“She’s madder than the witch on the hill,” Mrs. Kinry murmured from behind her handkerchief. “Mad as her grandfather who jumped off that cliff.”
“It’s not her fault!” Mrs. Kissack snapped at her friend as Fynn and I resumed our struggle toward home. These neighbors of ours wouldn’t be any help. “It seems Morag Maddrell has addled her brains. It’s exactly what I knew would happen if she kept the witch’s company. I told her mother as much just the other day, when I saw her at …”
I started humming, trying to block out their voices as I guided Fynn farther away. “We’ll be home soon,” I whispered.
“We should pray for her!” Mrs. Kinry’s booming voice chased us up the lane.
“I made a mistake.” Memories of the town’s merciless stares and whispers flooded my mind, echoes of the last time I’d tried to tell what had happened to Grandad. If I hadn’t been so shaken, I never would have let those words pass my lips today. “A terrible mistake.”
Fynn grunted to show he’d heard. His half-lidded eyes and the sweat beading on his forehead made me all the more desperate to get him safely home.
Mam met me at the door, taking the burden of Fynn’s weight and shouting for Mally.
Time seemed to slow, as though I were moving through a dream. I fetched clean rags, then put water on to boil in the kitchen.
Fynn had saved my life today, yet I was powerless to help him in return. I leaned against the sink, taking deep breaths, trying to fight off the shakiness that hadn’t left me since I was nearly lured over the cliffs. The salt air blowing through the open window cooled my flushed face as I listened to Fynn’s ragged breaths from the next room, but the murmur of the sea trickling in with the breeze sounded too much like laughter.
I slammed the window shut.
There was nothing to do now but pace the kitchen, fetch supplies for Mally when she called for them, and hope the lad who’d run off to send for help was as good as his word. Even so, it would take hours to find a doctor and bring him here.
“I think the bleeding’s stopped again.” Mally’s voice was faint and uncertain.
Wringing my hands, I tracked the moon’s journey across the sky, trying to ignore the feeling of a massive fist squeezing my chest every time Fynn made the slightest noise. My stubborn eyelids were growing heavy, but until I knew he was out of danger, I would fight the haze of sleep and keep my vigil with the moon and stars.
Someone pounded on the door.
“It’s nearly four in the morning!” Mam hissed. “Took the doctor long enough.”
I poked my head into the main room in time to watch her open the door. I blinked, wondering if I’d fallen asleep at the kitchen table and was only dreaming this moment, but the vision before me didn’t change. Instead of the tall, gray-haired doctor from Peel who usually came to us, Lugh was framed by the doorway, his fiery hair ablaze from the light of torches at his back. Behind him were several men, including his stern-faced father and Mr. Gill.
Lugh’s da opened his mouth to speak, but Lugh was faster. “My mam is missing. She took supper to my aunt, and she was supposed to come straight home after, but she never did.” In the torchlight, Lugh looked ill, his face hollow like it had been after last winter’s fever. “We checked with my aunt, and my mam never even made it there …”
“I’m so sorry,” Mam said at once, putting a consoling hand on Lugh’s shoulder. For a moment, I thought he would shrug her away, but he merely flinched, accepting the warmth of her touch. “Peddyr is at sea now. He can join the search party as soon as he’s ashore—”
“That’s not why we’re here,” Lugh interrupted, his voice strained. He locked eyes with me for the briefest moment, sending a shiver up my back as I glimpsed his haunted look, then dropped his gaze to the ground. “Thomase Boyd says he saw …” He paused, then squared his shoulders. “He saw Fynn sneaking around near my aunt’s house earlier. Around dusk, right when Mam would have been arriving there.”
I shook my head, my mouth too dry to speak. That was impossible.
“That’s right,” another voice said. Mally’s former suitor, Thomase, pushed through the small knot of men to stand beside Lugh. “And there’s another thing, too. My da and Mr. Nelson never came home from sea today. They promised to be back by suppertime. That comeover on your sofa—” Thomase clenched his fists and took a step across the threshold, scanning the room for Fynn—“has a lot to answer for.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
The words rang out with force. Mally and I had spoken at the same time.
“Fynn was with me at dusk.” My face grew hotter as I added, “He was with me all day! Ask Mrs. Kissack or Mrs. Kinry. Plenty of people saw us. We were hurrying home. Fynn’s wounds—”