“So what if they are? Why does what other people think of you matter so greatly? Usually if someone doesn’t like you, they shouldn’t matter to you, and if they do, they’ll tell you they’re upset and you can make it right.”
I don’t say anything. I’m staring at the ground, my chin pressed against my shoulder. The material of my shirt is so scratchy and hot, it must be giving me a rash.
“Adrian,” Monty finally prompts, and when I still don’t say anything or move, he adds, “Are you going to look at me?”
I laugh without thinking. “You sound like Father.”
Monty pivots sharply from me, shoulders rising. I swallow. Now that I have something I should apologize for, I don’t make a sound. He rubs a hand over his cheek, like he’s massaging a bruise, then says, his voice peevish, “How about thank you instead of sorry? Thank you for tending me all the way here and making sure I don’t starve or worry myself to death. Or maybe thank you for taking eighteen years of getting knocked about so you didn’t have to? I was apparently such a disaster that even the mess that you are looks good by comparison.” He starts to turn away, then seems to think of something else to say, and spins to face me again. “You know, when I was your age, I didn’t have anyone to play nursemaid when I went off on a magical quest to justify my insanity—I had to drink myself stupid and try to work up the courage to slit my wrists.”
I’m going to be sick. I consider pushing past him to get inside, but he might grab my arm or step in my way and I might end up punching him in the nose without meaning to like I did with Richard Peele, so instead I turn away from him, back to the street.
“Adrian, wait,” Monty calls, but I keep walking. My eyes burn. I don’t care if he knows he hurt me, and I don’t care if he regrets it—I hope he does. We’ve had maybe two nice moments since we left England and survived imprisonment by a pirate governor and I saw his ass more than I would have liked and I stupidly thought that meant we shared some kind of comradery or at least might have bonded over the ordeal of it all.
“Adrian, stop. Where are you going?” Monty calls. Not an apology—though any sincere apology would be pointless, as it would require him to change his entire personality. “Adrian!”
“I’ve got to piss,” I snap over my shoulder, the words punctured by my uneven breath. Why am I suddenly wheezing? I can’t get a deep breath no matter how hard I try, and every aborted attempt just makes it worse, a reminder of my body’s failings.
I keep walking until I reach the end of the street, out of sight of our lodgings. I stop in a space between two shops, dotted with patchy grass and overlooking a steep hill that rolls into the sea. Below me, a group of children plays in the waves, leaping into the white crests with their arms spread and shrieking with laughter as the water carries them back to shore.
I sit down and put my hands on either side of my head, wondering if I can press hard enough to squeeze out the noise. Maybe I can pop my own head like an overripe grape and then finally I’ll stop obsessing about everything for once in my goddamn life. Maybe I will stop trying to force Monty to feel anything for me other than contempt, or hang all my stupid hopes on the one small hook that he someday might. It’s like trying to hear the words I love you in the rattle of a shaken jar of buttons.
I take the spyglass from my pocket and hold it up to the sea. In the twilight, the crack down the side looks like a trench, bottomless and dark. Anger strikes me suddenly, like an idea rather than an emotion. If this was important, why didn’t she tell me? Long before she went to Scotland, if she knew there was a chance she had crossed paths with something cursed that might soon come calling for me as well, she could have at least mentioned it. If there was something I was meant to do or find or protect for her once she was gone, she should have goddamn told me. I shouldn’t be here. This shouldn’t be my responsibility.
It feels like an act of tremendous rebellion to raise the spyglass to my eye and peer through it. I don’t know what I expect to see there, what forbidden images she kept from me. But there’s nothing. Not even a distorted view of the horizon. Just darkness. I drop the spyglass back into my lap. I want to fling it into the sea. I want to be rid of it. I want to be rid of carrying her around with me like stones in my pockets. But I also want to rub them smooth with my thumbs, hold them in my hands so they don’t fall out along the path. I’m not sure if it’s worse to remember or forget.
I sit on the overlook until the stars begin to appear, peppering the sky like straight pins stuck into dark fabric. The breeze off the water turns chilly and picks up handfuls of sand from the beach that sting my eyes. If I had found a better place, I might stay there all night. Instead, I stand up, brushing seagrass from my trousers, then turn and head back for the inn.
It is somehow both a tremendous relief and a tremendous disappointment to arrive in the common room and find that Monty has not waited up for my safe return. The innkeeper is asleep behind his desk with his head down, and the barroom is empty. The whole place feels too dark and too empty, like I’m the only one here. My skin crawls. I climb the stairs carefully, feeling with each toe before I step for fear of tripping, then let myself into my room.
It’s ransacked. My knapsack has been turned inside out and sliced across the bottom, leaving a ragged tear. Every garment I packed has been scattered, as though a clothesline was caught by the wind. The sheets have been pulled off the mattress, every drawer in the small bureau pulled out and the bureau itself cracked open. Tom Jones sits pages-down on the floor, its spine broken. It looks like a bird shot from the sky.
I freeze, my hand still on the knob. Have I been robbed? If so, the thieves must have been sorely disappointed, for all my banknotes and travel documents were with me. The only thing they could have taken was socks and a tin of English tea. Was it just my apartments that were targeted, or the whole place? Surely someone heard this robbery in progress—we stopped by before we went to meet George, so whoever did this must have been here not that long ago. There must have still been people in the bar, or someone in an adjoining room must have been woken by the noise and come to investigate.
Monty.
I slam the door to my room and dart down the hall to his. “Monty!” I pound open-handed on the door. “Monty, wake up. I think I’ve been robbed. Someone’s been in my room. They went through my things. Monty!”
The door swings open, and I’m face-to-face not with Monty but a man with a scarf pulled up to the bridge of his nose. He has a cutlass drawn. Behind him is a second man, pinning Monty against the wall with the flat of his own cutlass blade. My brother has his hands up in the universal gesture of don’t shoot. Though don’t stab is more appropriate here.
Monty gives me a little wave, hands still raised. “Bandits, yes, definitely aware.”
The man who opened the door reaches for me, and I dodge without thinking. Before he can follow, I slam the door. He’s not all the way clear of the frame, and there’s a crunching noise as it strikes him in the nose. I hear him howl in pain but don’t hang about to check the damage. I turn for the stairs and run, sprinting down them two at a time. I jump the last few and land wrong on my ankle, losing my footing and pitching hard into one of the bar stools. They fall like dominoes, one after the other. Above me, I hear a door slam and the heavy treads on the stairs as one of the bandits chases me. I don’t have time to run—nor truly anywhere to go—so I crawl behind the bar, pressing myself into the darkness beneath a rack of the kind of small cups our mint tea was served in.