Page 53 of A Land So Wide

G reer stared dumbstruck at the sight of Hessel Mackenzie. She’d never expected to see her father again, and now he was here, with thick ropes tied around his wrists, and being led up the mountain like a pack mule.

“Why is he…? How did you…?”

“Found him outside Laird,” Finn said, giving the rope a firm yank.

“Let me go,” Hessel hissed, his tone too low, and dangerous given his current position. “Greer, some assistance, please?”

“What are you doing here?” she demanded instead.

“I’m bringing you home.”

A snort of laughter burst from her before she could stop it. “Are you in earnest? You can’t still think I’m going to marry Lachlan.” The idea was so absurd, she laughed again.

“Lachlan is dead,” Hessel snapped.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Greer waited for the rush of guilt to come, expecting it to crash over her like a summer storm. It didn’t. “I never wanted to hurt him. Truly.”

Hessel’s gaze darted to the dead Bright-Eyed behind her. His thoughts were so easy to read that she reddened. He didn’t believe her. He honestly thought her capable of such monstrous acts, of such wicked intentions.

Because you are, sang Finn’s wild, wily blood. It felt hot in her veins, scalding the rest of her, burning away the remains of who she’d been before she’d consumed it.

“If you’re not planning to drag me down the aisle, what are you after?” she asked, her tone harsh as she tried to cast away the troubling thoughts.

“You don’t know what you’re doing out here. You’ve no idea the mess you’ve wandered into.”

Greer raised an eyebrow, back bristling. “Do you?” She glanced to Finn. “Does he know you’re—”

“Yes, yes, he’s one of them,” Hessel said, talking over anything Finn had been about to say. “It’s fairly evident.”

“What about me?” she snarled, wanting to wipe away every trace of his arrogance. “Or Mama? Did you know what she was? What that makes me?”

Hessel’s intake of breath was all she needed to hear. “I didn’t at first.”

Greer turned away, unable to bear the sight of him.

He’d known, and never told her. He’d never even hinted at it.

All those times he’d snapped and scolded, frustrated by her unusual abilities, every time he’d made her feel less instead of more.

He could have explained it to her, helped her understand, but he’d chosen to keep it secret.

He’d let her flounder and stew in anxiety, worried she was mad, worried she was broken.

“I should think you’d be happy I left. One less secret for the great Hessel Mackenzie to keep. It must be terribly difficult; there are so very many of them.”

“You found my hidden drawer.” It wasn’t a guess. “I thought that might be the case. When Lachlan was thrown back. When you weren’t.”

She turned, narrowing her eyes. “ I threw Lachlan back. Before sunset. The Stones had nothing to do with it.”

Hessel nodded, looked grim. “Every soul in Mistaken heard that scream. We covered it up, of course. There was an attack. Lachlan died, valiantly trying to save you. It was all terribly romantic.”

Finn rolled his eyes. “We’re wasting time. What should we do with him?”

“I suppose you found the second drawer as well,” Hessel went on, ignoring the Bright-Eyed. “Read all about your mother.” He shook his head. “I should never have left you alone in my study.”

“What second drawer?” Greer questioned, unsure if she was stepping into a trap.

“The one with Resolution’s journal.”

Greer frowned. “That’s at Steward House.”

“His final journal, yes,” Hessel allowed. “I have his first.”

Against her better judgment, Greer’s interest piqued. “It talks about Mama? How she got here? When she arrived?”

“Resolution’s second voyage, yes,” he confirmed.

Greer ran through everything she’d been taught about the founding of Mistaken, about the settlers’ journey across the sea, but the scenario felt wrong. It didn’t make sense. “Mama was with the founders?”

Hessel shook his head. “No. Beaufort made three trips to the new world. Ailie was with him on the second.”

“Three voyages?” she echoed with confusion.

“Three. When Resolution first stepped upon these shores, he discovered that Albert Crowley, the young explorer who’d told him of the Redcaps, had lied.

Crowley had promised that no one but Beaufort knew of the trees, but by the time they arrived, a mill was already up and running, with another four being readied.

Beaufort was so furious, he murdered Crowley. ”

“Murdered?” she gasped. “But the accounts all say Crowley left, going south.”

Hessel gave her a withering look, as if aghast by her na?veté. “Accounts written by Resolution himself.”

“So…none of our stories are right. Nothing the Stewards have taught us has ever been true.”

Her father chewed on the inside of his cheek before answering. “The truth isn’t always right. And, sometimes, the thing that is right, the thing that makes everything else possible, isn’t true.”

Greer frowned, adding this troubling idea to her bits of gathered knowledge. She turned them over in her mind, like colorful chips of a mosaic, twisting and trying to parse out what image they’d create. “So Mama stowed away on Resolution’s ship.”

“Stowed away?” Her father let out a short bark of laughter. “She didn’t sneak onto it, if that’s what you’re thinking. He brought her here in shackles!”

Finn’s head snapped toward Hessel, horrified. “Shackles? Ailie would never—”

“You can read the whole sordid story if you don’t believe me.”

“In a journal, left behind in a hidden drawer, miles from here,” Finn pointed out. “How convenient.”

Hessel shrugged, unbothered by the Bright-Eyed’s scorn. “Resolution was born in wild country, steeped in magic and folklore. The Beaufort farm bordered a wide heath. One night, when he was a young lad, his father foolishly remained working in their barn after dark. Resolution never saw him again.”

Greer raised her eyebrows, waiting for her father to explain.

“There were creatures out on that heath. Everyone knew to hide away in their homes before sunset, before the uncanny could come. Demons and Devils, things of nightmares and myth. Gray Trows, who walk backward, determined to kidnap the first maiden they stumble across. Silent Cù-Sìth, stealthily racing across the land, ready to devour. The Nuckelavee with its venomous breath, poisoning crops and animals alike. But none were as monstrous as the Betwixt.”

“Betwixt?” she echoed.

“Something between man and monster,” Finn murmured slowly, as if dredging up a long-buried memory. “My nan told stories of them. They could change form at will, and drank the blood of their victims.” His eyes fell on Greer, looking uncertain. “I’d forgotten her stories…”

Greer turned to her father. “What happened next?”

“After her husband died, Beaufort’s mother moved their family far from the heath, into the city, where the wild things dared not follow.

Years passed, and Beaufort became a man of business and schemes.

He met Crowley. He went to the new world.

He came home, feeling wounded and betrayed, and went back to that heath to set a trap for his father’s murderer, painting it with his own blood. And it worked. He caught Ailie.”

Greer let out a strangled sound of disbelief. After seeing Laird and knowing the devastation her mother was capable of, it felt impossible for Greer to imagine her being captured by Resolution Beaufort. “Why would he trap her?”

“He saw the mills already built, the mills being planned, and he couldn’t stand it. He wanted this world’s riches for himself alone. He needed someone—something—that could stop everything, quickly. Permanently.”

“If he set Mama loose, she’d attack, and the mills would shut down,” Greer summarized, working through the steps Resolution must have laid out in his journal. “His would open without competition.”

“We’re still the only mill along the whole of the coast with Redcaps,” Hessel said with pride.

Her stomach churned, slick and oily, in her disturbance at how corruptible men could be in pursuit of the elusive promise of wealth.

“That’s diabolical. And so terribly stupid.

The mill wasn’t guaranteed to be a success, and how did he know Mama wouldn’t turn on him ?

There wasn’t yet a truce. How did he know the Benevolence would come to his aid? To the town’s aid?”

She saw a look pass between her father and Finn.

“What?” she demanded.

Finn’s expression turned to pity. “Greer…there is no Benevolence.”

She blinked, certain she’d misheard.

Hessel cleared his throat. “When the first Stewards figured out what Resolution had done, they came up with the story of the Benevolence and the truce. They told everyone in town, making it so big, so grand, it would have to be believed, to be taken as a truth.”

Greer felt numb. “Why?”

Her father sighed. “It was meant to be a comfort. The settlers were alone. They were scared. They had no way of returning home. They needed one small thing to be all right, one thing they could hang their hopes upon. Tormond Mackenzie concocted the story as a mercy.”

Greer questioned the mercy of telling a group of desperate survivors such a fantastic lie, but a bigger thought troubled her. “If there is no Benevolence…if there never was a truce…where did the Warding Stones come from?”

“The rocks have always been here, dotting the land. But the magic comes from the old world, from Beaufort himself. After his father died, he became obsessed with learning all he could of the uncanny, of the occult. Before setting Ailie loose, he charmed the stones, casting a protection spell over them to hold back her kind, to keep future settlers safe within the cove. But Beaufort’s words were wrong and too specific.

He didn’t live long enough to see how he’d damned everyone unlucky enough to see a sunset within Mistaken. ”

“We truly are a town of mistakes,” she murmured. “Why would Mama have gone along with any of this? Surely, she was stronger than Resolution. She could have escaped or—”