“The ocean will do it for you.” Levi loosened his grip but did not let go.
Connor slogged out of the shallows and back onto the beach, glancing back at Mercer. Everett shook his shoulders free from Levi and marched toward Connor. As he held out the bracelet, he watched Connor’s expression darken. Everett transferred all of the anger from Mercer to Connor. “You knew about this, didn’t you?”
Connor glanced at the bracelet and then at Everett. “It wasn’t like that. She just went to say goodbye to him.”
“How do you know?” He stomped close, but Connor didn’t flinch.
“Because she told me, and I believe her.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I knew what you would do and I couldn’t allow that. I had to let him leave.” Connor pointed at the sea. “Look, he’s almost out of sight.”
Everett looked at the horizon and saw the speck that he hoped would be his last glimpse of Justin Mercer. The rising sun’s reflective rays forced Everett to look away. He stared at Bethany’s bracelet—its delicate links embedded in the folds of his palm. He had been so afraid Connor would betray them, yet Connor had only been using diplomacy to secure their peace. The fire of Everett’s anger cooled, but the fear of losing Bethany replaced it.
“Come on,” Connor said as he walked away from the water’s edge. “Let’s go listen to the radio.”
Stunned, Everett followed Connor and Levi to the cairn. His mind allowed no thought, save for the misery of imagining Bethany alone with another man and what that meant for their future—his future. He had spent ten days living through tormenting fear when she was in quarantine, but once she had accepted his offer of courtship, he no longer thought he would have to worry about her and Mercer. Now Mercer was gone and—just as Levi had warned—he had found a way to leave a rift between them. But it was not Mercer’s fault alone—Bethany had gone to him.
When they got to the cairn, Connor bent over to unroll his pants cuffs and then brushed his hands together as he stood. “The waves are calmer than usual and there is hardly any current today. I think he’s going to make it to the ship.”
“That is good news,” John said. He handed the speaker cup to Connor. “I have not heard any words yet, only a strange hissing sound.”
Connor pressed the cup over one ear and plugged the other ear with his forefinger. He squinted out at the ocean as the men huddled around, awaiting his conveyance of Mercer’s report. After a moment, Connor grinned. “He says he can see the ship.”
Everett glanced out to sea but saw no trace of Mercer and his orange dinghy.
“He’s getting close to the ship… the dinghy’s outboard motor is still running… he said something changed in the air… the atmosphere around him changed… he said there is no land—he hoped to find land but there is no land.” Connor glanced at John, “That was our signal. That means the Land is not visible.” Then Connor squeezed his eyes shut. “It’s getting harder to hear him… he’s talking to someone else now. The ship’s crew must have picked up his transmission, but I can’t hear their signals. He’s going to shoot a flare for them to see him.” All the men looked toward the horizon, but saw nothing. “Dead air. He’s outside of our atmosphere.” Connor pulled the cup away from his ear. “That’s it. He’s gone.”
John smiled and clapped once. “Hallelujah!”
“Maybe.” Connor held up a finger as he looked at the ship. “Once the ship leaves, we will know we are safe.”
“And if it doesn’t leave?” Everett asked, his fear returning.
“We can only pray it does,” John said as he bent to look through the telescope. “Connor, come take a look at this.”
“What is it?” Levi asked.
Connor handed Everett the radio receiver as he put his eye to the telescope. “It’s a storm and it is coming fast.”
Everett looked out at the horizon and no longer saw the faint blur of the ship, but only a smudge of clouds. The wind increased and the air warmed as dark puffs began to billow over the horizon.
“We’ve seen this before,” Levi said. “Let’s get back to the house.”
Connor knelt beside the telescope’s tripod stand. He unhinged its legs and it collapsed into his arms. “I’m right behind you.”
The incoming clouds suffocated the morning’s light, leaving an eerie glow across the shore. Everett watched as the waves’ white caps lifted higher and higher from the sea. The encroaching water lapped over the footprints the men had left in the sand, and banks of foam began to push toward the cairn. “I thought the tide was going out this morning.”
“It was,” John replied as he tugged on Everett’s sleeve. “Go to the house.”
The incoming squall filled the air with sand, causing the men to shield their faces with their lapels as they hurried away from the shore. As Everett grabbed the antenna wire from the cairn, he shouted over the sound of the wind, “What about Mercer?”
No one replied. Everett hurried behind John and Connor as they followed Levi through the edge of the forest to the Colburn property. The wind whipped tree branches around them and threw sand at their backs. Connor laid the telescope at the doorstep as Levi and John fought the wind to close the shutters on the outside of the house. Everett left the radio receiver with the telescope and ran to help. He twisted the tiebacks beneath a heavy shutter on the guest room window and folded it into the casing. As he reached for the second shutter, Levi grabbed it. “I’ll do this. You go lock all the shutters from the inside.”
Everett held his hand over his face to block the wind as he ran to the Colburns’ back door. When he stepped over the threshold, he wiped his boots on the mat, out of habit. The shutters clapped over the windows as John, Connor, and Levi closed them from the outside. Everett raced through the lower level of the Colburn house, lifting the sash windows and locking the shutters then lowering the windows. As he neared Isabella’s room, Lydia appeared in the doorway. “Everett, what is happening?”
“It’s a windstorm. It came in from the sea. The sky went from perfectly clear to completely filled with black clouds within minutes,” he explained as he opened Isabella’s window. He jerked the shutter’s rusty lock into place and closed the window again.
“It is God’s wrath,” Isabella commented from her bed. “God controls who enters the Land and God judges those who try to leave.”
Everett glanced at the elderly blind woman who was propped against a stack of pillows. He had not seen her in months. She looked frail and sallow—like Samuel had before he died.
Lydia stepped close to Isabella and took her hand. “There now, Aunt Isabella, I’m sure it is just a storm.”
Everett had not meant to stare at Isabella. He felt rude and made himself look away. As he left the room he heard Lydia thank him for closing the shutters. He mumbled a response and, as he stepped into the hallway, Connor came around the stairs. “Thanks, Everett, I’ve got the rest.”
Everett stopped in the hallway. Thunder cracked outside the house and shook the floor beneath his feet. He walked through the parlor and back into the kitchen. John and Levi were pulling off their boots and shedding their sandy overcoats. Bethany was probably upstairs in her bedroom. He wanted to go to her, to demand an explanation, to beg her to say it was not true, but the sooner he saw her, the sooner their relationship would end. He did not want to lose her; after losing his father, it would be too much to bear, but if she had been unfaithful in courtship, he would have little choice. He slid his hand into his pocket and felt her silver bracelet.
John brushed his palms together and asked Levi, “Is Mandy with Roseanna?” When Levi gave a quick nod, John looked at Everett. “I think you both should stay here until the storm passes. There is no sense in going out in that.”
Everett’s mother was safe at home and the animals were safe in the barn; he was the only one in danger, having his heart sliced open by a silver trinket. As he thought of Mercer’s parting words, he wondered if he even knew Bethany at all. He rem
embered Levi’s warning and did not want to fall victim to a lie, but his fear would be neither relieved nor confirmed until he spoke to Bethany.
John walked out of the kitchen. “Excuse me gentlemen, there is something I need to take care of.”
Everett sat at the table as he heard John climb the stairs. He looked at Levi. “Does your father know what Mercer accused Bethany of?”
“I don’t live here anymore, so I don’t know any more than you do,” Levi said as he picked up the radio receiver and started to tinker with the wire. “But if he doesn’t know, I’d say he’s about to find out.”
* * *
Justin Mercer unstrapped the radio from his back and allowed it to drop into the ocean before he grabbed the helicopter’s rescue hoist and was pulled from the dinghy. Once inside the helicopter, he stared back toward the Land. He had lost sight of it after rowing out only a few hundred feet from shore, and with the storm between them and the Land, it was hidden from the crew also. Black clouds billowed behind them while the rescue helicopter carried him to the platform. The storm rose like smoke from a volcano as if the sea intended to keep the Land undetectable—even from him as he approached the carrier. Mercer didn’t care about the cause of the storm or the cause of the Land’s disappearance. He had promised to take his experience in the Land to his grave, and now all he wanted was to get back to his old life.
With a synthetic fleece first aid blanket wrapped over his wet shoulders, Mercer followed the aviation rescue swimmer through one of the carrier’s stale corridors. It was good to be back on a platform, even though the ship was eerily quiet.
The rescuer glanced back as he spoke over his shoulder. “You’ve been on a dinghy for a month, and you look healthier than most of our crew.”
Mercer scowled and rubbed his whiskered jaw. It was not a month’s worth of stubble, but it was enough to make him look ragged. “The weather was favorable until today. I guess I got lucky, that’s all.”
“Luck and a water filter and a fishing line,” the rescuer laughed.
Mercer wanted to laugh too, but he feigned lightheadedness instead, hoping to portray an exhausted victim. He slowed his pace and received a sympathetic look from the rescuer. “It must have been awful. You were smart to stay off the icebreaker while the other men died.”
“Are they all dead?” Mercer asked, thinking of Volt.
“Yes,” the rescuer kept talking as he turned a corner and opened a door for Mercer. “We found four bodies and a lot of old equipment—not as old looking as that radio you had strapped to your back when we found you. Good thing you used it though. There is nothing but water out here for hundreds of miles.”
Mercer nodded. “Yeah, nothing at all.”
Chapter Fourteen
Bethany lifted her head from her feather pillow and listened to the wind howl outside the sturdy old house. As she drew her legs from under the warm quilt, she reached to straighten her nightgown, but instead of feeling its thin cotton, she felt the sweaty velvet of the red dress she had fallen asleep in. The memories of the night’s events flooded back, and with them the aching burden of her family’s disappointment.
The wind’s groan increased, and Bethany went to her bedroom window to look out. She peeled back the lace-trimmed curtain, and then gasped when she saw the trees in front of the house bending and buckling in the violent wind. A limb cracked off a dormant fruit tree, and sprigs of latent buds flew past her window. She pushed her hands against the glass and looked far to one side then to the other and saw her father closing the storm shutters outside the parlor window below. Dark clouds roiled through the morning sky, turning its soft pink into a smutty black. It was a rainless storm from a furious sky. She gripped the curtains and yanked them together, protecting herself from the disturbing visual.
Bethany backed toward her bed. The only other time she had witnessed a storm so severe was when Luke and Walter were killed at sea. Levi had stayed with her during that horrible storm, and Everett had comforted her when she grieved the loss of her friends. But now she was alone, having been ordered to stay in her room until her father came for her. She hoped he would hurry inside and come get her, even though when he did it would be to reprimand her for her foolish breach of custom.
Something hit Bethany’s window, making her jump. She scurried onto her bed and leaned into the headboard. If Justin had rowed out at sunrise like he planned, he might be drowning in the ocean. She hugged her pillow and wrapped her legs beneath the quilt, trying not to imagine the panicked fright of being pulled into a raging current. No matter how he had hurt her, she still did not want him to suffer.
The walls creaked with the changing air pressure brought by the storm. Bethany heard the men talking downstairs and wished her father would come get her. If anything else hit the window, it might shatter the glass and she would be exposed to the storm’s violence. She tried to listen to the voices, but could not discern their words for the sound of the wind.
Quick stomps ascended the stairs. As she looked at her door, lightning cracked outside the window, increasing her fear. “Father?” Bethany yelled.
The door opened. “I am here.”
“Oh, Father—” She pushed her pillow away and started to move to the edge of the bed but noticed his scowl and wind-tossed hair. She froze as she remembered his last words to her during the night. Instead of going to him, she slunk back against the headboard and pulled the pillow to her chest. She wanted him to tell her to come downstairs with the family, but he only stepped into her bedroom and closed the door.
Tears of compunction slid down Bethany’s cheeks. She could not look her father in the eye, so she wiped her cheek against the pillow and turned her face to the window. “Isn’t it dangerous to be upstairs during a storm?”
“I am with you.” John stepped close to the bed then stopped. “Look at me.”
“No. I know you’re angry.”
“I am not angry with you, Bethany. I am disappointed.”
“That’s worse.” Bethany’s hand trembled as she dragged a knuckle beneath her eye, catching a fresh tear. She never wanted to disappoint anyone, least of all her father.
“We need to talk about what happened last night.”
“I only went to say goodbye.”
“You went alone to visit a man in the middle of the night.”
Though she had her reasons—and they had seemed paramount at the time—she felt foolish now. Bethany swallowed, trying to relieve the lump in her throat. “To say goodbye,” she reiterated.
“You broke the rules. You disobeyed.” Thunder vibrated the house, but John’s deep voice never wavered in its calm authority. “You are an adult and you can make your own decisions, but you also must understand what is at stake now—”
“I just wanted Justin to know that one person here cared about him.”
“I told you not to go. Connor told you to stay away from Justin. Lydia warned you too, and I am sure you knew Everett’s feelings on the matter. We all warned you—not to keep you from something good—but to protect you because we love you.” When Bethany took a breath to defend herself, John raised a palm and continued. “And we did not tell you as adults instructing a child, but as adults helping another adult. Just because you were the last person in this family to reach adulthood does not mean you are still a child. This is not an issue of age but of wisdom. We could all see you were being tempted to cross a boundary with serious consequences and we wanted to help you. But you were so worried about what Justin thought and felt that you went after his approval. Did you get it?”
Bethany looked up at her father. His probing questions pierced her heart with truth. “No, I only got hurt.”
“The surest way to get hurt is to seek the approval of the godless.” John’s brow furrowed and he sat on the bed near Bethany. “What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Tell me the truth.” When Bethany remained silent, John blew out a breath. “Bethany, if a man wants to marry you someday, acco
rding to our tradition, as your father I will have to attest that you are pure—”
“I am,” Bethany blurted out, as she grabbed her father’s arm. “He didn’t… we didn’t… he kissed me and I left. That was it, I promise.”
John nodded slowly and folded his hands. “It sounds like Justin thought you went see to him for the same reason we all did.”
Everyone seemed to know something she did not. She wanted to blame growing up without a mother for her lack of understanding, but she remembered the constant admonitions from the people who cared about her. There had been no lack of guidance, only a lack of trust on her part. Bethany drew her lips into her mouth and nodded. “I had to find out for myself.”
“That is normal for a person your age.” John glanced at her and continued. “I know you sometimes question the validity of our traditions, but I hope you see our boundaries exist to protect us. You are free to live as you choose and cross those boundaries if you wish. And if you live that way, we will still love you and we will forgive you, but we will stop warning you. Eventually, you will find yourself unprotected and isolated. By crossing boundaries last night, you hurt yourself and you hurt people who love you.”
Bethany inched away from the headboard and closer to her father. He wrapped an arm behind her back, and she was relieved to feel his love and forgiveness, but the possibility of the rest of her family being hurt or suspicious of her kept the knot tight in her throat. She looked at her hands. “I’m sorry—truly I am.”
“I forgive you.”
“I want the others to forgive me too.”
“Lydia and Connor will not hold this against you. Everett is a good man and he will forgive you too, but whether or not he will still want to court you—I cannot say. His honor is at stake.”
The thought of Everett rejecting her for one stupid mistake hit Bethany with gut-churning force. She looked to her father. “Please speak to him for me.”
“You are an adult now; I am not going to punish you, but I am not going to fix your mistakes either. Your choice hurt your relationships. Only you can make it right.”
Uncharted Inheritance (The Uncharted Series Book 3) Page 18