The little boy let out a soft grunt, struggling to tighten one of the harness leathers that had slipped from its buckle. Montgomery pressed his weight against the horse to make it shift and then freed the loose strap and pulled it taut. He smiled. “You’d have gotten it in another minute. Cymbeline, this is the doctor’s daughter, Miss Moreau.”
The boy looked at me shyly through long lashes, producing a sweet smile that revealed a missing front tooth. The humanity behind such a deformed face troubled me deeply. Instead of returning the smile, I turned away guiltily.
With a groan of metal hinges, the great wooden doors to the compound opened. Father stuck his gray head out. “Well, come on. The rain is coming. Every day like clockwork.” He stuck his head back in.
As if to answer, a crack of thunder shook the sky. The clouds hung like too-ripe fruit, ready to split and burst over the island. Montgomery grabbed the rabbit hutch and braced it on his knee while he shut the gate. The rabbits hopped and sniffed at the new smells of the island.
Plunk. A fat drop of rain fell on my forearm. I looked up, and another one landed on my cheek. All around, the trees quaked and danced under the falling drops. The noise on the broad jungle leaves was like nothing I’d heard before, a thousand tiny wagon wheels on a wood-slat bridge. Another second passed, and the few drops turned into a deluge.
I shrieked. I didn’t know rain could fall so hard and fast. Montgomery and Edward ran for the compound. I picked up my skirts and ran behind them, slipping in the quickly forming mud. A second before I crossed the threshold, I startled. Above the entrance, two sets of eyes watched. I blinked away the rain. Two figures were carved in the stone: the Lamb of God and the Lion of Judah. Their eternal eyes, chipped and streaked with lichen, seemed to rumble with the rolls of thunder. I tore away from their spellbinding gaze and hurried through the wooden doors.
THIRTEEN
THE INTERIOR OF THE compound was rimmed with a covered portico that gave us shelter from the rain. I hunched into myself like a drenched cat that has been thrown into the gutter. My white dress was covered in mud and sludge and sand. My skin itched for the feel of warm, dry clothing.
Montgomery set down the rabbit hutch and leaned into the heavy wooden doors to ease them closed, sealing out the jungle.
The compound was bigger than it looked from the exterior. Stone walls surrounded a dirt courtyard rapidly filling with mud puddles. A vegetable garden and chicken yard had been built on slightly higher ground. Next to the garden, a pump stood over a sunken pool of water, whose surface trembled in the rain.
A handful of buildings clustered around the courtyard. I wondered which one Father had disappeared into. Next to the wooden gate was the largest edifice, with windows on its two stories shaded by wide-slatted shutters. Wispy smoke rose from a tin chimney. A weathered old barn with wide eaves sat across from the big stone building. The little boy, Cymbeline, reached out from the barn’s half door to catch raindrops in his open palm. There were a few smaller buildings, probably no larger than a room each. Directly across from me hunkered a squat building with tin walls, painted blood red. No windows. Something about it lodged a dull pain in my side, as if a fractured rib now pierced my right lung.
“What’s that building?”
Montgomery didn’t even glance up. “The laboratory.”
I wiped the rain from my face. That low red building made me uneasy, but the rest of the compound was in good working order. This was clearly someone’s home, not the wild den of a madman. The portico had been freshly swept and the garden was well tended, despite the mud puddles. My skirt grazed against the interior wall and came off with a coating of chalky dust from fresh whitewash.
Beside me, Edward leaned against the wall, taking long breaths. He pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes for a moment. Part of me felt oddly protective of him. But he was a survivor. He’d been through worse than this and come through it.
“You’ll be all right,” I said.
“It isn’t me I’m worried about,” he whispered, giving me a penetrating look. “I’m not sure you should have come here, Juliet. There’s something strange about this island. About your father.”
I folded my arms, not wanting to hear more. I didn’t altogether disagree with him, but I wasn’t ready to admit that aloud. The rain lightened, and the little boy darted across the courtyard into one of the small apartments. The sound of a hammer started up again.
Montgomery ran a hand through his soaked hair. He was quieter than usual, as if worried I might be disappointed by their simple home.
A slamming door made us both jump.