“Will he kill me?” I asked.
“No. I suspect he’ll make a bargain. It’s what he does. It’s all he knows.”
“Why me?”
“Why not?” There was a sadness in her tone. She reached out and grabbed my arm, not forcefully, but with enough grip that I knew to start walking beside her again. “You’re the purest thing that’s stepped foot here in a long time. An uncorrupt soul is a rare find.”
“What will happen to you?” I wobbled, nearly tripping on a rock. She held me tighter so that I wouldn’t fall. “Will you be free?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what freedom looks like. I never have.” She let go of my arm when it felt like we reached steady, flat ground. She took out another cigarette and lit it. “How was it, life far away from the island?”
“It was nice.” I eyed her warily. “Maybe your freedom will buy you time away from here.”
“Maybe.” She seemed to smile at that.
Panic rose deep inside me when the terrain switched from damp grass and rocks to wet sand. Wet sand meant the water was much closer than I originally thought, and with the week coming to an end it also meant it would rise soon. Maybe Mayra’s plan was to kill me herself. Maybe all of this was a ploy to take revenge on my grandmother for what she’d done. Finally, she stopped walking and reached down to pick something up. A torch, which she lit in one swift motion before handing it to me. I took it and carried it in front of my face to make out my surroundings.
We were standing in front of a massive black rock. A cave, I realized, upon seeing an opening. Mayra walked closer. I followed, walking slowly behind her. She reached up and untied her hair from its usual bun. It unraveled swiftly as it came down, covering her already black attire with more black. Unlike my grandmother’s tight curls, Mayra had long, straight, black hair. La Ciguapa’s hair. The thought made me shiver. She walked inside the cave. I idled for a moment, taking another look over my shoulder, toward the Manor, which was at such a distance I could barely make it out. And then, taking a deep breath and saying a short prayer to God, the God my grandmother always hoped I’d believe in, I walked inside.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
River
He’d slept. A deep slumber that seemed to never end, but something woke him. Penelope. Penelope walking into the Mouth of the Devil. River sat up in bed with a gasp, his chest heaving. Mayra. He scrambled out of bed, fighting sheets that tied up his feet, begging him to stay. He shoved his legs into the first pair of pants he found and grabbed a T-shirt and pulled it over his head. He was already sprinting out the door when his eyes caught a pair of sneakers and he grabbed those too, taking the stairs two at a time.
“What’s wrong?” The voice came from his father.
“Penelope’s at the Mouth of the Devil.” He yanked his sneakers on and headed to the back of the house.
“If she’s already there, there’s nothing you can do,” his father called out.
“Let him be, Will.” That was Sarah’s soothing voice.
“I have to try,” River shouted as he exited the house.
He had to try.
It was all he could say. All he could do. His father wasn’t wrong. If Penelope was already there, River stood no chance. He had nothing else left to bargain. His soul wasn’t his. It hadn’t been since he was ten and even though he’d longed to be free of the invisible chains that kept him tied to this house, to him, he also knew what it would take. A pure heart. A wholesome soul. Her. River couldn’t stomach it. He’d complied with everything that was asked of him most of the time, but this, he couldn’t bear this. She wasn’t meant to be tethered. It was that thought that made him run faster through the grass at the back of his house. The grass didn’t grow much here, though no one really knew why. River had always been told the island didn’t allow for new life, and that extended to the grass itself. The land used up all of its resources to replenish the Tree of Life each year and once the life faded from it and the leaves dried up, all of its energy went right back to the ocean and its angry waves. When he reached the sand, he was surprised to feel it wet beneath his feet. That wasn’t supposed to happen until tomorrow evening. The realization made him run harder.
He was almost to the cave when he hit a wall. His body shot into the air and was thrown back against the sand. It took River a moment to recover from the impact. A figure was walking toward him when he came to, blinking slowly as white and black dots blurred his vision. He stood up shakily, trying to find equilibrium to keep going. Even through the blurred vision, River knew it was him, the Devil himself. Though he didn’t like the name Devil, he’d never given himself a name, and River’s lack of interest for the occult left him with only that word to call him.