Chapter 17: The Iron Tank

Marnie's POV

I woke up with my hand closed on nothing.

The pallet beside me was still warm.

On my pillow sat a flat bait box with grease pencil on the back.

I read it standing up.

I have gone for Tilda. I will be back for supper. I chose this.

I read the line underneath it twice, and my eyes stung.

Then I screamed up the loft stairs.

"Aggie!"

She was already at the top, in the quilt, with her braid down her back.

"He left before light," she said. "I heard him. I told him to come back."

"Why didn't you wake me?"

"Because he asked me not to, with his face."

She came down slowly, one hand on the rail.

"And because you'd have gone after him, and so would I. That's exactly what the man wants."

"He went to Garrick alone."

"He went to his sister."

"That's worse!"

"It's not worse," Aggie said, very gently. "It's the same."

I was already pulling on my boots.

I ran the dock road in the early light with the ledger under my arm.

The yard gate was shut.

A flatbed trailer sat idling in front of it with a tarp tied over something long and boxy.

Garrick stood next to it in his canvas jacket, drinking from his thermos.

"Marnie," he said warmly. "You're up early."

"Where is he?"

"Who, honey?"

I grabbed the corner of the tarp and pulled.

Under it was a tank, long and narrow, lined in rust-colored iron plates, with a glass panel in the lid.

Lachlan lay inside it in a foot of cloudy water.

The iron plates were bolted to the walls, the floor and the ceiling.

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