After I figured out that Jenny was responsible for the extinction of Ballaig’s population, I stopped reading the journal. I put it in a shoe box, and buried it at the back of the cupboard I used to store my few belongings. There were some nights when Jenny’s face loomed in my dreams, but I ignored her. I refused to speak to her. I was angry, and ashamed. For so long I’d clung to my pride in my lineage, as a descendant of a renowned healer, but now I knew the truth.

I stayed in Ballaig until the end of that summer. It was the best home I’d known, and I was reluctant to leave it, despite my connection to its terrible, tragic past. Really, I was reluctant to leave Pearl, and Elena. I’d run away from my life and everything I’d known once and it had worked out, I truly believed, because of the kindness both women extended to me.

I sincerely doubted I’d be so lucky again.

To fill some of the time I’d spent on coastal walks, hunting for the plants and flowers in Jenny’s journal, I walked – paced might be a better way of putting it – back and forth between the cliffs that bookended the beach. It was on one of those walks, about a month after I’d hidden the journal away – that the waterfall and the cave first appeared to me.

Because I’d never seen it before, and also because I could see Hallowtide when it wasn’t visible to the general population, I knew there was something otherworldly about it. Uncanny, as Pendle would say. Even so, I felt no fear when I was inside the cave – the hackles on the back of my neck didn’t rise, no part of my primitive brain screamed at me to get out.

Instead, I believed it was a safe space, a refuge in which I could sit and think – uninterrupted – about what I was going to do next. As much as I loved Pearl and Elena, I could not talk to them about what I’d learned about Jenny’s role in the deaths of all of the villagers. I became more and more withdrawn from both of them – physically, in the case of Elena, as I stopped going to the archive. Even though I continued working with Pearl every day, I kept all communication with her brief. I’m sure I grunted out mono-syllabic answers most of the time.

I gave Pearl one day’s notice that I was leaving, a slap in the face after everything she’d done for me, but I told myself at least I wasn’t just walking away. The night before I left, I visited Elena at the archive, and asked her to store the journal in a safe place, until I returned, even though I didn’t plan to – not ever.

Elena pulled me to her in a tight hug. “Keep yourself safe,” she said, “and I’ll keep the journal safe. I promise.”

Pearl hugged me, too, when I told her I was leaving. “Your life is yours to live. Go out there and enjoy it,” she said, her voice catching. “Send me a postcard from time to time, if you ever find yourself thinking about me.”

I thanked her for everything she’d done for me, and then I left Ballaig, with no idea where I was going to next.

*

I don’t know how much time passes as I sit there alone in the back room of the archive, Jenny’s journal open in front of me. The past has swept over me like an unassailable force, dragging me away from the present. Has it been one hour? Two? Half a day? I hear no sound from the front room, where I assume Thom and Elena still are.

I sweep my hand over the first page of the journal, hoping the movement of the air will stir it to life.

Nothing happens.

I turn the page, waiting for some signs of activity, but still nothing happens.

Quietly, self-consciously, I say to the book, “Jenny? It’s Ondine.”

The pages remain blank, and silent.

“Jenny? I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been so quick to judge you. I was scared. Scared of – everything. What was happening. What I thought you did. I’d like to learn the truth.”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

The pages stay blank, but I hear the soft but distinct sound of water. It’s a trickle, at first, and then grows louder, like someone is running a bath right next to where I’m sitting. Is it a warning? Is it distortion – can Jenny not communicate with me like she did before?

And then it hits me – it’s the waterfall in the cave. I don’t know why, exactly, but Jenny is telling me to go to the cave.

A prickle of a warning ripples through my gut, as I remember the shadows Thom saw in the cave, and the memory overlaps with the fear I felt the last time I was in Ballaig, certain that Jenny had poisoned everyone in the village. I try to bat away the thought that I’m being lured to the cave by a force that means me harm.

I step into the front room, where Thom and Elena are sitting quietly, heads bent over open texts. I stand there, still, for a minute, waiting for one or the other to notice me, but they’re both engrossed in the texts. I clear my throat to break the silence, and they both look up, startled.

“Sorry to interrupt, but I was feeling a bit envious, watching you both engaged in the act of reading.” I let them look confused for a moment before adding, “Some of us have texts that are refusing to reveal their secrets.”

Thom looks confused, and like he’s bursting to ask me what’s going on with the journal. Elena’s eyebrows furrow together, but she looks unsurprised, as though she suspected this might happen.

“I think I’m being told to go to the cave,” I say, as matter-of-factly as I can.

“The portal,” Elena says, nodding.

“You really think it’s a portal?” I ask.

“Almost certainly,” Elena says, then turns to Thom. “What have you learned in your reading today, Thom?”

“Yet more detail about the life of an exiled mollymawk,” he says, looking frustrated and weary. “I’m not making much progress with my knowledge of the lore.”

Elena nods again, like she was expecting this answer. “And your interpretation of that is?”

Thom puffs his cheeks out, and looks up at the ceiling, thinking. “That if this is what the ancient text is showing me, it must be for a reason. Assuming its main purpose isn’t to bore me, I think it’s emphasizing his loneliness, the long days stretching ahead of him without purpose, so that I understand this is it. He was the last. He died in exile, the last of his kind.”

“Except he wasn’t the last of his kind, as we’ve recently discovered,” I say.

“Am I really a mollymawk?” Thom asks Elena, hope in his eyes – but for what answer, I can’t tell.

Elena looks at both of us, and says, “You’re a sentinel, I’m sure of that. But I have to agree with you, that the text seems to be recounting the last days of the last mollymawk.”

“So, what does it mean?” I ask.

Looking down at the text, Thom says, “If I was going to sprout wings, I think it would have happened by now.”

Elena nods in agreement. “But the fact that you can see the cave as well could have significance beyond identifying you as having the sight.”

“Something to do with it being a portal?” I ask.

Elena smiles. “Let’s go down to the beach and find out.”

*

We’re quiet as we walk down to the beach. I know Thom must be feeling nervous on the walk down the cliff, but he doesn’t show it, or complain. I’m still nervous about what we’ll find when we get there, but I’m relieved that I’m not facing whatever it is on my own.

The sky is heavy with rain clouds so low and dense that Nester Island and Hallowtide are mere smudges on the horizon. But, when we reach the cave, warm light shines through the gap in the roof, where the water trickles over the edge. We’re all quiet – watching, waiting for something to happen.

And then I see her – a petite woman with long hair, almost silver in the soft light. I know it’s Jenny. I raise my hand in a wave, and she does the same. Elena and Thom remain still. “Don’t you see her?” I ask.

“Who?” Thom asks.

“Jenny.”

“Where is she?” he asks.

“Standing in the waterfall.”

Thom and Elena shake their heads. I’m the only one who can see Jenny, and I take a step towards her.

Elena holds out her arm. “Ondine – wait for a minute. I think Thom should go first.”

He looks at me once, quickly, and nods, then takes several steps forward towards the waterfall. I follow one step behind him. When we’re almost standing right up against the falling water, Jenny holds her arms out to me. I mirror her movement, straining forward with the effort of trying to touch her.

“She’s reaching for me,” I say, “but it’s like there’s some kind of energy field in the way.”

“Thom needs to stay with you,” Elena’s voice is calm, but I can hear a strain of anxiety. “Thom – stay close.”

“Thom, can you do something to the water, so I can get closer?”

Thom holds out his arms, flexes his fingers, and flicks them out sideways once, twice, three times. Jenny’s arms are getting closer, I can feel the warmth of them as I push with all my might forward, trying to touch her. And then her strong hands are gripping my wrists, pulling me through the curtain of water, and we’re tumbling together through the golden light, away from the cave, away from Elena, and Thom.