I nod in understanding. Islanders need compasses for our hills and paths little more than one might need a compass in one’s own house.
“Do you think he could’ve been meeting anyone? Or that someone brought him there?”
“Careful, Moira.” Brendan smirks. “You’re beginning to sound like your father.”
My brow furrows. I stare at the carved sirens on the church wall. Their mouths are open wide, revealing teeth of jagged wood splinters. Brendan clears his throat, and his voice is rough as he continues. “People always thought he had one foot in the sea. They’ll say the same of you if you carry on like this.”
I look at him: another dark shadow amid the rubble of the church. “Do not patronize me, Brendan Sheahan.”
“Then don’t interrogate me.” His cigarette burns red in the dimness, and I watch more ash flutter to the ground. “You’re looking for something that isn’t there. This—this is sirens, through and through.” A pause. Quieter, he says, “This is just the way of things.”
I feel a sudden loneliness, sitting beside Brendan, in the pews of a long-forgotten church. My heart aches for things beyond my grasp, for something I could not even name. I simply want.
Straightening up, I smooth a hand over the front of my coat. “Thank you again,” I say, though I don’t know what I’m thanking him for. Talking with Brendan has made me more uncertain than assured.
He smiles. “I’ve nothing else to do. Haven’t even been back to the docks yet.”
His voice sounds strange in this place, echoing off the stone walls. The air here is thick with smoke and dust, magic and time.
I take a step toward him, hand outstretched, and hesitate. I don’t know what I can say to this boy. Brendan Sheahan, who spoke as if his own words did not hurt him.
“I only want to help,” I say finally. Without waiting for a reply, I start back through the shadowed nave. Just as I come to the door, I hear the strike of a match in the darkness.
There are times, brief moments, when I think of Twillengyle as a balancing scale, poised carefully between kindness and cruelty. But now—perhaps for the first time—I find myself wondering if the scales ever tipped.
And if they did, which side is tipping now.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I MEAN TO HEAD for the lighthouse after meeting Brendan, but somehow I end up at the old well. It’s in a little courtyard by St. Cecilia’s, away from the shops and stalls cluttering the main road.
No one ever comes here.
Most say it’s haunted by long-dead spirits, but I know the real reason why everyone avoids the well is because of the siren story attached to it. The tale is told to children at bedtime, or whispered among a circle of friends on the verge of a dare.
It’s said that decades ago an islander came to this well to fetch some water. Sometimes he is named Ian, other times it’s Isaac, but by all accounts he is dirt poor and lonely, a ragged soul cast out on the fringes.
So he arrives at this well, drops down his bucket, and begins to hoist it back up. Only when he does, he hears a voice, beautiful and echoing, coming from the depths below. He thinks it’s someone trapped, but it is not—everyone knows it is not—and the man peers over the side.
He calls back to the voice, and the voice answers in song. It’s the most gorgeous sound he’s ever heard; the man barely even notices when the siren rises from the darkness and drags her claws across his skin. She steals him away into the well, and neither are seen again.
So no one uses it, because after so many years there might still be a siren waiting inside.
It’s not that I use it either, but I’ve always liked coming here. A stone bench is next to the well, sheltered under the branches of an ash tree. I brush some dried leaves from the stone and sit down.
Not too far off, I hear people, their voices and footsteps carrying with the wind. But there’s no one in sight. If there were, they’d only look at me strangely, wonder what I’m doing so close to a siren-haunted well. Or perhaps not. I am my father’s daughter after all.
Brendan’s words echo back to me: People always thought he had one foot in the sea. They’ll say the same of you if you carry on like this.
Gavin Alexander was often seen as odd. People didn’t understand why he couldn’t let things alone—not realizing that my father hoped to better the island with his research. He knew of the dangers, but he also knew sirens belonged in our waters. I can only imagine what he’d think about an islander trying to frame them for their own wrongdoing.
I watch a leaf flutter up to the side of the well, turning over the case in my mind. I always arrive at the same questions. Why would someone kill Connor? Why frame the sirens? If there was something to be gained by killing him, I couldn’t begin to guess at what.
Jude finds me eventually. Just as he always does. When he reaches the bench, he removes his cap, coming to a standstill before me. He looks neat and pressed, but his eyes still have that glazed shine to them, telling of his headache. Quietly, he says, “You weren’t at home.”
“So you thought you’d wander Dunmore all morning?”
He winces. “Moira,” he says, “I’m so—”
“You did a fool thing last night, Jude Osric.” Looking away, I set my gaze on the leaves falling from the ash tree. A hard wind blows in off the sea, heavy with salt. The chill of it sneaks past my collar and into my bones.
“I came to apologize.” Jude takes a step forward, casting his eyes down. “I know it was thoughtless of me. I can only hope I wasn’t too much of a bother.”
“You mean to tell me you don’t remember?”
He rubs the back of his neck. “I remember enough.” He flushes. “I wish you hadn’t seen me that way.”
I brush more leaves from the bench and pat the space beside me. Jude glances at the well before taking a seat. Bracing his hands on the stone, he asks plaintively, “Why do you come here?”
This isn’t the first time he’s found me by the well.
The graveyard is a sea of people dressed in dark suits and dresses, black gloves and netted veils. I run out the gates, wet grass slipping under my feet, and Jude runs after me. I curl up beside the stone well, my hands pressed to my eyes. “Don’t say it’s all right,” I whisper. “Don’t say it.”
Jude remains silent for a moment. Then, in a voice as quiet as my own, he says, “Of course it’s not.” He embraces me, and he seems so much older, so much kinder, so much of everything I am not. I cry into his shoulder, and Jude doesn’t say a word about it.
Now I scuff my heel against the ground and tell him, “I met up with Brendan Sheahan.”
Jude lets out a sigh. “What did he have to say?”
“He doesn’t know what Connor was doing down there. Or anything else really. I couldn’t get many answers out of him.”
I watch Jude’s hand skim back and forth over the stone. His gaze fixes on the base of the well. “What of the person you saw last night? The one following us?” He looks at me, studying my face. “Or did I dream that?”
“No. That was quite real.” I swallow, recalling the terror in my heart as I tugged Jude down the hillside. “Though whether they were following us—whether it was indeed Connor’s murderer—I can’t say.”