Page 45 of The Unknown

“Well, you need to try,” Heather tells him. “Let’s get you up.”

Watching from her spot several feet away, Loretta talks into the phone. “Okay, that’s what we’re doing. There better be an ambulance on that goddamn dock when we get there.”

Ronan joins us in lifting Brad, whose limbs flop uselessly. He’s as heavy as a corpse. The only sign he’s still alive are the pained moans he grunts out as we move.

“I’ll get his things,” Loretta says, disappearing into the house. By the time she returns with a backpack, we’ve already shuffled Brad onto the flagstone path leading out of New Avalon.

Getting him the rest of the way is hard, stressful, exhausting work.Brad resists every step, at one point almost passing out as we’re halfway down the sloped meadow leading to the dock. When we finally reach it, a new struggle presents itself—how to get him safely into the boat.

We ultimately decide to carry him, with me, Ronan, Violet, and Heather each manning an arm or a leg. Julianne and Susie, meanwhile, kneel on the dock, keeping the boat steady. Once we get Brad laid out across the boat’s two middle seats, Loretta hops in to man the outboard motor.

“I’m going with you,” Ronan says.

“No. I’m the producer,” Loretta says. “He’s my responsibility. I’ll call you when we reach the hospital.”

Then she’s off, twin spotlights on either side of the bow cutting a path of brightness through the dark water. As the distance between us and the boat quickly grows, I’m struck by a thought. A detail I noticed during the chaos but didn’t think about until this very moment.

Loretta bolting from the house with a backpack slung over her shoulder.

A black one.

A Gucci one.

And it was still with her as the boat sped away.

“Oh, my God, our phones,” I say, my voice a reedy croak. “Loretta left with all our phones.”

June 10, 1926

We are trapped on the island!

Mrs. Semple hasn’t said as much, but from her worrisome behavior, I can tell that is the case. How it happened remains a mystery, like much of New Avalon. Since last night, so many strange things have occurred that it’s becoming difficult to keep track of it all.

I woke up this morning feeling groggy and not myself at all, even though I had slept far longer than I intended. A surprise, quite honestly. The séance last night had left me so shaken I didn’t think I’d sleep at all. Imagine my confusion when I woke to the sun high in the sky. Even more confusing was how exhausted I continued to feel. My limbs ached, especially my legs. As if I had walked miles during the night and not been fast asleep.

But that wasn’t the only thing strange to happen this morning. While I bathed and dressed, I noticed that things around the cottage weren’t where I had left them when I went to sleep. The lamp on the nightstand had been moved, as had my shoes, which sat piled in the corner instead of next to the door where I had left them. Even this very diary had been shifted around during the night.

When I opened it, I was shocked to see that someone had written in it.

I AM OUT

I knew it wasn’t me who’d done it because the handwriting doesn’t match mine at all. This was large and childlike. Like it had been written by someone who’s never held a pen before.

I realized very quickly that it was Katrina’s doing. Only she was mean enough to attempt such a thing. While I slept, she snuck into the cottage and engaged in all manner of pranks, which I didn’t appreciate one bit. I was heading out the door to tell her exactly that when Mrs. Semple arrived with a sketchbook tucked beneath her arm. She asked if I wanted to join her for a walk in the woods.

“Just the two of us,” she said. “There’s something I’d like to speak to you about in private.”

Deciding that confronting Katrina could wait, I told her yes, that I would be delighted, which seemed to please her. We left my cottage and strolled past the giant oak. Although there was no longer any smoke, the gash in its center was charred and black. The rest of the tree, however, seemed perfectly fine.

Mrs. Semple made no mention of the tree as we left the village and entered the forest. We continued walking in a companionable silence until she opened her sketchbook, produced a charcoal pencil, and said, “May I sketch you, Daisy? Something to remember you by?”

“Remember me?” I said, suddenly concerned. “Are you sending me away?”

“Oh, no, nothing of the sort. I just wanted a keepsake of you, that’s all. I’m not much of an artist, but I do enjoy sketching portraits.”

“You should draw all of us,” I suggested.

“Yes,” Mrs. Semple said, sounding distracted, as if there were more on her mind than just drawing. “Perhaps I will.”