Dreaming (32 page)

Chapter 19

“Hold! Don’t anyone fire!”
Seymour
shouted.

There was a small flash of golden light behind the far wall. A flint. A moment later, light spilled over into the ruins.

One of Hunt’s men held a lantern high in one hand, his gun in the other, as he stepped over a low wall. It was the footman who had volunteered to follow whoever picked up the money.

“Look!” Hunt pointed at the altar. “The sack is gone.”

“What?”
Seymour
snapped his head around.

The money was gone.

“I didn’t hear a thing,” he murmured in disbelief as he walked toward the altar.

Hunt joined him. “Neither did I.”

Seymour
looked at the altar and spotted a single piece of paper that lay where the money had been. He reached for it.

“
Seymour
?”

“What?”

“Look.” Hunt’s voice was strained.

Seymour
pulled his gaze, and hand, away from the paper.

“The fog. It’s disappeared,” Hunt murmured.

Seymour
looked around him, and his jaw dropped.

The fog had evaporated, and the night couldn’t have been clearer. The moon shone down on the water and the plateau. Glittering into the night air was the call of puffins from the
cliffside
, and in the distance one could hear the pounding surf against the rocks.

But there was no wind. Had been no wind.

If was almost as if someone had just snapped their fingers and the fog vanished.

“Do you smell something?” Hunt asked.

Seymour
inhaled, then frowned. “What is that?”

“Some spice. Cider? No. Apples. . . . No, that’s not it either.”

“Cloves,”
Seymour
said after another breath of air. He scanned the area. There was no one in sight but Hunt’s men, and every last one of them looked as befuddled as he felt.

One of the men crossed himself. Another was whispering the Twenty-ninth Psalm. A chill ran through
Seymour
, and he felt the sudden need for those amulets he’d tossed away.

“Should we separate and try to find where they went?” the young footman asked.

Seymour
looked at Hunt, who also stared in bewilderment at the clear sky. He frowned in speculation. “Odd. Very odd.”

“Isn’t it,”
Seymour
agreed.

Hunt shook his head slightly, then looked at the footman. “If we didn’t see or hear them, I doubt we’ll find them now.” He cast a glance at the paper still lying on the altar. “What does the note say?”

Seymour
held it up to the dim lantern light, squinting. “Only two words.” He turned back and met Hunt’s worried gaze with a relieved smile. “Devil’s Slide.”

Letty
sat quietly in a corner while
Phelim
,
Philbert
, and
Phineas
bickered over some source of amusement. Simon had busied himself by tying their only rope into a series of sailor’s knots with odd names such as Eve’s apple and slip of the tongue, while
Schoostor
practiced his sleight of hand by repeatedly plucking sixpence from the unknowing triplets’ pockets. A canine snore wheezed next to her, where Gus slept peacefully.

And Richard was still collecting wood.

She felt someone look at her and glanced over to the quiet corner where Harry had just been sitting. Silent. Too silent.

A few times she had felt him looking at her, and once she’d braved the beast and looked up. He was no longer gagged or tied, and he didn’t look as if he wanted to harm her.

Perhaps, she reasoned, that was because his hands weren’t in claws reaching for her neck. Because he wasn’t calling for his mother. And his eyes, while wary, weren’t flashing with sparks of rage.

But somehow she wasn’t quite certain that his antagonism toward her was so easily forgotten. Or forgiven. She chewed her lip, and her gaze traveled back to the cave entrance for the hundredth time.

No Richard. She sighed and stared out at the beach.

The fog had lifted. At least it appeared to have lifted.

One moment it was there, thick and wet, and, like smoke, it filled the entrance with a haze. The next time she looked she could see pearly moonlight glistening on the sea and stars sparkling on the horizon. A shiver ran over her, so she shifted to scoot closer to the fire.

On her left an odd shadow slowly crawled across the cave wall. She cocked her head and watched it move, asking herself what it looked like. A slug?

“A whale!”
Phineas
guessed enthusiastically.

Philbert
snorted with disgust and dropped his hands.

The shadow fell away.

“A whale? A
whale
! Ye be blinder than a
bleedin
’ bat!”

“Looked like a whale to me,”
Phineas
muttered. “And who be ye to jaw me dead over it.
Ye
were the one what called me rabbit a
bleedin
’ rooster.”

“
If’n
that were a rabbit, I be King George.”

“Then don
yer
crown,
Yer
Bleedin
’ Majesty, and bonk Betty White a dame with
yer
scepter. ’Cause, blimey,
if'n
it weren’t a rabbit!”

“Still looked like a rooster to me. Now see if ye
cain’t
figure this ’n out.”
Philbert
raised his hands, put one atop the other, and slowly rolled them as if they were floating on waves. The fire once again cast the moving humplike shadow on the cave wall.

“
Phelim
. Tell me,”
Philbert
demanded. “What be that to ye?”

Phelim
squinted at the wave. “It be the mighty bark the
Jenny Bee
, one o’ the finest ships to sail the sea!”

“Looks like a whale,”
Phineas
groused under his breath.

“It be a turtle!”
Philbert
was not pleased.

This was the third argument the triplets had had since the moment Richard left—the same moment time seemed to have stopped for
Letty
. It was no longer just minutes and hours, but
forevers
.

He had just walked away so coldly, as if it were necessary, something he had to do. And now she realized he was staying away because of what she’d said, or what she’d admitted. Whatever the exact reason, he was still saying away because of her.

Oh, he had avoided her before, in the past when she’d made such a cake of herself over him—least that was how her papa had phrased it. Cake or no, she had just needed to be near him, to see him, to be a part of his life no matter how small the part.

There were times, only a few years back, when just breathing the same air he did was enough to cause her foolish heart to skip a beat. But what in her youthful obsession had always been a challenge, a game, was now something that hurt her deeply. She could have followed him, but she knew it wouldn’t have done any good.

She stared at her tightly clasped hands. She could never quite say the correct thing with him. Do the right thing. A devastating thought, since he was the most important person in her life.

She asked herself if she could ever make him understand how she felt, if she could ever win even a small corner of the heart he claimed he didn’t have.

No answers came to her.

She stood up and stretched. She could feel Harry’s stare again. It made her a little cold, so she walked over toward the fire where she’d left their satchel of supplies.

The second Gus had noticed her direction, he was by her side, his ears flapping with his jostling trot like saddle flaps and his tongue lolling out to one side in anticipation of his obsession—food.

“Gus. You’ve had more to eat than any of us. Especially Richard.”

He growled once, then whimpered.

“Now go back over there and lay down.”

He sat back, then voluntarily flopped down and rolled over, his legs up, his head back, and his red-rimmed eyes giving her a hopeful pleading look.

“No.”

He closed his eyes and flopped his legs, playing dead.

“I said no.”

His eyes popped open and gave her one quick assessing look, before Gus sat up, then turned, his head hung down, and he plodded slowly back to his corner, where he lay down with his head away from her.

“Guilt won’t work,” she told him, then turned back, dropping the sack. She supposed she should wait for Richard before doling out more food. She stretched again, her muscles stiff from days of uncomfortable positions.

A second later Harry flew at her, his arms clamping hard around her and hitting her so hard with his body that they both fell to the ground. Pain shot through her back. Her breath flew from her lungs.

Dimly she heard him grunt from the impact before they rolled over and over the floor. He grabbed at her skirts, but she couldn’t scream.

“You son of a bitch!”

Richard.

The next second Harry was off her. Her vision cleared to see Richard towering over her with one hand on Harry’s throat.

He threw a powerful punch.

Harry broke from his hold and ducked, shouting in a hoarse croak, “Fire!”

Fire
?
Letty
looked down.

One side of her skirt was charred. She touched it, and the fabric crumbled black and
ashlike
in her hand. She had turned swiftly. The fire had been directly behind her.

Oh God . . .

Richard pinned Harry to the floor. The poor man couldn’t speak with Richard’s hands so tightly on his throat.

“Richard! Stop!” She ran over to them. “Stop! He wasn’t hurting me!”

“I’ll kill him! I’ll kill him!” was all Richard was saying.

She looked back but the others sat shocked, immobile. She quickly looked for something to get his attention.

She picked up a piece of fallen driftwood and banged the ground next to him. “Richard, stop! My skirt was on fire! He was saving me! Stop!”

Richard was beyond hearing anything.

She whacked the ground again even closer to his ear. “Richard!”

Harry’s face was red and he was making choking sounds.

“Stop! You must stop!” She raised the wood and closed her eyes.

At that same instant, Richard shifted. Unfortunately, he shifted to the left—to the exact spot where she brought down the wood with a powerful
thwack
!