The Rattled Bones(47)

There’s no photo of Eliza Griffin, just a picture of the old ship’s hull she’d made into a home. I think Gram and I would have liked to know Eliza Griffin.

I wonder if this fiercely independent woman is buried in a mass grave now.

I try to focus on more of Malaga’s history, but I keep hearing Reed calling me selfish, accusing me of abandoning Gram. Being too consumed with the island just offshore and the flames I clearly hallucinated. I Google “grief and hallucinations,” “grief and schizophrenia.” Anything that could give me a reason for my mind lately. But all I can hear is Reed criticizing me for being cold, his words repeating like a lash. And there’s the ever-present fear that my brain is slipping. How can I even go to college if I’m losing my mind?

And then there is the tapping . . .

Tapping

Tapping

The maple tree’s branch against the window. The glass is closed, doing its best to trap the whistling wind outside. Still the air in my room is swollen from tonight’s rain. The light on my bedside table flickers on and off, on and off, before the generator’s gas-fed engine rumbles to life on the lawn.

The limbs of the maple tree scratch against the panes as if asking—no, begging—to come in. I turn off the light to save power and read my screen until the scratching becomes relentless, thrashing against the glass so hard I think it will break the panes. I go to the window, and the moonlight shows me the gray bark of the wood, so thin and grizzled and yet thumping—slamming—against the window. I grip the sill, and my fingers crawl over the bumps in the grain, one groove leading into another. I know without a doubt what those cuts in the wooden windowsill say: FIND ME. But there’s more. The grooves are too many. The markings in the wood call to me. Come here, come here. My fingers feel wet as they trace the indents. The sill gives off a warm heat, like steam from boiling water.

I gather my flashlight and train its light on the scratch marks.

There are new words scored into the wood.

DONT GO!

Fear rakes my spine, blanketing my bones with cold. Was the girl listening to me and Gram? Me and Reed? How is she everywhere and nowhere?

Is she here now? Watching me with her oil-dark eyes and seaweed braids? Or is she in her white dress, the way she appeared to me at the shore?

My heart races for this stranger being in my room. For the dragging lullaby that whines on the wind, for the thin, reaching tree limbs that tap at my window. Tap. Tap. Tap. The long gray branches extend to scratch the face of the window. But then, something more.

A branch at the bottom, one that doesn’t rise or fall with the gusting wind.

Tap, tap, tap.

These wispy limbs are steady. Too steady. I take a step toward the window.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

And I see the fingers.

Five reaching fingers, drumming against the glass. Each nail caked with dirt, with cuts on the knuckles, the flesh.

It’s impossible to pull breath into my lungs. My skin fires with the need to open the window. I take a step forward, my hand raised for the task. Something—or someone—is unsettled. Do I have the power to settle it? Make it right? But why me?

Tap. Tap. Tap.

I jump back, scramble to the opposite side of the room. I grab my phone, call Hattie. “Can you come over?” My voice is so loud, trying to drown out the tapping.

I pace the room as I wait, my eyes trained on the sill. I know Hattie won’t judge me. She can tell me what’s real, what’s imagined. She can help me because I need help.

By the time Hattie arrives, the tapping has grown louder.

“Geez. Fierce storm.” Her voice is so nonchalant.

I can’t stop pacing. I watch Hattie’s eyes, try to see if she can see the fingers, see if the tapping is overwhelming her, too. “I’m freaking out, Hatt.”

“Over a storm?” She plops onto my bed.

Maybe. “Everything. This night. Staying. Leaving.” Ending up like my mother. Now that Hattie’s here, I can’t make the words come. I can’t admit my visions, my slipping mind.

“Tonight’s nothing but wind. As for the other stuff, you’re smarter and stronger than a hundred fishermen. You’ll figure it all out. Besides, you’re psyched you’re not at sea during this storm. You can hang with me and let it pass. You just need to chillax.”

But I need so much more.

I need to show Hattie the carved words. I need to tell her who wrote them. But I can’t see the look of doubt cover her face if I were to let the full truth slip.

“I’ve never know a storm to freak you out so bad,” she tells me.

Even though I know this is so much more than a storm.

The fingers tap against the glass, reminding me.





CHAPTER FOURTEEN


The seas are rough today, as if the winds are still holding on to some of last night’s storm. High swells batter at the sides of the boat and slosh water up over the rails.

I steady my stance as I throw open a pot and measure the catch. I band four lobsters and toss them in the tanks. Sam fills the bait bag, and I hook it to the top of the parlour within the cage, secure the trap shut. I’m surrounded by sea, but all I can think of are the words scratched in the wood of my windowsill. The words that were still there this morning.

FIND ME

DONT GO!

The words written by fingers that haunted at my windowpane. A girl who seeks me out across what? The veil of death? It’s all too impossible to make sense of, and yet I try.