Page 124 of Her Dark Lies

Endings and Beginnings

Ten Years Earlier

I must get away, or I am going to die, I know it.

“Morgan? Mooorgan?”

He’s calling for me, and the wind sweeps his voice away, making the last syllables so much lighter. Gentler.

The path is marked by towering cypress and laurel, verdant and lush. A gray stone waist-high wall is all that stands between me and the cliffside. It is cool inside this miniature forest; the sky blotted out by the purple-throated wisteria that drapes across and between the trees. Someone, years ago, built an archway along the arbor. The arch’s skeleton has long since rotted away and the flowers droop into the path, clinging trails and vines that brush against my head and shoulders. It should be beautiful; instead feels oppressive, as if the vines might animate, twist and curl around my neck and strangle me to death.

The white dress, long and filmy, hampers my effort to run. The hem catches on a branch; a large rend in the fabric slashes open, exposing my leg. A deep cut blooms red along my thigh, and the blood runs down my calf. My hair has come loose from its braid, flies unbound behind me like gossamer wings.

In my panic, I barely notice the pain. I hurry along the path, trying not to look down to the frothing water roiling against the rocks at the cliff’s base. I think the ruins are to my right. From what I remember, they are between the church and the artists’ colony, the four cottages cowering on the hillside, empty and waiting. We’ve been here only one night. I am such an idiot to think he was bringing me here to do anything other than see me dead.

A horn shrieks, and I realize the ferry is pulling away. A crack of lightning, and I see the silhouette of the captain in the pilothouse, looking out to the turbulent seas ahead. A gamble that he makes it before the storm is upon us. It was my last chance of escape. Now I’m stuck here.

Don’t panic. Don’t panic.

Where is the church?

Yes, there it is, a flash of white through the trees. The stuccoed walls loom, the bell tower hidden behind the overgrown foliage. Now the path is moving upward, the grade increasing. I feel it in my calves and hope again I’m going the right way. The Villa is on the hill, on the northwest promontory of the island. If I can reach its doors, I will be safe.

It is too quiet. There are no birds, no creatures, no buzzing or cries, just my ragged, heavy breath and the scree shuffling underfoot as I climb. The furious roar of the water smashing its frustration against the rocks rises from my left, echoing against the cliffside.

Climb. Climb. Keep going.

I must get to the Villa. There I can call for help. Lock myself inside. Maybe find a weapon.

A branch snaps and I halt, breathless.

Someone is coming.

I startle like a deer, now heedless of the noise I’m making. Fighting back a whimper of fear, I break free of the cloistered path to see an old, decrepit staircase cut into the stone.Careful, I must be cautious, there are gaps where some steps are missing, and the rest are mossy with disuse, buthurry, hurry. Get away.

I wind up the steps, clinging to the rock face, until I burst free into a sea of scrubby pines. Two sculptures, Janus twins, flank a slate-dark path into a labyrinth of rhododendron and azalea.

This isn’t right. Where am I?

A hard breeze disrupts the trees around me, and a rumble of thunder like a thousand drums rolls across my body. Lightning flashes and I sees the Villa in the distance. So far away. On the other side of the labyrinth. The other side of the hill.

I’ve gone the wrong way.

A droplet of water hits my arm, then my forehead. Dread bubbles through me.

I am too late. The storm is upon me.

The wind whistles hard and sharp, buffeting me against the stone wall. I can’t move. Deep fear cements my feet. Rain makes the gauzy dress cling to the curves of my body, and the blood on my thigh washes to the ground. None of it matters. I cannot escape.

When Jack comes, at last, sauntering through the storm, I am crying, clinging to the stone, the lightning illuminating the ruins, the ancient stones, and stark, headless statues the only witness to my death.

I go over the wall with a thunder-drowned scream, the jagged rocks below my final companions.

His name echoes across the water, rising up the cliffside, the shriek audible across the island, dying off a little at the end, as I get closer to the water, to the rocks, to the ground.

“Jaaaaaaack!”

“Is she dead?” Jack asks.