I bite my lip. “Nothing, miss. I—I’m only trying to understand what happened.”
“Think it might be better if you minded your own.”
A flush rises in my cheeks. She doesn’t give me a chance to reply, as she continues. “Hear you’ve been caring for Wick.”
“That’s right.”
“How is he?”
I feel a flicker of irritation at her question—at the irony of Imogen telling me to mind my business only to prod her nose into mine. Then I realize it’s Jude she’s asking after, and his business is his own. The realization is an uncomfortable one, and my voice comes out stiff as I say, “He’s been resting.”
“Best get back to him, shouldn’t you?”
“Yes.” I nod. “Sorry to have kept you.”
Her expression softens. “Take care, Miss Alexander.”
I smile in return—the best I can under the circumstances—before starting back toward the lighthouse. I concentrate on the whistling of the wind, the rush of waves below the crag. Distantly, I feel the press of the investigation, the urge to visit the police station, as if I’ll see Thackery’s guilt writ upon his face.
To do that, though, I need Jude Osric.
With Jude bedridden, I am split in two, wedged between looking after him and protecting the sirens, worrying over his health and trying to find a killer.
In the evening, I travel up to his bedroom. The floor creaks beneath me, and Jude mumbles in his sleep. I pull the quilt up where it’s slipped from his shoulders. Bringing the back of my hand to his forehead, I find his temperature much improved. I sit in the chair by his bedside and tell him about my morning with Imogen, about Thackery being Nell’s suitor.
His hand rests on the pillow. I take it in mine, allowing myself this. I look at his closed eyes and imagine them blinking open.
But he sleeps, and then I do too, falling into dreams alongside him.
CHAPTER THIRTY
WHEN I SIT DOWN to breakfast the next day, Irving puts aside the morning paper, leveling his gaze on me. “Did you know,” he says, “that Jude has a telephone?”
I reach for a bread roll. “Oh, he made me well aware of it.”
The telephone—installed just last week—sits next to his telegraph machine in the watch room. Jude had spent a good hour admiring the device when it first arrived.
“Well, his uncle rang,” says Irving. “Told me he’ll be here by evening.”
I pause, butter knife in hand. “Jude will not be pleased about that,” I say flatly.
“That’s true enough.” Irving lifts the teapot, pouring tea into my waiting cup. “I don’t know the ins and outs of it, but I reckon Dylan must’ve done something awful for our Jude to turn away from him.”
My stomach churns as I wrap my hands around my teacup. Dylan Osric tortured a siren in Jude’s absence, leaving Jude to try to care for her. I’m not sure what he’ll do when he realizes we’ve returned her to the sea.
I glance toward the hall. “I ought to check on him.”
Quite unexpectedly, Irving tells me, “He’s awake.” When I snap my attention to him, he amends, “Or rather, he was. He found me in the watch room earlier. I sent him straight back to bed, though. He oughtn’t be climbing all those stairs.”
“How was he? That is, was he…?”
“He’s doing better, I’d say.”
I push away from the table, smooth a hand over my dress. “I’ll go up and see him.”
“Here, wait”—Irving pours out another cup of tea, adding milk and sugar to it—“take this up to him, eh?”
I carry the tea upstairs. In the hall, I hear nothing but silence from Jude’s bedroom. I ease open the door, and for a moment I see him as he was before I walked in. Sitting up in bed, he holds an old keeper’s manual, his head bent over it, one hand pressed flat against the page as he reads. His hair is damp and curling from the ewer, and he wears a wool dressing gown, hiding his bandages from view.
When he looks over, his eyes light up. It’s not the hectic burn of fever, but a glow that’s dark and warm and steady. He smiles just as bright. “Good morning, Moira.”
Stepping into the room, I close the door behind me. He sounds incredibly normal, worlds apart from the last few days. I bite the inside of my cheek, trying to keep my grin in check. “How are you feeling?”
“Like a wrung-out cloth,” he replies, sheepish. “But other than that…”
“It takes time. The song had you rattled for quite a while.” I put the tea on his nightstand, sitting down on the edge of his bed.
Jude turns away to set his manual beside the teacup. His left arm remains stiff at his side. I remember the slash marks as they looked at the harbor, deep and red. It must be agonizing.
He says, “It’s what I deserve, isn’t it? I kept that siren from the sea. She was suffering, and I didn’t… I could’ve…” His fingers work restlessly at the cuff of his dressing gown. I cover them with one hand, bringing the motion to a stop.
“This was an accident, a fluke. You’ve done nothing to warrant it.”
Untangling his hand from mine, he presses his thumb between my eyebrows, smoothing the crease I know is there. “I don’t mean to worry you, Moira.”
“And yet you do such a fine job of it.”
His mouth quirks.
“Mr. Irving made you tea,” I tell him. “You ought to drink it.”
He picks it up off the nightstand. His hand trembles a little as he does, and I study the shadows beneath his eyes, the slight flush across his cheeks.
“What was it like?” I say, the words taking shape in my mouth. “The song?”
Jude looks down into his teacup. “It was as if the world were slipping under me.”
“You were charmed?”
“I guess so.” His voice is quiet, strained, but he continues. “Nothing seemed to matter except getting back to them. It was like I wasn’t myself anymore. Like I didn’t know who I was.”
An uncomfortable heat burns in my chest. I don’t know what to say to Jude—I’m not even sure his response was the one I wanted—but his words hollow out a place deep inside me, and I know I need to answer.
“Of everyone on this island,” I say, “you deserved that least of all.”
“I don’t think I’d wish it on anyone, Moira.”
I can think of a few I’d wish it on. Dylan Osric, for one. Whoever helped him catch that siren. Whoever killed Connor and Nell in cold blood. I wish the sirens would steal them all into the cold blackness beneath the waves.
Casting my eyes to the floor, I ask, “What were you hoping to find on the beach?”
Jude leans back against the headboard. “I thought it strange how the police never made any arrests apart from me,” he says. “I—I thought… perhaps if I checked around where Nell died, I might find something.”
“I questioned Imogen—Detective Thackery was Nell’s suitor.”
Jude’s eyebrows go up. “Thackery?”
I swallow. “We need to find out what Connor knew. It could be evidence.”