Anyway, I ate the honeycomb and I washed out the jar and then I took the flask Thaddeus left behind and filled it up with hawthorn juice. I put it where the jar had been. I thought it would make a nice thank-you. It’s hard, getting hawthorn juice without a pot to boil water in. But it was worth it for her.
Katrine: I hate hawthorn juice. Don’t tell Rowan.
Rowan: I have a batch brewing for her right now. Don’t tell her. It’s a surprise. Just something special, you know? To celebrate. Anyway, that’s how it started. Some honey and some juice.
Katrine: When I came home with the flask, I had to tell the siblings what I’d done. Odette was angrier than Greta. She didn’t like knowing that I’d given away some of the twine she made. But neither of them were happy with me. They thought I was taking a needless risk.
Martre: Did you tell Idryss?
Katrine: Please.
Martre: Fair.
Katrine: The thing is, though, I’d been watching the person in the cove. At first, I was monitoring for signs of violent intentions—sharpening knives or weaving nets or something, I don’t know. But all I saw were signs of creativity and kindness. I saw gently draped vines, unbroken shells placed in tide pools, herbs and fruit harvested a little at a time. Once, I watched from the forest as the newcomer sat perfectly still while a seabird preened nearby. Stock-still, barely breathing, the entire time, until the bird left.
Martre: You were curious.
Katrine: I mean really. Who does a thing like that?
Rowan: The first time I heard Katrine’s voice I nearly pissed myself. I don’t mind saying that. You would have too, I bet. Well, maybe notyou. Most people, though.
Martre: She startled you?
Rowan: She snuck up behind me in the middle of the night while I was standing on the beach looking up at the stars. She put a knife to my throat and said, “Don’t turn around or you’ll die.” So, yeah, I’d say she startled me.
I remember the way her breath felt on my ear. And her hair blew across my face and it smelled like her. Like sea air and freshly cut wood. She was pressed up against the back of me, one arm tight across my chest to keep me where I was. I remember looking down and seeing her fingers bunched in my shirt and thinking... Well. Anyway. I told her that I wasn’t going to turn around and I didn’t wantany trouble, and then I asked if she was the thing that had been hunting us.
She laughed. Which, you know, doesn’t really instill confidence when you’ve got a knife in the mix.
Katrine: Rowan says I laughed? Well, I must have. Rowan doesn’t lie. I don’t remember laughing, but then again, I was touching a stranger for the first time in six years. For the first time since I was a little kid. You can understand why I had quite a lot of adrenaline going. So fine, maybe I laughed.
Rowan: Oh yeah, she laughed all right. And then she went on a tear about how prey can’t defend itself without being labeled as predatory, and said something complicated about the heavens closing around the souls of the damned—I don’t know, it was kind of a blur, you know how Katrine is. But the thing I got out of it in the end was that Katrine and the siblings thoughtwe’dbeen huntingthem. And then she told me that I should leave the island.
Martre: What did you say?
Rowan: Well, first I thanked her for the little gifts she’d been leaving me—honey and goat’s milk and such. Then I asked if we could have this conversation face-to-face, without the knife. Next thing I know I’m facedown in the sand. By the time I got myself back to my feet, she was long gone.
The next day, I left a coil of good linen rope in the place where we’d taken to trading things. I thought she’d like it, maybe. I don’t know. It was good rope. High quality.
Katrine: The rope calmed Odette down a lot. She said it was a really good one, better than the twine I’d given away. Odette being happy made Greta relax. She’d never admit it, but Greta only cares about things so long as Odette cares about them, you know?
I got Greta to agree to cover for me so I could keep a close eye on the sailor. So okay, yes, maybe I was sneaking at that point. I told Greta and Odette that it was because I wanted to figure out how the curse really worked so we could explain it to Idryss. I didn’t talk about the other reasons I might have wanted to keep going back to the cove.
Martre: Do you want to talk about those reasons now, or—
Katrine: No.
Anyway. We exchanged more gifts, but I didn’t let Rowan know I was watching during the day. I know how to move through the forest quietly, how to remain unobserved. Years of practice has taught me how to be silent and invisible. So I watched. And before long, it stopped feeling like I was watching a stranger.
Rowan never knew I was there.
Rowan: Oh, of course I knew she was there! I didn’t let on because she didn’t seem to want to be seen. I didn’t know why back then, but I wanted to respect it as much as I could. I caught glimpses here and there—long black hair trailing through the trees, bare feet clinging to a high branch, the flutter of those linen dresses the siblings wear.
So I started singing “to myself.” At first it was just to help hide how nerve-wracking it is to have a mystery girl up in the trees watching everything you do. But then I started adding things about myself to the songs—just little bits about what I was thinking and feeling. I wanted her to know me a little better. I hoped maybe she’d let me get to know her better, too.
Katrine: My presence was a complete secret and mystery to Rowan until the day I started singing back.
Rowan: There were some new berries growing at the edge of the vine-fence, bright purple ones. I still don’t know what they’re called. Katrine can tell you. I was picking them, and Katrine was on a branch right above me, and I was singing about how I was going to make jam with the berries and share it with the beautiful girl who lived on the island. And then, out of nowhere, she joined in.
