Little Hidden Darknesses

Despite being told not to run, I wasted no time in jogging to the motel, grabbing my stuff, and setting off to the docks. If the Vinsants thought I’d stay another second on this asylum of an island, they were sorely mistaken. Two people had died already, and by their hands most likely. Family or not, they were monsters. Disgusting, evil and downright wicked.

Blood might’ve been thicker than water, but when the blood in question belonged to someone else, you best make like water and gush away. As far, far away as you possibly can.

I raced down the hillside and into the centre of town, shocked to find the entire street in chaos. People dashed across the square – “Seek shelter! Everyone seek shelter immediately!” – with their arms in the air and with little regard for any festival decorations. Like flocks of frightened sheep, they piled into the buildings, doors slamming shut and windows bolting all around me. Someone called out to me, but I opted to ignore them.

“Alright, suit yourself! ’’ they shouted just before the florist’s door bashed shut and the blinds tumbled across the glass, introducing me to my own reflection. A sweaty mess. At first I couldn’t understand what they were running from, but when I glanced across my shoulder up the hill, I saw it: the biggest bank of fog, tumbling down the hill toward me.

While the sight of it shouldn’t have frightened me, my heart sped up and my throat synched shut. I reeled up my bag and set off across the square, my boots ringing off the concrete.

Several doors swung open to invite me in, each one only to slam shut again as I whizzed past. Sure, it might’ve been a better idea to escape the fog, but I couldn’t risk getting stuck in town. Not with the Vinsants roaming about, their every intention to claim me again.

No. I had to get to th docks. Had to call old Bill and have him fetch me, take me back to Plymouth. To a normal life.

Then again, would anything ever be normal again? I doubted it. I knew too much now. Too much to endure a life of packing bags at a supermarket, or washing dishes at a restaurant. Too much to look at any of my mum’s stuff, talk to any of my mum’s friends, without wondering. Doubting.

I raised my arm in front of my face as I rammed into the forest. Twigs and leaves met my skin, scratching away at my flesh. As much as it hurt – as the picture in my mind horrified me – I didn’t care. In fact, I already felt them heal, felt my skin stitching back together.

I also felt the Vinsants. Not anywhere close to me, but far away at the top of the hill, in the drawing room. They felt me too, that much I could tell. What I couldn’t tell, was whether or not they knew where I was headed. Whether or not their plan was to chase me away all along.

If it was, I couldn’t help but admire them for the brilliant minds. They’ve succeeded, and without having to lift a finger or break a single nail. I was officially, properly over this place.

Over them.

I ran through the forest with closed eyes, trusting my senses to guide me down the overgrown path. A part of me wondered whether my mum had also traversed it in such haste. If she too had run away like this. With her blood rushing and limbs buzzing with adrenaline. With her heart pounding against her ribs, at the brink of rupturing through.

Did she also glow like this? She must’ve. She was one of them, after all. A part of the family.

I wondered what old Bill would say when he saw me again. If he’d gloat about having warned me, maybe lecture me for not having taken his advice. Don’t go taking any risks out there. Gmf. At least I’d prove him wrong about one thing: I’d be making a return trip.

Maybe then he’d take me more seriously. Maybe then I wouldn’t be the stupid girl he had charged an arm and a leg to travel a measly 90 kilometres. Thinking of the boat ride, it felt like a lifetime ago. But I was a different person then. More naïve. Desperate to connect with my mum.

In a way, I did connect with her these past few days. Not the way I wanted to, of course, but at least knew more about her now. I had found out the circumstances in which she had grown up. The horrible people she had to run away from. The love she had to leave behind.

An image of Alejandro surfaced in my mind. His smile, adorned with boyish dimples. His eyes, sparkling despite everything he had to face every day. Despite being called names. I thought of how he had grown comfortable with me. Enough to reveal his face.

Boy, wasn’t this ironic.

Like my mum had done with his dad, I was abandoning him. And without so much as a goodbye. Heck, I didn’t even know what had happened to him after he set off at the school.

Hopefully, he got somewhere safe. Somewhere far, far away from the Vinsants and their mansion of secrets. I really hoped he didn’t go looking for me, trying to save me from them.

Please, Alejandro. Don’t do anything stupid.

I cleared the forest with a gasp of breath. I coughed, expelling as much fog as I could from my lungs. And as the glow in my arms started to fade, the Vinsants vanished from my senses.

Their absence lifted a weight off my shoulders, relieved the prickling at the back of my mind.

I skidded across the rocks and onto the sun-bleached dock. It swayed from side to side, the wood creaking under my boots. I ran to the edge where the cool ocean spray met my face, my scalding cheeks and forehead. I realised my eyes were watering, welling up to the point at which the ocean looked a blur. A sparkly, splashing blur that tasted of salt.

Before I knew what was happening, I fell on my knees. My bag slipped off my shoulder just as my palms slammed onto the splintery wood. They hurt from the impact, but I didn’t mind the burn. It somehow helped me to compose myself, to hold back any tears.

Alas gravity proved to strong – or so I told myself – and the first drop fell. The first drop, the start of the storm. I wept at first, but as my thoughts grew louder, so too did my sobbing.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

I sobbed for my mum, for what she had said in the letter. She had done something bad. So bad, she couldn’t handle it anymore. I didn’t want to admit it, didn’t want to even consider it.

Did she actually murder Lilith’s husband, her own brother-in-law? Did she help the Vinsants manipulate everyone in town? Did she kidnap people herself? Maybe killed them?

No. No. No.

The thought of it sickened me. Even more than when I thought about the missing brothers, and what Branka and Aillard might’ve done to them. How their families ought to feel.

Confused. Angry. Heartbroken.

But Benjy and Bobby weren’t the first to have vanished in the fog. Didn’t Mrs. Perez tell me most people in the cemetery were missing townsfolk? Plus, Fernando also never returned.

My heart stopped.

Fernando. Also. Never. Returned.

I sat up, but didn’t wipe under my eyes. I didn’t have to, as my tears were suddenly gone. Evaporated like my need to sob. Instead, I was filled with shock, a spurt of adrenaline.

My theory: Fernando was the love of my mum’s life. Not only that, but he had helped her hide away at the motel, helped her escape. The Vinsants found this out and killed him.

Damn it, Eira. Do you realise what an allegation this is?

I did, and I was never more convinced of anything in my life. It all made sense when you thought about it. As revenge, the Vinsants murdered the one person who meant the most to my mum. Just like she – allegedly – murdered the most important person in Lilith’s life.

Oh, boy. This changed everything. How could I just leave after realizing something this great?

I listened to the waves crashing against the side of the dock. Hard and ferocious, like the anger building inside of me. My heart still raced, but no longer in fear. It raced in determination.

They couldn’t get away with this. No way in hell. Because of them, Alejandro was forced to grow up without his dad. And all because of something that had nothing to do with him.

Like me, he was robbed of having a father. But it wasn’t the same. I didn’t have my dad taken from me.

The dock creaked and swayed as I scrambled to my feet. I gathered the strap of my bag, but didn’t toss it over my shoulder. I just held it as I stared out across the ocean, the blazing horizon. As little as I wanted to, I had to go back. I had to find Alejandro and tell him everything.

If I was right about his dad, and the Vinsants really did get rid of him, he deserved to know the truth. He might refuse to believe me, might be so heartbroken, he’d want nothing to do with me. But I had to try. Had to show him how diabolical the Vinsants really were.

“Oh, mum, please help me,” I whispered at the ocean, my voice carried off by the breeze. I sniffed and cleared my throat, forcing myself to be strong. To be more than an orphan.

The Vinsants had to be exposed, once and for all. If not for me, then for the sake of the entire island. For everyone they’ve manipulated, trapped in this rotten place for multiple generations. The Vinsants might think they had gotten the better of me, but they hadn’t. I had nothing left to live for, and would do anything to get into their mansion again. To find the necessary proof that would end their wicked reign once and for all.