Chapter 17: Supper at the Light

Isla's POV

By Friday evening the lighthouse kitchen held nine people, two dogs and a pot of chowder that Conal swore he'd made himself.

"He opened a can," the ferry woman told the table.

"I heated a can," Conal said.

"He heated it in the pot, and then he put the lid back on and hid the can."

The big ferry hand wheezed with laughter into his bowl. "Three years he's fed me beans on that boat and called it chef's choice."

"It was a choice."

"It was a can, Cardross."

I laughed so hard that I had to put my spoon down.

The twins sat on either side of me on the bench, in coats still buttoned to the chin.

The ferry woman had brought them at dusk, because Torben was at the old founder's house going through the founding rolls.

The boy ate with great seriousness. The girl watched Conal the whole time.

"Are you really a wolf?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Why are your eyes grey?"

"They're grey when I'm calm."

"Are you calm now?"

Conal looked across the table at me, and the gold came up in his eyes for the length of a breath.

"Nearly," he said.

The ferry woman choked on her bread. I kicked him under the table and missed.

Later the girl asked me to braid her hair, and I braided it twice because she said the first one was crooked.

The boy sat on the rug and lined up Conal's brass fittings from the coal box in order of size.

"Dad says you're not mean," he said without looking up.

"I'm only mean to people who hide envelopes."

"Grandma hides envelopes."

"Yes."

"Is she in trouble?"

I knelt beside him on the rug.

"Your dad and I are going to make sure you're never in trouble because of what she does," I said. "That's the one thing I promise."

He nodded and went back to his brass.

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