“Oh, it’s really the only thing I know how to do well,” I say. It sounds less glib and self-depricating than I had hoped it would.
She crosses her arms, studying me, then blows out a sharp puff of air to dislodge a strand of hair that’s snagged on her spectacles. “Upstairs, first door on the left, there’s a spare bedroom,” she says. “Get some sleep. I’ll stay up with Monty.” I start to reach for the kettle again, but she says firmly, “And I’ll make the tea. Would you like something to help you sleep? I know it’s been an eventful night.”
I shake my head, and she considers me again, top to toe with her cheeks pulled in. I half suspect that, once she’s completed her inventory, she’s going to tell me to stand up straight in that authoritative tone that reminds me of my father, but then she says, “And in case I didn’t say it, I’m very happy to meet you. I’m not sure what circumstances have brought you here, but I’m glad you are.”
I smile faintly. “Me too.”
She laughs suddenly, a sound so unexpected I jump. “You’ve got the—” She presses her finger to her cheek, and it takes me a moment to realize she’s talking about my dimple.
“Oh. Yes.” I brush my face self-consciously, but she smiles and I realize she has the same, but on the opposite cheek. My sister and I, our faces a closed set of parentheses.
Then, suddenly, she’s hugging me.
It’s a rubbish hug—she pins my arms to my sides and holds me like one might take hold of a sack of heavy flour before hoisting it. She stays there for too long, and when we part, some of the blood from her shirt has blotted onto mine. I wonder how long it’s been since she hugged someone. I wonder if she minds.
I haven’t properly slept in days, but sleep still eludes me, even once I’m in bed. A bed that isn’t mine, my long shirt twisting up every time I roll over. My clothes are trying to strangle me, but I’m too mortified to sleep naked. This is, after all, a stranger’s house—she may be my sister, but she’s still a stranger—and each time I consider it, my mind supplies a dozen scenarios in which I’d be forced to rise completely undressed. Outside, the storm intensifies. There’s no glass in the windows, just a thin sheet of muscovite across the frame, and it trembles when the rain strikes it. The uneven plate makes the shadows ripple like the surface of a pond. I keep feeling the room tip, the phantom ship deck beneath me rocking in the grip of the squall. I’m finally dozing when a shout from downstairs sends me sitting bolt upright in bed, though everything is then so quiet I can’t discern whether I actually heard it or it was merely the prologue of a dream.
When I do sleep, my dreams are of the ocean and a ship the color of fog, a long-haired woman at its prow. I wake suddenly with a gasp. My throat is burning, and I can’t catch my breath, like I’ve just been pulled from the water after too long below the surface. My ears ring, and when I sit up, a stream of water runs down my face. I can taste the salt when it settles on my lips.
I have woken gasping, soaked in the sea.
Even after I realize it’s only the rain leaking through a hole in the thin roof, I can’t entirely release that surety.
I pull my legs up to my chest and press my forehead against them, squeezing my eyes tightly shut. I’m going insane. I’m losing my mind. I can’t orient myself in reality, or separate the way I remember things from what actually happened. My feelings no longer align with what’s happening to me. I dreamed of the sea and woke unable to separate the dream from reality. I imagined an ocean in this room, and confused waking with surfacing and no matter how vehemently I remind myself it’s impossible, every time I swallow I still taste the salt. My throat is burning, crying out for water.
Or maybe I woke violently for a reason. Maybe something is wrong. I stand suddenly, throwing the bedclothes back with the enthusiasm of a bullfighter, red cape in hand. They fly off the bed, suspended for a moment before they float down, settling into the dimple at the center of the mattress that my body left. My head immediately begins to spin, and I have to sit again, both my feet planted on the floor and my head between my knees, trying to breathe. My skin feels like old paint, so dried out it will crack if I move too suddenly or in an unexpected direction. I need water.
I pull on my trousers and throw on my coat. I feel like an intruder slinking down the stairs of someone else’s home with no idea who else is awake or about or if I am supposed to stay in my room until there is some signal it’s the hour I’m meant to rise. I don’t even know what time it is.
Outside, the ground is pulpy. The thick grass covering the yard soaks my trousers as I cross to the pump and drop onto my knees in front of it. I suck down mouthfuls of warm water from my cupped hands, ignoring the ferric tang it leaves in the back of my throat, and when that’s not enough, stick my head under and drink straight from the spigot. It feels like I’ll never be satiated. I could have drained the well and still felt parched.
I force myself to stop when my stomach heaves, and I sink backward onto the grass, bloated and wondering if I’m about to vomit from drinking too much too quickly. The front of my shirt is soaked, and the water running down my chin makes me feel feral, like a wild animal that has raised its head from a gory carcass.
Behind me, I hear the kitchen door open. “Adrian!” I turn. Felicity is standing under the overhang of the porch, waving me over. “Did you drink that water?”
I freeze, halfway to my feet. “Should I not have?”
“No, no. Well.” She pauses, and I think I may vomit for a different reason. “You’ll be fine,” she says. “But I’ve got fresh water here. Come out of the rain.”
The kitchen is warm and smells of mint. Felicity has placed a mismatched militia of basins and pitchers and ceramic cooking bowls around the room to catch the rain dripping through the leaking roof. A kettle is steaming on the stove, and she retrieves a mug from a rack hanging above the table. “Would you like tea? I’ll have scones soon—the oven’s still heating.”
When on earth did this woman have time to make scones? Perhaps I’ve slept a week without realizing it. Didn’t she stay up all night minding our brother—God, if I thought the phrase my brother was strange, our brother is even odder.
I take the mug of tea she offers, though my stomach gurgles unpleasantly. Why did you drink that water? I try a sip but my throat dries, all the taste washed away by the burn of salt against my tongue. I almost ask if she’s certain it’s sugar she’s added, but I watched her do it. She poured herself a cup of her own, and she’s drinking it like it’s ordinary tea. Which it is. Not tea distilled from the sea. I try to take another sip, but can’t do more than raise the cup to my lips.
We stand for a while in silence, Felicity drinking her tea, me pretending I am not incapable of drinking mine. I have a sense I should say something, but my brain feels swampy, my thoughts all sticking together. I feel like I’m standing beside myself in the kitchen, watching myself awkwardly leaning against the wall, my posture curled as a question mark. Maybe it’s the lack of sleep. The unfamiliar bed. The water I just drank.
Say something. Say anything.
Don’t ask about the pump water.
Felicity speaks before I can come up with something coherent. “Monty’s much better,” she says, and I realize I should have asked after him as soon as I came down. She must think me an ass for not. I try to take another sip of my tea as she continues, “I removed the infected skin and set the bone last night, which made a good amount of difference. And drained the abscess this morning.”