“He didn’t hurt me,” I stuttered. “But he killed a rabbit.”
Montgomery’s hand gripped mine protectively. He squeezed so hard it hurt. “Killed a rabbit? Are you sure?”
“I saw him arguing with another man about it.” I swallowed, wanting to find some logical explanation. “They can’t be perfect always, can they? They must break commandments sometimes.”
“Not that one. Not to kill. We didn’t think they knew how to kill.” An idea seemed to strike him. The blood drained from his face. I remembered the stinking corpse in the back of the wagon. All the other accidents. He pulled a pistol off the gun rack in the back of the barn. Checking the chamber, he started for the half door, but I held it closed.
“What’s going on?” I demanded.
“You were right. That woman in the wagon wasn’t an accident. There’ve been more bodies. Many. All with three slashes across the chest. We thought it must be a rabid animal. A bobcat got loose once. . . . It didn’t occur to us that one of them might be responsible.” He grabbed my shoulders. The butt of the pistol lay between his hand and my clothes, a harsh reminder of what was out there. “Whatever you do, don’t go back into the jungle.”
Twenty-seven
THE NEXT MORNING, IN the salon, I peered between the long shutter slats at the courtyard outside. Father and Montgomery argued furiously, tramping up dirt, sweat staining their shirts. They’d been arguing like this for hours. It must have been serious for Montgomery to be so defensive. The pistol butt gleamed in his waistband. I only made out two words: Rabbit. Ajax.
I didn’t need to hear more.
Edward sat in a chair reading, his attention on the musty pages rather than the argument in the courtyard. I sank into the green sofa opposite him.
“There’s a murderous beast on the island. How can you just sit and read?”
He flipped a page. Then another. “I can’t. It’s impossible to concentrate.”
“You could have fooled me.” I raised an eyebrow, but my sarcasm was lost on him. I leaned forward to read the title. The Tempest. “I’ve read that one. Shall I tell you the ending and save you the bother?”
He closed the book on his finger to mark the place he’d stopped. “I’m not reading it for pleasure.” He cocked his head toward the courtyard. “I’m trying to find something that might help us escape. The book’s about castaways on an island. They get off eventually.”
I rolled my eyes. “With the aid of magic.”
He dipped his head, going back to the book. “We’ll have to be a little more creative.”
A door slammed outside and I peered through the shutters. Father and Montgomery were gone. Only the chickens pecked in the courtyard. The familiar trickle of worry returned.
“The doctor came in here earlier furious over something,” Edward said, his voice lower.
“It’s about that dead rabbit I found. They think one of the islanders killed it. The one who calls himself Jaguar. And so that must make him the murderer.”
“But you think he didn’t kill the rabbit?”
I frowned. “No, I’m sure he did. I saw him waving the bloody head around. It’s just . . . never mind.” A dull pain throbbed at the base of my skull. I rubbed the stiff muscles there. My hands still felt the weight of the ax I’d brought down over the rabbit’s neck in the operating theater. I couldn’t exactly condemn Jaguar for separating a rabbit from its head when I’d done the same.
“Have you at least found anything useful?” I said, nodding at the book.
Edward set the book on a pile of warped leather volumes. “Not unless you have a magic wand. We need a vessel. That’s easy enough—the launch at the dock. We can steal enough food from the garden and the kitchen. There are a few waterskins—not ideal, but enough to survive, I think. The only problem is—”
His words died as Alice entered the room. Her eyes grew wide. She knew she was interrupting something. She quickly flitted around, picking up a dirty towel on a peg by the door, the napkins from breakfast, the rag Puck had used to clean up the spilled tea last night. Her long blond hair floated behind her like some ephemeral being. She slipped from the room as silently as she had entered, leaving behind the faint scent of lavender.
“The only problem,” Edward whispered, once she was gone, “is navigation.”
“Montgomery knows the way,” I said. “He said there’s a shipping lane not far.”
A shadow passed over Edward’s face and I knew, in that look, that he didn’t want to take Montgomery with us. “You were awfully quick to forgive him after what you saw in the laboratory,” he said.
“He didn’t have a choice,” I said defensively. “He was just a boy when he came here. You’d have done the same thing in his place.”
“No. I wouldn’t have. I’d never choose to hurt anyone.” His voice didn’t hold a trace of doubt. He tilted his head, his face suddenly tender. Goose bumps rippled over my arms at the memory of the night behind the waterfall. “We’ll leave this island. You and I. Go wherever you want. You’ll forget about him. . . .” He swallowed, unable to finish.
I sat straighter. The whalebone corset dug into my ribs, stifling my breath. What could I say? The night behind the waterfall with Edward had been disconcertingly intense, yet there’d been a distance between us since coming back. Nothing I could put my finger on, exactly. More like our connection existed out there, in the wild. It dulled among the books and fine china and lace curtains.
I pulled a worn throw pillow into my lap. I couldn’t tell him what he wanted to hear. Montgomery meant too much to me, despite everything. “We’re taking Montgomery and everyone else who has a human heart beating in their chest,” I said, and left it at that.
He didn’t press. “And your father?”
“He can stay here and rot with the rest of the animals.”
EDWARD AND I WHISPERED about escape whenever we could steal a moment alone. As the days passed, those times became scarcer. More islanders went missing. Edward was needed with the search party while I was left alone to think about the murders.
ABOUT JAGUAR.
One afternoon after the men returned and we’d finished eating a sullen meal, I found Mother’s crystal earring among the trinkets in the salon and held it to the light of the window, where it sent a spray of dancing rainbows over the walls. That was my mother—color and light and delicate as glass. She would have been repulsed by Father’s creations. Not drawn to them.