by Laura Greene
She doesn’t mean to show her apprehension, but it shows through her actions. Even her desire to appear calm and in control is futile as her body fails to cooperate. Now, she takes a good look at the men she followed to the cabin. They sit comfortably, barely making eye contact with Melody when she arrives. Then it hits her, the two fishermen that she saw on the shore the morning she left with Nell and was unceremoniously deposited on the island are sitting by the fire, in front of her.
They knew? Melody steps back, dreading what will happen next. Are they here to help or are they the ones who drugged me? She quickly ponders. Can they be trusted?
One thing Melody has learned is, no one on these islands can be trusted.
Chapter 5
The men are stalky, built to endure harsh sea conditions, unlike Melody’s trim, slight, city build, that’s better suited to sit behind an office desk than wander the Scottish wilderness.
“Aye, she’s here, Boss.” The fisherman on her left confirms, he is jovial, pleasant and a little more eager than the rest. His uneven bob cut makes him look younger than his years, but Melody guesses he’s probably in his early twenties. His smile reveals his high cheek-boned square face with pointy ears that he didn’t quite grow into. He is the one who had the lantern and Melody wondered if it could have been her father, but now she knows with certainty it is not.
He sits with his hands popping out of a dark denim shirt, clinging onto bright blue overalls with a yellow square patch at the top. His shoulders are broad for someone his age, but he remains the trimmest and youngest of the three men – even his cheeks flush with a rosy, youthful warmth when he looks at Melody. “I’m Josh,” he sheepishly introduces himself, quickly looking down at his boots. She can tell he has a little crush on her.
Next to Josh and across from Melody, is the serious man who stopped her in her tracks and brought her to the back. When he sits down like he just finished delivering a package, he grunts as his bottom hits the chair and a gray beanie on his head flops back with his large body. When he looks up, his face looks pained and troubled behind the scruffy brown beard and slight quiff, peeking out of his beanie.
His shoulders are low as if he is carrying a heavy weight on his shoulders. Hunched forward like they have been forced out of beefy shoulders, his arms rest on his lap. They reveal a trail of heavily decorated arms with tattoos emblazoned from just under his short-sleeved polo shirt, beneath gray-purple overalls with orange trimming.
Melody guesses his age to not be much more than forty. And she is intrigued to learn what lies behind his grumblings.
Lastly, a mature man in his sixties, who sits confidently staring into the night like he is deep in thought, looks her way. Melody concludes he must be the “Boss” that Josh was referring to. He has a dark blue cap, on the strawberry blonde curls that Melody remembers seeing at the boat on Talon’s Point’s sea port.
She didn’t see it when he was standing on the boat at Talon’s Point, but now that he is sitting down, she sees his potbelly sticking out of his gray sweater under orange overalls, with a partially zipped, dark blue sweater, sporting his name: Neil.
He flashes a brief smile at Melody from under his curly beard, then says, “Sit down, Miss, I’m sure ye are wondering how ye got here.” He points to a seat closest to where she is standing, between him and Josh.
It’s as if he’s reading her mind. Not only is Melody wondering how she got trapped on this island, she has questions about these men’s allegiance and her father’s whereabouts. Now that she is in, she is sitting with the very men she believes can divulge what she needs to know, she can ask her questions.
“You must be famished by now, we only gave you a few days’ provisions. Josh, can ye please bring Ms Winter her dinner and a cold yun fae Earl and I?” Neil sees the surprise on Melody’s face that he knows her name and says, “I’ve been expecting ye.”
He did read her correctly, but he missed that Melody is thinking, These are the men who drugged me and dumped me in a cave. She wonders if she should run now, but something is pulling her towards these dangerous men. Besides, where would she go? She has come this far looking for answers, she may as well stay and find them out. At this point, Melody feels she has nothing to lose.
Josh hurries into the cabin. With the lantern shining, exposing what’s inside the cabin, Melody takes the opportunity to see what she can find out on her own. She casually sits up and scopes with her eyes. Right away, she notices that these men are hunters. They have shotguns stacked above each other, hanging over the mantle in what looks like the sitting room. Along the wall, a couple of bows and spears are deliberately staged, facing two stuffed deer heads.
“Whit yer snooping aroond fae?” Earl grunts from his chair, offended. Melody turns around and sees he is sitting forward like he is about to come after her.
“Earl. Settle.” Neil interjects and calms him. “You’re no’ gonnae find anyfin in there Ms Winter. It’s just us three I’m afraid.”
Melody sits back, realizing she has gone too far too soon. Just then, Josh returns with a plate of dark meat, sizzling, next to mashed potatoes, Yorkshire pudding and green beans. She has no clue what it is but she is starving. Melody scoffs it down, uttering thank yous between bites. Then, when she feels her hunger has subsided enough to eat at a normal pace again, she asks, “This is really good, spicy but good. Is it some kind of ground be… Oh, you call it minced meat here don’t you?”
“Minced meat?” Josh asks, puzzled by her question. “That there is haggis, Miss.”
Neil bursts out laughing, Josh follows and even Earl gets a good crack at Melody.
“Haggis?”
“Yes,” Josh says, wiping his eyes. “It’s sheep’s intestines.”
“What?” Melody scoffs, realizing it’s too late to spit out the food. She’s already eaten half the plate and thoroughly enjoyed it.
“Ye have been in Scotland this long and ye hav’nae tried haggis?”
“No!” Melody sits staring at her plate. “What makes it so dark?”
She can tell Josh is hesitant to tell her now, “Well, it’s the sheep’s blood, Miss. That’s what enhances the flavor.”
“Ugh!” Melody runs out towards the cement, ready to puke her own guts out. The three men rumble with laughter.
“Welcome to Scotland!” Earl yells as she runs to the field.
“I hav’nae had a laugh that good in a while,” comments Neil.
“I’m glad I can entertain you.” She retorts, looking for water to wash her mouth out with.
It occurs to Melody that while they were laughing at her mishap, she forgot she was fearful. She expected each bite of her meal to get stuck in her throat like a lump of nervousness. They’re just having a good time and that’s what Melody needed. These last few days were difficult and lonely for her, paranoid about what will happen to her, and she still doesn’t know what’s to come exactly, but now she is at least enjoying herself again.
Loneliness is a painful drug, she begins. Were it not for prayer, thinking positively of things she is grateful for and holding onto her dream of going on her archeology dig after she finds her father, she may not have lasted very long. She was missing the social connection – she needed company to be around again. But laughter really is good medicine. So she joins in when she sees Earl laughing too and breaks into laughter too.
“Me neither.” Josh says, gasping for air between chuckles. “The last time I laughed that hard was when...”
“Shh. Hush now.”
“When what?” Melody inquires. “Tell me. It’s when Sanders was here wasn’t it?”
Josh purses his lips, he knows he has said too much already.
Neil sighs. “I guess it was just a matter of time before you found out.” He takes another sip of his cold brew. His hand is over the label, so Melody can’t read the name of it. “The real reason why ye are here, Miss Winter, is because we are keeping an eye on ye.”
“An eye on me? Why?”
&nb
sp; “Tae make sure ye are safe.” Melody is still not understanding why that would be any of their business. “Max Deacon asked us to bring you here to keep you out of harm’s way.”
“Max? Who does he think he is?” Melody is furious that Max would just make that decision for her without consulting her. She remembers very well how he warned her at the mansion, to leave Talon’s Point at once. He told her to take the next flight out. She chose instead to get on the boat with Nell, not knowing that he was also behind that plan.
Was Max really helping me or just causing more trouble? She ponders.
“You don’t understand, Miss.” Neil gently pleads, “Max came to us, genuinely concerned for your well-being.”
Maybe Max was really looking out for her, but Melody still finds that hard to believe. She can’t get past the fact that he went behind her back to do it.
“Miss,” Neil continues, “there is something important ye need tae know.”
Melody braces herself. She has already received plenty of startling news for one night, but she came here for the truth and at the end of the day, that’s what she wants. “What is it, Neil?”
“Nell, the young lady who brought ye here? She is my daughter. The reason why she brought you here is because I’m her father and I asked her to.”
“Why would you do that? Endanger her?”
“Miss, business is tough this time of year. We needed the money and the only way tae really secure your trust was tae send in Nell. I mean, what business do grown men like us have with a young lady like yerself?” He says pointing at him and Earl.
Then, Melody recalls something Nell said. She told her that she grew up with her mother and she never met her father. “This can’t be right. I came here to talk tae Nell’s mother because she knows information about my fa...”
“Not that nonsense again.” Neil says taking out his wallet. “Look, this is a picture of me daugh’er and I. Her mum died when she was just a wee bairn, so she grew up at sea with me. All that mum stuff is in her mind, it’s just rubbish.” He shows Melody pictures of him and Nell when she was younger and she looks just like him.
There is often some truth in a lie. Nell didn’t say anything bad about her father, which is common if a child has a parent abandon them. Right now, Melody doesn’t trust what Neil is saying either, but she can’t afford to burn bridges because she needs their help to get off the island.
So, she listens and sympathizes.
“Nell following you then meeting you and bringing you to our island, it was all a ploy to get you out of the house and away from it.” Neil explains, as the other men listen also.
Was the danger within the house then? Melody is contemplating what Neil is saying.
“In fact, we did the same thing for Mr. Sanders. But he came to us. He asked us to take him somewhere safe where no one would look for him. He paid us double and asked us to leave at night. How could we refuse?”
“I thought it was a strange request, but the money was good so we took a chance.” Earl chimes in, now more comfortable around Melody.
She just lets the men talk as they go down memory lane and recall their time with her father. They describe his jokes, laughing with him and hearing his bizarre adventure stories.
“That Mr Sanders was something else. He knew everything about anything.” Josh says. “We loved that guy, his candor, and how he could keep any sailor up through the night with his stories.”
“But someone found out we were hiding him.” Neil says, distantly. “Yes, he was quite a guy, but he had enemies and they found out and took him.”
“Who took him?” Melody asks.
“We don’t know. He was staying at the cottage when we arrived on the island. They somehow got to him and left before we could find out.” Neil pauses for a moment, obvious pain visible on his face. “That’s why we had Nell take ye this time. When ye saw us at Talon’s Point, we were watching ye, tae make sure ye got off the island safely.”
Melody considers what the fishermen are saying about her father. it’s overwhelming, especially not knowing where her father went after he left the cottage. She comes to terms with him not being on the island anymore or Deacon island for that matter. Then there’s the blood that she saw on Tam’s barn.
She comes to one painful conclusion, that her father must be dead.
Chapter 6
Melody is reeling in agony. The news of what happened to her father, as shared by the sailors tears at her heart. She excuses herself and Josh shows her to Nell’s room, which they have prepared for her to sleep in.
It pains her that strange men who barely knew him were the last ones to see her father, not his own family. She grieves the unknowns of how he died – probably, he was alone, afraid and tortured. It was more than she bargained for and she falls asleep weeping.
When she wakes up, her eyes are puffy from crying. She washes her face then comes back to the room. Up on the dresser are pictures of a mother and her baby.
Taking one picture in her hands she sees Nell’s fiery eyes and she knows this was Nell’s mother holding her. In some of the pictures, Neil is also posing with them and she can tell there is a carelessness about him that is no longer there. He is now more serious and responsible – a result of raising his child on his own.
Melody realizes like Nell and her mother, her relationship with her father has been reduced to pictures of their time together in her youth. This is all the memory she now has of him.
Emotion builds up inside Melody and she knows staying on this island is not good for her anymore. She has come and found out what she needs to know. Now, she must leave. How am I going to get off this island?
Now that she has gotten to know the sailors and infiltrated seamlessly, Melody moves on to the second part of her plan.
Soon, she finds a solution to her problem – a skill her father taught her early on in life.
“So, what’s for dinner tonight? Rat stew?” Melody quips with Earl as she helps him gather wood from the back. She holds a barrel in place as he loads it and it gives her a chance to get to know him better.
Earl laughs remembering her reaction to haggis last night. “We’ll find out soon enough. Josh is out catching it.”
“Oh,” Melody realizes her mind was on her dinner coming from the store not directly from the wild and onto her plate. Here she feels, is another instance of academic whiplash. She is now in a place where the wild is her store. “I hope you don’t mind me asking Earl, do you have a family of your own somewhere?”
“No, Miss.” Earl responds. “Neil’s situation just put me off having a family of my own. The sea and my fellow seamen are my family and I’m very happy.”
“I understand.” Melody says, wiping sweat off her brow and tying her sweater around her waist.
“Hurry! Come quickly!” Neil shouts, beckoning Earl and Melody to him.
Earl drops the logs in his hands, sprints to Neil and Melody leaves the barrel and follows suit.
“It’s Josh, he’s hurt.”
“Where is he? I heard him shout from this direction.” Neil points into the woods.
Earl grabs his gun, cocks it and leads the way. Neil, who has a small pistol at his side and Melody follow behind him.
“Josh!” They each shout periodically, and for a while, they cannot hear anything from Josh.
“Are you sure it was in this direction?” Earl turns and asks Neil.
“Yes. Certain of it.”
“Josh!” Earl turns, shouting, and continues to run ahead. The woods hide Josh away from view and mask his voice. It’s as if he has been swallowed by the woods.
“Should we split up and look for him?” Melody suggests, thinking it may be more efficient.
“No. Sailors stick together.” Neil and Earl both answer in unison.
A faint cry of hope pierces through the trees to the worried housemates. “Argh,” and it dies out again.
“It’s Josh.” Neil says, overtaking Earl for a moment, his instinct tel
ling him which way the cry came from. “We’re coming, Josh!” As Neil runs towards Josh, Melody can see that he has great endurance. He is in his sixties, easily keeping up with a strong man in his forties.
Earl cocks his gun again, ready for action.
“I’m here!” The cry is louder this time. Josh is only a few feet away. When they arrive, Josh, in his jovial manner, cracks a joke, “Dinner is served.”
Melody pushes past the trees and stands next to Earl, who has now lowered his gun at his side. Josh is lying on the ground, bleeding from the side of his calf. She can see a cut along the gastrocnemius muscle, where the blood is flowing out from.
Quickly, she grabs her sweater from her waist, wraps it around Josh’s calf and tightly squeezes it over the opening to slow down blood flow into the muscle. “This might hurt a little.”