moved her hand across her pillow and encountered dampness. She blinked. Her eyelashes were wet. The full force of her dream came rushing back to her. She’d been struggling against something that had her in its grip. She was searching for something, something that meant a great deal to her, that she longed for, but now that she was awake again she couldn’t figure out what it was. A line from one of the letters floated back to her: “there is a hole where my heart once was.” She let out an involuntary sob while at the same time scarcely believing that she was crying over a few sixty-plus-year-old letters. Blinking rapidly to stanch the tears that were threatening to brim over once more, she gave herself a stern talking-to. Rachel Parker didn’t cry over nothing. Certainly not over people she’d never even met. What was wrong with her? Had a near drowning had more of an effect than she thought?
She closed her eyes and tried to dismiss her fanciful imaginings, telling herself it was nothing more than delayed shock, but they swirled around in her brain, giving her no peace. As she was on the point of falling asleep, the thought occurred to her that she had spent her whole life avoiding the kind of connection that the letters told of so poignantly.
* * *
When Rachel woke late the next morning, it appeared that Leah was long gone, judging by the lukewarm porridge she found in the pan in the kitchen. She helped herself to what was left and contemplated the bandage on her wrist. Her natural inclination was to remove it and take a look. It no longer ached so fiercely if she kept it absolutely still, but the slightest movement and she recoiled in agony, gritting her teeth to keep from yelling out. Realizing that if she took the bandage off she would never be able to wrap it up again, she decided against it. Seeing what her wrist looked like wouldn’t change anything. Perhaps there was a way to bind it to her, stop herself from knocking it?
She remembered seeing a scarf in the suitcase and sure enough, tucked away in an elasticized pocket on the side of the case was a large olive-green and brown satin square. Try as she might though, she was unable to tie it in a knot to make a sling. She needed Leah’s help.
After the laborious process of getting herself dressed, Rachel pushed her feet into a pair of oversize boots that lay abandoned at the front door and went in search of her rescuer.
She tramped around to the back of the house, being careful not to trip in the too-big boots and found an old orchard, trees with wizened apples hanging from their branches. To one side, a few chickens scratched at the scrubby grass and she could see a brown-and-cream–colored cow in the pasture beyond standing in front of a ramshackle stone building.
She shivered as a gust of wind blew off the ocean. “Hey . . . ,” she called. “Leah!”
There was no answer aside from a deep baritone “moo” from the cow. She went over and watched her mulch grass between her rubbery lips, grinding the green pulp in a continuous, ruminant cycle. “Margaret, old girl. Any sign of your mistress?” she asked.
The cow continued chewing, completely ignoring Rachel.
“Thought so.” Rachel was just about to turn back to the house when a flash of something red in the long grass at the side of the cow shed caught her eye. She moved closer for a better look: a spade, rusted and disintegrating at the edges, the wooden handle thick and splintered. She stepped away and the toe of her boot encountered a solid object. She glanced down. A bottle. In fact, she saw as she went closer, probably more than fifty of them, hidden by the overgrown greenery that snaked its way up the brick wall. Their labels were torn, faded, gin and possibly vodka judging by the shape and color of the bottles. All empty.
* * *
Having found no sign of Leah in the immediate vicinity of the house, Rachel took a narrow path that led toward the beach, being careful not to jostle her arm too much. She felt the sand crunch under her boots and noticed small wavelets rippling toward the shore. She recognized the shoal of rocks on which she’d foundered during the storm and shuddered at the memory. A brace of gulls