Page 22

EDDIE

I t was cold as balls.

After eating some protein bars at dusk and pretending that I was enjoying them, I dug through my backpack for some extra layers and pulled them all on.

This would be fine . I’d go to sleep, and when I woke up it would be daylight, and I’d be able to laze around in the sun like a cat until I warmed up again.

Except that the second the sun sank below the horizon, the temperature dropped at least ten degrees and I was fucking freezing .

I huddled in the dip in the ground, wondering how I’d ever thought it would be sheltered from the wind, because it turned out the wind was actually slicing through me like razors.

I missed my tent and my sleeping bag. More than that, I missed Joe’s comfortable bed and doona, but there was no point dwelling on that.

I lay in my shallow ditch and shivered, my hands wedged in my armpits, my knees drawn up close to my body.

It was brighter than I’d thought it would be. The moon was large and brilliant. It seemed bigger than usual, outshining all the stars. I tugged my beanie down over my ears, shoved my hands back under my arms, and wished I was warm.

I was not built for an outdoor life. I was built for a life by a fireplace, with a book, and a modest selection of chocolate biscuits within easy reach. I was cold and miserable and I wanted to cry, so I did.

It didn’t help.

I tried squinting up at the stars for a while, wondering if I could make them spin like a timelapse video with only the power of my mind, so that it would suddenly be morning. Unsurprisingly, I couldn’t, and it wasn’t.

I thought of Henry Jessup, and how he’d sailed alone from Dauntless Island to Sumatra. I bet he’d had some cold nights too. I bet he’d had longer nights than the one I was facing right now, but he’d kept going, even when all the odds were stacked against him.

I got to my feet and paced for a moment, which warmed me up a bit. Then I ate another protein bar, which was just as horrible as the two I’d had for dinner, but I felt better afterwards.

Had Henry Jessup quit? No!

Had Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay quit? No!

Had Captain Oates of Scott’s Antarctic expedition quit? Well, yes , but in a very heroic way.

At least, that’s what everyone assumed. But really, we only had the entry in Scott’s diary, didn’t we?

The one where Oates, who was suffering from frostbite and knowing he was a burden on the rest of the expedition, said, “I am just going outside and may be some time” before walking off to his death in the raging blizzard.

What if that wasn’t how it happened? What if Scott had lied?

Like, I wasn’t saying that Scott had killed and eaten Captain Oates—I would never say that, mostly because I had no idea how litigious Scott’s descendants were—but I wasn’t saying he hadn’t .

There were so many moments in history where we only had one side of the story.

Even more where we just didn’t know the story at all, except what bones could tell us, and everything else was guesswork.

We didn’t know for sure what had happened in that tent in Antarctica—just like it was entirely possible that Henry Jessup’s diary didn’t tell the whole truth about the mutiny.

But it sure painted a different picture than the one the Dauntless Islanders believed, and one of them had not only tried to kill me to prevent the truth from coming out, they’d also stolen the diary.

Which was stupid, because of course Theresa had scanned a copy.

The loss of the original sucked because I’d had plans for that little book—plans of it taking pride of place in a new museum exhibit that reexamined the myth of the HMS Dauntless mutiny—but it wouldn’t change a damn thing about my thesis.

I sat down again, hugging my torso.

And hey, getting clobbered over the head and almost murdered over a centuries-old diary would sure as hell make a great story.

Had I been spinning this wrong the whole time?

Jesus. What if this could get me a feature article in History Today ?

Something like “Mutiny on Dauntless: How the discovery of a maritime diary led to assault and attempted murder.” But punchier, probably.

Nobody outside a very narrow field of historical study would give a shit about my thesis as it was, but the assault and the attempted murder? Now that was interesting. That might even make the arts and culture section in the weekend newspapers.

Hell, what if this got me a book deal ?

Heady thoughts of television appearances and book tours kept me warm for a little bit longer, and cleared the misery from my head, but it wasn’t long until the cold started to creep into my bones again.

I squinted into the night.

From here, the beam of the lighthouse was pencil-thin and sharp at its point of origin, then widening out into nothing as it was swallowed by the darkness.

I thought of my tent, which I’d last seen at the bottom of the lighthouse.

That tent would have been useful right about now, but I couldn’t go back there.

Practically, I didn’t like the idea of traversing the island at night when I couldn’t see a fucking thing, but also. .. emotionally ?

I wasn’t sure I could face Joe again, after what he’d?—

Wait .

Holy shit, I was stupid too.

I was so fucking stupid .

The night I was attacked, the first night I stayed at Joe’s place, I’d told him we had a digital copy of the diary. I’d told him, so he knew that, which meant...

The truth hit me in the back like a rampaging goat.

If that seemed like a weird analogy, it was because I couldn’t think of another one in the heat of the moment because I was, in fact, hit in the back by a rampaging goat.

* * *

“P lease don’t kill me!” I yelled through a mouthful of sandy dirt and my rush of panic. “I don’t have the diary anymore!”

“ Maaaaaah .”

What the actual fuck ?

What sort of deranged murderer bleated ? I rolled onto my back and squinted up at the looming figure that was not, it turned out, a killer. Or at least not the human variety. It had just proven that goats could be fairly homicidal. And fairly adorable too.

A whiskery snout snuffled my face, and I lifted a hand to scratch it. The goat huffed out a breath and shuffled closer. A sharp little hoof dug into my stomach, but there wasn’t much weight behind it.

“Oh, hey,” I said, easing the hoof off and sitting up slowly.

Dirt slid down the back of my jacket, but after the night I’d had, I barely noticed.

My heart rediscovered its regular rhythm after the adrenaline rush of thinking I was being attacked again, and the shaking in my hand slowly subsided.

I blinked at the goat in the moonlight. It had floppy ears and tiny little nubs for horns.

“You’re just a baby, aren’t you? Are you lost? Want a protein bar?”

It did want a protein bar. It also wanted the wrapper, a sock, and one of the straps off my backpack.

Yes, I did cuddle a baby goat for warmth. Captain Oates would have done the same, if he’d had a baby goat handy. The goat was only small, and clearly not as feral as its first impression implied, because it fell asleep beside me with its head on my lap.

“Are you a descendant of the HMS Dauntless goats?” I asked it. “They had goats on ships in those days. Sometimes they released them on islands to breed, just in case someone got stranded. Too bad for the local ecosystem, right? But I guess they didn’t give a shit about the environment back then.”

The goat snored.

“Thank you for keeping me warm,” I said.

“I was having a really bad night until you turned up and made it better. Bruised kidneys notwithstanding.” I slid a hand over the wiry hair on its flank.

“I have so many bruises from this fucking island. And not to be melodramatic, but not just the visible ones either. That’s between you and me, by the way. ”

I groaned as I thought of Joe again, and what a fucking idiot I was.

Then I thought of Theresa, and how she’d told me once that I was “academically smart, but I’ve seen you get lost on three separate occasions in the library.

” Which was true, but also very unfair. And look at me now!

I’d used a map today and everything! Her point, though, was that for a smart guy I was also sometimes very, very stupid.

Today now was one of those times.

“Why the fuck would Joe steal the diary?” I asked the goat. “He knows there’s a copy. I told him there was.”

My voice rose at the end there, and the goat woke up and wobbled to its feet.

“Joe didn’t steal the diary. He’s the only Dauntless Islander who knows it would be fucking pointless, because I told him that me and Theresa have a digital copy!”

The goat scuttled away in the darkness.

“Shit. Sorry, goat.” I looked at the beam of the lighthouse, and sharper guilt twisted my gut. “Shit. I really fucked up.”

I only had myself to blame for being cold and miserable tonight. Joe hadn’t just told me he was innocent—he’d laid out a damned good case for it too.

“Just think. Please, just think. If I’d taken the diary, why the hell would I have opened the chest in front of you?”

But I hadn’t fucking listened, too struck with shock, only hearing a high-pitched buzzing in my head because the diary was gone .

I’d got so twisted up with the idea that everyone on Dauntless was crazy and that everyone wanted the diary destroyed, that I hadn’t stopped to think it through.

If Joe had wanted to get rid of the diary, he never would have locked it in the chest to begin with.

If Joe had wanted to get rid of the diary, he’d had plenty of opportunities before yesterday.

But most fucking importantly, Joe knew that getting rid of the diary wouldn’t make any difference.

But because I was an idiot with a history of trusting the wrong guy, I hadn’t thought of any of this yesterday.

I’d just assumed I’d slept with another lying, cheating arsehole, because apparently I attracted those, and instead, I’d accused the one guy on the island who didn’t have a motive to steal the diary of being the thief.

I squeezed my eyes shut and made a pitiful sound.

It wasn’t Joe.

It had never been Joe, and a part of me had always known that. I’d just been confused, and upset, and needed someone to be angry at. And who better than the king of the fucking island? A man who had only ever treated me with kindness and good humour.

I scrubbed at the angry, self-recriminating tears that burned my eyes.

I’d fallen for Joe, after less than a week, and maybe some of my reaction to the diary being missing had come from that—some deeply embedded psychological impulse to destroy whatever it was between us before it got too real.

Or it was because of Kyle, because the moment Joe had opened the medical chest and I’d seen the diary was missing, the sickening swoop in my gut had been exactly like the one I’d felt when I’d walked in on Kyle and the theology major.

This wasn’t my fault; this was Kyle’s fault.

I groaned again.

No. That was a cop out, a coward’s excuse, and Joe deserved better than that. Hell, I deserved better than that. Most of the time, at least. This moment right here though? Not one of my finest.

I was an arsehole . Would Joe even want to see me again?

My first instinct was to totally avoid the awkwardness of that moment by crawling away and hiding in a ditch, but I was already doing that.

Also, I liked Joe. I more than liked Joe.

And even if he didn’t want a damn thing to do with me after I’d accused him of stealing the diary, I owed him an apology.

I wanted to go now, but I didn’t trust myself not to fall down an embankment and break both my legs in the dark.

I hunkered down in my hole instead and tried not to think about how happy I’d been with Joe, sharing his hot cocoa, his kisses, and his bed.

How he’d wrapped his arms around me as we’d stared at the moonlit ocean, and told me the heartbreaking story of his father’s death.

How the hell had I ever thought he was a liar and a thief?

He’d never given me any reason to think that—I’d just plucked one out of the air because I was a fucking idiot with trust issues.

Tomorrow .

I’d go and see Joe tomorrow, and apologise, and maybe—because Joe was a better man than I was—he wouldn’t hate me.

I blinked the fresh sting out of my eyes and drew a shaky breath.

Because out of everything terrible that had happened to me on Dauntless Island, I thought that the worst thing of all might be Red Joe Nesmith hating me.