Anna screamed and fell. Jack ran forward into the rain, rifle still at the ready, and Paulus came from the other direction. I followed, my boots squelching in the mud.
Mabry was moaning, his leg drawn up to his chest. “Hold him down!” Paulus shouted, pinning his arms. Mabry had already dropped the gun and lay bleeding into the wet grass, unresisting. I swung a leg over him, straddled him. His spectacles had fallen off, and when he looked up at me, I was reminded of the first day I met him, when he had lain bleeding in my lap. From the look in his eyes, I knew he remembered it, too, and I knew I was looking at the real Andrew Mabry, the kind, gentle captain with the Roman nose and the family he adored and the old-fashioned sense of honor.
I pulled one of the needles from the pocket of my skirt and grabbed his arm. “Sorry,” I said, and I stuck him as quickly as I could.
When he fell slack, I turned to Jack, who had dropped the rifle in the grass and had knelt beside Anna. She pulled herself up, wiping water from her face. She had no blood on her at all.
“She wasn’t hit,” Jack said to me.
“It was Mikael,” Anna said to my incredulous expression. She wiped water from her face again, and I realized there were tears mixed in with the rain. “He pushed me. I felt him. Kitty, he’s gone.” Her breath hitched. “Saving me freed him. He’s gone.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The sun was just breaking over the horizon, and the day was going to be warm. The rain had stopped as night fell, the hem of my skirt sodden as I walked.
Portis House receded behind me. A single, rutted road led from the front door, over the low hills and through the huddle of trees, and eventually to the bridge to the mainland. I could have followed the road, but each pothole and rut was now a puddle deep with rainwater, and the grass actually seemed the drier path. I had never been this way, except for the day I’d arrived here in the hired car. I swung my arms and inhaled the fresh summer air, thinking of that girl I’d been as if she were someone else.
I turned a final curve and stopped, staring. I’d come here in the fog, and nothing had prepared me for how beautiful it was. This was the low part of land, opposite the high, rocky cliffs, the part of land that tilted down into the sea. Long grasses waved on the slope in the early-morning breeze; they finished in a brief, rugged strip of rocks, dark sand, and driftwood before the land vanished into the ocean. The water was choppy, a dark, dangerous blue, with a froth of whitecaps appearing and disappearing, some of the surface slick with fronds of seaweed. Built over this was the bridge, narrow and wooden, launching off over the unsettled water toward the smudged line of the mainland.
Beneath the bridge, the uneasy ocean slapped the wood hard, as if resentful that the storm was over and the bridge had remained standing. The bridge surface was slick with debris and drying water. But it was passable.
I stood watching the water, the bridge, the birds wheeling overhead. I tried to make out details on the mainland, but couldn’t. I turned and looked behind me, where the cool stone of Portis House appeared through the trees. The line of windows above the portico, which I knew was the nursery, was just visible. I imagined I could see the abandoned statue of Mary through the waving branches, but the truth was, of course, that she was hidden from here.
I took another breath of salty air, heavy with oncoming heat, and turned back down the path. There was work to be done.
? ? ?
We now had two injured men, on top of our five sick with influenza. Once we’d moved Roger and Captain Mabry, and Nina had awoken, groggy and rather angry, all of us had set to work. We’d brought three more mattresses to the common room, including one for Douglas West to use when he wasn’t in his chair. Roger would need surgery, but we had no means to perform it. We disinfected and bound their wounds as best we could, stanching bleeding and changing dressings. Jack’s bullet had taken Mabry through the meat of his calf, a neat flesh wound that hadn’t even broken bone. Roger’s shoulder wound was more serious, and I worried he would never have full use of his arm again.
Roger had been the first to see that Mabry, with Creeton’s gun in his hand, intended not to defend himself but to kill himself. He’d actually tried to stop “the stupid bastard,” as he put it. Mabry had shot him; Creeton had witnessed it. Then Mabry had continued on out into the rain. Roger suffered so much pain his first night that, after conferring with the others, I’d finally given him one of Jack’s pills to ease him into sleep until help could arrive.
Creeton himself sat subdued. He had come into the common room voluntarily, as we’d been busy with the injured, and now sat quiet and cross-legged on his mattress. Jack had bound his hands as a precaution, though Creeton had not struggled. Creeton would not look at Nina or me.
I came up the circular drive, passed the statue of Mary, and walked up the steps to the portico and through the front door. The main hall was empty now. I passed the little sitting room where I’d met my brother, the dining room where I’d first been so terrified and where I’d sat on the floor with a bleeding Captain Mabry in my lap. I poked my head into the common room and found everything calm; the patients were either asleep or dozing. Nina and Anna weren’t there, but Douglas sat comfortably in his chair. “Vries cooked some food,” he said to me without preamble. “They’ve gone down to eat it.”
I took a pitcher of water, gave a few sips to the men who asked for it. “All right. I’ll go. I just checked and the bridge is clear. We should get help now.”
“That’s good news,” he said.
“D’you want me to bring you some breakfast?”
“Anna said she would. But thank you.”
I made myself turn, look down at Creeton, who was now sleeping. He was lying on his back, his mouth open a little as he dozed. His tied hands rested limply on his stomach. “Did he speak?” I asked Douglas.
“Yes. Didn’t say much.”
“Was he—？”
“No. I don’t think so. He wasn’t like before.”
I looked around the room. “Someone’s missing.”
“Archie Childress,” Douglas said. “Said he felt well enough to help out. I didn’t see a reason to stop him.”
I nodded at him and put the pitcher back. Then I went down the corridor to the stairs.
The kitchen smelled like bacon, and suddenly I was ravenous. Everyone was there, filling their plates. Paulus had done a decent job, it seemed; I’d had no idea he could cook. Archie stood at one of the large sinks, his sleeves rolled up, scrubbing pots and pans. He glanced at me and gave me a quick smile.
There was a strange moment when we all sat down at the small table and looked at one another. We were mismatched, for certain: a mental patient, a false nurse, a real nurse, a South African orderly, a murderess, and Brave Jack Yates, sitting down to breakfast. We were like a shipwrecked crew stranded on an island and not sure what to say to one another.
I looked at Jack. He was still wearing his everyday clothes, shirt, suspenders, and trousers. He looked a bit tired, but not much the worse for wear. He was picking thoughtfully at his breakfast, but when he felt my gaze he looked up at me and returned it. He seemed to be looking me over as I’d just done him. My wrists were sore, as were a few spots where I’d gotten the worst of my struggle with Creeton, but otherwise I was fine. I was exhausted, but the walk had given me a second wind, and I felt the blood pumping in my veins again.