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Limping back out of the room, I call her name again. “Orca?”
No answer.
Where the hell is she?
I peer through the last door on the opposite side of the living room. It leads to a tiny, dark room that I almost mistake for a closet—until I see the spiral staircase that circles up, up, up, into a tall cylindrical stairwell.
The lighthouse. Of course. She has a job to do, keeping this place running.
As long as she’s not outside…
No sooner does the thought cross my mind than the back door is flung open behind me—a sudden whoosh of rain catching my attention. I turn and see Orca coming through the door, her cloak dripping with water, her dog bounding in after her.
“Wow,” she huffs, flipping her hood down. “Wet out there.”
“Where did you go?”
Orca looks up, surprised. “The greenhouse. I had to harvest some vegetables and water the plants. The basin was practically overflowing, it’s been raining so hard.”
I stare at her as she slides off her basket and hangs up her wet cloak. She looks like something straight out of a Brothers Grimm story.
“But it’s storming.” I state the obvious, gesturing toward the shuttered window.
“I know,” Orca says. “But it had to be done. How was the coffee?”
Here she is, harvesting vegetables in the middle of a monsoon, running a lighthouse by herself, saving me from certain death, and now asking me How was the coffee?
I can’t help but let out a laugh of amazement. “Uh, the coffee was great. Thank you.”
“You shouldn’t be walking on that ankle,” she says, nodding toward the foot I’m babying.
“I know. But I’m not used to sitting still.”
“Are you hungry?”
“That’s an understatement.”
Orca laughs, lugging the basket into the kitchen. “Come in here. Tell me more about the Otherworld.”
I wince as I limp my way back to the kitchen. Damn my stupid ankle.
“What is this obsession with the Otherworld anyway?” I lean against the doorjamb as Orca starts unloading brightly colored vegetables from her basket. “It’s not half as interesting as your life here.”
Orca casts a dubious glance over her shoulder. “Would you say that if you grew up here and had never left?” Her sea-green eyes reflect the soft light coming through the window. The rain is drying in her sandy-brown hair now, curling the wispy strands into ringlets of gold around her ears and neck. “Would you?”
I refocus. “Would I what?” I sit down at the table, feeling dizzy all of a sudden.
Orca sighs and turns back to the counter. “It’s just that I’ve spent my whole life here. And it’s not that I’m tired of it… But I want to know what else is out there. I want to prove to Papa that I’m not weak and incapable.”
“Is that really what he thinks of you?”
“He says the Otherworld is full of dangers and darkness. Things that will hurt me.”
My gaze drifts down to the dog, Lucius, who is sniffing me like I don’t belong in his master’s clothes.
“Is that true?” Orca casts me a quizzical look, her hands full of strawberries.
“Sometimes,” I admit. “But experience teaches you how to deal with those things.”
