Chapter 15

XV.

The moment I restated the anchor’s location, she darted around the corner back into the rain and was lost to me. I will never understand why she thought it was so necessary; and I was even tempted to suggest she was terribly wrong, except that it was clear to me that she knew much more about our predicament than I did.

I had a thousand and one questions, but there was no time to ask them.

I doubt she would have satisfied them, regardless.

“You know where to meet me!” I called out into the rain. I had no idea if she’d heard or not, but I told myself she must have. Otherwise, I could not have left my semi-safe space at all.

But I did. I didn’t run too fast, lest I make myself heard and lest I wear myself out. Running didn’t come easily to a man my size, and anyway, stealth alone might preserve me. Up ahead I heard a great tearing and splitting—like a tree being pulled apart, rather than sawed. Then I heard a harsh jangling, and a splash.

When I finally made my way to the portal where the anchor chain should have been, I saw only a large hole where the entire mechanism had been torn free. My small friend could not have done this, but if the strange and wicked Jack had done so, then why?

The deck shifted a touch underneath me. It was only a little jerk, a barely perceptible yanking movement. Behind me, the paddlewheel creaked with idle movement.

Mary Byrd was in motion. One way or another, Eileen had gotten what she wanted.

I wasn’t much of a religious man anymore, but I prayed hard that she’d meet me where I told her. I wished upon all the stars I couldn’t see that I might find her already unlatching the yawl to take us to shore. I didn’t understand why she ran on ahead of me. I didn’t understand how she knew what she seemed to know.

I made haste along the sodden decks and closed my eyes when I passed broken doors. I winced and gazed away when I saw blood smeared and dripping down the windows or on the rails. But I made it down to the dock where the yawls were swinging and creaking in their onboard moorings.

I saw no sign of Eileen until a light behind me nearly sent my heart into my throat.

She was standing there with a lantern, wick trimmed low but giving us light enough. “Hurry,” she whispered. “Do what you must. I don’t know how to work this.”

I took a step and the floor ducked out from under me. I found it again, and put both feet down firmly. “We’re moving,” I stated the obvious—reaching for the lever that would lower the yawl and set the boat down.

“I went to the pilot house. I braced the wheel. We’re headed for shore, but it might take awhile to get there. How do I help you with this?”

“You don’t. I’ve got it.” The boat dropped harder than I would have liked. It cracked upon the floor with a noise that must have been heard or felt all across the boat.

“Hurry.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “To the water. Help me push, like this.”

She stood beside me, shifted her shoulders, and shoved. Between us, we forced the little rig to the edge of its slot and then, with a hesitation and a sway, it splashed down into the river. It bobbed there expectantly, oars crossed within. The current felt for it immediately, but it was tied to Mary Byrd yet by a long rope.

“I’ll go first,” I told the nun. “Then you jump down, and I’ll catch you.”

“No!” she screeched.

At first I wondered why my reasonable suggestion had provoked such an outburst, but then I felt it—the blow to my upper arm, the brutal strike from behind that picked me up off my feet and threw me hard and headfirst into the other yawl. Something broke inside me, though whether it was ribs, arms, legs, or skull, I was ill-prepared to say. The world wavered and went dark.

I fought it.

I shook myself and there was pain from every joint and limb. I tried to rise, and tried to see. Sister Eileen was circling in retreat. I think she was trying to reach me, the lovely fool. “Go,” I tried to tell her, but the word was drowned in the blood that filled my mouth.

Pain and blackness welled up in my throat, or maybe it was only more blood. Whatever I’d broken, it bled from within.

I fought it.

I saw her standing alone—just a lantern between them, with a flame trimmed low. I looked madly around, looking for something to strike with, and finding nothing—seeing nothing. The bloody blackness came up high, and my vision was leaving me.

I fought it.

I fell to my knees, then crawled up again. I pulled my miserable body up to my feet, using a support column to prop myself. Lucid thoughts grew harder and harder to come by, but I managed just one: how much oil is left in that lantern?

“Eileen,” I said, and the word came out unintelligible. Neither she nor the beast gave any indication they heard.

She was standing at the edge of the rail, at the edge of the boat—the water behind her. The yawl must have been behind her too. One more lucid thought—one more lucid action. I don’t remember doing it, and I don’t remember how I did it, but I found myself leaning on her with almost all my rather-significant weight.

Then we were falling, and there was fire.

We missed the yawl and landed together in the river, but the yawl was only feet away and she dragged me to it. She must have been much stronger than she looked, for such a small woman. For such a small person. For such. I don’t remember.

But I do remember, before it all went black for the last time … I do remember lying on my back, in the boat, and staring up at the Mary Byrd and seeing flames. I saw Jack—the monster that he was—I saw him ablaze and shrieking inside the area where the yawls were kept.

“The river,” I gurgled at Eileen.

“He can’t,” she gathered what I meant. “He’s trapped. He can’t leave the boat that easily. It’ll burn around him, down to the water line, I suppose. And you helped,” she said, and I believe her eyes were full of tears. I hope she wasn’t wasting them on me. “You helped me, you didn’t make me do it alone.”

“Burning.”

She kissed my hand and held it to her face.

Her eyes were shining a funny-bright color, mirroring the flames on the boat, and I thought, “That’s what it is. She’s an angel, after all.”