Acceptance(45)

“If you planned for this, that means there’s a mission?”

“Does it look like there’s a mission?” A terse, ironic grin. Her tone of voice different, as if aware Ghost Bird, who had begun to stir, might be listening. “The mission is survival, John. The mission is to take it day by day. I keep to myself. I follow certain protocols. I am careful and quiet.” Grace was prepared to live out her days here. She had already resigned herself to that paradigm.

Ghost Bird propped herself up on one arm. She didn’t look groggy. Her stare seemed like a weapon, as if she had no need of a gun or knife. Ghost Bird didn’t look like someone who would appreciate being told she had been drugged, so Control didn’t. A respectful, fearful look Grace gave her, now that she wasn’t a sleeping lump on the floor.

“What attacked the convoy?” Ghost Bird asked.

No Good morning or even an interest in what they’d been discussing. How much had she overheard, lying there? What had seeped into her half-conscious mind about fakes and the director’s doppelgänger?

A grim chuckle from Grace, followed by a shrug, but no other answer.

Ghost Bird shrugged, fell upon a protein bar, gutted it with her knife, wolfed down the contents. Between bites: “This is horrible and stale. Have you encountered anything unusual on the island?”

“It’s all unusual here,” Grace said, with a kind of exhaustion, as if the question had been asked too often before.

“Have you seen the biologist?” Direct speaking to direct, and Control tense, waiting for that answer.

“Have I seen the biologist?” Turning that question over and over, examining it from all angles. “Have I seen the biologist?” Grace’s clicking of the holster strap came quicker now, the pattern in the dust drawn at knife point more complex. Was that a helix? Was that two intertwining spirals? A starfish or just a star?

“Well, answer me, Grace,” Ghost Bird said, rising now, standing in front of them with her hands at her sides, in the kind of relaxed yet perfectly balanced stance someone took if they expected trouble. If they’d had combat training.

The light through the landing window faded into shadow as a cloud crossed over. A bird outside was muttering or whispering in time to the circling of the knife blade. Far distant came the suggestion of something sonorous, mournful, perhaps an echo off the lighthouse stones. A gecko scuttled up the wall. Control didn’t know if he should be worried about the foreground or something in the background. This was the only question that mattered to Ghost Bird, and Control didn’t know what she would do if Grace wouldn’t answer.

Grace stared over at Control, said, “If I sat here and told this copy”—pointing at Ghost Bird—“everything I’ve found, we would still be sitting here when hell froze over.”

“Just answer the question,” Ghost Bird muttered.

“Are we just passing through?” Control asked. “Should we be moving on?” That’s what this came down to, in a way. Not Ghost Bird’s question but Grace’s attitude, the constant suspicion that wore on him.

“Do you know how long I’ve been on this island? Did you ever ask me that?”

“Have you seen the biologist?” Ghost Bird demanded in a kind of staccato growl.

“Ask me.” The knife stabbed, vibrating, into the wooden floor of the landing. The hand on the holster had gone still, resting on the gun.

Control gave Ghost Bird a quick look. Had he misread something vital?

“How long have you been on the island?” he asked.

“Three years. I’ve been here three years.”

* * *

Outside, all seemed still, so impossibly still. The gecko frozen on the wall. Control frozen in his thoughts. Satisfaction, that Grace could not quite suppress, etched into her worn face. To have told them something they couldn’t have known, couldn’t have seen coming.

“Three years,” Control said, a plea for her to recant.

“I don’t believe you,” Ghost Bird said.

A generous laugh. “I don’t blame you much. I don’t blame you at all. You’re right. I must just be some crazy bitch who went mad out here all on her own. I must be unable to cope with my situation. I must be fucking nuts. Sure. Must be. Except for this…”

Grace pulled a sheaf of pages out of her knapsack. Brittle, yellowing, they had handwriting on them. A rusting clasp in the corner.

She flung the pages at Ghost Bird’s feet. “Read it. Read it before I waste time telling you anything else. Just read it.”

Ghost Bird picked it up, looked at the first page in confusion.

“What is it?” Control asked. Some part of him not wanting to know. Not wanting another dislocation.