shell of my ear and his velvety erection pressing between my thighs.
The coat Stone wore grazed my sleeve when he walked past, and his scent traveled by like a gypsy. He smelled like Christmas morning—of pine and gingerbread and mistletoe.
“Is anyone missing you?” I asked, walking up beside Stone, then instantly regretted my question. The sea had given him to me. In my twisted head, there was only one version of Stone. My Stone—the one with no past and created by the tide, shaped by waves, and kept safe by snowfall. Did I want to know anything more than this? We were slowly learning each other, and I couldn’t imagine him with anyone else.
Although, the last thing I needed was another intruder coming into my town, asking questions, or causing chaos.
My neighbors had enough to worry about.
He walked quietly beside me.
I tried again. “Do you remember anything, like how you got into that coffin in the first place?” I’d put off the daunting question long enough.
He still didn’t say anything, walking beside me with his attention in front of him.
“Please,” I said, placing my hand on his arm.
He stopped, peering down at me with gloved fingers curling around the bag’s strap. I lifted my head to meet his gaze.
“I’m risking a lot by taking you to the island. The least you could do is answer me. I don’t like surprises, and the last thing I need is unexpected company.”
He adjusted his stance. “It was mostly Mother and me, and, if you must know, she poisoned me and laid me to rest in a coffin at the bottom of the ocean.” Sadness curved around his eyes. I was stuck in them, watching flakes cling to his lashes as his gaze fell over me like the breadth of the blackest night. “No one is searching for something that no longer exists.”
My heart leapt into my throat. My breath came out in a shallow shudder.
Stone averted his gaze and resumed his pace.
“Your mother did that to you?” No wonder he couldn’t trust me. No wonder he refused to drink or eat anything I’d given him for days. Stone kept walking. I grabbed his hand to regain his attention. “But why would she do that to you?”
Stone looked down at our joint hands. He froze before meeting my eyes. The moment sharpened. “I suppose some things aren’t meant to be born.”
“Who’s down there?” someone shouted from above the cliff’s edge.
With eyes wide, my first instinct was to push Stone out of sight.
I shoved my palms into his chest, and his gloved hands came over mine as he took many steps backward, taking me with him. Our bodies collided against the cliff, invisible to Irene.
I placed my index finger on my lips, urging him to stay quiet.
Stone’s questionable eyes darted across my face.
“Adora, is that you again?” Irene shouted from above.
I sank deeper into Stone and pulled his hood over his white hair, trying to hide our faces under it. He stood so still, his mouth only inches from mine.
I felt the shape of him press against me.
I felt his every cool breath graze my lips.
“You don’t want to cross her,” I whispered with a mischievous grin. Sneaking around the shore with a strange man ignited a spark within me. “She probably smelled your blood from a mile away. Rumor is she snacks on wounded travelers with a dry sense of humor. Skins their flesh and roasts them over a fire pit like a pig on a spit.”
The corner of Stone’s mouth twitched.
For a moment, I thought I’d see a smile.
“I know you’re down there!” Irene shouted again, calling back our attention. “Come out so I can see your face to be sure.”
Stone’s black eyes shifted between mine. “She sounds hungry.”
Another smile broke out of me, and it seemed I’d been smiling more with him these past few days than I had in a long time. “Famished.”
More cold winds came, biting the exposed skin across my collarbone and tossing my hair about my face. I moved in closer, burying myself in Stone’s chest as we waited for Irene to give up and leave.
This was when I noticed his fingers gently placed at my sides, the flare of his nostrils, and every drop of mist on his lips. We wove together so tightly it took everything to breathe steadily.
“Did you know you flare your nostrils? You do it every time you’re nervous. Or in deep thought. Or want to say something but can’t find the words. I can’t quite tell which one yet.”
Stone seemed taken aback by my confession. “No, I didn’t know.”
My foot shifted, causing me to lose my balance, but he grabbed my sides and pulled me flush against him to keep me steady. Body to body. Chest to chest. I bit the center of my bottom lip, trying to control the slapping of air against my lungs.
“I’m sorry your mother poisoned you,” I finally whispered to him.
The darkness in Stone’s eyes slipped away, and I could feel his two leather thumbs stroke the small space at my sides. “I’m not. Not anymore.”
When we reached the dock, waves splashed over the pier that stretched into the sea, spilling over golden grains and seeping into the spaces between the planks. We’d passed by numerous fishing vessels, lift netters, and trap setters until we reached the Finneuma.
A burn crept inside my chest as soon as I laid eyes on it.
Stone paused next to the Sullivan boat. “What does it mean?”
“In my … religion,” I began to say, quickly catching myself, “we believe every person has a perfect match, their other half, a soulmate, but not every person finds them. When they do, it’s a pretty big deal. Finneuma means Final Breath.”
“Finneuma,” he repeated.
“Your air. Your inhale. Your reason to take your every next breath until your last.” I smiled. “My father built this boat and named it Finneuma for my mom. It was his way of saying, I finally found you, and no need to look further.” I forced the pang of sorrow back down, realizing I shouldn’t have mentioned my mother after what he’d told me, but the words had tumbled out before they could be stopped. Even so, I felt lighter afterward. Like the top-heavy longing to mention her emptied a space inside me. And chances like that, reasons to say Mom, were few and far between when you no longer had one. The feeling was like wanting everyone to know it was your birthday on your birthday, without having to tell them.
“Have you found your soulmate?” he asked.
I peered down the length of the boat. “You can’t find love when you’re consumed with hate.”
I could feel his eyes on me. “Hate only consumes you if you let it.”
I tossed him a glare. “Welcome to Weeping Hollow, where monsters called Heathens kill your friends, neighbors, and even children. A town where shadows appear in the middle of the night and murder you while you’re dreaming.” I bristled. “This town only lets you be two things: scared or angry.”
He looked at me as if he didn’t believe me. “Then why do you stay?”
Deciding not to answer, I grabbed my bag from Stone’s shoulder and unzipped the front pocket to search for the key.
Stone didn’t push, either. I liked that about him.
I stepped onto the Finneuma. The boat was wrapped in cedar, and the antique pirate helm was a gift, as my father had said, handcrafted by a long-ago friend of an ancestor and passed down through generations. It had wooden handles, spokes, and spindles to steer us as we sailed the unforgiving sea without ever crossing the border.
When I looked up, my eyes fell on the jon boat swaying from behind.
“We’re taking the small one in the back.” My voice was mournful, so I replaced it with something lighter so he wouldn’t notice. “My sisters and I used to sneak out after midnight and get drunk on moonshine in the middle of the Atlantic. It’s not easy to spot the jon boat if you’re not looking for it.” The memory of our laughter dotting the night air yanked on my heartstrings. I clutched the key tighter and looked up at him. “If there comes a time you cross anyone from town, and they ask questions, don’t tell them anything. Remember that. No one can know about me, you, anything I’ve done, or anything that will become of this.”
Stone wet his bottom lip. “You have sisters.”
In one ear and out the other. “Promise me, Stone. Promise me that if you come across anyone, you won’t tell them about our time together.”
Stone’s mouth parted slightly, a white cloud slipping out. “I promise.”
I climbed into the boat before crossing over to the jon boat.
Many years had passed since I’d boarded Finneuma. The memory of Dad teaching us how to tie rope with his weathered hands left a warmth inside me.
As Dad had taught me, I unlocked the attached jon boat and released the rope. After Stone joined me inside the small boat, he pushed off the dock, and we steered to Bone Island with the motor rumbling beneath us.
Stone sat across from me with his hand curled around his side. The waves were angry, and we hid under hoods while the sea sprayed our faces. Each time a new wave slammed into us, it felt like we hit a block of ice, and Stone clenched his jaw to fight the pain.
I wanted to ask him if he was okay, but each time I looked at Stone, he was already studying me from the other side of the boat. An intense gaze under his hood flapping in the wind.
I bit my lip, tasting salt seeping into my mouth, and forced my eyes out in front of me. It was difficult to see through the fog and mist, but I kept the motor straight, hoping there was enough gas to get me to the island and back.
It wasn’t until this moment that I thought about what would happen once we arrived.
Many have talked about the abandoned island being haunted. After all these years, the lighthouse’s rotating beam still worked each night as if it were controlled by ghosts. And perhaps all towns had them, but the ghosts of Weeping Hollow were deeply rooted in all of us.
I saw the lighthouse first. Tall, black and white, and traversed through time. The tide carried us closer, and because of the rainwater and salt, the colors weren’t as sharp as they once were. The black was faded, the paint eroded—a gray compared to Stone’s eyes, but it still stood resolute and strong and the voice of danger ahead.
As we drew closer, the fog cleared, and shipwreck lay scattered among the rocks to the left of the lighthouse. I avoided the snow-capped rocks and steered the boat to shore. When the entire island came into view, Stone turned his gaze to the dreadfully enchanting landscape.
It was a winter cemetery of rotten branches hanging like black skeletons. Naked trees dashed up from shattered ground and soared high, lost in the dark, bruise-black skies. There was a quiet here, too, and I wondered if Bone Island was the birthplace of the Shadows. It seemed like the sort of place they could have been. Their home. Their womb.
The bottom of the boat hit sand, and I tossed the anchor.
Stone jumped out, soaking the pants I’d given him, and looked across the horizon. He slipped off his hood, revealing his damp hair.
I sat inside the boat for a moment longer. I wanted to look at him without him looking at me. I wanted to see him in deep thought and staring out into the horizon as he always did with quiet desperation. It was a moment between moments.
“It seems a few boats crashed into the rocks to the north,” he said.
He took a few more steps up the beach before his legs weakened and he stumbled, his arms stretched out to catch his fall.
My heart jumped into my throat as I stood to see if he was okay.
A painful groan left him, and I jumped off the side of the boat, trudging through shallow waters, over sharp rocks, and onto the shore to get to him.
“Stone!” I shouted, sand tearing at my heels as I ran across the wet beach. I collapsed at his side. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
He threw his head back with his eyes squeezed shut.
I worked fast, lifting his shirt to undress his wound to have a look.
Puss leaked from the stitches. The surrounding area was purple.
It was infected, and I felt all the color drain from my face.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He looked at me for a moment, then looked away.
“Your stubbornness is stupidity,” I mumbled under my breath, wrapping the bandage again to avoid the sand from getting in and making it worse. I peeled Stone’s hand from his side and wrapped his arm around my shoulder to help him to his feet.
Stone slowly rose, planting one boot on the sand, then the other.
Aside from the waves, there was no sound for miles.
The island was indeed abandoned.
I took his gloved hand in mine at my shoulder. “We need to get you to the lighthouse.” Stone was a slim and obstinate tower, arms braided with taut muscles, who had no choice but to lean on me. I adjusted my grip, folding our fingers together. “Only a few more steps. Just up the hill.”
Stone stayed silent at my side. He didn’t take a step, and I tried taking as much weight off him as possible.
“You don’t have a choice, Stone. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
Grimacing, he lifted his gaze and peered ahead under heavy lashes. “I’m thinking that,” he began, short breaths laced with an ache between each word. “I’m ashamed of how incapable I am at the moment.” He turned his head until our eyes met. His were heavy, hooded. And when they flicked across my face, warmth rushed to my lower belly. “Not my fondest moment.”
I swallowed, needing to say something. Anything. “You’ve come this far. After everything you’ve been through, ending the story here would be a shame. You must keep going ... ‘til death.”
Stone gave our tangled fingers a slight squeeze, and I felt his muscles relax as he exhaled. “Not even then,” he replied.
I stood on the wooden staircase, working the door handle and battling the ripping cold winds. Snowfall hit my face, and I peered up to see gray clouds sliding across an acrid sky.
“Is there a problem?” Stone asked.
A loose step creaked under my boot when I glanced at him.
He was where I’d propped him, leaning against the lighthouse.
“Nope.” I jiggled the handle again and used my shoulder to give it a shove. I didn’t know why I assumed the door would be unlocked. Since Kane’s family owned the property, only they had a key.
Stone’s voice came again. “Are you certain no one lives here?”
“No one has been here for over twenty years.”
Stone steered his head away from a nearby window and plunged his elbow into the glass. A loud crack stabbed my ears, and the window shattered into pieces.
My eyes grew wide. “What are you ... how ... That glass must be at least four inches thick! How did you do that? Not to mention, if you’re not careful, you’ll break a stitch—”
Stone removed his jacket, causing the tee beneath to lift up and expose a rigid and wounded torso. The sight managed to silence me.
Shivering, he fell back against the curved wall and wrapped his jacket around his hand to remove the rest of the glass from the sill.
“As you said,” he hunched over, possibly regretting the pain that took him afterward, “the island is abandoned, and we need to get inside before the snowstorm comes.”
I picked up the bag and walked through the rocky shrubs to where he stood.
Stone laid his jacket across the sill, and we came face to face when he took a step back.
A moment passed where we held our breaths.
A shade of purple scalloped under his hooded eyes.
His body was already exhausted, almost wanting to give up on him.
Then he took the bag from around my shoulder. “After you.”
Inside, the floor creaked as I walked carefully through the abandoned space. Though it was dark, murky daylight shone through fogged windows, revealing spider webs in every deserted nook and white dust sheets on furniture.
After Stone came in behind me, he instantly collapsed to the floor, propping himself against a wall.
The lighthouse was even colder, with a draft blowing in from the broken window. I lit a fire in the hearth using old, dried-out logs and matches I’d shoved inside my backpack, seeing a bedroom on the other side through the hole. The flames cast a vintage glow across the room, allowing me to look around.
We had entered the living room. On the opposite end of the fireplace, I assumed it to be couches under the dust sheets. By the door, a small table and chairs, with a bundle of fishing rods in the corner. Next to the living area was a tiny kitchen, and to the right of that was a bathroom. To the right of that was the door to the bedroom. The two-way fireplace separated the bedroom and living area. In the middle, a steel pole shot through the structure with a spiral case wrapping around it.
I walked to the shelves beside the fireplace, where antiques were hidden under layers of dust. Books, records, a projector, reels, trinkets, vases, and old picture frames. I spotted a record player plugged into the wall, and I dragged my finger through the dust across the edge of it. “I wonder if it still works.”
When I flipped the switch, even though there was no electricity in the lighthouse, the record spun, pouring a song into the room. As if by magic.
It was a song I hadn’t heard before, and it crackled, filling and rushing to the deprived holes of my soul like a wave meeting the shore. The tune sounded crispy and far away as if we accessed a piece of a world outside the barrier. I closed my eyes in its cadent touch, having not heard any collection of notes since the Panic started because Freddy in the Mourning was gone.
With the song combing my heart, I opened my eyes and looked at Stone.
He was already watching me.
I let a few seconds pass, and then—“I like this song,” I finally said.
Stone’s mouth parted as if he didn’t know what to say.
He dropped his head for a moment, then glanced back up at me. “I think the song likes you, too.”
I smiled and sat on the floor in front of him to remove his bandage. The song continued to play in the background. “There’s a projector here. Since the record player is working, maybe that will work too. You could watch films.”
“Films?”
“You know, movies? There are tons of reels. Movies I haven’t seen in ages. I’m sure you can figure it out,” I said, cleaning him and trying to keep my focus on the stitches and not the tight lines of his torso or the way a light trail of hair dipped inside his pants, leading to places I’d only imagined.
“I need to keep this under control.”
I didn’t know if I meant the wound or myself.
Both were very accurate at the moment.
Stone remained silent, and I felt him watching me.
I was used to men admiring me, but it was different with Stone.
His eyes looked right through me—penetrating me, almost as if he could see the evil embroidering my soul. And I wanted him to see so I wouldn’t be burdened with it alone. I wanted him to understand that I was kind but also capable of killing for the greater good. I wanted him to know that despite the small moments we found ourselves lost in, if he ever crossed me or threatened my home, I could slit his throat. I needed him to see the wicked starvation inside me and understand it. This way, there wouldn’t be a shocked look in his eyes should it ever come to his death. There wouldn’t be anything. Just the usual quiet desperation he always wore. Like he’d known it was coming all along because he understood me. And he could lay there the same way Kane would one day, blood pulsing from his throat with every last slow beat of his heart. But with Stone, I would lay with him, my head against my secret’s chest, his blood oozing down the sides of my face. Maybe even read him to sleep one final time. Because … he saw me, and I let him.
“What?” I asked, catching his eyes still on me while I was lost in crimson thoughts. I applied an herb-crushed ointment to his wound, a recipe from Blackwell Apothecary, pretending to be aloof, all together, and not a mess.
Stone touched my arm with his gloved hand, stopping me.
“Why did you do it?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Why did you agree to bring me here?”
I shrugged, but the truth was, I wanted to hide him, to hang on to him for a bit longer. Bone Island seemed the perfect place to keep him, just to prove I could. The sea had returned a piece of me I’d lost so long ago—an adventure in the shape of a man. It made me feel alive during desolate times, and I wanted to see what would become of it.
“Circe.” His hand cupped my elbow, demanding my attention. I bit my lip and focused on his wrists, the blue veins popping under his skin. When I lifted my gaze to him, he moved in closer with eyes that looked deep into my own. “Thank you.”
It was the first time he’d thanked me. I could tell it was hard for him to do and how sincere he was because when I looked into his black eyes, they went on indefinitely.
He remained still. Stone carved from stone.
A thickness filled the room, and our gazes knotted together. A bridge between us. Almost as if neither one of us could break away from the connection.
If it were anyone else, I would have been able to pull away long ago.
If it were anyone else ...
My hand fell from his torso, and my finger brushed the top hem of his pants. A pinch of pain rushed through me from my fingertip to my shoulder.
I winced and yanked back my hand.
The area surrounding the splinter in my finger was red and agitated.
“You’re hurt.” Stone reached for my hand.
I pulled back. “It’s nothing.”
He was forceful, snatching my wrist and turning my palm so he could have a look. It was odd in the way he did it. Blunt.
“It seems we’re both infected.” He ran his fingertips lightly over my scabs, then back up my finger. With a dry throat, he continued, “If you don’t remove it, the infection will only get worse.”
I shrugged. “I like the pain.”
His eyes pierced me. Not with pity but with understanding. Like he’d known my secrets all along. And then, “A person only welcomes pain to either feel, distract, or suffocate something that hurts more.”
I narrowed my eyes, trying to pull away from his grip, but Stone grabbed my wrist.
My body jumped into panic mode. “What are you doing?”
He brought my fingers to his mouth.
The fracturing pain in my finger throbbed with my heart each time his bottom lip brushed the splinter. Like he was feeling the foreign thing for himself. Seeing how deep inside me it was.
All my thoughts curled into the corners of my mind.
I didn’t know what would come next. It both terrified and excited me.
With my hand in his, he trapped me with his gaze.
We were trapped in the daring spaces in the middle of seconds with his cold breath ghosting over my skin. Then his lips wrapped around my finger.
I inhaled a sharp breath. It lodged in my throat.
My heart flipped and turned and raced.
He had my hand in his gloved one, and he tilted his head, dipping my finger into his mouth. Then his eyes closed as he drew the splinter out.
The way he did it wasn’t to seduce, but to take care of me. No one had ever put me in a position like this. To be honest, I didn’t know what to think.
The pain dissipated when he slowly pulled my finger from between his lips. He swiped the sliver of wood from the tip of his tongue, and it met the floor. A bead of blood appeared where the splinter once was, and Stone’s gaze darted to it as if he sensed it. Then he licked it, collecting blood on his tongue.
“There,” he whispered, and everything had gone serious.
Somehow, I’d found a hidden passage into the tomb he’d built around himself. Inside, Stone had a heart that wasn’t as black and cold as his eyes. He just didn’t know how to use it.
His face was like a marble statue as we stared at each other. His breaths were quiet again, whispers through carved blue lips. He looked into my eyes, and each time he blinked his lashes splayed across his muted cheeks like soot.
I inched closer and pressed my lips to the center of his forehead.
His skin was like ice, so I kissed him softly, secretly, as if I may break him.
An exhale trembled from my lips as I pulled away.
His gaze slammed into mine again.
“You kissed me,” he said in a rasping, confidential voice.
I could feel my heart slam. I didn’t think one could ever feel their heart beating until I met him. “It was only a peck on the forehead. It was no big deal.”
Stone’s eyes shifted between mine. “No one has ever kissed me before.”
“It was nothing more than what a mother would do when her child is sick. I promise it was nothing.”
“I have never known what that is like.”
“Your mother has never kissed you?” I asked, then regretted my words. Stone only stared at me, a dark gaze dragging across my face. My shoulders softened as I was sitting between his spread legs. “When I was a little girl, whenever I was sick, my mother kissed me right here on my forehead.” I rubbed the pad of my thumb across the space between his brows where my lips once were. “It was her way of checking my temperature, but also a small gesture to let me know she cared for me.”
The snowstorm was raging outside by this time, beating against a fogged window while the wind whistled through the covered one that was broken. A cusp of white from daylight threading through snow stroked his face as he looked at me with eyes that were vast but transparent.
Then his gloved fingers were light as they came down on the nape of my neck.
I held my breath, waiting to see what he’d do.
Stone inched closer with caution, and he pressed his lips to the center of my forehead. The same way I had done to him.
I released a broken sigh. My heart collapsed.
Stone cares for me, too.
He didn’t pull back. Not right away. Stone let his mouth linger, and I squeezed my eyes closed to keep my breath from coming out in a shudder.
When he edged back, his lashes swept across my forehead as he peered down at me. He was so close that I felt his breath on my cheekbones. The song looped on the record player, the fire crackled, and the snow from the snowstorm pitter-pattered. But it all fell into the background of this moment where a tangled heap of silence hardened between us as we looked at each other.
Then I lifted my chin and nudged my lips against his, suddenly craving to kiss the stranger who’d never smiled, never frowned. The one who never gave more than necessary, until now. Just once to know what it was like.
Stone curled his hand into a fist, bunching the seams of my dress between his long legs, one of them bent at the knee. At the nape of my neck, his other hand relaxed but never left.
I moved my lips to the corner of his mouth, and his jaw went lax.
My eyes closed when I kissed him there for a handful of soft seconds.
A gentle and merciful kiss, like I was trying to catch time and trap it in a glass bottle.
He remained still, skin flushed, eyes intense and squinting like he’d come from another world—a look that was eternal on him.
I didn’t know why I wasn’t pulling away.
Something had to have been possessing me, keeping me rooted here.
My mouth moved across his bottom lip.
His cool breath shuddered, and I looked up to catch his eyes close.
Every second passing had my heart slamming against my bones, and I heard it in my ears, turning the song coasting in the room into fog.
I’d never made an advance on a man before, but everything about Stone was new and exciting. I couldn’t stop myself in fear of never finding out what it would be like, in fear of never having this chance again.
Here, on Bone Island, we were two people from two different worlds who found ourselves across the ocean in a lighthouse where secrets screamed to be kept, new stories to be collected like dust.
Stone lifted his chin, seeking more of me, and I imagined myself forty years from this moment, should I survive that long, finally telling Fable about the stranger I shared a kiss with on Bone Island. A man she’d known nothing about. How one kiss with the traveler made my heart untether and flee from my wicked soul, wanting to take flight. And how could she ever believe me, anyway? I would be an old lady with a faulty mind.
Plus, nothing could truly leave this place. Not even my heart.
With his lips slightly parted, I kissed the top one, then the bottom one, then pushed a slow tongue into his mouth and dragged it across his. Warmth piled inside me, my lips catching his, holding our kiss that I felt slide through my body.
At first, Stone just sat there, frozen, as if shocked, but when I pulled back, his fingers pierced my skin at the nape of my neck, pulling me closer and wanting more. His seductive tongue curled into my mouth, tangling with mine. My body tripped at the gentle thirst in his kiss, and I melted into him. I melted.
His taste transported me back to my earlier years when I’d lay upon the sand during autumn under an afternoon shower, with the sea sweeping across my toes. Kissing him was much like kissing the cold rain in the fall, with my head underwater and dewdrops skipping in my ribcage.
And just before I sank into him, Stone turned rigid, like terror flashing through him, as if he detested it or was in pain, and he turned away.
When I opened my eyes, I saw his eyes tightly pressed together.
Then he pulled back.
It all happened in an instant: him kissing me, then the moment being ripped away.
My gut twisted, and I couldn’t catch my breath.
For the first time, insecurity crept in.
It was a foreign feeling. And I absolutely hated it.
His chest heaved. “I apologize. I shouldn’t have done that—what I did—” the words stumbled away from him, and I laid a hand over his arm to stop him.
“What you did was the most human thing you’ve done since I met you.”
Stone’s eyes met mine, and they held a nightly rainstorm that was magnetic.
He didn’t say anything. He only stared at me.
I felt like I was drugged and coming down from a high. Time moved faster. Everything around me was no longer blurry but rough, dull. Concrete. “What time is it?”
Stone cast his gaze out the window, and mine followed.
The sky was nothing more than a sheet of dark gray. Any hint of light had moved to the west behind Norse Woods’ trees.
“I have to go,” I said in haste, shoving fresh bandages into the bag. In my peripheral view, Stone adjusted himself against the wall, exhaling a jagged breath. “This should take care of that infection. There’re toiletries in the bag. Toothbrush and such. Water bottles, vanilla cola, coffee, lunch meat, snacks and fruit to hold you over, too. Please don’t be stubborn and just eat. You’ll need the strength to fight off the infection.”
A dreadful blue hue scalloped under his heavily hooded eyes when I looked back at him. Like the ocean was slowly stealing him back.
“When will I see you again?” he asked me.
I stood and clutched my necklace against my chest, unable to look at him. My gaze touched every surface except him. The brick wall on the other side, the giant pillar climbing up the middle of the room, antique furniture, cobwebs, and coastal oil paintings. Everywhere except him.
“I don’t know,” was all I managed to say. My heart and mind were at war. After that kiss and what he’d revealed about his mother, the last thing I wanted was to leave him alone with an infected wound, but I didn’t have a choice. I had to believe that he would be all right.
Stone cleared his throat, capturing my attention. “It would be wise to stay until the snow stops.”
“It would be wise not to underestimate what I’m capable of.” I tried to mask the worry in my voice, but it was no use.
I didn’t allow him another word. The old wood flooring let out a protesting creak under my panicked footsteps as I rushed to the door.
I flew down the lighthouse steps and sprinted through snow and wind back to the jon boat, still feeling his eyes on me.
When I glanced back, Stone was standing on the other side of a foggy window, watching me go. He was hurt, his wound was infected, and he still got up to watch me go.
I didn’t know what this meant exactly, but it had to mean something.
The boat bobbed on the frothy shore, and I swung one leg into it, then the other.
After pulling up the anchor, I started the engine, and the boat whipped on its stern, the bow pointing to pewter gray skies. The sea was ferocious, with waves crashing into the tiny boat and water pooling at my feet. The icy winds sliced into me, but I didn’t care. My eyes fell into the distance, arresting to Weeping Hollow’s border, where a lonesome cliff, both somber and savage, lay ahead. It was a deceivingly beautiful view attached to my beloved black sea. At what point did the town I’d do anything for become so heavy?
I looked back over my shoulder.
Stone was still standing at the window, arms at his sides.
His expression was frozen like a picture, and I watched him until the speck of him faded away.
The Daily Hollow
Remember The Fallen
Article by Geneva King
Six days left until the Beaver Moon. If the Shadows are not stopped, death will follow us into the chilling month of December. After four weeks, The Order is at a loss for words as to why this is happening to our home of Weeping Hollow. Word has spread, some believing it could be because the Heathens broke their curse. The two events happening close together cannot be a coincidence. We have lost more of our neighbors, the latest, Jacob Taylor from the eastside, who was only twenty-two years of age and on the brink of initiation into Sacred Sea. These were not only neighbors but friends, family, and loved ones. There is no pattern. It is only during the horrific night, which lasts for eighteen hours that these killings occur. We still don’t know the motives behind the Shadows. So far, each victim seems to be chosen at random. Our victims include those of different classes, sex, and races. The Shadows are serial killers without a particular appetite, and they are serial killers without remorse. In my opinion, this is the worst kind of killer imaginable. And I say this because anyone could be next. In the meantime, we will hold a memorial in Town Square, where you can pay your respects.
Rest in peace Weeping Hollow.