We didn’t notice, thanks to the fact it’s piled so high, but on the other side of the mound of rubble is a door. It’s standing partly ajar. Liam pulls his switchblade from his pocket and flicks it open. I stick to his back like glue as we clamber as noiselessly as possible over the detritus and plaster and towards the door. The whole time I’m wondering what we’re doing. Why aren’t we getting the hell out of here? Why are we walking towards danger? But I suppose Liam doesn’t see it that way. He’s a man after all. Men aren’t accustomed to feeling fear in the way most women do, almost all the time, learning from a young age to never walk down a dark street alone and to always look over their shoulder.
I step on a loose stone, causing a mini landslide of dirt, and the banging stops abruptly. We hold our breath, both of us frozen. Liam brings the knife up, holding it like a dagger, and we stare at the door, half-expecting it to fly open and someone to come roaring out in attack mode.
We stay there, unmoving for half a minute, maybe longer, but nothing happens. Finally the banging starts up again, this time sounding even more manic. Perhaps whoever it is knows they’re cornered and they’re trying to smash their way out of the room.
Out of nowhere, Liam rushes towards the door, throwing it back with his shoulder and bursting into the room with a yell. I glance past him.
There’s no one there. It’s empty. But then I notice a bird – a crow, black and ugly, slamming itself into the wooden panelling along the bottom half of the wall as it flaps furiously and tries to take flight. The reason for its failure to escape the room through the hole in the roof is immediately obvious: its wing is broken, the feathers sleek on the bird’s good side, and scruffy and ruffled on the other.
I let out a gasp and hurry towards it as it hops pitifully. I can see how terrified and exhausted it is. It must have fallen through the roof and been trapped in here. I wonder for how long? The crow caws in terror when I move towards it and skips away, its one good wing flapping desperately. I wrestle off my coat and step slowly forwards, backing the bird into a corner.
‘What are you doing?’ Liam asks me.
‘I’m rescuing it,’ I say, without looking in his direction.
I inch towards the wounded creature, murmuring under my breath as I go, trying to soothe it. But the crow is panicked. It caws murder and tries to take flight again, only I’m faster and manage to throw the coat over its head. Before it can fight free, I bundle it into my arms, where the bird struggles momentarily, and then falls still. It’s paralysed with terror, and I can feel its little heart thrumming away fast as a hummingbird’s wing.
I turn to Liam, smiling in triumph at my rescue.
‘Now what?’ he asks.
My smile fades. I hadn’t thought that far. It’s not like there’s a vet or a wildlife centre nearby to take it to for treatment. ‘We can at least feed it,’ I reply, thinking on my feet. ‘Give it some water and some food. The poor thing might have been trapped in here for days without any.’
‘It’s got a broken wing, Laura,’ Liam says. ‘We’d be better off leaving it or killing it. Putting it out of its misery.’
My mouth falls open. ‘What? No! We can’t leave it. Or kill it. I can fix it. I’ll see if I can splinter the wing.’
Liam raises his eyebrows at me, but he knows I’m a lost cause when it comes to animals. ‘Come on then,’ he says with a sigh, turning around and heading back out of the room. I follow him, cradling the bird in my arms.
In the great hall he stops and stares at the first floor and the staircase up to it, looking rueful.
‘We should get back to the cottage,’ I say, hoping that he isn’t going to attempt a second climb.
I can see him weighing his choices, but finally he sighs again and faces me. ‘Fine,’ he accedes. ‘Let’s go.’
We walk down the servants’ stairs into the kitchen. Liam pauses, pulling out his phone to light our way through the dark space and into the cellar.
‘I wonder if there’s another stairwell,’ he says as we walk through the kitchen. ‘The servants’ stairs maybe. Old places like this always had secret stairs to keep the riffraff out of sight of the posh people.’
He’s right. There probably is another stairwell. Perhaps if we kept following the interior hidden passages, we might find it, but I really don’t want to explore any further.
‘I need to get this crow home,’ I argue. ‘We haven’t even had breakfast yet,’ I add, appealing to Liam’s prodigious appetite.
He relents, as I’d hoped, and leads the way through the cellar.
‘Next time I’ll bring a real torch,’ he comments as we reach the door.
‘Next time?’ I ask with dread. ‘We’re coming back?’
He shakes his head. ‘No. I’m coming back.’
Chapter Thirteen
The crow has settled in my arms, but I can feel its tiny heartbeat thundering away against my own. I feel its terror inside my own chest too. The darkness I’ve shrouded it in pacifies it, in a way it never does me, and I keep my grip on it tight, knowing that if I should loosen it and it should struggle free it could hurt itself even more in its desperation to get away. I only want to help, but the bird doesn’t know that. If we’d left it there it would have died. At least this way it has a fighting chance.
I ponder the ways you can splint a wing without causing more damage, and where I might put the bird after, to contain it safely while it heals.
Liam smiles at me, shaking his head ruefully as I soothe the bird.
‘Tiger used to bring birds home all the time,’ I tell him. ‘Half dead.’ Tiger’s my old cat, an orange tabby with an unoriginal name.
‘I remember,’ Liam laughs. ‘Little animal sacrifices.’
He’d bring them to me as gifts, leave them half eaten on the doormat, or even on the bed. I’d try to patch them up, if they weren’t already dead. I got my love of animals from my grandad. He would often rescue birds and small creatures like mice that he found on his allotment or on walks through the countryside. One time he saved a baby hedgehog and I helped him nurse it back to health on a cocktail of milk and soaked bread, and then, when it was strong enough, we let it go. I cried, worried that it wouldn’t survive on its own without a parent to look out for it, but my grandad reminded me that we’d done all we could; it was now up to the little creature to figure out how to survive in the wild. ‘Only the strong survive,’ he’d told me. ‘That’s just nature’s way.’ I knew he was right, but it still hurt. It didn’t feel fair on the vulnerable and the sensitive who didn’t choose to be that way. But as he used to point out to me, even the smallest, weakest-seeming insect or animal often has hidden strengths. Take the hedgehog: it’s slow and sleepy, but its spikes give it all the protection it needs from predators.
When I was little, I’d line up my soft toys in a pretend hospital, giving them all random ailments and then play-acting the role of doctor. My mum always told me I could be anything I wanted, including a doctor or a vet, but I never had the confidence to pursue my ambitions all the way to the top. Being a veterinary assistant is where my aspirations settled, and I enjoy the work. Or I did. I’m not really sure if I can go back to it though. I left them in the lurch, quitting the way I did, so suddenly and without any warning, and although I think they’d be sympathetic, given all I’ve had to cope with, I still don’t know if they’d want me back. I wasn’t exactly the best employee by the end, dealing as I was with my mum being ill and planning a wedding. They will have replaced me by now. There’s even a chance they might not give me a good reference if I look elsewhere for a job.
One day at a time, I remind myself, taking a deep breath. One day at a time. I’ll make it out the other side eventually and start living again. This honeymoon is the fresh start, even though it’s turning out to be not quite the romantic getaway that we had planned.
By the time we make it back to the cottage, the sky has turned the colour of a fresh bruise. I cast a look up at it and Liam does too. That’s not a good sign, I think to
myself. Perhaps the boatman was right after all and the storm he warned us about is brewing. Liam must be thinking the same because he frowns unhappily, pursing his lips in a tell-tale sign that he’s annoyed.
Liam unlocks the back door as the first fat drops of rain begin to fall, and he ushers me inside. My arms are aching from carrying the bird all this way and I have no doubt that it has done its business inside my coat, but I don’t care. All I hope is that it’s not for nothing, and that I can somehow fix it, mend its wing so that it can fly once more.
‘Where are you going to put it?’ Liam asks, nodding towards the bird.
I look around. ‘I need a box or a crate of some kind and a towel.’
‘I think I saw a box under the stairs,’ Liam replies. ‘Hang on.’
He goes and retrieves it. It’s just big enough.
‘Could you fetch me a towel, please?’ I say, getting to my knees.
Liam heads to the downstairs bathroom to get a towel and I lower the bird carefully into the box. I’m worried it’s gone into shock; that’s usually how animals die in these situations. It’s huddled, silent, against the side, frozen in fear, and I think it might be too late; but then it turns its beady eye on me and exclaims a furious caw. I exhale with relief. It still has some life in it; it hasn’t quite given up the ghost.
I hurry to the cupboard and start searching for something to feed it with. It needs water of course, so I fill a small saucer and place it inside, and then take the oatmeal that I found in the cupboard, soak it in some milk and settle that alongside the water. That should do for now.
Liam comes back with a towel, which I drape over the top of the box. I’m right about the jacket. My new friend has crapped all over the inside of it, and now it reeks. I’ll have to try to get the worst out by handwashing, but I doubt I’ll be able to wear it again until I can get it dry cleaned. Given the turn in the weather it’s not the best situation to be in, but I’ll survive.
‘What now?’ Liam asks.
‘I need to examine it and then figure out how to splint the wing.’
I feel for the first time in ages a sense of purpose; a rekindling of a light that had been almost extinguished inside me. I have a life to save. ‘Do we have any tape or gauze?’
‘There’s a first aid kit under the bathroom sink,’ he says.
I run upstairs. In the en suite, I root around in the cupboard under the basin and find a small first aid kit. Inside there’s everything I need, and I hurry back down with it.
‘I need you to hold the bird,’ I say.
Liam looks less than happy at the idea, but I scoop the bird out of the box, and he can’t do anything but take it when I proffer it to him.
The bird snaps its vicious-looking beak at me but I fold the towel over its head so it can’t see. It struggles in Liam’s arms still and I shush it, stroking its feathers, trying to impart that I’m not a predator or a threat, and that it doesn’t need to be afraid, but the crow no doubt feels as if it’s in mortal danger and can’t be soothed. Liam grumbles under his breath.
I examine the wing as gently as I can. I’ve observed the vet a few times doing this exact same thing and can recall the illustration of a bird’s wing that I studied in college, its delicate skeleton structure. They heal fast, I remember that. Bird bones aren’t like human bones. For a start they’re hollow.
‘I think it’s a simple fracture,’ I say to Liam after a few seconds of gentle probing. ‘It’s not broken through the skin, which is good.’
I cut off a length of tape and wrap it carefully around the bird, pinning the wing in place and smoothing down the feathers, knowing that the strength of the splinting and the positioning of the tape is key to helping it heal correctly, otherwise it won’t ever fly again. It would be kinder to wring its neck if that were to happen, just as Liam suggested back at the castle, but I think the taping is good. It should hold.
Liam curses as the crow tries to nip his finger. He hands it over happily once I’m done and I take it, still bundled in the towel, and place it back in the box. ‘There you go,’ I say.
I feel a huge sense of pride at a job well done and make a wish that the bird recovers. Somehow, I feel as if the bird’s recovery is tied to my own.
After washing my hands, I take my dirty coat from the side and start scrubbing at it under the tap. Liam is standing at the window glaring out at the overcast sky, as though willing whoever is spying on us to dare show their face.
I’m worried that later he’s going to leave me here to go and take a look around the castle by himself. Luckily, it’s started to rain so maybe I can convince him to stay inside, and hopefully by the time it stops raining he might have calmed down. Like Liam though I can’t stop thinking about it, wondering who it is and why they’re on the island.
I carry the crow in its box through into the living room and set it down by the fire, out of the way. The room is dark as a tomb thanks to the fact the curtains are still drawn, and so I move to open them to let in some daylight. As I do, I let out a scream.
Liam comes running, skidding to a stop beside me. I point at the window; the one where the man carved those strange symbols.
Except from this side it’s obvious. They’re not symbols with some hidden meaning we can’t decipher. They’re letters. And this way around it’s clear what they spell. DEVIL.
Chapter Fourteen
We stare at the word DEVIL etched into the window.
‘What the fuck?’ Liam curses under his breath. ‘Is this some kind of game?’
I’ve never seen him this rattled before. In fact, I’ve never seen him afraid, until this moment. Liam marches to the window and yanks the curtain across, erasing the word from view. He turns around and I watch his jaw tensing and untensing, his brow furrowed.
‘What do you think it means?’ I ask him.
He shakes his head. ‘How am I supposed to know?’
I swallow, biting my tongue.
‘Devil,’ he says. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’ He starts to pace back and forth in front of the window as I stand quietly to one side and watch him. ‘It just …’ He breaks off and stops, yanking the curtain back again to see the word written there, as though he expects it to have vanished. He scratches at his neck, not tearing his gaze from the window.
‘Who would write that?’ I whisper.
Liam doesn’t say anything. Suddenly he makes for the front door.
‘Where are you going?’ I ask, worried.
‘Outside,’ he says. ‘I want to check those footprints again.’
‘Why?’
‘Because,’ he says, as he opens the door and steps out into the rain.
I follow him, hesitating in the doorway. The rain is coming down in fat drops, the clouds hanging low. I glance up the beach, to where I thought I saw someone standing yesterday. There’s no one there now, but the downpour is making it hard to see. I spot the cairn on the beach, still standing exactly as I left it.
Liam is over by the window, crouching down in the flowerbed, examining the footsteps, but the rain seems to have washed them mostly away.
I retreat out of the rain and walk into the living room where I contemplate the word etched into the window again. A cold chill spreads through me, like ice invading my veins. The letters have been carved deeply into the glass, and haphazardly, as if they were done in a hurry, by someone in a rage.
I believe in the devil; I’ve seen enough to know that evil exists in the world. In my job – my old job that is – animals were brought in occasionally that had been mistreated and abused, some so badly they had to be put down. So yes, I believe in the devil, but I have doubts sometimes that there is a god. If there is, I don’t know how he can let so much suffering occur and do nothing about it.
My faith has definitely been tested this year. My mum always used to tell me to say my prayers whenever I wanted something good to happen, and she always had faith that things would work out for the best; but my father treated her terribly and made he
r unhappy for most of her adult life, and then she got cancer, and then she died. And I can’t understand why any benevolent god would let that happen, and I definitely don’t believe in any higher justice. It seems to me that good people, innocent people, and animals often suffer worst in this world, and bad people get away with bad things all the time.
The door bangs shut and I jump, but it’s just Liam.
‘Did you find anything?’ I ask him.
‘No,’ he scowls, coming to stand by me.
‘Why would they write that?’ I ask again.
‘I’ve already told you,’ he says, sounding impatient, ‘How would I know?’
‘Well, you’re a detective, you must have some idea.’
‘I’m not a forensic psychologist,’ he replies. ‘Try not to worry. It’s just someone trying to scare us, that’s all.’
‘But why?’ I ask, the icy sensation reaching the tips of my fingers and toes. ‘Why would they want to scare us?’
‘Because they’re crazy?’ Liam responds with a shrug. ‘Because they think it’s funny? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter why they did it. What matters is not letting it ruin our holiday.’
I press my lips together. It might be a little late for that.
‘Do you think they might be out there now, watching us?’ I ask, wrapping my arms around myself to keep out the sudden chill.
A frown line appears between Liam’s eyes. ‘No,’ he answers.
‘They could be,’ I press him. ‘We don’t know.’
Liam marches forwards and draws the curtain back across the window, then he casts a look over his shoulder as though half-expecting to find someone standing in the room with us. He’s spooked. Genuinely spooked. For all his nonchalant talk about not worrying, he really is worried.
He walks into the kitchen and closes the curtains there too, and then he double-checks the back door is locked. ‘There,’ he says to me. ‘No one’s spying on us. Shall we have breakfast? I’m starving.’
I know he’s trying to put a brave face on it and pretend he’s not rattled, so I play along even though I’m not hungry. ‘OK.’
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