Page 26

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“Closing time, love.”

Madeleine looked up from her drink, blinking more slowly than she usually did.

Iona Darrow stood over her table, drying a beer glass with a towel.

Iona and her husband, Elliot, were co-owners of the Kestrel.

They’d met when they were teenagers and had lived here their whole lives.

They had one son who worked at the oil terminals.

Plus a dog. Elliot was allergic to walnuts.

Madeleine had learned all of this during their multiple visits to her table, because she’d been here for a while.

Now it was after midnight and she was the only one left in the pub.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

The words didn’t sound right, maybe because her tongue felt thick in her mouth.

“No need to apologize.”

There was, but Madeleine couldn’t remember to whom, or why.

“We’ve got to close up. Why don’t you just finish that one?” Iona raised an eyebrow.

“Or not, maybe.”

There was still a swallow or two left in Madeleine’s second whisky.

She didn’t love whisky but had needed to order something, and gin or vodka hadn’t felt right.

The Kestrel didn’t do fruity little cocktails.

She didn’t like beer, and wine was right out.

Turned out whisky wasn’t too bad, especially once you’d finished the first one.

After that, a second seemed like a great idea.

Madeleine picked up her glass and knocked back a swallow.

Her throat stung and her eyes smarted.

The ice cubes clinked against her teeth.

“You know how to find the Merryweather?” Iona looked worried.

“I can ring Harry, he’d come and fetch you. Or Elliot could walk you there.”

Madeleine might be drunk, but not so drunk she’d welcome anyone else’s company right now.

“I can find the hotel. I leave, hang a right, and walk two blocks.”

“Three. You’re sure you?—”

“I’ll just be on my way. Thank you.” There, that sounded polite.

She’d enunciated every word perfectly.

You’d never know she was intoxicated.

She paid for her drinks and stood up.

Everything spun around her.

The Kestrel was a welcoming place with old wooden tables and a bar that seemed to have been hewn from the Stone Age, like Skara Brae.

It was also a little out of focus.

Nevertheless, Madeleine held her head high as she left.

Was she walking in a straight line?

It didn’t matter; she wasn’t driving.

She just had to hang a right, walk two blocks—or three or ten or whatever—find the Werrymeather, and go to bed.

Just hang a right.

Madeleine’s feet turned to the left and started walking, with her bemused permission, toward the sound of the ocean.

At this hour, even the main thoroughfare was deserted.

She had the street to herself.

In fact, it seemed like she might be the only person in the world.

What a lonely thought.

Madeleine shoved her hands in her jacket pockets.

The sea grew louder as she walked toward it.

At least she wasn’t cold.

That might be the whisky too.

Was there anything it couldn’t do?

Dull her senses, warm her up…

make her brave.

Brave enough to find her beach.

She’d put it off long enough.

She should have gone to the beach the same day she’d arrived on Jorsay.

Why hadn’t she? It didn’t make any sense.

She’d stayed away from it just because H?ra had asked her to for no reason.

H?ra .

Madeleine laughed roughly into the wind.

H?ra had asked an awful lot of her in the space of a short time.

To stay away from the beach, to talk about damningly personal things, and—just recently—to go to the hotel together.

To finish what they’d started.

H?ra had sounded so desperate, as much as Madeleine herself had felt.

That couldn’t have been possible, though.

Madeleine had been desperate enough to ask if H?ra was an angel —a sure sign of a woman losing her mind.

The street weaved crookedly in front of her.

That was okay. Just put one foot in front of the other.

The beach was getting closer.

No matter how drunk she was, she was heading in the right direction.

She could find that beach with her eyes closed right now.

It seemed to call to her.

There was a noise behind her.

Madeleine held still and listened.

For the first time, a prick of worry made its way through her haze.

It wasn’t the best idea for a woman to walk, drunk and alone, in a strange place in the middle of the night.

What if she was being followed?

She turned unsteadily, but behind her was only the empty street, dark but for where the lamps cast ellipses of light onto the pavement.

Must have imagined it.

Maybe she’d imagined all kinds of things.

Maybe this trip—maybe the last six years of her life—was just one big hallucination, a fever dream, and she’d wake up in Sacred Heart to find none of it had happened.

But on the off chance that wasn’t true, she kept walking toward her beach.

Eventually, she stood at the same seawall she’d walked years ago with a tiny flashlight she’d lost and a pair of scissors in her pocket.

She might have changed in the meantime, but the beach looked the same.

It must be the same.

Those must be the same rocks that had sat there six years ago.

There, several yards away from the rocks, stood the same dock she’d fallen from.

Madeleine didn’t have a flashlight this time.

She had a phone, though.

Its flashlight function, combined with the streetlamps behind her, provided just enough illumination for Madeleine to make her way down the steps that led from the seawall to the shore.

As she went, the wind carried the scent of the sea to her: thick and a little rotten, as if it was about to roll ashore and leave something behind to decay.

Even with the flashlight, the darkness was oppressive.

The rocks were slippery.

She was probably going to twist an ankle, or maybe her neck.

Madeleine laughed giddily as she made her way to the dock.

This was ridiculous, and so was she.

If her students could see her now, sensible Ms. Laurent—Sister Madeleine no more—they’d be astonished.

The wind slapped her face, as if encouraging her to sober up.

Her hair followed suit.

Madeleine pulled it back, and in so doing, dropped her phone.

It hit the rocks with a clatter.

“Dammit!” she gasped.

Then she laughed again.

It felt great to curse.

How long had it been since she’d done that?

She picked up her phone, saw that its case had protected it, and turned toward the sea.

“ God damn it! ” she screamed.

The words tumbled away into the wind.

Her throat hurt. She’d yelled with all her might.

Maybe somehow, across the sea, someone would hear the sound of her frustration.

She took another step toward the dock.

She’d found a horse under there, of all things.

Then she’d drowned it by trying to save it.

What did it say about a night when that wasn’t the strangest thing that had happened?

Her vision was even blurrier now as her eyes watered.

Must be the wind. It was so loud.

She couldn’t hear anything over it.

She dashed a hand across her eyes.

Took another step toward the dock and the dark water beyond it.

At that moment, the wind ceased.

With it, so did the noise.

For the first time since she’d gotten out of bed this morning, Madeleine was surrounded by absolute silence.

Now she could hear only the sound of her heartbeat.

And something else.

Another noise behind her.

Clattering. Slow, measured, deliberate.

Something…someone…was walking over the rocks.

Walking in her direction.

The footsteps were getting closer.

Sudden fear did more to sober you up than wind or water.

Was it someone taking advantage of a drunk woman on her own?

Her phone didn’t get a good signal out here, but maybe she could still call 911—wait, the UK used a different emergency number, what was it?—

Madeleine turned on her heel, barely managing not to fall, her heart in her mouth.

Would she see an assailant?

No.

She saw a horse.

It stood on the rocks perhaps fifteen feet away, silhouetted by the streetlights above the seawall.

It held perfectly still as it stared Madeleine down.

It made no sound.

Madeleine was no expert on horses.

She’d drowned the only one she’d ever come into close contact with.

But she was pretty sure they weren’t supposed to be this big.

The horse in front of her looked large enough to carry three full-grown adults.

It couldn’t be real, could it?

Was the whisky making her hallucinate this?

She was drunk enough to wobble when she walked, but she wasn’t drunk enough to hallucinate.

Madeleine raised her phone with its flashlight.

Her hand shook so much that the beam darted all over the place.

The horse seemed unbothered by this.

It began to walk toward her again, its hooves sure and steady against the rocks.

Its pace was slow and measured.

Its eyes never looked away from her face.

Madeleine could think of nothing so much as being stalked, but that was ridiculous.

Horses didn’t stalk people.

They weren’t predators.

They also weren’t this enormous, and they didn’t randomly appear on beaches in the middle of the night.

Making an effort to steady her hand, Madeleine managed to get the light onto the horse’s face, flashing the beam over its eyes.

The horse stopped in place, closed its eyes, and shook its head.

It also bared its teeth.

Its long, pointed teeth.

Madeleine’s hand began shaking again, so badly that she nearly dropped the phone a second time, and the flashlight beam dipped away from the horse.

She’d seen enough, though.

She’d seen that its flesh was a pale blue color, that its eyes were bright yellow, and that it had sharp teeth.

This was not a normal horse.

And in this place, at this time, only one possibility suggested itself.

“You were the horse under the dock,” she said raggedly.

“The one I drowned.”

The horse’s long, black tail flickered.

It looked an awful lot like confirmation.

“Oh God.” Madeleine clutched the collar of her jacket.

“You’re a ghost or something.”

But that couldn’t be, could it?

Horses couldn’t become ghosts, because animals didn’t have souls.

Doctrine was clear on that.

Doctrine seemed to have little bearing on what stood before her now.

The horse took a step forward.

Madeleine took a corresponding step backward.

She was past the rocks now, and onto the sand at the water’s edge.

“Are you angry?” she managed.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to. I just wanted to help.”

The horse kept coming forward.

Madeleine kept moving backward.

But there was nothing behind her save for the sea.

There was nowhere to go.

“I didn’t know you’d drown. I thought you could swim. How else could you have gotten under the dock?”

The horse made a soft, low sound.

It wasn’t a neigh or any other noise she knew horses could make.

It was a growl.

Her blood ran colder than the North Sea.

Madeleine gasped, “Oh Lord, Blessed Virgin, protect me. Listen, you—you stay right there, you?—”

She stepped back.

The heel of her shoe hit the water, which lapped around her foot, soaking frigidly into her sneaker.

Should have worn those rain boots, she thought nonsensically.

Becca’s going to fuss at me about that.

No, Becca wouldn’t. Madeleine was never going to see Becca again because she was going to die on this beach, her beach, murdered by a horse ghost .

She had to be dreaming.

This was the worst nightmare she’d ever had.

“I was trying to save you!” she cried.

The horse stopped in place.

“You were caught up, remember? In that dock?” She tried to raise the phone again to use the flashlight.

Her arm wouldn’t move.

“I only wanted to set you free.”

The horse turned its huge head.

It made no sound as it cast its gaze over the darkness of the sea.

Its tail twitched, and it stomped one hoof against the stones, as if agitated.

It seemed distracted.

Could Madeleine make a run for it?

Could anyone outrun a horse the size of a delivery van, whether it was a ghost or not?

Especially when the path was strewn with slippery rocks?

She’d damned well better try, considering the alternative.

Madeleine lurched toward the right, eyeing the seawall stairs, which seemed to be a thousand miles away.

Everything remained fuzzy from the whisky she’d guzzled.

Her legs wouldn’t move as fast as she told them to.

Even if they would, they wouldn’t be faster than the horse.

It darted in front of her, baring its sharp teeth once more.

Madeleine staggered backward again.

Her feet slid into the wet sand and water.

“Stop!”

The horse didn’t seem inclined to comply.

It just kept walking while staring Madeleine down with that unnerving glare of intelligence.

She looked around wildly.

The dock was just a few feet away, much like when she’d woken up on the rocky shore beneath…

beneath…

Madeleine’s breath caught.

This was the spot. This was the same spot her angel must have dragged her ashore.

She looked back at the horse.

“You should leave me alone,” she said, her voice ringing like a bell.

“Something here protected me last time. It will again. I know it.”

The horse took a sudden step back, as if startled.

So it did understand her.

That much was obvious.

Somehow, this monster understood English.

Then it looked over her shoulder at the sea and flicked its tail again.

What was it looking at, or for?

Before she could think better of it—must have been the alcohol—Madeleine turned as well.

Bad idea. The sudden shift in perspective disoriented her.

She was drunk, the ground was slippery, and for the third time, Madeleine Laurent fell down on Jorsay at the worst possible moment.

Her feet went out from under her.

Her phone flew out of her hand.

She landed on her bottom with a cry, right in the sand.

She put a hand back to steady herself and the icy water rushed over it.

Was the tide rising?

She couldn’t tell, didn’t know, and it didn’t matter because in the space of a breath, the gigantic horse was looming over her, blocking out any source of light.

Her angel was nowhere in sight.

Madeleine was all alone.

No small stones lay within reach.

Neither did her phone.

She had nothing to throw at the beast or blind it with.

She had nothing but her hands, soft and useless.

Helplessly, Madeleine stared up at the terrifying creature that was about to kill her.

The horse lowered its massive head.

Madeleine closed her eyes, unable to breathe as that muzzle descended toward her.

Its breath blew hot against her forehead, stirring the loose hairs there.

Here they came, the razor teeth, ready to tear her to shreds.

Then, the horse inhaled, deeply, as if smelling her.

A low, soft noise rumbled out of its throat.

Madeleine’s heart stopped.

The horse lifted its head.

It made another low noise.

Instead of tearing into Madeleine with its teeth, it paced around her, toward the sea.

Madeleine sat frozen.

The sea behind her splashed and sloshed as the horse walked into the water.

What was happening? Had it heeded her pleas and warnings, was it returning to the sea where it had died?

Suddenly, something hit Madeleine between her shoulder blades, hard enough to drive the breath out of her.

Then it happened again.

The horse was nudging her with its head.

She tilted forward, gasping, as the horse bumped her with its head once more.

Then it whinnied impatiently.

Madeleine scrambled to her feet and staggered toward her phone.

It took her a couple of attempts to pick it up, precious moments in which the monster could easily kill her, but no such thing happened.

Instead, the horse remained behind her.

Certain she was dreaming, Madeleine slipped her phone into her pocket.

She didn’t seem to need it right now, if it was even working at this point.

It didn’t seem like the moment to stop and check.

The horse nudged her shoulder with its nose again, pushing her away from the water, in the direction of the seawall.

Madeleine stumbled forward.

A few steps in, she stepped on a rock that tilted beneath her foot, and nearly fell again.

The horse caught the back of her jacket with its teeth and dragged Madeleine back to her feet.

It made another impatient sound, as if telling Madeleine to be more careful.

In this impossible way, Madeleine made her way back to the seawall.

The horse walked behind her.

Halfway up the steps, the wind kicked back in, cutting through her jacket as the whisky’s warm protection officially wore off.

Her feet and bottom were soaked from landing in the water, and her toes felt like blocks of ice.

Knees trembling, she reached the beginning of the central thoroughfare.

As she did, the horse bumped her shoulder again and made a sound of warning.

Unable to help herself, Madeleine turned and looked up.

Closer to the streetlamps, she could see that the horse’s eyes were indeed a flashing yellow—although when they rolled a certain way, they looked almost red.

This close up, away from the sea and all its terror, she noticed something else too.

The horse…smelled nice.

Which shouldn’t be possible.

Shouldn’t it smell however monsters smelled?

Like fire and brimstone or something?

Instead, the horse smelled like the sea.

Not the rotting smell of earlier, but like the first time you caught the scent as you approached from shore.

Refreshing, exciting, the hours ahead full of possibility.

The horse tossed its head and growled again.

Then it turned its nose toward a side street in an unmistakable gesture.

It wanted to go that way instead of walking down the main thoroughfare.

Maybe it preferred to kill its victims in alleys like any murderer would.

Madeleine shook her head.

“If you want to kill me, you can do it where people might see you. And I’ll scream. They can hear me now.”

The horse growled again.

Madeleine lifted her chin.

“You should go back to the ocean, or wherever you came from. I guess you know now that I didn’t mean you any harm? Although…”

She hesitated.

Well. Even if the horse was about to kill her, she ought to do the right thing.

“I am sorry about what happened,” she repeated softly.

“I tried to set it right, but I couldn’t. If you are a ghost, then I hope you find peace now and go to…horse heaven. Or wherever you’d go.”

The horse snorted.

The sound was bizarrely familiar.

“Look.” She ran a hand over her mussed hair.

“You’re not supposed to go anywhere. Animals aren’t supposed to have souls. But here you are, and I can’t think what else you can be , so that must mean you’ve got one, and—and—” She laughed suddenly, painfully.

“And H?ra was right.”

The horse tilted its head to the side, appearing inquisitive now.

“This wasn’t anything I was ever taught. Maybe other things are wrong too? Maybe everything’s wrong.” Madeleine wrapped her arms around herself as the wind cut through her again.

“You started it all, you know. Everything that’s happened.”

She looked into the horse’s yellow eyes, which pierced her in return, like a pin pressing a butterfly into a glass case.

“You already ate me up,” she said thickly.

“There’s only bones left. Spiritually speaking.”

The horse looked down at her.

As she might have expected, it was silent.

Madeleine whispered, “Of course, you can’t say anyth?—”

The horse moved again.

Not to bite her. Instead, it walked past her, toward the main thoroughfare of Thornhill Village, out in the open.

Then, as Madeleine gaped at it, it turned its head and jerked its head toward the street.

Clearly saying: Well?

Come along, then .

This really had to be a dream.

The horse, the village, this entire trip—all of it.

In that case, there was no reason for Madeleine not to go to the horse, which waited for her.

And together, they walked down the pavement on the left side of the street.

The horse walked closest to the wall, farther from the streetlamps.

It kept its pace slow and stately next to Madeleine, who felt no less rubber-kneed than she had on the beach.

The windows along the street were dark.

She and the horse were alone and, it seemed, unseen.

The lamplight threw their shadows heedlessly around as they walked.

The horse’s shadow looked even larger than its owner when it stretched out into the darkened street or along a wall.

Away from the sea, the only sound was the clop of the horse’s pointed hooves and the steady susurration of its breath.

It was the strangest and most silent stroll of Madeleine’s life.

Eventually, they reached the steps of the Merryweather Hotel.

Madeleine looked up at the door.

Then she turned to regard the horse.

“Uh, am I going to run into you again?” She devoutly hoped not, no matter how good the creature smelled.

The horse flicked its tail.

“Is that a yes or a no?”

The horse just flicked its tail again.

“Right,” Madeleine muttered.

What else was there to say?

Thanks for not killing me?

That seemed like a great way to revisit the possibility.

She settled for, “Good night.”

She turned around.

Climbed the first step.

Hard pressure at her shoulder.

Madeleine wheezed in shock as the horse sank its teeth into her jacket and tugged.

Instead of tearing into her skin, it ripped off a patch of fabric.

Then, before she could scream, the horse stepped back, turned, and galloped down the sidewalk.

Madeleine stared after it in disbelief.

Its massive body moved with unbelievable speed as it raced away and turned down the first side street in view.

Then it was gone.

She looked at her shoulder, at the rip.

The jacket’s fabric was tough.

That was the whole point of it.

That creature’s teeth must be razor-sharp.

Its mouth and jaw must be able to exert tremendous pressure.

Did that just happen?

No. No. This is a dream.

Yes. That must be it.

She was dreaming, so she’d better go to bed.

That made sense.

Madeleine stumbled into the hotel and made her way to her room.

She knew she should brush her teeth, say her prayers, and sleep.

Wobbling a little, she eyed the spot at the foot of the bed where she knelt to pray.

“Not tonight,” she mumbled, and then collapsed on the bed fully dressed, shoes and all, as everything went black.