Nathan continued recounting how Ben and Jerry left the bayous when they accidentally landed in a coastal town. They wanted to go to Coldville to report to family and friends. Jack and Raphael remained in the bayous and continued searching. They were successful because they found Nathan and his men and were still with us.
“I had them describe the landscape around your prison: the plants that grow there, the color of the water, and which animals live there. When they said there were almost no alligators there, only a few branches of the river came into question. You know the rest. We came across a patrol while scouting the area.”
He always stopped at this point and I knew that there were truths he was still keeping from me because he didn’t know if I could bear them. There was a silent understanding between us, but today, I wanted to find out more. I gripped the teacup tightly and started with something else. “There’s one thing I don’t understand,” I said, looking around warily as I always did whether I was inside or outside. “Your brother had Sparta, so Stanton, thrown into the sea because he thought he was trying to drown me, but he let Noah get away with it?”
Nathan had risen and was trying to banish the grim expression that still crept across his face from time to time. Isaw grief in it and could only assume that it had something to do with Isaac’s death. No matter what Isaac had done, he had been by Nathan’s side for years, protecting him and Lea, and making the long journey down the Mississippi. Isaac had also lost his mother, his youngest brother, and his sister. He and Nathan had mourned side by side and dug graves. Nathan had never said a word about it, but I knew he was suffering. The Isaac he knew before died in Rikers Island, resurrected as a vengeful, cold-hearted person, more monster than man.
Nathan, though, didn’t know that. Isaac hadn’t told anyone what had happened to him in prison except me or at least I thought so.
“Rayk said that Noah had Isaac’s back because he had given him the coordinates twice. He also funded the entire project with money. Without him, the cutter couldn’t have been refueled. Noah was useful.” I remembered that Noah Van Veenstra came from a wealthy family. “When Noah threw you overboard, he thought the plan had failed and we might let you go. Noah always intended to kill you. The coordinates from Lost Memories then redeemed him with Isaac.”
“Hm,” I uttered and looked at Nathan. The question of why burned in me stronger today than on any previous day. I stood hesitantly, placed the cup on the tree stump, and walked to the riverbank, from where I could see Rayk or Kjertan. With his superhuman strength, his face bright red, he split wood into rough logs over and over again as if someone had wound him up like a clock.
“Which of the two is that?” I asked.
Nathan followed. “I honestly don’t know.”
I swallowed hard and grasped the rough band on my wrist. “Why, Nathan?”
Nathan looked at me for a moment before he understood. “Oh God, Will!” His voice was rough and I could feel how muchhe wanted to hold me and protect me, but he stayed where he was, a step away from me, his face full of sorrow.
It hurt. It hurt that he kept his distance and it would have hurt if he had come to me because I couldn’t stand being touched much.
“At first, I didn’t want to tell you because you would have known immediately who Isaac was—or at least your father would have found out if we had released you. If everything had gone according to plan.”
“You were afraid they would have found you afterward…through your brother.”
“I was mainly afraid that Isaac would end up in prison again. He had been unjustly imprisoned. He had never had anything to do with drugs, Willa. I also knew that your father was to blame. If he found out that Isaac, his son, was behind the abduction…besides, Isaac was sick too or so I thought. I didn’t want him to spend his last days in prison.” A dark strand of hair fell over his face and his gaze remained a mixture of darkness and remorse. “Later, when we were on Lost Memories, I often thought about telling you more. I thought it was your right to know that Isaac was your half brother. But would you have believed me if I had told you that your father had my mother…a sixteen-year-old…” He broke off and I wanted to scream:Just say it because it doesn’t make anything better, it only makes things worse!but it wasn’t Nathan’s fault that this happened to me. It was my own fault. I had taken his cell phone and Noah had used it for his own purposes. I had tightened the noose around my neck or so it seemed to me. If I had listened to Nathan, if I hadn’t stolen his cell phone, I might never have fallen into Isaac’s hands.
I pressed my lips together hard and erected protective walls around myself as big as a rampart. “I wouldn’t have believed it.” The truth was that I still didn’t want to believe it, but my father’s behavior had disqualified him. If Isaac had been a child of purelove or mutual pleasure, Dad would never have been ashamed in front of me. Isaac had no reason to lie about that.
Nathan cleared his throat. “When you and I fled Lost Memories after Kjertan left…I wanted to tell you…before you went home to get your life in order. But I never got around to it.” Nathan looked past me at the twin who was banging on the wood like a madman. Delphi—Raphael—stood next to him, looking like an archangel, wondering if he should bring his charge to his senses as Grumpy Jack stacked the logs. Chopping wood was a service they were doing for Mrs. Durand—and her brother, who could sell the wood to camping tourists when he was released from prison.
The morning was cool, the air still lavender blue. It was time. Time for the truth that Nathan had not yet fully revealed. For a few days now, a cruel suspicion had been fluttering through my mind that wouldn’t let go, settling in rather than fading. I walked slowly toward the men, my eyes downcast and my shoulders hunched. Only when I was directly in front of them did I raise my head and look at the twin chopping wood.
When my presence intruded on his busy work, he paused. He was no longer used to me approaching on my own initiative.
“Willa? You better?” He leaned the axe against the chopping block and looked at me honestly and worriedly, but the black eyes were no longer the same.
“Who are you?” I asked quietly. “Kjertan or Rayk?”
“You choose,” he replied and started to reach for his axe. My suspicion burned deeper into my veins and my eyes filled with tears.
“Where is your brother?” I whispered.
Everyone remained silent, the silence hanging in the air like a slowly falling autumn leaf. Kjertan or Rayk reached for the bottle leaning against the chopping block and gulped it down. The smell of the moonshine burned my sinuses like poison,sinking into my stomach, and causing a feeling of nausea and helplessness. For a few seconds, my surroundings flickered, walls rose around me like ramparts, and I lay in the dark room again, my wrists tied to my ankles, defenseless against Isaac’s torture. I gasped for breath, felt my heart racing, unable to move.
“Will?” I heard Nathan’s voice as if through water. “Will, come back.” But I didn’t even know where I was. Everything collapsed around me, and at some point, I was on my knees, on the wet grass, grabbing whole clumps of it, ripping it out, just like I wanted to rip out Isaac’s hair, heart, and soul. “Will, you’re safe, everything’s fine.”
But nothing was fine. Nothing would ever be fine again. And for the first time in a long time, I felt my burning anger unfiltered and, behind it, the squalls of hatred. Both brought me back even though my arms and legs were still shaking uncontrollably.
“Where is he?” I yelled. Everyone stared at me and then I ripped the bottle out of Rayk or Kjertan’s hands and smashed it on the nearest stone on the ground. I couldn’t stand the smell of the stuff anymore and I knew where it had been stored recently. Like a madwoman, I ran into the nearby shed with the disused distillery, and blind with rage, disgust, and revulsion, smashed one bottle after another. The clinking was like mocking music and the smell of the cheap booze almost drowned me. I saw Isaac leaning over me, mocking me, whispering in my ear in a husky voice the things he wanted to do to me that night while he tied me up and forced moonshine into me. To loosen me up!
In my destructive rage, I accidentally cut my arms. I was bleeding, but I couldn’t stop. When I slammed the last bottle against the still, I stood shaking, drenched in moonshine in a sea of glass, crying many tears without stopping. I cried harder than I had ever cried in my life, so much so that I thought I wouldchoke a few times. I cried for myself, and I cried for Nathan and myself for not being able to bear being touched anymore. I cried for Stanton and for Rayk or Kjertan.
Nathan stood quietly in front of the entrance the whole time, and when I reached out to him at some point, he came in and took my fingers.
I squeezed his hand tightly and cried even harder. “He always drank moonshine,” I stated hoarsely because Nathan couldn’t know that. There was so much he didn’t know, so much I would never be able to say no matter how much I trusted him. I shook my head as I painfully realized how big this gap would be forever. It would separate me from everyone for the rest of my life, even those I loved. I sobbed again and wiped my eyes. “He drank moonshine every night.”
