Filed To Story: Wild Dark Shore Book PDF Free by Charlotte McConaghy
At the whim of my curiosity now, I get up and poke my head into the storeroom. It is long and dark and cool. There are dozens of shelves holding containers of dry goods. Someone has labeled and measured everything: a container of flour has a line for every week marked across six months. Every container and jar is the same. Rationed. I think how spartan and disciplined a person must be to live here.
“Is this how often the supply ships come?” I ask Raff through the door. “Every six months?”
He nods.
“Bloody hell. What if you run out of something?”
“Then you run out of it.”
“What about medical supplies?”
“There’s a mini hospital down at the base, it’s pretty well stocked. If you had a serious emergency, you could call for an evacuation.” Under his breath he adds, “Might take a while.”
“What’s the base?”
“The research base?”
We study each other. In this look I realize he is quite shrewd. He is letting me reveal how much I know about this island and in doing so explain whether I meant to be here. I give him nothing. I wait.
“Down in the pinch,” he explains. “There’s a research base, usually full of scientists.”
“Usually?”
“They’re gone now.”
“Gone where?”
“Home.”
“All of them?”
He nods.
My pulse thuds, loud. “You mean there’s not one other human being on this island, except you and your family? The four of you.”
Raff nods. But he is looking at me and he can hear my disbelief. My confusion.
“Why?” I ask, forcing my voice calm.
“Shearwater’s being closed down.” He thinks better of that wording and tries again. “People can’t live here anymore.”
“Why?” I ask again.
“It’s too dangerous. The island’s disappearing.”
“Then why are the four of you still here?”
“We’re just the caretakers, we’re finishing up. We leave at the end of this season.”
“Which is when?”
“About six weeks.”
No way. If there really is no one else on this island, then I will not be staying for six more weeks. “Can you show me to your communications? I need to radio for an evacuation.”
He doesn’t say anything.
“Or did your dad already do that?”
Again, no reply. Raff just eats his cereal and I don’t like it one bit.
“Raff, has anyone been notified that I’m here? That there’s a boat missing? They’ll need to send search and rescue for Yen.”
“We have your boat,” a voice says, and I turn to see Dom in the doorway. Watching me. The hairs on my neck stand on end; there is something nerve-racking in their caginess. In their vagueness.
“Where is it? Is the captain…?”
“We’ve found no body,” Dom says. “But he’s dead.”
God, the flat way he says it.
“Where is the boat?” I ask.
“It’s in pieces at the end of the Drift.”
The Drift. Orly mentioned that, didn’t he? A current. A boat in pieces. I’d known, of course.
Dominic comes into the room and guides me to a chair, helps me sit. I shrug his hands off me.
“You said there was one man on board? The captain?”
I nod faintly. “Yen.”
“And you.”
Another nod.
“Were you coming here, Rowan? To Shearwater?”