“Thank you,” I said. I sank down onto the bed, my legs suddenly unable to hold me up.
She shifted, a little uncomfortable. “You should hear it when Ashford does that speech. Makes everybody cry.”
“Ashford—that’s your boss?” I asked. “He investigates, what, paranormal stuff?”
“Dr. Ashford would say ‘inexplicable phenomena of potentially extra-natural origin,’” Abby said. “In layman’s terms, spooky shit. Most of the time it’s bunk, or else a sad lesson in the evils of totally normal human beings.”
“So how are you so sure it isn’t this time?” I pulled my feet up under me on the bed.
“My gut,” Abby said. “And that my dead sister gave me that bird. Or gave it to my boss, anyway, and I kinda stole it.”
“Stole it?” I repeated. “Wait, your boss doesn’t know you’re here?”
Abby started to pack away the things that were dry, not quite looking at me. “He tried to hide it. And then when he realized that I’d found it, he tried to forbid me to go. Wouldn’t tell me why. He just said to trust him. And I do, but . . . She gave it to me for a reason. She’s my sister. Was. If she wanted me to come here, I had to. So I waited until Ashford was out of town—out of the country, actually—and came by myself.” She said it lightly, but I could hear the thread of hurt beneath her words.
I shivered. “Does your sister do that a lot?” I asked. “Boss you around?”
“She’s only shown up twice since she died,” Abby said.
“What happened the first time?”
“Four people died,” Abby replied matter-of-factly. She finished with her things and hopped up into the bed, sitting at the foot while I scrunched up near the pillows. She combed her fingers through her chin-length brown hair, which only succeeded in leaving it in slightly less random clumps. “But they didn’t have me around to watch their backs. I only got there after the fact.”
It wasn’t entirely reassuring. “So how are we supposed to do this?”
“Ask questions. Investigate. Research,” she said. “This place is so full of secrets, any amount of digging should turn something up. And then we just chase whatever lead we can find.” She looked at me thoughtfully. “The reflection thing. Did that happen before you came here? When you were a kid, I mean.”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember it happening, but I was only three. I don’t really remember anything from that far back.”
“Still. There’s a good chance that whatever that is,” she said, pointing at the window, “started here.” She tapped a finger against her lips. “We need to talk to the other people who were on Bitter Rock the summer your mother disappeared.”
“Dr. Kapoor and Dr. Hardcastle,” I said. “But I don’t know if they’ll talk.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll do what I do best—bother people until they let something slip.” She gave me a wry smile. I decided I liked her then. I didn’t trust her, exactly. But I liked her.
What did it say about me that the first time in my life I had an easy time making friends, it was on a haunted island in the middle of nowhere?
“Be careful when you meet Hardcastle and Kapoor,” Abby added. “You don’t know how far people might go to protect their secrets.”
“But if whatever happened was supernatural, then they didn’t do anything,” I said. “Why would they need to hide it, other than people not believing them?”
“We don’t know what happened,” Abby said gravely. “And we don’t know who’s to blame.”
INTERVIEW
Sophia Novak
SEPTEMBER 2, 2018
ASHFORD: Abby told you she’d stolen the bird.
SOPHIA: She told me that you’d hidden it from her.
ASHFORD: It was for her own protection.
Sophia looks unconvinced.
SOPHIA: You took her and Miranda in after their parents were killed. You raised them. I imagine you got to know them pretty well in that time.
ASHFORD: What is your point?
SOPHIA: How exactly did you think that forbidding Abby from going to that island, and refusing to tell her why, would play out? Of course she went.
ASHFORD: I hoped that she would trust me.
Sophia sits back. Her gaze is cool, unimpressed with this declaration.
SOPHIA: And should she have trusted you, Dr. Ashford? Or was she right to question?
Ashford doesn’t answer. He folds his hands.
ASHFORD: Do you know how Abby and her sister came to be in my care, Ms. Novak?
SOPHIA: Their parents died.
ASHFORD: Their parents were torn apart. I was already pursuing the creature responsible, but I was too late. I found the girls on the road, screaming for help. By the time I got to the house, there was little left. Their father had to be identified through DNA. I did everything I could to keep them safe, but the Beast found them again. Killed Miranda. So perhaps you can understand why I might have been a bit overprotective of my other—
SOPHIA: Daughter?
Her voice is soft, not cowed but kind.
ASHFORD: Charge.
SOPHIA: Except you weren’t just protecting her. Maybe it started that way. But by the time Miranda gave you that bird, you’d been lying to protect her so long that you had to keep lying. You had to lie to protect yourself. Because if she found out the truth, she would never trust you again.
6
I STOOD OUTSIDE Dr. Kapoor’s office, the muffled voices inside offering only scattered intelligible words. Liam leaned against the wall opposite me, his arms crossed and his tongue worrying at his lip ring in a nervous habit. Every once in a while it clicked against his teeth. I should have found it annoying, but on Liam it was endearing.
“What do you suppose her odds of survival are?” I asked him, trying to break the tension.
“Oh, fifty-fifty,” Liam said. “In her position, I’d rather try swimming back to the mainland than be in there with Kapoor.”
The door opened, and Abby stepped out, followed by Dr. Kapoor. Dr. Kapoor looked distinctly irritated, which Abby seemed accustomed to.
“Ms. Ryder will be staying at Mrs. Popova’s until Mr. Nguyen can pick you both up.” I twitched, dismay running through me, and then I realized she was talking to Liam. Of course. He was heading back. “The weather still isn’t clear for a crossing, but it should be tomorrow,” she concluded. Dr. Kapoor’s accent was solidly American, without any of the clipped precision of Liam’s British accent. She was short, barely coming up to Liam’s shoulder, and her brown-black hair was cropped within an inch of her scalp. She had a glare that would intimidate a wolverine, and currently it was fixed on me.
Abby didn’t look concerned. She had twenty-four hours to figure something out, and she struck me as the sort of person who could do a lot with far less time.
“Ms. Hayes,” Dr. Kapoor said sharply, startling me back into the present. “Do you need a printed invitation?”
I realized she was holding the office door open for me. I slinked in past Abby, who gave me a little wave. Lily was coming down the hall to collect her. Even after a single night of acquaintance, she felt like the best ally I had, and I didn’t want to be separated so soon. But I didn’t see how to object without raising suspicion. Liam trailed in after me, and I remembered that he, too, would be leaving soon. I’d be alone.
No more alone than I’d always been, I told myself.
“I do not expect you to know anything,” Dr. Kapoor said without preamble. “I do expect you to learn. I expect you to ask questions, and not to assume answers. The worst thing that you can do is guess at what you are meant to be doing out of embarrassment or fear of looking foolish.”
I blinked. Apparently we weren’t going to discuss last night.
“Did you hear me?” Dr. Kapoor asked.
“Uh. Yes. Sorry, I thoug
ht we were going to talk about—”
“You are here to learn, and to work. That is all you should be worried about, Ms. Hayes,” Dr. Kapoor said. She crossed her arms. My gaze wandered hopefully to the chairs by the desk, my legs still achy from last night’s strain, but I could tell Dr. Kapoor was the kind of person that thought sitting just invited wasting time. Liam, however, plopped into one and threw his arm over the back. Dr. Kapoor ignored him. “You should know that most of our work is repetitive, tedious, meticulous, and dull. It’s also often cold, wet, and physically demanding.”
“You mentioned,” I replied. “In your emails.”
“Seventeen emails,” Dr. Kapoor said crisply. “To your thirty-nine. There are birds everywhere, Ms. Hayes, and I have difficulty believing that you are so fixated on a minor tern that you simply had to study these ones. But persistence in the face of repeated failure is an admirable trait in a scientist, even if it is absurdly irritating on a personal level, so. Here we are. Any questions?”
“Hello!” a voice shouted behind me
I jumped and squawked in surprise. I whirled around and came face-to-face with a huge black raven crouched in a cage. Its throat feathers were ruffled, its beak cracked open as it examined me with bright black eyes. Its cage was secured with a fat padlock and covered with toys made of nuts and bolts and carabiners, things to twist and open.
It cocked its head to the side, examining me with my face flushed, the startled exclamation still on my lips—and it broke out into cackling, almost human laughter.
“Asshole,” I muttered.
“He gets that a lot,” Liam said, deeply amused.
Dr. Kapoor gave the bird a fond smile, and I remembered what Liam had said about her “feathered children.” “This is Moriarty,” she said.
“Hello, hello,” Moriarty croaked, and shifted from foot to foot. Then he chortled, his beak jerking spasmodically, his feathers puffing out around him. He flapped his wings twice, then settled back into a piercing, silent regard.
“Does he have scientific value, or do you keep him around to scare visitors?” I asked, giving him a dire look. He cracked his beak in what I could swear was a mocking smile.
“Mostly the latter,” Dr. Kapoor replied. “He’s an excellent mimic. He’s managed to convince more than one undergrad the LARC is haunted. I trust you’re made of sterner stuff.”
“I am, definitely,” I said, trying to sound both confident and obedient and like I hadn’t just gotten panicked by a glorified Halloween prop. Behind his mom’s back, Liam threw me an exaggerated thumbs-up and a great job nod, and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at him.
Dr. Kapoor snorted. “Let’s see how long that earnestness lasts when you’re trying to count chicks from a hundred yards away in a driving rain. All right. The red-throated tern nests in spring. Eggs hatch in May and June. You’ve come at the tail end of hatching, which means we’ve got hundreds of gray fluffballs to locate, identify, and document. It is simple and boring work, and I do not yet trust you not to fuck it up. So you’re going to observe today, and get familiar with the other side of the island.”
“Belaya Skala?” I asked.
“You know why it’s called that?” she asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. “Whatever idiot ‘discovered’ this place thought the rocks on the headland were covered in snow in the middle of summer. Thus, ‘White Rock.’ Turns out it wasn’t snow. It was bird shit. But for some reason they decided ‘Bird Shit Rock’ lacked poetry. So they stuck with Belaya Skala and Gorkaya Skala for the two halves of the island.”
“Gorkaya Skala is Bitter Rock?” I asked.
“Indeed. And the translated version stuck as the name for the whole island when Alaska became part of the United States,” she confirmed.
“The Russians did have another name for the island,” Liam said. His mother shot him A Look, but he just grinned. “Ostrov Dyavola. The Devil’s Island.”
“Why would they call it that?” I asked, mouth dry.
“Superstition and sensationalism,” Dr. Kapoor snapped. “There’s no way over to Belaya Skala by foot, so we go by boat. I’ll meet you at the dock in ten minutes. Liam? You’ll come along.” It had a very so I can keep my eye on you undertone to it. This was apparently a dismissal, because she headed out the door without another word. My nerves were jangling, but I’d survived my first face-to-face meeting with Dr. Kapoor.
“She has that effect on everyone,” Liam said, misreading my expression as general intimidation. “She’s not the warm-and-nurturing type, but she’s fair and she doesn’t get pissed for no reason, and she’s always willing to help if you need it. She’s just not friendly about it.”
I wondered how much of that was different for her son. Something in the tight way he looked at her told me her standards were even stricter for family.
“So. You ready for Belaya Skala?” Liam asked. I must have looked uncertain, because he laughed. “Don’t worry. The only thing over there is a bunch of birds and graves.”
“Graves?” I asked.
“Well. Not literally, I guess. They never did find the bodies,” he said.
“Which ones?” I asked.
“It’s a bit unsettling that you have to ask,” he replied.
“More than a bit.” We stepped out into the hall. “Nice to meet you, Moriarty,” I called.
And then in a crooning, feminine voice, plucked from my memory and garbled by time, the raven replied. “Bye-bye, little bird.”
7
LIAM WALKED ME out of the building and down a trail that snaked along the cliffside at the northern end of the island. Despite the clouds in the east, the sky above the island was clear, and the sun made the water gleam. Still, the wind threatened to push the storm our way, so we were both wearing rain shells just in case.
“What do you think Abby’s deal is?” Liam asked as we walked, picking our steps carefully along the steep path.
I gripped the strap of my bag in a stranglehold and tried to sound casual. “You heard her. Some school project.”
“Seems like a lot of effort. And over the summer too.”
“Maybe it’s one of those funky private schools for rich kids,” I said.
“I doubt it. I’ve gotten kicked out of several of them. I like to think I can spot their denizens, and Abigail Ryder doesn’t fit the bill.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Does that mean you’re rich?” I asked, hoping to get him off the subject of Abby and talking about himself. With most people, it was the quickest way to derail a conversation you didn’t want to have.
“Old family money,” Liam said. “Tainted money, according to my mother, since the only reason we have it is that my grandfather died before he could disown her. She gave most of it away, but Dr. Kapoor convinced her to use some for my education. Whenever I get kicked out, Mum’s torn between disappointment and glee that I’m squandering her father’s money.”
“Did he disown her because of Dr. Kapoor?” I asked, genuinely curious now.
“No, it was because she argued against the Oxfordian theory of Shakespearean authorship in her thesis.” I stared at him, and he laughed.
I rolled my eyes. “You know, it’s not fair. With that accent you sound very authoritative.”
“Only to an American. Though this country is growing on me for that very reason.”
Down at the dock, Kenny was packing gear into a skiff with the name KATYDID stenciled on the side. Kenny looked up as if surprised to see us. For a minute I wondered if he hadn’t known I was coming, but then I realized it was his default expression.
“Oh, hey. Good morning, you two. Sophia, I forgot to ask if you like coffee.”
“Yep. But I left mine in the car, sadly,” I said.
Kenny bent over and extracted a long thermos from an army-green bag. “Vital scientific equipment. Never leave base without it.”
&nbs
p; “You’re a treasure,” I told him, meaning it.
Kenny smiled. “We look after our own out here. And you’re one of the flock now.”
I wished in that moment that I was really the person I was pretending to be—a girl with a passion for birds and a bright future ahead of her. But without a past, I couldn’t have a present, much less a future. I didn’t know who I was—or who I wanted to be.
I helped hand Kenny the last of the bags, waiting as he maneuvered each into place in an arrangement that seemed to be exacting but looked like a messy heap to me.
“Everything stowed?” a voice said behind us. I turned to see a man in a long-sleeved tee. He was a big man, solidly built, with salt-and-pepper hair that was tousled—not like Kenny’s and Liam’s genuine what is this ungodly hour look, but carefully sculpted with gel, matched by a meticulously trimmed goatee. Abby stood next to him, her hands jammed in her pockets and a knit cap covering all but a fringe of her dark hair.
“You must be Sophia,” the man said, holding out his hand. “I’m William Hardcastle. Call me Will.”
I should have reached for it. I should have shaken his hand, said it was nice to meet him, smiled. But I was frozen. Because I’d met William Hardcastle, though I hadn’t realized it before. I hadn’t recognized the photo or the name. But I knew that voice. How did I know that voice? Why did it send a shiver of fear down my spine? The fear was corrosive, acid trailing down my vertebrae. And with it came a whisper, almost real enough to hear—hide.
But he couldn’t know who I was, could he? Hardcastle had been here with my mother, but I was only three years old in 2003. My hair had been dark brown, not blonde. You could see the resemblance if you were looking for it, but I didn’t think that a shared first name would give me away.
Our Last Echoes Page 5