Page 89 of The Unknown

“That’s easy.” Violet opens her arms, sweeping them over the table. “We hold another séance.”

June 14, 1926—Night

Time seems to have speeded up on the island. I can’t quite put my finger on why or how, but this evening has been a half-forgotten blur. I suppose worry is the cause. The same fraught anxiousness that now keeps me awake, terrified that if I sleep, there’ll be another nightmare—and that this time, Mrs. Semple will be claimed by the Darkness.

For now, though, she remains on the island. I know because I’ve moved into the house, too scared to be all alone in the cottages. I can hear her down the hallway, bustling about in her room. I so admire her bravery. She doesn’t seem scared at all, although I’m certain she is.

Earlier tonight, she had come to my door, finding me on the floor weeping uncontrollably. As expected, we saw nothing during our search of the island, and it left me so grief-stricken that I had to let it out.

“My dear girl,” Mrs. Semple said as she swept me into her arms. “Weeping will solve nothing.”

“I don’t know what else to do,” I sobbed. “I feel so sad and guilty. Because this is all my fault.”

I know in my heart that it is. It must be. During that first, wretched séance, the Darkness addressed me and no one else. It begged me to let it out of wherever it was trapped and—somehow, quite unintentionally—I did.Now Katrina, Jonquil, and Mrs. Minafer are gone because of it. Because ofme.

“I wish I knew why this was happening.”

“We could always ask,” Mrs. Semple suggested.

I knew she meant another séance. This time, I refused to entertain the idea, for only bad things happened during them. It’s how I had set the Darkness free in the first place. And then, during the last séance, I didn’t even know what was taking place. I had fainted while the Darkness spoke of someone else disappearing and, sure enough, it happened. Twice, in fact. Now Mrs. Semple was suggesting not just a séance, but one in which we purposefully reached out to the Darkness.

“No,” I said. “I don’t want to. Please don’t make me.”

“It might be the only way to understand what’s been happening, my child. Don’t you want that?”

Yes. I want that very much. Which is why I grudgingly agreed to one last séance that will take place tomorrow night. I still loathe the idea, but, like Mrs. Semple, I fear it might be the only way to make sense of what the Darkness wants—and my role in all of it.

Now I lay me down to sleep.

I pray the Lord my soul to keep.

Even more, I pray there’ll be no more nightmares—and that I shall not die before I wake.

Twenty-Three

The three of us conclude that the séance should be conducted tomorrow night. A split vote in which I was the decider. After dinner, during which no one again had much appetite, Violet suggested we go straight to the parlor and do it then.

“Let’s just get it over with,” she said. “The sooner the better.”

Ronan, red-eyed and rattled, disagreed. “I’m not sure I’m ready for that.”

“Neither am I, but it has to be done,” Violet replied.

“Listen, I’ve just agreed that there might be a demon on this island pretending to be people we’ve loved and lost,” Ronan said. “Isn’t that enough for one day?”

Violet turned her gaze to me. “What about you, Marin?”

I understood why she was so eager to hold the séance then. If the past was any indicator, one of us would be vanishing soon. Yet I also agreed with Ronan. This was alotto take in, and after another night of next to no sleep, I was running on fumes. If a séance was needed—and I still wasn’t sure it would help—I wanted to be alert for it. Especially if the improbable happened and we managed to contact Molly.

That was what ultimately tipped the scales in Ronan’s favor. I wasn’t ready to speak to my sister again. In fact, I doubted I would ever be.

“Fine,” Violet said when I announced my decision. “But good luck getting any of that rest you so desperately need. I, for one, won’t be sleeping a wink.”

Now we’re each in our own rooms, another sign that, despite being in this together, we’re also alone. And even though I’ve closed the curtains and locked the bedroom door, I don’t feel safe. Julianne’s absence is as apparent as an open wound. When I pick her discarded nightgown off the floor, I’m hit with a blast of guilt that, just like with Heather, I couldn’t save her. If only I’d woken up a minute earlier or run just a little bit faster along the lakeshore, both of them might still be here.

Instead, they are nowhere. A thought that keeps me awake in the flickering light of the bedside lamp, even though my body aches for slumber. After another hour of guilty thinking and no actual sleeping, I decide to give up and retrieve Daisy’s diary from the parlor. Maybe one more late-night read will help me notice something I missed earlier—or at least put me to sleep.

With the lamp in hand, I creep out of my bedroom, alert to the rustle of movement in the darkness at the end of the hall. For a heart-stopping moment, I think it’s Molly, finally giving up on the window and going straight for the door. But then Ronan steps from the shadows, wearing just a pair of plaid boxer shorts. Sleepy-eyed and half naked, he looks like a stranger without his glasses, neckerchief, and khakis. I must appear just as foreign to him, because he squints in the gloom and says, “Elise?”