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I sat by his desk, knowing that by coming in, breaching his privacy, I had uncovered some things of importance. But I still did not understand. I must be careful if I questioned him, for he must not know I had been meddling.

I slammed the book shut, placed it as it had been, and ran for the door. Outside the storm leaped on me, and I battled it the few steps to his grandmother’s door.

It was still warm inside. I draped Eli’s coat again over the chair, lowered the wick on the lantern, and hung it back on its hook. The clock ticked, the fire yet burned. I crouched by the heat of it and said a jumbled prayer. So many names, so many deaths, so much evil.

Save me from this place,
I thought.
Save me.
I could not think to lie down again on the settle, but I reclaimed Eli’s coat from where it hung, put it on over his grandmother’s nightgown, pulled his quilt around me, and huddled on the floor by the fire.

I could not sleep. The names from Eli’s list slid up and down, endless columns that worried my brain.

Clifton McIntyre.

Mrs. Kitteridge.

The ships. The
Windhover,
the
Boniface.

Again I imagined Eli, back those three years, watching from the beach as the ship carrying his beloved parents slid off the rocks and into the sea.

Was that how it had been?

The heat from the turf I’d piled on the fire caused me to throw off the quilt.

I had to sleep. I had to have strength for tomorrow, for whatever was to happen.

Sleep, sleep,
I told myself, but each command to my mind made me more wakeful.

At last I arose and padded quietly around the room.

I touched the wooden chairs one by one. They were certainly handcrafted. Had Eli made them? I stood by the table, looking at the wooden bowls of herbs and leaves, the small bottles containing different potions that did different things. I picked up the one that held the white sleeping potion.

One hour of sleep to strengthen me for tomorrow.

I held the small bottle to the firelight. The liquid inside was tranquil, innocent as sleep itself. Should I wake Mrs. Stuart and ask if I might have that one drop? Surely she would give it. But what if she said no?

I stood, staring at the bottle, tipping it this way and that so the milky fluid moved inside. It must be safe. Mrs. Stuart herself had used it now and then. One drop to clear my head of all things horrible. That was all.

There was a sound.

Dear heaven, Mrs. Stuart was stirring! She would see me there, like a common thief! I took a step toward the settle, realized that I still held the bottle, and hastily slipped it into the pocket of Eli’s coat.

The sound I had heard came again, a scuffling of feet and then a thump thumping on the door and a loud voice, shouting my name. “Josie Ferguson! Josie Ferguson!”

I knew that hard, angry voice. My uncle Caleb.

The quilt lay in a heap by the fireplace. I took hold of it, wrapped it about me, and crouched behind the settle.

Mrs. Stuart was fully awake. “Who’s there?” she called.

“It’s my uncle,” I whispered.

She made a sign for me to stay quiet.

“Let me in, Missus Stuart, or by my soul, I’ll have you in jail!” His roar was louder than the storm’s fury, every word filled with rage.

“Go away, Caleb,” she shouted back. “’Tis past midnight.”

The pummeling and the voice became louder.

“You’ve got my niece in there. Give her here! I am her rightful guardian.”

“Not tonight. She’s—”

The lock gave way to a punch or a kick, and in a howl of wind, my uncle burst inside. He wore a long black coat buttoned from collar to hem. Unconfined by a cap, his hair hung in oily strings on his shoulders. He was a demon of darkness, the evil one. I heard the squelch of his boots as he strode toward me. The spots that ringed his ears, those terrible ears, flared crimson.

I stood and held the quilt up before me like a shield, but he tore it from my grip and tossed it on the settle.

Eli’s grandmother put herself between us. “Caleb, I will make you a promise. I will bring her to you in the morn. ’Tis a fierce storm, and the lass has endured more of a shock than a body could bear. Let her be!”

“Put on your clothing, girl. You’re coming with me.”

“I am not—” I began, but he seized hold of my arm and yelled, “You have no need of clothing,” and dragged me the way I was, in the nightgown that belonged to Eli’s grandmother, in her grandson’s coat, out through the broken door, into the night.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I
WAS PULLED, HALF RUNNING,
half falling, my bare feet scraping the ground.

“Let go of me!” I shouted into the wind.

His grip tightened.

I wrenched my arm free, trying to swing it at his head, but I could not reach and instead hit his chest, which caused him only to imprison my arm beneath his elbow.

Eli! Eli! Where are you?

Below, on the beach, the dark shapes went back and forth, carrying objects I could not identify. The man and woman lay as I’d seen them earlier, stretched out on the sand.

Somewhere, out on some rocks, perhaps on the Sisters, seals were barking.

“I saw!” I shouted at my uncle. “You are a murderer, you and all of them!”

“Hush your mouth!” he yelled. “Not another word!”

He flung open the door of Raven’s Roost and thrust me inside with such force that I staggered and fell.

The room was sleet-cold, the fire out. The floor beneath me was a sheet of ice.

And there was my aunt Minnie, gathering empty bottles that clanked and clattered, some rolling away from her on the table, some falling to the floor. It was a scene from an ordinary kitchen, and she could have been an ordinary housewife. She paid no more mind than if I were invisible. I moved to stand, but before I could, Lamb was crouching over me, teeth bared, a growl of fury in his throat.

“Aunt!” I screamed, my scream setting Lamb to snap, his open jaw inches from my face.

“Leave her be, dog,” she ordered, and Lamb drew back. “He is angry at you,” she said. “He did not relish being locked in the storeroom.”

I felt sweat, cold terror sweat, and I edged away from that open maw, sliding sideways like some panicked animal.

“Eli Stuart must have been here,” my aunt added. “No one else would dare interfere with my dog.”

Lamb lay down on his belly. Was it the very mention of Eli’s name that had made him so suddenly submissive?

“Get up, girl!” my uncle said. “Rise and explain yourself.”

He shrugged off the heavy coat, and I saw beneath it a thick sailor jersey with the words
LIVERPOOL LASS
writ large across the chest.

Liverpool Lass!
A name from Eli’s list.

“I have no need to explain to you,” I said. “I do not wish to stay here, in this house of murderers.”

My uncle raised a fist, but Aunt Minnie laid a hand on his arm.

“Get upstairs,” she ordered me. “Put on some clothing, come back down. We have not finished with you.”

“It will ill behoove you to leap from that window again,” my uncle said. “It will be Lamb who’ll go after you this time.”

My aunt stepped around me, paying me no heed. She wore trousers and a heavy jumper, like my uncle’s but with no name on it.

I crawled to the chair and pulled myself up, shaking, my legs so weak they could scarce carry me. Mrs. Stuart’s nightgown was ripped and dirty along the hem. My feet were bleeding. I limped to the stairs, conscious of the three pairs of eyes watching my progress, my uncle’s, my aunt’s hard brandy-ball stare, Lamb’s green glower, all of them malevolent. Not a one of them had commented on Eli’s coat.

I went to my room that was not mine and never would be.

Wind still blew through the window that was empty of glass. My uncle had warned me not to escape through it again, but I knew I could not, even had I so wished. I was drained of energy, my body hurting from the fall on the hard floor, my mind weeping. More than anything, in that moment, I wanted my mother.

I had to get away from there! And I would. I had to clear my head of other thoughts and plan.

I stumbled to the dresser and opened the drawer where I’d placed my purse, containing three sovereigns and eight shillings.

The purse was empty. I groveled around the drawer, searching in every corner, then in every drawer. The money was gone.

For a moment, I was too stunned to think. Then I became filled with outraged anger. They had taken them! There was no one else. Had they taken my mother’s brooch? Forgetting my pain, I hurried across to where I’d left it pinned to the neck of my nightgown. It was still there. I unpinned it and took it in my hand. It seemed as if it held all the memories in my world, all the love.

I kissed the pin and set it on the bed, then took off Eli’s coat and my nightgown and laid them beside it.

A dry chamise and pantaloons were in the drawer of the dresser, the one below where I had hidden my gold coins. I found stockings that came above my knee.

Hanging on the rail was my woolen dress, green and black plaid, and I put it on. There were pockets in it, tied decorously with drawstrings, and I pinned my brooch inside one, hidden from sight.

My feet were scratched and muddy. I wiped them as best I could before I pulled on my stockings and shoes. Pray Lamb’s bite did not get infected again. I took Eli’s coat in both hands and buried my face in it. “Eli,” I whispered. “Eli.” I would not weep. I would not. There was a lump in the pocket. The sleeping potion! I held it and stood still, staring at it. My breath had stopped but my brain was suddenly alert. This potion could be my way out. Depending on how I used it. I would have to be clever. More clever than they were.

I rolled the little bottle that held the potion in my empty kerchief, placed it in the pocket of my dress, and tied the drawstring tight. My mother’s brooch was also in that pocket. It seemed an omen. How could I fail?

But for now, I must go down the stairs to face them.

One of them had started a fire. The room had some semblance of orderliness, the chairs back in their places, the empty brandy and ale bottles neatly arranged against the wall. The prayer candlestick stood stately in the center of the table. My aunt was cooking something over the fire. I smelled finnan haddie. My uncle stood, arms folded, his ear growths red as sparks from the fire.

I could not help but stare at them.

His fingers traced the lumps. “You want a closer view?”

I took a step back.

“Everyone gawps at them,” he said. “I’m used to it. I was born with them. I’m told that even the midwife who attended my mother at the birth screamed at the sight of them. A sign, she said. A sign of what? I’m an apothecary. I have tried potions, elixirs, even the piss of a donkey that some old woman told me about. I have rubbed and massaged these abominable growths. Once when I was but ten years of age, I took a butcher knife to rid myself of them.” His fingers rubbed the lumps, caressing. “Give them a good examination,” he hissed. “I sliced the top two off before the blood blinded me.”

I forced myself to look. “Yes. I see the two scars,” I said as evenly as I could. “I am sorry.”

“Aye. Your father was sorry, too. Him with his two good ears on him. He rushed in and wrestled the knife from me afore I could finish. They’d have been all gone by now. It was his fault. All of it his fault. And they praised him. They said he had saved my life, his little brother’s life.”

I had never heard such venom in a voice. Heat rose in my face.

“How dare you blame him! I am sorry about your disfigurement, but I know that my father purely wanted to stop you from slicing yourself to death. My father had nothing in him but goodness. Have you suspected your deformity might be a forecast of the evil you do?”

I was allowed to go no further. The flat of his hand smacked across my cheek. “Hold your tongue, you besom!” he shouted.

I rubbed my cheek, which had gone numb from the blow, and said, “I look forward to setting the law on you when I go from here.”

“Huh!” He moved away, but I heard him murmuring, “Why am I so afflicted? All my life . . .” His muttered words trailed off.

“Food is ready.” My aunt lifted the pot off the iron hook that hung over the flames and set it on the hob. It was as if she had not noticed the words between my uncle and me and the way he had slapped me. Or perhaps she did not care.

“Prayers,” my uncle said, and motioned for us both to sit.

I held my hand against the welt I felt rising on my cheek and glared at him across the table.

My aunt lit a taper from the fire and lighted the candles.

“Heavenly Father,” Uncle Caleb began.

I took a deep breath. No! No! No! God was going to be brought into this. They would pray, the two of them, with blackness in their hearts.

I could not contain myself. “How can you pray? I saw what happened tonight. I saw such wickedness as I had never imagined.”

My aunt unrolled her serviette from the
Boniface
ring and placed it delicately in her lap. “You do not understand, but God does,” she said giving me a stern look, then closing her eyes and folding her hands in front of her bosom.

My uncle began again to pray.

“Thank You, Lord, for the ongoing harvest of the sea. Thou knowest our needs and suppliest them.”

I kept my open gaze fixed on him.

“We ask Your grace in caring for those lost at sea this night,” he intoned. “Give our beloved niece, Josephine, the wisdom to—”

I pushed back my chair and stood. Beloved!

“I am leaving Raven’s Roost,” I said. “As soon as it is light.”

My uncle opened his eyes. “That will not be possible.”

“It will be more difficult since you stole my sovereigns.” I was aware of the nervous tremor in my voice and cleared my throat to hide it.

My aunt spoke without looking up. “We took the sovereigns to keep them safe for you. You are a careless creature, leaving them where robbers could find them. There are thieves hereabouts who can smell gold, be it in another townland.”