My father used to carry me along this path—when I was little and ankle deep in puddles—on his shoulders where I had a clear view of the horizon, sea and sky coming together to form a blurred line in the distance. My mother was softer then as well. I’d wave a clumsy goodbye toward the house with my handkerchief, while she stood by the door, sending kisses into the air as we set off.
Admiration of the island, of the dangers it held, was always there in my father’s stories.
Twillengyle is a place to be embraced with one arm, with a dagger ready in the other hand. To be charmed by its magic is not the same as becoming its fool, Moira. Remember that.
As I turn the final corner, the pathway opens up to the great expanse of the moors. To my left is the lighthouse, a blue-and-white tower clinging to the rocks, and the keeper’s cottage attached to it, a modest structure of clapboard siding. The beacon light above circles in a bright arc out to sea, making the sky appear darker overhead. The wind brings with it the clean, cold tang of salt water. My fingers become numb around the handle of my violin case, and it’d be rather pointless to take it out now. I can’t even separate the music in my mind from the oncoming gale.
It’s not a waste though. I needed the walk more than the music, I think. Fresh air to clear my head. From above, I hear the first rumblings of thunder, and I wonder where the sirens have sheltered, whether they’ll take to the storm-ravaged beach come morning. Dawn will be quiet, pale and colorless, after a night streaked with thunder and lightning. September has turned cruel quickly, leaves already beginning to change color and litter the ground.
As I near the cliff’s edge, I catch movement in the corner of my eye. Coming up the path from the beach is Jude Osric, his shoulders hunched against the wind, eyes cast down. His red-brown curls poke out beneath his cloth cap, windblown and tangled. I look to the lighthouse before returning my attention to him. Jude is its sole keeper, and at nineteen, he is two years my elder. Before I can decide whether to call out or take off into the shadows, he glances in my direction. “Moira,” he says, breathless.
I jam my free hand into the pocket of my coat. Wind howls across the moors, and I narrow my eyes against it. “Shouldn’t you be up at the light?”
He makes his way toward me. As he does, I realize Jude looks truly terrified. His eyes are shiny and rimmed with red, his already pale face drained of color.
“You can’t be here,” he says. “Moira, listen, you need to go right now.”
This is quite the opposite thing to tell me if he has any real hope of making me leave. I grab hold of his coat sleeve, and for a moment I see the little boy I used to play with, the one who ran after me on the moors.
“Jude.” I swallow hard. “What is it?”
He closes his eyes. Bowing his head, he whispers, so quiet it almost gets lost in the wind: “There’s a body.” He looks up and gestures back toward the path, hand trembling. “Sirens—the sirens must’ve…”
I try to recall if anyone I know planned to go down to the beach today. I think of the fishermen at the harbor, their families…
My fingers dig into the sleeve of Jude’s coat. “Who is it?”
“I think it’s Connor,” he says. “Connor Sheahan.”
I look out at the cliff’s edge. Dread settles deep inside me, clawing its way from the inside out, pulling me into the black. It can’t be Connor—I saw Connor just last week. I was teaching him to play his first reel.
He was twelve years old.
“I’m sorry,” Jude continues. “I know—I know you were tutoring him.”
I meet his gaze. “Show me.”
Jude stares as though I’ve gone mad. “What?”
“I want to see the body.” I grab his collar, yanking him close. “Where is he?”
“I really don’t think that’s wise, Moira. We need to tell the police. I’ll wire them from the watch room and…”
Adrenaline shoots through my veins like quicksilver. Before Jude can finish his sentence, I tear away from him.
“Wait—Moira!”
Jude makes to stop me, but I’m already racing for the pathway. Below the crag, I pinpoint what I’m looking for fast enough. A smear of red—a color that has no place among the dark waters and wet sand. It’s a thin ribbon I track along the beach, a crimson that mixes with the edge of the sea in wavering bands. Then I see a patch of black hair, a white shirt soaked through, pale skin cut and bleeding. The body lies near the path, half buried in blood-drenched sand.
My feet slow as I approach. The smell is almost worse than the sight itself. A harsh, metallic odor burns in my nose, fills my throat until I’m close to gagging.
“Oh God.”
It’s Connor. Connor as he never should’ve been—left discarded, a deep slash across his neck. The blood is everywhere, a pool of red, staining the tide.
Nothing makes sense.
Behind me, Jude makes a sound quickly covered by a cough. “Moira,” he whispers, and it sounds desperate. “Please, Moira, we oughtn’t be here.”
The words are a plea, but I can’t move. I’m frozen in place, my eyes fixed on the boy I once knew, the boy I’d been teaching. Sickness washes over me, making me light-headed, and I dig my nails into my palm to ground myself against it.
I close my eyes. “This was sirens?”
A gust of wind comes to rip the words from the air. I repeat myself and turn to find Jude standing beside me. “Yes,” he says. “I believe so.”
I shake my head, whether in denial or anger or some combination of the two. “Can’t be.”
“We need to tell the police,” Jude says again.
“Jude, this—this is wrong. What was he even doing here? How did he…?”
I look to the boy at our feet. There are things children are taught on this island so they might survive. Connor knew how to listen, how to be careful, to keep still when it was needed.
He’d been a fine student. Sometimes he’d press on the strings too hard, or his posture got lazy—but he was willing to learn and practiced often. He kept track of his mistakes.
Now I’ll have his blood on the soles of my boots.
“Sirens wouldn’t have left him here,” I mutter. “Why didn’t they take him out to sea? Why is his neck cut like that? I don’t…” A lump forms in my throat, and I stop speaking before the weight of everything crushes me.
Jude pinches the bridge of his nose between forefinger and thumb. I wonder if the memory of his own family has managed to slip into his thoughts.
“Do you not think it at all strange?”
I force the words out, but it isn’t the real question I want answered. What I want is to know why Connor was down here in the first place. My heartbeat is rapid as whatever bravery I had leaches into the sand like the blood at our feet.
Jude’s too-pale countenance makes it clear he doesn’t have much bravery left either. “A strangeness,” he says, “I’m sure the police and the Twillengyle Gazette will be most concerned with.”
I swallow. “Of course,” I reply, yet I can’t shake off the sense of wrongness. I’ve seen siren deaths before, read about them in the paper, and this isn’t like any of them.