Page 38 of Dauntless

Not that I looked at the lighthouse.

No, I kept my back to it and studied my map instead.

There were a few camping spots marked but no actual amenities, which wasn’t surprising.I would definitely be pissing behind trees until Wednesday.Which was fine.Totally doable.I didn’t dare think about shitting behind trees, which probably wouldn’t be as breezy.Did I even have any toilet paper in my pack?I had, before I’d been attacked, but was it still there?Who knew?Also, why wasn’t there a single public toilet on Dauntless Island?

I thought of the pamphlet I’d seen for Katrina Finch’s farmstay.And then I thought about the fact that I’d only chosen to stay in a tent to begin with because I couldn’t afford anything else.Theresa had managed to scrounge enough money out of the department budget to pay for my ticket over here, but that was about it.So I was going to be sleeping rough until Wednesday too.Which was fine.It wasdefinitelyfine, and I wasdefinitelynot worried about it, because even though nights had been cold, they hadn’t beendeathlycold, right?And I had protein bars and snacks zipped into the inside pockets of my pack everywhere.I’d overpacked snacks, so I wasn’t going to starve, and I wasn’t going to freeze, and?—

My eyes grew hot, and I willed the tears away before they started.

I wasn’t going to miss Red Joe Nesmith and his warm cottage and his hot cocoa and his friendly dog.And I wasn’t going to miss anything else about him either.

Definitely not.

I got up and kept walking, and about an hour or so later I found myself at Mayfair Bay, or possibly Seal Beach—the map was unclear.Anyway, I found myself on a tussocky patch of ground with a rocky beach below, and plenty of bushes that made decent windbreaks.I decided this was going to be my camping spot until I could get off Dauntless Island.And then, because I had nothing else to do, I sat down and felt miserable all over again.

Tears threatened again.

God.The diary was everything.It wasn’t just about my career—though it mostly was.It was also about setting the record straight for George Hawthorne, who deserved to be remembered as better than a tyrant.And not just because he was related to me, but because the truth was important.But so, apparently, was the lie.

I lay on my back, using my pack as a pillow, and stared up at the brilliant sky.

It was beautiful here.I wondered if George Hawthorne had thought so too, before his own crew had turned on him and murdered him.

Funny how things shook out.I wasn’t the first Hawthorne to have a terrible time on Dauntless Island.And, in fairness to George, he’d had a much worse time of it than I had.I wondered if, two hundred years from now, some other hapless Hawthorne would come to Dauntless Island and have a miserable time, or if we’d finally have learned our lesson by then.

A seagull wandered up to see if I was edible.

“Maybe us Hawthornes are just doomed when it comes to Dauntless Island,” I said, and the seagull squawked, startled, and flapped away.I stared up at the sky again, refusing to blink until the brightness half-blinded me.“And maybe we’re doomed when it comes to Nesmiths in particular.”

Even though I didn’t believe in ghosts, I liked to imagine George Hawthorne’s lying beside me, arms behind his head, nodding in agreement.

Chapter 11

RED JOE

“John?”I called, tugging Hiccup back towards the door of the museum.I pushed her outside and pulled the door shut, ignoring her whines of protest.I walked back to the counter, careful not to step in the blood on the floor.

I’d thought it was a spatter pattern at first, but, as I drew closer, I saw a darker patch on the floor under the counter and a hand-shaped smear on the counter itself.The postcard rack, lying on the floor, was dented, and I couldn’t help but imagine John Coldwell standing behind the counter and someone—why did it look like Eddie in my mind?—picking up the rack and swinging it into John’s head.

“John?”I called again, moving out of the main room into the one behind it.

This one held ink portraits ofHMS Dauntlessand her crew and a piece of the spar salvaged from the wreck site.The story of the mutiny was told in framed text around the walls, like a mutineers’ Stations of the Cross.

The room looked undisturbed.

A third room, covering the island’s history since the mutiny, also appeared unscathed.

“John?”I unhooked the piece of rope at the bottom of the stairs and ignored the sign that said ‘Private’.I climbed the steps.“John?”

John lived upstairs.He had a bedroom, a bathroom, a tiny kitchen, and a spare room that was overflowing with books and old newspapers.

“John?”

There didn’t appear to be anything disturbed in the bedroom.In the bathroom, the rust-stained old basin had smears of blood inside it, and a bloody towel lay discarded on the floor.

I didn’t know what I was looking at.I didn’t know if John had come up here and cleaned himself up, or if his attacker had.

“John?”I called again as I made my way back downstairs.

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