Poppy, too, had lived. I only saw her once more, when I had to point her out in her hospital bed as being a member of the Saviours. I wasn’t able to read her expression when she stared back at me, but then, I couldn’t expect to understand her mind. She’d seemed so warm and friendly but she’d been able to conceal her true self well.
The Hellenic Coast Guard and special police units managed to gather up a few more of the Saviours from the island, but not many. Most had died, a few escaping on boats.
Jennifer Bloom, after three weeks in a coma, had opened her eyes to find Sethi, Petrina and Rico at her bedside. Her long endeavour to find out what had happened to her brother and to expose the Saviours was over. I’d been to see her before Gray and I left Greece, and we’d talked about Noah and Ben and how we’d both lost a treasured brother. My throat went dry and my face became wet with tears when I tried to express my gratitude that she’d never given up and that she’d come to the island—even though she’d known in her heart that Noah was already long dead. She’d shaken her head emphatically, grabbing my hand and telling me that Gray and I were the last pieces of the puzzle that she’d needed so desperately. And she’d said that her paintings could be true now. She didn’t have to hide behind the blue skies and fluffy clouds of her work anymore, because she could step back into that world and be at peace. She gave Gray and me one of her lovely paintings to take home with us.
Kara and her mother were in Scotland right now with Cormack. Constance had been glad to get her daughter away from the media spotlight in America and escape. Of all of us, the media were most interested in Kara and her story. The story of a seven-year-old who’d killed an intruder and had later been adopted by a man who wanted to raise her in a psychopathic cult had created a media storm.
I’d spoken to Cormack on the phone this morning. He said that today he was on a mission to show Kara a place that had been special to him as a child—a place named Fingal’s Cave, located on a tiny uninhabited island in Scotland. On the edge of the sea, the cave was about seventy feet high and two hundred and seventy feet deep, and composed of soaring, cathedral-like hexagonal columns. Cormack said he wanted to show Kara a place of hexagonals created by nature. As a boy, in the middle of the cave, he’d had the sense that nothing humans could create or understand could match the mystery of nature. He hoped that it would help Kara heal and come to understand that the teachings of the Saviours hadn’t been real or true.
I’d heard from Richard, too. He and Ruth and Yolanda were hanging together for the moment. Richard had big dreams of the three of them starting a business together—that was so like Richard. I understood why the three of them were clinging together. None of them had much in the way of family to return to. Both Richard’s and Yolanda’s families had completely disowned them when they heard the news about the monastery. Ruth had finally met up with her daughters again, without the money she’d thought she needed to be able to do that. But there was still a long road ahead for Ruth—her daughters barely knew her.
Hop had abandoned his studies and he’d flown back to China to be with his mother and family.
Louelle and so many others didn’t get to return to their families. The horror and the shock of those families was everywhere on the news. I couldn’t bear it, especially knowing that I’d almost done the same to my own family. I knew that Ruth had visited Louelle’s family in America and had told them how much Louelle had loved them and wanted to come back to them as a new person.
Twenty four people had travelled to the monastery in the hope of healing and a new life. Only six had survived to tell the tale. The media had dubbed us The Six.
I hated that. It made us sound somehow victorious—like we’d emerged as the winners. We weren’t winners. Worse, the name gave no respect to all the people who’d died there on the island.
A shiver ran over my skin beneath my thick jacket as the sunset darkened. Rising abruptly, I called out to Willow and Lilly, spilling a little of my coffee. I tried to keep any note of anxiousness from my voice but failed. I had trouble with dark places now. As if the entire world could suddenly plunge into pitch darkness and a set of insane challenges could begin. Challenges that you could never really win.
The girls ran to us from the beach—Willow to me and Lilly to Gray. It was like that with Lilly now. Lilly had forged a deep connection to her daddy when she was sick and when I wasn’t there. And she seemed a little wary of me. But then she came to me for the first time since I’d been home and cuddled in tight, while Willow swapped to sitting on Gray’s lap. The girls’ cheeks were stung pink, their hair windblown.