by Jake Halpern
As she entered town and walked past houses that she knew so well, Marin felt herself growing angry. It was a slow but steadily rising feeling. There was no doubt she had been lied to. Her father, the okrana, the mayor. Especially the mayor. What a farce. She and Kana had found a vicious battle-ax in the mayor’s house on the way to light the signal lamp. The mayor had obviously seen what was on those shelves—they were in his house. He knew far more than he had let on.
Most of all, Marin was angry at herself. She should have demanded that her father, or the mayor, tell what they knew about the years of Night, even if they didn’t know a lot. Instead, she had backed down and accepted some half-witted explanation about what people say when they sneeze. Marin thought back to the mayor’s condescension—he obviously considered her to be a child. It may have proved difficult to get more information from him, but still . . . She smiled to herself, imagining a reenactment in which she’d grabbed the mayor by his sweater and shook him until he told her the truth.
Marin looked at the houses as she went through town. She had played in them, eaten dinner in them, and gone to them on her mother’s behest, to borrow sugar or a pot. Soon she came upon a modest one-room house with a low-slung roof. This was the house where she and Kana had found—and untied—the old dog on the previous day. What really caught Marin’s eye, however, was the house’s front door. The moon illuminated a single hash mark carved into the wood, identical to the ones that the creature had carved at the mayor’s house. This one had a line across the middle. Marin walked onto the front porch, listened at the door, and then pushed inside.
She lifted the candle, revealing a cramped room with a table and several rickety chairs. Marin looked down and saw a dark puddle of liquid at her feet. She squatted, candle in hand, to get a better look. She gasped and turned away. Her feet brushed something heavy. It was the lifeless body of the dog they’d freed, its brown fur matted with sticky, dark blood.
Marin recoiled. And then it clicked. The hash marks. On this particular door, they meant that there was something inside the house—in this case, a dog—and the cross through the mark meant that it had been taken care of. Killed.
Marin spun around, bolted from the house, and dashed back into the street. She moved so quickly that her candle went out. Not that she cared. There was enough moonlight in the sky to see, and she was too scared to fumble for matches. Marin looked around frantically. Am I being watched? Nothing stirred. The abandoned town of Bliss was silent. Marin shook her head. Focus. She had to focus.
Carrots. Just get the stupid carrots.
She ran to the grocer’s stand two blocks away and, with trembling fingers, relit her candle. The stand itself was just an open-air shed with discarded food lying on the ground nearby. A frayed cloth sack with a broken handle was ground into the mud next to the shed.
Marin knelt to look at the food. Most of what she found was brown and half rotten. It had been drizzling, so everything was wet. As she filled the sack, the wind gusted, and Marin felt grateful to be wearing the oilskin. The sack was almost full when she noticed a series of holes scattered across the soft, muddy earth. The holes were small, round, and fairly deep—just like the ones on the walls of the mayor’s house and the floors of her own house. The holes appeared in clusters of five. Roughly ten inches behind each cluster was a large indentation the size of a man’s fist.
She realized with a start that these markings were footprints. The large oval indentation was the mark of a heel and the five holes were from toes—only they must have been more like talons than toes.
Marin grabbed the sack of food and hurried away from the grocer’s shed. She still had one more thing to do before she could return to Deep Well House. She walked quickly—toward the cliffs. Almost there, she told herself. Get it and run back.
Soon she was at the cliffs, at the loading area. The wind was fierce and bitterly cold. Suitcases were everywhere, many of them half opened and hemorrhaging wisps of clothing. In the dark they looked like slabs of rock. Marin stepped gingerly through this wasteland, afraid of what she might come across. She thought of looking through the suitcases for more food, but the image of the blood-covered dog overpowered this idea. She shouldn’t be here, anyway—she had come for just one thing.
Where is Night Fire? I need to find Night Fire—the blue flag with the two swirling red lines.
She passed half a dozen flags, none of them hers. Then, just as she was about to turn around, she saw it. The flag was drooping off its pole, but the pattern was unmistakable. She went to it and began searching the ground. She saw her mother’s bag first (the crimson cloth was a giveaway) and then her own—an old leather-bound trunk—which lay next to it. She fidgeted with the clasp. Her heart pounded in her ears, making it hard to think.
Marin knelt beside the trunk and buried her free hand in the mess of clothes, papers, and keepsakes that she had carefully chosen for the trip to the desert. She came across a long muslin scarf and a thick sweater. She took off the oilskin, put on the sweater and scarf, then slipped the jacket back on. It was a tight fit, but it felt wonderful to be warm.
Marin kept looking and soon found her mother’s copper box peeking out from under a pair of sandals. The marking scalpels. Marin remembered her mother’s pained face and thought of that lost moment—she’d hoped to make up for it on the boats. She grabbed the copper box and shoved it into her pants pocket. I’ll see my mother again, Marin vowed. And when I do, I’ll be damned if I don’t show up with her family heirloom.
At last, she discovered what she was looking for—the thing she had truly come to find. It was a tiny bag made of black velvet. She sat back on her heels and sighed in relief. As she traced her finger across the bag, she wondered how to tell Line and Kana. She’d have to reveal the contents to them sometime, and she understood—implicitly—that they might never forgive her.
CHAPTER 27
“What took you so long?” asked Kana. “We were getting worried.” He and Line were sitting comfortably on the couch in the mayor’s quarters. After Marin’s cold, wind-blown walk to town and the cliffs, the closed quarters of the candlelit room were a shock.
“How about thank you?” Marin replied, dumping the sodden carrots and apples onto the floor.
“What happened?” asked Line, pulling himself upright on the couch. He was staring at her damp, blood-smeared pants. “Is that blood on your pants?”
Marin followed his gaze. Her pants looked horrific, a mix of mud and blood. “Don’t worry—it’s not my blood.”
“Then whose?” asked Line. He stared at Marin, mouth half open.
Marin glanced at Kana. “It came from a dog that Kana untied yesterday,” she explained. Marin quickly recounted what she had seen at the one-room house, including the crossed-out hash mark on the door.
“So whatever marked our door was trying to kill us—just like the dog,” said Kana. “Is that what you’re saying?”
“Maybe,” she replied. “Can you think of another explanation?”
“No,” said Kana with a furrowed brow. “Not really.” He was about to say something else, but stopped and looked curiously at Marin’s clothes. “Where did you get that scarf? And the sweater?” He paused, and his eyes widened with surprise. “You went all the way to the loading area? For clothes?”
“I was freezing,” said Marin in a low voice. She was conscious of Line staring at her as well. “I was cold, okay?”
Kana didn’t immediately respond, and Marin tried to divert the conversation. “You’re only wearing a shirt and pants. Aren’t you cold?”
He looked down at his clothes, as if considering them for the first time. “No . . . I mean, I don’t know . . . I guess not.”
Marin looked at Line. “And you?”
“I’m fine,” he said. “I grabbed another sweater—it’ll be enough for now. Unless it gets much colder.”
Marin nodded and sat down n
ext to the food on the floor. She grabbed the slimy end of a carrot, wiped it on her pants, and bit in. It was disgusting, but she forced herself to chew. When she looked up, she realized that Line and Kana hadn’t moved.
“Join me,” she said. “It’s edible, I think.”
Kana declined, saying his stomach was upset. Line sat down next to her, wincing as he did so. She asked about his arm.
“Not bad,” came Line’s response. “It hurts, but I think it’s because the swelling has gone down—that ointment really works.”
“Do you think—”
Line interrupted her. “I’ll be ready to go,” he said. “I’ll be fine, just let me eat for a second.” Soon, he had a mouthful of carrots.
Marin decided to stop talking—Kana and Line were not in the mood and it was probably better to focus on the tasks at hand. She began sorting through the apples while Kana slid the dresser and a bureau firmly against the door. Kana then returned to the couch and watched Line and Marin eat in silence.
Eventually, Line looked up at Kana. “You didn’t tell her the good news yet.”
“You’re right,” replied Kana. “I smelled wood smoke on my way back from the mayor’s house.”
Marin considered this. “What do you think it means?”
“Well, it could mean that someone’s using one of the town’s fireplaces,” Kana replied. “Which means someone else was left behind—just like us. It sounds crazy, but—”
“Tell her where you think the smoke was coming from,” said Line.
“The hermit’s shack,” said Kana.
Marin thought back to when they passed the hermit’s shack on the way to find Line. She hadn’t smelled anything, and the shack seemed empty.
“Strange,” she said. “But if the hermit is around, that is good news. I mean, it’s not good for the hermit—obviously—but it’s good for us. It would mean I’m wrong about the hash marks and, you know, about the houses being systematically cleared out. We should take a look at his place on our way out of town.”
“Did you see anything else in town?” Line said, smiling at her. “Besides the dead dog, I mean.”
Marin frowned. “You don’t have to be so callous about it.”
“I’m not being callous,” Line replied. He looked down at the half-eaten apple in his hand. “I’m just stating a fact—the dog was dead, wasn’t it?”
Kana leaned forward from his perch on the couch. “Marin—what else did you see?”
Marin told them everything, including her theory about the small divots being claw marks.
“I’ve seen those divots before,” said Line. “They’re all over the place. I figured it was just a stylistic thing—you know, like all the curlicues and squiggly lines carved into wood panels and trusses on all the houses.”
“Those would have to be very sharp claws,” Kana remarked.
Line stood up with a sudden burst of energy and addressed Kana. “I’ll say this much—if any of those creatures come after us, we’ve got sharp claws, too.” He reached under the couch and picked up a long knife, its blade gleaming in the flickering light of the candles. Marin recognized it as one of the knives from the mantelpiece downstairs. “I took one for each of us,” said Line. “They’re very pirate-like—wouldn’t you agree?”
Marin smiled uneasily as Line brandished the knife.
“Don’t I look rather dashing?” he asked. He posed dramatically, using his good arm to swish the knife through the air like a storybook pirate.
“Yes, you are terrifying,” said Marin. “Now put that down. It’s too sharp to play with.”
“Aye, me lovely, I fancy some leg of beast for dinner!” said Line in a pirate’s brogue. “I’ll eat the meat off the bone with the claws I cut from the Night demons!”
Line pranced around the room with the knife, carrying on with his brogue. He ran to Kana and fake-attacked him.
“Line!” called Marin. “Put the knife down, before you impale my brother.”
Line paused and lowered the knife. He nodded, then sank down next to Kana as if suddenly exhausted. He turned to face him. “Here,” he said, “this can be yours.”
Kana took the knife Line had given him and turned it, watching it glint in the light of a weak candle. “No, thanks,” he said. “I’ve never been good with knives. I’d probably just cut myself.”
Marin rolled her eyes and smiled.
“As you wish,” said Line. He slid the knife back under the couch, then looked around uncertainly. Marin tried to change the subject. She went to the map that Kana had retrieved from Shadow House. Kana had set it down on a small desk near the couches where they’d slept. Marin bent over and studied it.
“Isn’t there a path through the woods that leads to the Coil?” she called out.
Line walked over to join her. “Let me see.”
Marin beckoned to Kana as well. “Come have a look with us.”
The three of them studied the map. Kana pointed to the shoreline. “The tide has already rolled out at least a mile,” he said. “So we could just walk out along the seabed, past the Dwarf Oak Islands, around Shiprock Point, into Southerly Bay, and then up the river.”
“But Marin is right,” said Line. “There’s also a path across the woods.”
Kana was confused. “Where?”
“Here,” said Line. He picked up a candle and used the hot red wax dripping from it to mark a line on the map that cut across a narrow swath of forest. “I’m not exactly sure where it goes, but I know where it starts. The okrana use it when they travel into the mountains for their solstice hunt. It starts by the cemetery. Just past that is the stone arch. The trail goes under the arch, cuts through the woods, and should go right over to the river—just upstream from the fishing depot. It’s about a tenth of the distance.” He looked at Marin and Kana. “But honestly, I’d rather not go back in the woods. I’d prefer walking along the seabed, even with my sore ankle.”
Kana nodded in vigorous agreement. “You’re right,” he said. “We should avoid the woods.”
The three of them studied the map again. Marin traced a line from Bliss to Shiprock Point, and then along the coast to the mouth of the Coil. “All right,” she said. “So we walk across the seabed to the fishing depot.” She stood up straight and glanced around the room. They had a plan. She put her hand on Kana’s shoulder. “Are we agreed?”
Kana kept staring at the map. “I think so—it seems like the best option.”
“When should we leave?” asked Line. “I’m ready whenever. Now?”
“Soon,” replied Marin. “We need to make something to help support your ankle, and maybe Kana can look around for more food.” She paused. “Line—are you sure you don’t want more clothes?”
Line shook his head. “I’m fine with what I have, but I’ll see if I can find a hat.” He exhaled with relief and rubbed his hands through his hair. It was good to have a plan. Of course, so much could go wrong, but to know what would happen next, to regain some measure of control over their fate . . . It provided hope for the first time since they were left behind.
CHAPTER 28
It ended up taking several hours for Marin and Kana to find the materials necessary to fashion a proper brace, build it, and then affix it to Line’s ankle. They used wooden slats from a chair, wire from a whisk that Marin found in the kitchen, and padding from several of the mayor’s pillows. But once completed, the project appeared well worth it. Line was much more comfortable now. While he was looking for materials, Kana ransacked the mayor’s house but was unable to find a single additional morsel of food.
“We should go,” said Line. “There’s no point in sticking around here. And I’m sick of waiting.”
Marin looked at the clock on the wall, which she had wound several hours ago. It was a few minutes past eight—nearly dinnertime. More important, it was a reminder that they
’d been awake for ages.
She looked at Line. “How much have you slept here?”
He thought about this for a moment. “I don’t know—a few hours.”
“And before that?”
“Before that . . . I don’t know . . .”
“And you were up for at least twenty-four hours in that hole,” said Marin with a shake of her head. “Kana and I haven’t slept much, either. It’s freezing outside and we probably won’t be able to stop until we reach the fishing depot. It’s going to be a nasty, cold slog. And then we’ll be in a small boat on the open sea.” She paused for a moment to let it all sink in. “I want to leave, too, but I think it’s smarter to rest here for a few more hours.”
“What about the thing?” asked Kana. “We’re just going to wait here for it to come back? Maybe we should go to another house. Maybe our house, or Line’s.” However, as soon as he said this, he realized he had no interest in going back to his house.
Marin looked at Line. “What do you think?”
Line nodded at the door. “That’s the heaviest door I’ve seen in town,” he said. “I don’t think going somewhere else would give us more protection.”
“And the signal lamp?” asked Kana.
“I’ll turn it off,” said Marin with a heavy sigh. “It’s only going to attract attention.”
“You understand what this means, right?” asked Kana. “If we turn it off, we have to be clear about what we’re saying. No one will rescue us. We do it ourselves. Together.”
For a moment, Marin was slightly short of breath. She felt as if she were standing at the edge of an endless chasm, teetering, about to fall.
“We can do it,” she whispered.
The room was silent. She stared at Kana, then at Line. They nodded.
“All right,” she said, more to herself than to anybody else.
Marin turned and left the room, knowing that both of them were staring after her. She walked through the darkened house, entered the closet in the pantry, ascended the stairs, climbed the long inset ladder past the mysterious, heavy boxes, and emerged onto the widow’s walk. She placed her hand on the top of the signal light. It was warm. She looked out at the narrow, triangular swath of light that the lamp was casting over Bliss. Somehow turning the light off felt like an act of surrender. She took several deep breaths. It makes sense, she told herself. You’re doing this to protect the last three people on this island. Do it. Marin stretched out her arm and turned the knob. The town fell into darkness.