An Inquiry Into Love and Death (28 page)

“But why? You’ve said you could stop the war. Why commit treason to start it?”

“Because if this new regime comes into power, if they overthrow the corrupt old government, then perhaps we’ll have peace. And if not . . . if they have the codebook and the advantage on us, if they have already won . . .” He shrugged, hopelessness in the gesture. “Perhaps we won’t fight.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but two things happened at once. First, a boat appeared out of the rain.

And second, another shot rang out, and William fell.

T
he rowboat jolted, and I lost my balance, landing hard on my elbow. William had gone down on the other side of the seat, and I couldn’t see anything but his crumpled legs. I dared not raise my head to go to him, so I called his name.

Above us, the boat William had been waiting for came out of the misting water. It was a fishing trawler. As it approached, I could see its peeling paint, the coils of rope on the deck, the water rushing past the hull. A man in a dark sweater and watch cap stood on the front deck, his back to us, gesturing to one of the crew I couldn’t see. He waved his arm once, twice.

I looked back at William’s legs, and for a wild moment I thought the Germans had shot him from the trawler. Then another shot hit the hull of the trawler, sending up a shower of splinters, and the man in the watch cap dropped to a crouch, his shouts faint over the sound of the engines and the ceaseless rush of the water.

I gingerly lifted my head. The shots were far too close to still be coming from the beach. I could see nothing.

The Germans were moving now. The ship began to turn.

I called to William again. I slid over the seat, crouching as low as I could, rolling to accommodate my tied hands. “William!”

He moved then, twisting onto his back, trying to get up. I struggled, wishing I could keep him down, even though he’d kidnapped me, even though he wanted to die. His coat was soaked with rain, and in the dark I couldn’t see blood.

“Are you hit?” I called to him.

He swore, seemed to come to himself again, and pushed himself up. “Where are they? Where are they?”

I thought he meant the shooters. “I don’t know,” I said, but he meant the Germans. Their boat had fully turned now and was steaming away. I could see the word
Cornwall
painted on the hull.

William shouted at them to stop until his voice was hoarse, but it was for nothing. The Germans, it seemed, had no interest in being shot at. In minutes they had receded out of range, and soon after that they were gone.

He sat heavily on the seat of the boat. His face was ashen. He hung his head for a long moment, his hands braced on his knees. Now I could see a darker stain spreading across the front of his coat, just under the breastbone.

We’d been drifting for too long now without anyone at the oars, and the boat was pitching wildly. We’d turned so the side of our hull went into the waves; the water sprayed over us with each assault, soaking us with freezing spray. The current was carrying us toward the mouth of the bay. We were headed toward the open water, where, even if I could get free and pick up the oars, I had almost no chance of fighting my way back to shore.

If I was to get free, I had to do it now. “Please,” I said to William, making my best attempt—ragged, I’m sure—to sound rational and sane. “Let me help you. Untie me.”

“I don’t want help,” he said, not looking at me.

I opened my mouth to try again, and then I stopped.

Over William’s shoulder, past the end of the boat and across the water, I was now facing the rocky shore at the outer edge of Blood Moon Bay. It was the jumble of overgrown, impossible terrain that I hadn’t thought anyone could navigate. Incredibly, there was a rowboat in the water there, and two figures pushing off.

This, then, was where the second volley of shots had come from—farther up the coast toward the ocean, in much closer range to our boat. Having hit William and chased off the Germans, the marksman and one other—I had my money on Drew and Teddy Easterbrook—were making their final play. They were coming to get me.

I glanced at William. He was struggling to raise his head, his breathing growing harder. He hadn’t seen them. I thought quickly. The men must know that William wasn’t armed; if he had been, he’d have shot back at them already. They must also see that the boat was drifting farther and farther out of the bay. They were coming in their own boat, betting on the fact that William was shot, that he was unarmed, that if he threw me into the sea, they’d get close enough to catch me before I drowned. It was far from a foolproof plan, but to wait until our boat disappeared was no plan at all.

They needed to get as close as possible before William saw they were there. I looked at the sick grimace of pain on my captor’s face and couldn’t help but think that if they got close enough, fast enough, Drew and Teddy could save him as well.

I tore my gaze from the oncoming boat before William could look up and forced myself to concentrate. “Please,” I said, making my voice sound as it had a moment before. “You’re hurt. You need help. If you’ll just untie me . . .”

“You haven’t been listening.” He looked up at me now. “I don’t want help. He’s done me a bloody favor.”

“It doesn’t have to be this way. You could reconsider. Or you could just let me go. I wouldn’t tell the police; I promise.” I was babbling to keep him distracted, but his brows came down in bemusement. Why would he care what I told the police after he’d killed himself? But fresh terror was making its way up my spine, robbing me of the ability to make sense. Behind him, the other boat had hardly made any headway at all. If I botched this now, before they even got close . . .

“Listen,” I tried again. “Listen—” But I had no chance to say more, for suddenly the boat rocked as something hit it from underneath. I fell against the side, my arms wrenching, and William was jolted off his seat.

I tried to get my legs under me, but the boat rocked again, harder, banging as if some strange leviathan were under the water, a white whale or a kraken or a—

I froze.

William pulled himself up and smiled at me. His nose was bloody, but he gave me a wide grin, almost beatific in its joyousness.

“Walking John!” he cried.

Something hit us again, and the boat rocked nearly sideways, creaking ominously as it rose from the water. I nearly slid over the side, my feet dipping into the icy bay to my ankles before we righted again. My arms were being wrenched nearly from their sockets, and my hands had long ago lost their feeling. My scream was carried away by the wind.

William’s hands were on me, pulling me up. He was still smiling. “It’s Walking John!” he said again, and suddenly he was jerking the rope from the oarlock, freeing my arms, though not untying my wrists. Blood from his nose dripped onto the rope as he worked. “He’s come. He’s come for both of us. Now we’ll see—”

The boat rocked again, and this time it arched up, rising over us into the moonlit sky, water spraying from the hull. I was paralyzed with terror, just as I’d been that night in the garden, just as I’d been that night as I ran through the woods to the beach. It was the terror that always accompanied the presence of Rothewell’s resident ghost.

The boat rose, rose over us. We tumbled back into the water. It sucked at me in an icy grip. I felt it hit my back, the back of my head, and then I went under.

The cold was unlike anything I’d ever felt, so shocking it no longer had anything to do with temperature, but was more like a slap or a clap of thunder in my body. I thrashed, kicking as hard as I could, winnowing upward with my tied hands. I could feel the current pulling me, and the cold, and—
What was that?

Panic pushed my body to the surface. The boat was a few feet away, righted and half-filled with water. I had just enough time to realize I couldn’t see William anywhere when another wave overtook me and put me under.

Again I pushed to the surface, focusing on bending my legs and kicking them out. I couldn’t use my arms, but I pointed them upward, as if that could pull me further. Bend and kick. Bend and kick. Again I broke the surface.

I couldn’t keep this up. Already my body was slowing, my thoughts beginning to fog in the cold. I had to get to the boat. I focused on pushing myself toward it—bend and kick, bend and kick—as the waves thrashed me and I swallowed water.
I will reach the boat,
I said to myself.
I do not want to die.

I could barely grip the side; my hands, already awkward, almost completely refused to work. I levered myself just far enough to hook my elbows over the edge, then thrashed with the last of the strength in my legs, pressing my face down into the water-logged bottom of the boat and hauling in the rest of my body. I gasped for air, curling into myself, trying futilely to get warm. The boat tossed under the dark, rainy sky.

I pushed myself up. I was shaking now, my teeth chattering. The boat with Drew and Teddy was still coming; it was closer now, and—though I half thought it was my imagination—I heard a shout.

Something came out of the water.

It was some twenty feet away. It lifted from the waves, a long, dark head, featureless in the shadows of the water. I got an impression of long hair, sodden, and narrow shoulders, a pointed nose and a smooth, black brow. It faced me, though I couldn’t see its eyes, and for a long moment it protruded perfectly from the water, utterly still as the waves crashed around it. I was speechless with fear, my throat closed. Then it lowered itself and was gone.

Closer to the boat, a hand came from the water. I crawled to the side and leaned over. The hand came again, and this time I grabbed it.

William’s face appeared, his eyes half-closed, his lips blue. He came to the edge of the boat. I helped him grasp it—he couldn’t grip it any more than I could—and then I leaned forward, clutching his coat with my tied hands. I pulled and pulled. I was frantic to get him out of the water, away from the thing I’d seen. I couldn’t lift him in.

“Jillian,” I heard him say.

“Just try,” I said. “I can pull you in. I can!”

“Jillian.”

“William, the ghost’s in the water somewhere! For God’s sake!”

He was looking into my face. His arms were hooked over the edge of the boat, the rest of him in the water. He laid his cheek against the wood and looked at me.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said. “It’s just his nature.”

“It isn’t over,” I heard myself say, though now I could barely feel my own face. “I won’t let it be.”

“He wants to sleep,” said William. The words were staccato, broken by the chattering of his teeth. “It’s all he wants. You saw the drawing. He asked to sleep.”

I tried again to grip him, but my hands wouldn’t work. “It’ll be all right.”

“Mind what I told you. You must mind it. It’s important. Jillian . . . it’s coming.”

When I realized he’d closed his eyes, I tried to shake him. “William!”

“It’s just his nature,” he said again.

“William!”

And then he was gone, slipped through my numb fingers, the fabric of his coat sliding under my numb palms. I tried to grasp him, tried to find some purchase, but there was none. He went under without a sound and disappeared.

I screamed. I howled into the wind, the sound from my throat unearthly. I hovered my useless hands over the water, waiting to grasp him as he came back up, willing him to surface again. He didn’t. I merely hung there, making a mad sound, as birds cried in the sky overhead.

He had kidnapped me, hit me, tried to kill me. I shouldn’t have felt anything but triumph. But all I could think of was how heavily it must have weighed on him all these years, believing as he did that another war was coming. It had suffocated him so much he had been desperate to die. No one deserved to suffer so.

Then the boat jerked, and I was flung back, landing hard in the water on the bottom. Walking John was coming again.

I shouted something foolish—
Stop
, perhaps, or,
Please
—and then I heard other voices in the wind. I pulled myself up to see Drew and Teddy’s boat rise from the water, just as mine had, and lower again. As the boat came up I saw that chilling black figure for just a second before it slipped under like a fish. The boat was so close now I could make out Drew’s big, broad body and the smaller, lighter-haired Teddy Easterbrook. They gripped the side of the boat as it came crashing down, as a wave came over the side.

Walking John was going to take us all.

My icy brain began to work. I still had my coat on; I twisted and shoved my hands in the inside pocket. There, incredibly—having survived this wild boat ride and a freezing dip in the water—were the small hawthorn branches I’d picked on the path on the way to the signal house, seemingly a year ago. My fingers closed over them and I yanked, snagging them on the lining of my pocket as I jerked them out.

I tried to keep my balance in the swaying waves as I set down the branches. With shaking hands, I put them on the rowboat’s seat—for the bottom was filled with nearly half a foot of water—and arranged them crosswise. I tried to remember stupidly what the book had said. Was there another rule? What was I supposed to do?

The wind and the waves wanted to wash my branches away, but I held them firmly in place until the boat came to a lull. Then I turned my back, folding my knees under me in the water. Over my shoulder I heard more shouts as Walking John again attacked Drew and Teddy’s boat.

For a second, the words utterly deserted me, as they do to an actor with stage fright. I blinked furiously, my mouth open, nothing coming forth. Then I remembered.

“John Barrow!” I shouted as clearly as I could. I prayed the branches had stayed in place behind me. “As one born in . . . in this place, I tell you now that you must leave. You are unwelcome here.”

I waited. Was that all of it? Was I supposed to say more? The shouts from the other boat had stopped, and I heard nothing.
The back must stay turned
—I remembered that much. I would not turn around.

There was no sound from the boat behind me: not a step, not a creak. But my breath stopped in my chest, and the sodden hairs tried to stand on the back of my neck. I gripped the side of the boat, fighting the urge to jump out, to do anything to get away.
In some cases,
the
boggart
will appear. The back must stay turned.

My arms shook; my hands burned; I knelt braced, locked in terror. He was behind me. I could
feel
it, the icy presence, the dangerous disturbance of the air. Walking John’s presence was like a knife slicing through the atmosphere of everything you knew, cutting it open. You looked through and you saw nothing but sadness, nothing but fear. And you had to look.