“You are the most perfect friend for me,” I told him, huddled against his chest.
He laughed, tucking me even closer. “Agreed.”
We sat, him holding me, in the sand until it got dark, time an irrelevancy. We sat until I could feel myself come back a bit, until my heart beat with a regular rhythm.
“Ethan,” I said quietly, afraid of my own voice, it seemed.
“Yeah.”
“What happened to me as a little girl,” I began, but he cut me off.
“I don’t need to hear anything, Fin. I don’t need the details, I just need to know your pain.”
“I feel run through. Like someone has taken a sword, dug it into my belly and out the other side.”
I felt Ethan’s body sag as his eyes closed and his breath rushed over his lips.
“Let me guess. You feel exposed, vulnerable, numb yet still feel everything acutely.”
“Yes.”
He squeezed me. “I am going to help you heal, Finley.”
“I know you are.”
“Tell me,” he said. “Tell me what we’re doing here.”
This was a moment I’d been dreading since I’d seen his beautiful face outside the tea shop.
“Hạ Long Bay is a tourist attraction, lots of Westerners and the like.” He shifted, obviously uncomfortable by the words he knew were coming. I swallowed. “They come to see the wonders of Hạ Long Bay, its beauty, its rarity, its gorgeous people and amazing food, but with those extraordinary wonders come equally extraordinary horrors.” I couldn’t say any more so I kept silent, letting the truth sink in.
“How bad is the problem?” he asked, after some time.
“Worse than you could imagine.”
His eyes squeezed shut. He looked as if he were wishing the problem away with every ounce of his being, and I loved him for that.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Ethan
My fragile Finley.
“We should head inside. Sister Marguerite was wondering what I was up to when I asked for this blanket. I don’t want her to think anything untoward is going on.”
Finley laughed, making my heart skip a beat in relief. “Well, let’s go unburden her.”
I shifted Finley’s weight and she made a move to stand but I wrapped my arms around her, lifting her easily as I stood. She gasped, stirring my heart even further.
“I’ve got you,” I told her.
“I-I know,” she stammered. “I just was-wasn’t expecting you to lift me like that.”
I started walking up the path through the trees again, carrying her with me. She squirmed.
“Stop it,” I told her.
She smiled softly. “Aren’t I kinda heavy?”
I laughed, loudly this time. “You weigh nothing to me, Fin.”
She rolled her eyes but accepted it, which made me happy. She’d felt so delicate to me in that moment I couldn’t bring myself to let her walk. I knew Finley was strong, knew it very well, but I could not let her carry more weight than she so obviously was taxed with already, and I felt as if it was my fault. If I’d only listened to her, if I’d only stayed away, maybe she wouldn’t have reopened her wounds and her experience at Slánaigh wouldn’t have had to be as painful. Then again, even knowing what I knew then, could I have let her walk alone at Slánaigh? No, I knew I was there for a reason.
I set her down at the foot of the winding staircase and walked side by side with her up to the boardwalk and to the front door. I had yet to meet Father Connolly.
When Finley let me through, the main room I’d seen all the girls in earlier was empty, and I finally took in the room itself. Rather large, it contained several sitting areas as well as table areas. A few of the tables had what I could only assume was schoolwork on top but it was in Vietnamese so I couldn’t tell for sure. There were dolls, books, and building blocks covering almost every square foot of the floor.
Suddenly, I remembered the anxious looks of all the girls in the room and realized that each one of their innocent faces was there for a reason. I felt ill knowing their reason for finding solace at Slánaigh.
“Ach! Who’s this at me door?” I heard a man yell from behind me.
Finley and I turned around to greet a slim, elderly-looking gentlemen in a black cassock standing five foot eight or so with wild chin-length grey hair, long beard that met his chest, bulbous nose, and permanent laugh lines crinkled around his eyes. He sported a long, dark ancient-looking walking stick with weathered knots along the thick collar. It looked to me like more an accessory than an actual needed aid, though, because he swung it toward me on obvious sure footing, lifting his cassock a bit and exposing, surprisingly, a pair of black Chucks. He reminded me of a modern-day Gandalf with shorter hair.
Finley smiled at him. “Father Connolly, this is my friend Ethan. The one I told you about.”
He set the walking stick at his side, his weathered hand resting at the rounded handle, and smiled at me. “You’re Ethan, are ya?”
“That’s me.”
“What ya waiting for then? Come here, son,” he said, waving me over to him.
When I came to stand near him, his eyes bugged and traveled up to my face. “Ach! But ya are a big beast, ya are!”
I tried not to laugh. “I guess.”
“You’re treelike an’ that ain’t the half of it, boyo.” He examined me for a moment, deciding something. “Fine then. You’ll do. Ya can stay with me on the houseboat.”