Page 47 of The Unknown

“The boat,” I replied, gasping for breath. “It might be gone!”

When we arrived at the dock, Mrs. Semple was already there, standing with her hands on her head. The boat that should have been tied there was indeed missing. At first, I didn’t understand how such a thing could have happened. It soon became clear when I looked at the rope that had once been attached to the boat. One end now dangled off the dock, floating in the water.

“Did it come loose?” Katrina asked.

Mrs. Semple pulled the rope from the lake, dropping it onto the dock with a splat. “I thought I’d tied it tightly.”

“Could someone have untied it?” I said.

“I don’t know,” Mrs. Semple replied, her voice distant. “There’s no one else on this island.”

“What do we do now?” Jonquil asked.

I, too, was anxious, and asked Mrs. Semple when we might see a visitor to the island.

“Because of its past, many people distrust this place,” she said. “The only one brave enough to venture here is Mr. Ruggle, who delivers groceries and other necessities. And he won’t be returning for another week.”

She said nothing else, for there was no need. All of us knew that until Mr. Ruggle arrived with supplies, we were at the mercy of whatever the island had planned for us.

Nine

The scratching returns in the middle of the night.

I know because I’m wide awake when it begins, the sound as unplaceable as before. Perhaps even more so now that I’ve extinguished all the lamps. I lie in the tar-thick darkness, straining to pinpoint its location, to no avail. It’s everywhere.

As for what’s causing it, that remains impossible to know. I still can’t even tell if it’s inside the cottage or out.

“Please be outside,” I say to the scratching. “And if you’re inside, please be something cute and harmless and not a rat. And if you are a rat—or, God forbid,rats—please don’t eat my eyeballs,” I add, citing a fear I’ve had since I was ten and read how rats go for the eyes first when they get desperate enough to prey on humans.

Scanning the room, I catch movement out of the corner of my eye. A blur of motion at the window. Thinking it is indeed a rat, I let out a girlish shriek than soon dissolves into embarrassed laughter.

It’s just the shadow of that wretched oak tree in the middle of the green. A light breeze must have shushed through its branches, causing them to sway, which in turn created an undulating shadow at the window.

Still, just to be on the safe side, I whisper into the darkness, “And if you’re Molly, you’re not real. You don’t exist. Please be gone.”

Shockingly, that seems to work. The scratching stops, which doesn’t mean I can get any sleep. The room is too hot, the bed too unyielding, and I spend what remains of the night lying awake in the sweltering darkness, replaying everything that has happened. Brad’s evacuation. The séance. That damned glass spelling out Molly’s name.

Several times, I reach across the nightstand, searching for my phone, only to be reminded that it’s not here but in a designer backpack somewhere on the mainland, along with everyone else’s.

“Please tell me you have your phone,” Heather asked Ronan a few hours ago, as we all stood on the dock, watching the boat vanish from view.

“Everything will be fine,” he said, answering the question by avoiding it.

“So that’s a no?” Susie asked.

I already knew that, having watched Ronan drop his phone into a velvet pouch like the rest of us.

“I saw no point in keeping it,” he said. “Not when there was no way to charge it. So I handed it over. I didn’t think there’d be a problem.”

“We are trapped on an island with no boat, no electricity, and now no phones,” Heather said. “I’d say that’s a huge fucking problem.”

“We’re not trapped,” Ronan said, a bit too adamant, like he was trying to convince himself and not us. “We have food. We have shelter.”

Heather scoffed. “And no means of leaving. Which is the very definition of trapped.”

“It’s not like we’ve been abandoned,” said Violet, who continued to stare at the black expanse of water between us and the mainland. “Obviously, Loretta knows we’re here. She’ll be back as soon as Brad gets the help he needs.”

“Says someone who clearly hasn’t spent any time in an ER waiting room,” Heather said. “That could be hours.”