Page 37 of Dauntless
“There must be some way to get off this island!”
“Well, you could always swim.”
“I can’t swim all the way to Newcastle!”
“I never said you could,” she said with an evil smile, “but it would certainly get you off the island, wouldn’t it?”
“Fu—fine.”I sucked in a deep, edifying breath, only to find that it didn’t edify me at all.“Okay, since I’m stuck here until Wednesday, can you please tell me where I can camp?”
“This is a shop, Mr.Hawthorne, not the tourist information centre.”
“I know that, but the tourist information centre is closed!”
“That may be,” Mavis said, “but it doesn’t magically bestow the powers of the tourist information centre on me now, does it?”
“Oh my god.I just want to know where I can camp!Do you have any maps of the island?”
“No.John Coldwell has some at the museum, though.”
“Right.Excellent.Fine.”I turned and left, wrenching the door so hard the bells almost danced off their strings.Once I was outside, I jammed my hands in my pockets and strode towards the harbour and the museum.
It was another cool day.There was a bite to the wind that whipped in off the ocean.The sandy grit of the road crunched under the soles of my boots.I was angry—angry with Joe, angry with Dauntless, and angry with Mavis, but I was angriest with myself.What did I think?That hot ginger lighthouse keepers werereal?Well, they were, but that one of them would wantme?Ha!No chance.I’d fallen for it.I’d fallen forhim, and that was the dumbest thing of all, because you didn’t fall in love at first sight with the perfect guy unless you were a Disney princess.And the last little bird I’d had any interaction with hadn’t helped me with my housework—it had shat on me at the bus stop.
I couldn’t fucking believe I’d been this stupid about a guy.Again.
An old man sitting on his front step watched me as I headed down to the harbour, and a little kid wearing a red beanie stared at me from behind a falling-down garden trellis.A dog, almost as big as the kid, stood with the kid.It wagged its tail when it saw me but didn’t leave the kid’s side.
When I reached the harbour wall, I turned at the tourist information centre.I had no idea who was in charge, but it sucked they were closed and I’d have to go and see John Coldwell to grab a map.All I wanted to know was where I could camp until Wednesday, and then I could get off this bloody island.
My gut twisted, because I’dlovedDauntless last night.I’d loved a lot of things last night, as it turned out, and I’d been wrong about all of them.
Out in the harbour, gulls wheeled in the sky.There was a boat on the horizon, possibly one of the island’s trawlers.Nets hung off poles at the back, so probably, but what the hell did I know about fishing?My dad had tried to teach me how to cast a line once.I’d got the hook caught in my hair.He’d thought I was screaming because I was injured, but it was really because I’d got bait in my hair.That was the first and last time I’d gone fishing.
I stopped outside the museum and took a bracing breath of sea air.Then I took a few more.Then, when I realised I was procrastinating to the point of hyperventilation, I straightened my spine, pulled my shoulders back, and marched up to the front door.I rapped on it then pushed it open.
John Coldwell was seated behind the counter in the museum foyer.Today he had a plate of scones in front of him, complete with jam and cream.He gave a start as I stepped inside, and brushed crumbs off his jumper.“What are you doing here?”
“Hello,” I said, deciding to take a less hostile opening than I had with Mavis at the shop.“I would like to buy a tourist map of the island, please.”
“What for?”he asked, eyes narrowed.
“Is this them here?”I approached the rack of postcards, turning it to check out the pamphlets on the other side.Most appeared to have been printed at someone’s home and unevenly folded into thirds to fit into the rack.Island boat tours by Elias Dinsmore.Farmstays at Katrina Finch’s farm.Julie Dinsmore’s B&B.A History of Dauntless Islandby Short Clarry the Mayor—yes, that was the name he’d put on the front—printed in comic sans on lime green paper.Jesus.And finally—success!A tourist map.I snatched it off the rack.“How much?”
“Two dollars,” he said warily.
I ferreted in my pack for a two-dollar coin and slapped it down on the counter.“Great.”
John Coldwell stared at me, and I stared at him, and then he extended his cupped hand like it was a hungry, hungry hippo and snapped it down over the coin.“What do you need a map for?”
“Camping,” I said.“It’s lovely camping weather.”
“No, it isn’t.”He screwed up his face, and then grinned slowly.“Oh, Red Joe’s finally had enough of your nonsense, has he,Hawthorne?I’m not surprised.Coming here from the mainland, with all your filthy lies about Josiah Nesmith.”
“Okay, then,” I said, trying not to let any brittleness into my voice.Did that nasty gleam in his eye mean he knew the diary had been stolen?Had he planned this with Joe from the start?I was almost sure John Coldwell was the man who’d attacked me.Had he asked Joe to steal the diary when he hadn’t managed to get it the night of the storm?Why the hell not?It was pretty obvious that nobody here actually liked me, and not a single one of them wanted the contents of the diary revealed.John Coldwell said he didn’t believe a word of it, but he was lying.He’d been lying from the beginning.He wouldn’t have been so angry about it if he’d thought it was bullshit.Lies didn’t scare men like him, but the truth certainly did.“Thanks for the map.Bye!”
I hustled my arse out of the museum before John Coldwell could threaten me with hanging again.
I didn’t go back the way I’d come.I turned right instead of left, following the harbour wall and refusing to make eye contact even when I spotted a familiar face.I passed Short Clarry’s house—his cat had glared at me from the window—and a few houses beyond that.Then the harbour wall ran out, and I kept going anyway, walking up the scrubby, rocky ground and cresting the slope to leave the village behind me.I walked for a few minutes longer, the clumps of spinifex slowly giving way to ferns and trees.Then I sat down under the shade of a tree and unfolded my new map.My map reading skills were right up there with my fishing abilities, but it was a typical tourist map, and it wasn’t like I could get lost on Dauntless anyway.Not when you could see the lighthouse from almost everywhere.
