Chapter 4
Ember frowned. “What?”
With a small smile, Acton took her by the arm, and nodded at Mrs. Cassington. “If you’ll excuse us, Dani.”
Danielle Cassington wadded up the towel she had been using to dust the shelves, and tossed it onto the countertop, muttering to herself as she slipped into the back room. “Fine with me. I don’t want my name mentioned, I don’t want any part…”
“Dani?” Ember said in a hushed laugh as Acton took her by the arm and led her down an aisle. “My family owns the island? Like owns it owns it?”
“Your mother owns the island,” Acton said as he lightly pushed her toward a chair. “And you either dress very poorly for an heiress, or she never intends for you to have any of it.”
Ember felt her jaw hanging open as she contemplated what he had said, but she didn’t have a response.
“She never told you,” Acton said impatiently.
“No,” Ember finally mustered. “She didn’t.”
Acton lowered himself to her eye level, smiling lightly. “That makes you angry.”
Ember tried to meet his gaze, but she was suddenly having trouble keeping her lips from trembling. Her mother said that she had moved to the middle of nowhere to get away from people, but she had obviously lied. If it was her island, then she was letting everyone else, all the people she claimed to hate, live here with her. Even as much as she hated all of them, she couldn't stand Ember.
Suddenly, it all made sense. Ember had always wondered where the money for her schooling and board came from, and it must have been from Tulukaruk. There would be taxes, or rent, or something. She had tried when she was younger to make the money run out on new clothes and books and fieldtrips, but the nun never said “no.” There was always more money, and Gina had used every cent necessary to keep Ember away.
Sitting stark still and unable to speak, Ember felt the shaking in her arms first. Then her stomach went to jelly, and she felt like she was going to throw up. Acton stepped away from her with a slightly disgusted look on his face.
“What is it now?” he asked.
The bookstore was spinning. Ember had never fainted before, but she was suddenly very glad that she was sitting down.
“She doesn't want me,” she whispered as the lights flashed too bright and then burst into darkness. “She just...doesn't want me.”
When Ember came to, all she could see was boxes and rafters. She furrowed her brow as she started to sit up. A hand landed on her chest.
Her eyes wandered up to find Acton’s face. He was sitting next to her, holding a paperback open in his other hand. “Where am I?”
“My mother’s bar,” Acton said, flipping another page. “Would you like a drink?”
Ember allowed her body to collapse back onto the floor. She raised her hand to her forehead, and then sat bolt upright. Her head snapped to look at Acton so quickly that she pulled a muscle. “What time is it?”
“After dark,” he said lightly. “I don’t think you care much, beyond that.”
Ember cringed; the doors were locked. If she wanted to go home, she was going to have to beg, and even then it was doubtful that anyone would let her in after the evening’s exchanges.
“They’ll let you in,” Acton said, his eyes never moving from the page. “Gina may hate you, but she’s not a monster. She would give a bed to any poor soul who came knocking.”
Shaking her head, Ember pulled her legs under her body to sit. “That’s just it, isn’t it? I’m not their family. I’m just…just…”
“A stranger,” Acton finished, turning another page.
Ember nodded at him. He still hadn’t looked at her, and she wondered if he was only there because it was the right thing to do. Abandoning a girl who had passed out wasn’t something one could do and still feel right with oneself.
She stared at the floor, listening to the steady sliding of each page against the next.
“I should go,” she said finally, getting to her feet.
With a small sigh and a sardonic smile, Acton set his book on the box next to him. “Go where? You don’t have a home. You don’t have a family, or anywhere to go to.”
Ember looked around, and then clasped her hands in front of her; she forced them to her side when she had the unsettling thought that the only hand she had to hold any more was her own. She had to be strong now.
“I’ll leave the island,” she said bravely.
Acton’s smile only broadened. “And then?”
“I’ll finish school, and get a job, and an apartment.”
“And a cat?” Acton mocked. “ Ember, people are only people because of their stories. Families, and histories. You don’t want any of that?”
She held her hands out in the air, unsure what he wanted her to say. “I don’t have any of that.”
“But you want it.”
“Doesn’t everybody?”
“Of course they do,” Acton said, getting to his feet. “So why are you so willing to give up on it?”
“They don’t want me here,” Ember said with another shrug. “And she apparently owns the island, and she doesn’t want people around that she doesn’t like so…” Ember paused, and then looked up at Acton. “Wait. She hates you. Why do you get to live here?”
Acton leaned back against a wall, flicking open the lid on a box to pull out two green bottles. He twisted the cap off of one and handed it to Ember, and then gave a shrug. “First and foremost, hate is a strong word, and I don’t suppose your mother hates me more than anyone else who lives here. She definitely hates you more than she hates me.” He kicked some boxes around on the floor to create a space for them to sit, and then gestured Ember down. “Second, she does not now, and nor has she ever, owned the entire island. The Knoxes have been here longer. We own our plot, and we are joint owners of a lot of Main.”
Ember sniffed at the neck of the bottle.
“It’s beer,” Acton said with a frown. “Drink it. It will make your life easier.”
Ember eyed him with a flicker of anger, but took a gulp anyways.
Acton leaned back on his box, letting his body fill the space as he rested his head against the wall. “However, I suppose your mother could evict us, or worse, if she chose to. But she won’t, because she needs us.”
“Well,” Ember said bitterly. “That’s arrogant of you.”
“You’re a mean drunk.”
“I’m not drunk yet.”
Acton only raised his eyebrows. “As much as she may hate me, my mother, or my brothers, the Knoxes run this town. We’re a necessary evil to your mother. So as long as we keep everyone in line, we get to stay. And as long as we stay, no one bothers Gina Gillespie in the little commune she’s made for her precious family.”
Ember sneered. “Yeah, precious. I feel so precious.”
“Precious is overrated,” Acton replied.
“So then what are you proposing?” she grunted.
He leaned forward again, and offered Ember the bottle he had in his hands. She looked down in confusion, and realized her own bottle was already empty. She didn’t feel drunk, but pushed the new bottled away in dismay.
“I propose that you embrace being the reject,” Acton explained slowly. “Come be a Knox for a while. I can assure you a good time, and in return, you’ll have a family here.”
“A family?” Ember said, incredulous. “The Knox family?”
Acton shrugged and nodded.
“And I would have to do what?” She blinked. The world was tilting. The alcohol was starting to take hold.
“Tolerate my ungainly appearance and company,” Acton said with a laugh. “I will arrange some outings, which you will attend and participate in. I will deliver you back to the Gillespie household, safely and with escort, every evening. Your participation is entirely voluntary, and you may decline any invitation you wish.”
Ember leaned against the stack of boxes next to her, trying to unfold all of the sentences as the alcoh
ol made each one slip from her grasp. “I should go home.”
“So you’ll go with it?”
“Go with what?” she half-whined, laughing and shaking her head. “It sounds like dating. I don’t understand what you’re getting out of it.”
“It’s just a wish of mine, Ember. Like a birthday wish—I can’t tell you, or it might not come true. Will you help me get my wish, if I help you get your family?” Acton smiled genially. He reached out to take her hands, and slowly helped her to her feet. “You and I, we’re not worthy. It would pain your mother to think that the two of us had worked out our differences, because it would be a threat to her tiny kingdom. It would mean that the two of us might stand to take it all away from her, and her precious Thalia, because she wants Thalia to have it all. You deserve your half.”
“My half?” Ember laughed as she stumbled in his arms towards the door. Acton grabbed the book on their way out, shoving it deep into one of his pockets. “Why should I do this?”
The rain outside had slowed to a cold drizzle; the mist was so fine that it seemed to sneak right through her clothes to land on the skin beneath.
“Why is always wet here?” Ember spat. “Maybe I don’t want half of this. Why should I help you hurt my family?”
Acton turned her, holding her up by her shoulders as she swayed on her feet.
“You’ll help me because they aren’t your family,” he said earnestly. “I’m your friend now, and the Knoxes are your family. We want you, and you don’t know for a fact that anyone else ever will. The Gillespies won’t. You’ll help us because we are your family now, and because that’s what family does.”