My head throbbed as if my skullcap was fitted too tight. I stumbled as the end of the dock gave way to sand. The beach stretched the length of the cove, fringed with palms just like in a tropical painting, except for the heavy thunderclouds overhead that cast shadows in the dark places between the trees. The wagon waited, hitched to a huge draft horse with golden hair falling in its eyes. The islanders had already loaded two steamer trunks and some bundles into the back.
“After you, my dear,” Father said. He opened the wagon gate. Edward and I climbed in, and Montgomery loaded the hutch behind us. He started to say something, but Father interrupted. “We haven’t all day, Montgomery.”
Montgomery straightened. He brushed his hair out of his face with one hand, and the hutch slipped. I jumped up to catch a corner before it tumbled out of the wagon.
“Careful,” Father said. “If one of those rabbits gets loose, it’ll mean hell for us.”
The muscles in Montgomery’s neck flexed. He slammed the gate closed.
I sat back down on a trunk next to Edward. Sand caked his feet and trousers up to his knees. I tried to think of something to say, but words couldn’t make up for Father’s actions. Edward’s face was blank, but his hands were shaking slightly. God, if he’d been suffering from sea madness before, this certainly wouldn’t make him any saner.
“Maybe you can go back,” I whispered. “Captain Claggan might still take you to Australia.”
His eyes slid to mine. “I don’t want to go back.”
A question formed on my lips, but Edward looked away. Folded his arms, tight. I pushed away the voices that wondered if it had anything to do with what he’d said on the ship—that he was glad I wasn’t spoken for.
Montgomery climbed into the driver’s seat. Father drew a pistol from his jacket and passed it to him. My throat tightened at the sudden gleam of metal. Montgomery casually tucked it into his belt as though this was their daily routine. But why would they need pistols?
Montgomery took the reins. We moved forward in jerks until the wheels found solid ground and then rumbled over uneven earth and vegetation. I watched the Curitiba looming off the coast. I had a sudden urge to jump off the wagon and swim back to it. But I hadn’t ever learned to swim. And I hated Captain Claggan and his stinking ship. But at least I knew what to expect from it, which was more than I could say for the island. I dared a glance at my father. I had so many questions, but they had all tumbled in an unsettling direction when he’d pushed Edward.
Presently, we picked up speed as the path became more substantial, and the jungle soon swallowed up the beach. Entering the jungle was like going into a cold pantry—the temperature dropped and the canopy blocked out all but dappled late-afternoon sunlight. The broad leaves of unnamed plants formed a tunnel around us, slapping the sides of the jerking wagon and making us duck every few seconds.
“This is a biological outpost,” Father said over his shoulder, as though we were all suddenly old friends. “Montgomery and I have spent years cataloging every specimen on the island. Extraordinary diversity.” I glanced at Edward, wondering what thoughts must be going through his mind, but he’d retreated somewhere within himself.
The wagon hit a rut and I bounced off the trunk, catching myself before I collided with the hutch of rabbits. I came nose to nose with a dirty white rabbit, which reminded me far too much of another rabbit, worlds away now, in an operating theater in London.
“You’re stuck with us for some time, Prince,” Father continued. “It’s a rare thing indeed when a ship passes our way. A year or more.”
The rabbit twitched its nose ceaselessly. The dim-witted little animal didn’t even know it had come all the way from England to end up with a scalpel through its belly. My finger rested on the latch—all I would have to do was squeeze my finger to free the rabbit.
As if he could sense my thoughts, Edward placed his hand over mine and shook his head.
The path grew gradually wider. We rode for an hour, maybe longer. The sun was sinking low behind darkening thunderclouds, throwing shadows among the trees. I was usually a good judge of passing time, but my mind had wound down like a clock. Thunder rumbled overhead. Odd sounds whispered through the trees, though I told myself it must be the trills of unfamiliar insects. At last, Edward pointed ahead.
A stone compound loomed in a clearing. The terracotta-tiled buildings were all arranged within a circular wall gated by two heavy wooden doors. The single bastion of civilization on an untamed island.
“This used to be a Spanish fort,” Father said over his shoulder. “It was in ruins when I found it. The missionaries slept in it like dogs. And they called themselves civilized.” He snorted.
“Missionaries?” I asked.
“Anglicans, come to proselytize,” he mumbled, but his attention was on the compound. From within came a steady hammering and the smell of woodsmoke. Despite the tremble in my hands, I told myself this was not a place to be feared. Montgomery lived here, and so did my father. There was nothing within those walls that would hurt me. In fact, the danger was outside, in the jungle, where Montgomery had to carry a pistol.
So why was I so nervous?
Ten yards from the compound, Montgomery stopped the horse. A door slammed from within, making me jump, and a boy appeared, running in a strange skipping manner toward us. He took hold of the horse’s bridle while Montgomery climbed down and ruffled the boy’s hair. I couldn’t help but stare. The child’s jaw protruded at an odd angle below a nearly nonexistent nose. A dark, fine hair covered his bare arms. A shiver ran over my skin. It was as if my father had stumbled upon some collection of natives whom the theory of evolution—were Mr. Darwin to be believed—had skipped by.
Another face peered out from a side door I hadn’t noticed. I caught only a glimpse of a bald head and a flash of white shirt. Father climbed down from the wagon as nimbly as an insect, and went over to speak to the man.
Montgomery opened the back of the wagon. The silver butt of the pistol in his belt reflected the dark roiling of the sky. I stumbled as I tried to climb down. Montgomery’s hands caught me around the waist and lingered, stealing my breath.
“Are you all right?” he whispered. I glanced at the stark compound walls. Father had already disappeared within, and we were alone with Edward and the child.
“It’s the deficiency,” I said. “After so long on the ship, without proper food . . .”
He didn’t look convinced. His hands tightened on my waist. I’d told Edward there was nothing between Montgomery and me, and yet I couldn’t deny the way I floated inside when he touched me. It was more than that—I trusted him, and I didn’t trust anyone.
“Don’t be afraid of the doctor,” Montgomery said. “He’s spent so long on the island that he sometimes forgets the proper way to act. But he’d never hurt you.”
“And Edward?” I asked. Hearing his name, Edward climbed out of the wagon. Montgomery let his hands fall to his sides. My waist still felt the ghost of their touch.
“You’re owed an apology, for sure,” he said to Edward. “He’s protective of his work and wasn’t expecting a stranger. I am sorry.”
Edward just rubbed his shoulders, as though he was cold. “You’ve nothing to apologize for. I’m sure it was only a joke.” But his face said otherwise.
“In any case, you’re here now.” Montgomery gave him a brotherly slap on the shoulder, though Edward remained as tightly wound as a spring. “Come on, we’ll get you a good meal and a comfortable bed, and you’ll feel better.”
The little boy let out a soft grunt, struggling to tighten one of the harness leathers that had slipped from its buckle. Montgomery pressed his weight against the horse to make it shift and then freed the loose strap and pulled it taut. He smiled. “You’d have gotten it in another minute. Cymbeline, this is the doctor’s daughter, Miss Moreau.”
The boy looked at me shyly through long lashes, producing a sweet smile that revealed a missing front tooth. The humanity behind such a deformed face troubled me deeply. Instead of returning the smile, I turned away guiltily.
With a groan of metal hinges, the great wooden doors to the compound opened. Father stuck his gray head out. “Well, come on. The rain is coming. Every day like clockwork.” He stuck his head back in.
As if to answer, a crack of thunder shook the sky. The clouds hung like too-ripe fruit, ready to split and burst over the island. Montgomery grabbed the rabbit hutch and braced it on his knee while he shut the gate. The rabbits hopped and sniffed at the new smells of the island.
Plunk. A fat drop of rain fell on my forearm. I looked up, and another one landed on my cheek. All around, the trees quaked and danced under the falling drops. The noise on the broad jungle leaves was like nothing I’d heard before, a thousand tiny wagon wheels on a wood-slat bridge. Another second passed, and the few drops turned into a deluge.
I shrieked. I didn’t know rain could fall so hard and fast. Montgomery and Edward ran for the compound. I picked up my skirts and ran behind them, slipping in the quickly forming mud. A second before I crossed the threshold, I startled. Above the entrance, two sets of eyes watched. I blinked away the rain. Two figures were carved in the stone: the Lamb of God and the Lion of Judah. Their eternal eyes, chipped and streaked with lichen, seemed to rumble with the rolls of thunder. I tore away from their spellbinding gaze and hurried through the wooden doors.
Thirteen
THE INTERIOR OF THE compound was rimmed with a covered portico that gave us shelter from the rain. I hunched into myself like a drenched cat that had been thrown into the gutter. My white dress was covered in mud and sludge and sand. My skin itched for the feel of warm, dry clothing.
Montgomery set down the rabbit hutch and leaned into the heavy wooden doors to ease them closed, sealing out the jungle.
The compound was bigger than it looked from the exterior. Stone walls surrounded a dirt courtyard rapidly filling with mud puddles. A vegetable garden and chicken yard had been built on slightly higher ground. Next to the garden, a pump stood over a sunken pool of water, whose surface trembled in the rain.
A handful of buildings clustered around the courtyard. I wondered which one Father had disappeared into. Next to the wooden gate was the largest edifice, with windows on the first and second stories shaded by wide-slatted shutters. Wispy smoke rose from a tin chimney. A weathered old barn with wide eaves sat across from the big stone building. The little boy reached out from the barn’s half door to catch raindrops in his open palm. There were a few smaller buildings, probably no larger than a room each. Directly across from me hunkered a squat building with tin walls, painted blood red. No windows. Something about it lodged a dull pain in my side, as if a fractured rib now pierced my right lung.
“What’s that building?”
Montgomery didn’t even glance up. “The laboratory.”
I wiped the rain from my face. That low, red building made me uneasy, but the rest of the compound was in good working order. This was clearly someone’s home, not the wild den of some madman. The portico had been freshly swept and the garden was well-tended, despite the mud puddles. My skirt grazed against the interior wall and came off with a coating of chalky dust from fresh whitewash.
Beside me, Edward leaned against the wall, taking long breaths. He pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes for a moment. Part of me felt oddly protective of him. But he was a survivor. He’d been through worse than this and come through it.
“You’ll be all right,” I said.
“It isn’t me I’m worried about,” he whispered, giving me a penetrating look. “I’m not sure you should have come here, Juliet. There’s something strange about this island. About your father.”
I folded my arms, not wanting to hear more. I didn’t altogether disagree with him, but I wasn’t ready to admit that aloud. The rain lightened, and the little boy darted across the courtyard into one of the small apartments. The sound of a hammer started up again.