Freelance and Fishmaids is a supernatural mystery novel, serialized in twelve episodes. This is Episode Twelve, the Finale of Season Two. Start Here.
Previously, Caroline and Reyville dug deep to bring Project Dark Lion—and Flora—to justice…
In this final episode, Caroline is presented with a choice about what her future could look like, and a gift from an unexpected source…
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For more tales set on Ferris Island, check out the Ferris Island Index.
Autumn had moss between her toes, the first of the fallen alder leaves in her hair, but kept just out of sight as Caroline made her way through Mothwood in the crisp of the late-August morning. Autumn—still a child—left only her breath behind, a coolness in the quality of the air beneath the spreading canopy of the forest trees. Soon, these sunlit corners would be hidden in a veil of seasonal darkness, wet and loamy and invisible to all but Mothwood’s ghosts. Caroline picked her way carefully through the underbrush, the slim trail nearly invisible in the overgrowth.
She had already checked the small cabin, and it was empty. So there was one other place she thought to look.
It did not take long for the mineral taste of freshwater to fill the air as Caroline pushed through the line of the trees and came face to face with the Mothwood end of Lake Damascus, stretching away from her into a misty boundary.
Perched on an old log fallen across the shoreline, fishing pole balanced on his thin knee, was Longshank. The sunlight glinted on his white hair, and for a moment, Caroline fancied she could imagine him younger, strong-shouldered, charming.
He turned slightly, smile visible from behind. “Morning.”
“Morning.” Caroline came forward carefully. Despite their uneasy truce underground, she was still wary of his teeth, his glowing eyes, his long limbs. “May I sit?”
“The stones and logs are there for sitting,” he said.
So she took a place on a flat stone a safe several feet away, pulled her legs up criss-cross, to show she was at ease. It had been a few days since the escape from the tunnels, and Longshank still looked a bit pale, but the color was returning to his cheeks.
Caroline said, “I came to say thank you.”
Longshank shrugged a thin shoulder. “Debt owed, debt paid.”
“Still. Without you, we couldn’t have done the good we did. The animals, the people…all made it out and they’re being taken care of, thanks to you.”
“It’s been a long year since anyone said ‘good’ of Longshank.” He flicked his golden gaze over at her, then away. “But I’ll thank you, too. For the freedom. For the trust.”
There was a pause, birdsong-filled, before he asked, “And the Dark Lion? What of her?”
“In custody,” Caroline said. “There’s an investigation happening now. It’s…a lot of details to sort through.”
Longshank chuckled. “Webs and threads,” he said.
Caroline wasn’t sure she quite understood that, but she said, “One thing strikes me. The police said that there weren’t as many casualties as we expected there to be. You made it sound like you were ready to eat every Dark Lion staffer you came across, down there.”
Longshank didn’t look at her. “Some fought me, harmed me, but most ran. Why pursue those seeking to escape? Not much honor in that.”
“It certainly sounded like pure chaos, from the other room.”
He smiled. “One can cause quite a lot of fuss without resorting to much bloodshed, especially when one has eight limbs and sharp fangs.”
Caroline sighed a laugh. She couldn’t argue with that, and she was sure Reyville wouldn’t, either.
“Do you intend to stay?” she asked.
Longshank looked at her, then. “Would I be hounded, if I say yes?”
“No.” Caroline watched the fishing pole dip lazily over the lake’s surface. “But you can’t hunt livestock. You would have to eat something else. You would have to be…a good neighbor, I guess. Otherwise, it’ll only be pain for you. And something tells me you’re tired of pain. Tired of wandering away from home.”
Longshank considered this, letting the quiet stretch for a bit.
“I can make do,” he said. “Fish are not objectionable, are they? And the wild things, the birds and the rabbits and the deer?”
“As long as you only take your fair share.” Caroline peered up at the blue sky. “But I imagine the island will keep you honest, there.”
“Yes, yes. She does that.”
Caroline stood from the stone, brushing off her jeans. She had said all that she intended to say, asked all that she had meant to ask, except one thing.
“Longshank,” she said, “the love you had, the woman from so long ago…was it worth it? One short moment, in your long eternity?”
He let the fishing pole sag, turned to look past Caroline at the wild woods, his eyes distant. “What is it worth, to love once yet live forever? Who can say. But for a while, I was hers. She held me. I need nothing more.”
Caroline waited, but he did not say anything else. Simply turned back to his fishing, the lake calm and cool under his dangling feet.
She took her leave of him, then, and wandered back through the woods to the place where she had parked her car.
Autumn—slim-legged and too young still to know any better—slipped from tree to tree, laughed in breeze, followed Caroline’s steps. Waited for her turn.
*******
Despite the fine midmorning weather, the General Store was quiet. It had been quieter and quieter, lately. Soon it would be time for the local children to head back to school, and the tourists were already clearing out of the marina, leaving the harbors dotted around the island empty, the summer hotspots deserted.
Caroline stirred her coffee and only looked up when the door opened, Reyville striding in, giving Noah the waiter a hello. He came to sit across from Caroline, setting his hat on the table.
Caroline smiled up at him. “How’s Andy?”
“Busy,” Reyville chuckled. “The Clinic is full to bursting with Dark Lion’s escapees. But it’s a challenge I’m sure he and Doc Mulligan can handle.”
“If they can’t, no one can,” Caroline said, absently.
“And Longshank?”
“He’s staying.” Caroline glanced up. “But he promised: no livestock. He’ll stick to fish and wild things, and only what he needs.”
“Fair enough.” Reyville leaned back as Noah filled his coffee cup. “What a right mess it all is. I wouldn’t like to be the island police right now.”
True, it was a logistical disaster. Many of the humans Dark Lion had kidnapped were Brackers, and trying to deal with the Brack under normal circumstances was already a challenge. But aside from that, sorting through Dark Lion’s computers, trying to figure out how much of Flora’s operation was her own and how much was funded by RUMOR…Reyville was right. It was going to be a real legal tangle, for quite a while.
Caroline opened her mouth to reply, but Noah was still lingering at the table in that way that suggested he wanted to say something and didn’t want to interrupt.
She looked up. “Everything okay, Noah?”
The teenager startled. “Oh. Yeah, um…so, Amanda told me about…well, all the stuff that happened, and how you guys didn’t get her in trouble. She’s like…she’s really grateful.”
“She was well-intentioned, but she got caught up in something bigger than she knew,” Reyville said. “It happens.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Noah nodded his head as if that was all, but there was still something hanging over him, clouding his expression. He lowered the coffee pot, looked over his shoulder. “I’m not really supposed to say anything about this probably, but…my parents have been talking, when they think I can’t hear them. About me going to college, and how tough it’s going to be. The money, you know? And um…I think…I think they might need to sell the store.”
Caroline tried to keep her face impassive, but her stomach dropped. The General Store building itself was old, but it was sitting on a goldmine of a property. While major development on Ferris Island was relatively rare, she could see a reality in which the Seavend General Store was purchased by those interested in turning the space into a seaside strip mall or a tower of condominiums. It was a prime location in a sleepy town, ready for a bulldozer and some real estate gloss.
She said, “I mean, it could just be them talking, Noah. You don’t know anything for sure.”
He bit his lip. “Maybe. But the store has been in the family for a long time, and it’s never really made much money. During the summer, sure, but…I dunno. It feels like they might finally be ready to do it. They’ve talked about it for a long time. I just…wanted you to know. So it’s not a surprise. Because of the cottage.”
Caroline felt something beneath her ribs start to ache. She had only been living there for less than a year, really, and she knew it was a rental, but it truly felt like home. She had made it hers, comfortable and familiar. She thought of the resident ghost. She thought of her desk under the window, her kitchen table where she sat in the early mornings to drink her coffee…
If the Banfields needed to sell, Caroline would understand. But it would hurt. She couldn’t deny that.
Reyville was watching her face, so she looked up at Noah and smiled. “I appreciate the heads up. I really do. Try not to worry about it, okay? I’m sure your parents are just trying to figure out what’s best for all of you. That’s hard to do.”
“I guess so.” He shrugged, and something flickered across his face, breaking through his usual teenage indifference, a rare glimpse at his deeper core. “Growing up…kinda sucks.”
“Aye, some parts hurt more than others,” Reyville said, kindly. “But you’ll find other parts just get better and better. I promise.”
Noah nodded gratefully, shyly, and moved along to the next table without a word.
A quiet settled over Caroline and Reyville as she stirred her coffee, which no longer needed stirring.
“You okay?” Reyville asked.
She nodded. “I mean…yeah. I’ll be okay. I know how to pivot.”
“Not going to threaten to move off-island again, are you?”
She smiled. “No. You’re stuck with me, now.”
“Good.” He reached out, touched her hand, and the warmth of it—the callouses, the strength, the familiarity—filled her up from the fingertips inward.
But Caroline’s mind caught on a thought, a snagged thread, and stayed there for a moment or two. It was Reyville’s casual mention of “off-island”. It made her think of the last time she considered leaving for good, moving away from Ferris Island. It made her think of Denver.
And Denver made her think of Aunt Ida.
The seed of a wild idea planted itself in Caroline’s mind, then. There was a check sitting on her kitchen table, still in its envelope, and more on the way, once her brothers sold Ida’s house. She hadn’t thought of what she would use it for. Had considered just stashing it away, ignoring it altogether. She didn’t even know exactly how much it was all going to amount to.
But what if there was something worth spending it on?
Caroline didn’t realize that her face was doing some kind of visible calculus until Reyville spoke up, eyes laced with concern. “Are you…okay?”
She relaxed her furrowed brow, let her gaze rise to his.
“Yeah,” she said, recognizing the softness of disbelief in her own voice. “I think…I think I’m going to buy the General Store.”
*******
The next day or so passed like a blur, with Caroline putting her long-unused business hat on to cobble together a proposal, crunching the numbers and calling her brothers in Denver to get a concrete feel for what she was working with. Aunt Ida hadn’t made her a millionaire by any means, but the amount was going to be tidy. Certainly good enough for a conversation.
When she was ready, she set up a meeting with the Banfields.
Mr. and Mrs. Banfield sat across from Caroline in one of the store’s booths, after closing-time. Despite their initial sheepishness that Noah had told Caroline about their worries prematurely—they swore to her that they weren’t going to leave her in the dark for long—she could see the surprise and relief on their faces when she told them her plan. She knew that she couldn’t compete with the numbers any developers would offer, but she was able to give them one thing developers couldn’t: a guarantee that the store would remain intact, untouched, never razed to the ground. That the family business would stay tonally the same, and would continue to fill the role it had played in the community for generations. It might need a bit of upkeep, an upgrade or two, but nothing of value would be sacrificed on a whim.
She assumed that they would need to sleep on it. But they agreed, right then and there.
There would be more to do, of course. Paperwork to draw up and all sorts of other legal mumbo-jumbo, but all agreed it was for the best for everyone. The Banfields could move on with their lives, with Noah’s education, and Caroline could put down roots. Something she had never really done, before.
*******
Later that evening, Caroline sat on her bed with her knees tucked up. Reyville was out working, doing some maintenance tasks for the Port Salish Harbor, so she was alone. Alone, except for the silent passage of the cottage ghost, flitting to and fro in its usual way throughout the rooms. Under the desk. Up onto the windowsill. Into the kitchen. Striding along the edge of a bookshelf.
Caroline’s phone buzzed on the nightstand, an incoming call. She thought perhaps it was Reyville, but when she looked, she did not recognize the number.
Puzzled, she picked up. “Hello?”
“Hello, Songbird.”
The voice. The voice. Brown eyes full of sorrow. Brown eyes full of cruelty.
Caroline’s spine turned to ice. “...Flora?”
There was a pause. Then, “How are you doing?”
Caroline didn’t know what to say to that. “Flora, where are you?”
“Gone.” The word landed heavy despite the distance. “I’m gone, Caroline. You won’t see me again.”
“You’re…in custody…”
“Not anymore.”
“How did you…?”
“It doesn’t matter. And don’t bother giving this number to the police. I’ll be throwing this phone into the sea as soon as we’re done talking.”
Caroline’s mind raced. She had wondered if Flora had been released. But no. If she was avoiding the police, she had escaped, somehow. How?
“What are you planning to do?” Caroline asked.
“Survive. Adapt. Just like you. We’re the same, that way. But not on the island. There’s plenty of world out there, space for me.” Flora sounded unconvinced, a shiver of vulnerability turning her words a bit brittle before she recovered herself enough to add, “I’ve sent you something. You should be receiving it soon.”
Another chill passed through Caroline. She said, “If it’s evidence, you know I can’t keep it.”
“It isn’t evidence. It’s a gift. Because…” Flora paused. Caroline thought she heard the sigh of water, of wind, in the background. “Because despite it all, we were friends. And you’re the only person I know who would understand.”
Caroline felt her heart squeeze. She wished she could return the sentiment. She wished she could say she wanted Flora to be well. But it caught in her throat. Too much pain, caused at Flora’s hands. Too much evil. An entire Clinic full of people and animals, recovering from what she had done to them. Encrypted files being pored over, sorted through.
She had nearly destroyed everything. Destroyed Reyville.
“They’re going to catch you,” Caroline said, surprised at the sorrow in her tone. What a mess. What a waste. “You know that, don’t you? It’ll be worse for you, running.”
But Flora just laughed, softly. Lightly.
“Goodbye, Caroline,” she said. “Thank you. For everything.”
The call ended. Caroline sat for a long time with the phone pressed to her ear, too stunned to move.
That word, echoing in Caroline’s mind. Everything.
When she finally let her hand drop, putting her phone back on her nightstand, the air rippled by the end of the bed as the cottage ghost leapt up, curling itself near her feet. A presence, not a shape. A question that Caroline would never be able to answer. It lived in this house with her. It had watched her from the windows, once, and now it lived side-by-side, a daily shadow. Sometimes she felt at peace with it. Other times it itched her, like welts on the skin, like a thrumming voice in her ear.
A presence, not a shape.
Caroline thought about Flora. Where would she run? She would not be able to get far, not without help. And how would she survive, separated from this place, this years-long obsession? Like birdmint, would she simply fade away, uprooted from island soil? Would she find a new focus, a new question to seek answers to?
She understood Flora, and that was torture. It was torture to understand someone who could go so far in service of answers. Caroline knew that she could so easily tip over that line, if it weren’t for a pair of hands holding her gently around the waist, keeping her feet on the ground, standing her steady.
A pair of calloused, familiar hands, and the smell of the sea, and a scarred lip.
Caroline murmured into the air, “It’s just never simple, is it?”
She could feel the ghost’s weight, impossible, pressing against her, a strange comfort. But of course, it made no reply. She knew it never would.
And somehow, she was glad.
*******
Caroline didn’t have to wait long to find out what Flora’s gift was supposed to be.
A day later, she and Reyville were sitting in their regular booth at the store, eating pie in subdued silence—the news of Flora’s escape had hit him particularly hard—when a delivery truck pulled into the lot, parking beside the cottage.
Caroline left the store to intercept the uniformed driver on his way down the walk to her front door.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“Depends. Are you Caroline Phelan?”
“Yes…?”
“Perfect. I have something for you. Where should I leave it?”
“Um.” She pointed behind her at the cottage. “On the front porch, I guess.”
He glanced at the small porch, blinked at her. “I don’t…think that’s going to work.”
“Why not?”
He motioned for her to follow him to the back of the truck. A second delivery man climbed down from the passenger seat and lingered nearby as the first one slid open the back of the truck to reveal its cargo.
It was full. Packed full of boxes of various sizes, pieces of furniture covered in drop-cloths, framed art wrapped in brown paper and leaning against the truck walls. Caroline gaped, trying to make sense of what she was seeing.
“This…isn’t mine,” she said. “I don’t understand.”
He wordlessly handed her the work order, and she scanned it for clues, then realized: it had been sent from Flora’s house in Orchard Beach.
It was Flora’s entire collection of Ferris Island heirlooms.
Reyville walked up behind her and stared over her shoulder into the truck.
“What’s all this, then?”
“It’s…it’s Flora’s collection,” Caroline said.
She heard him make a noise of distaste, but she felt something within her tug toward the assortment of rare stuff. The trinkets, the oddities. It wasn’t the fault of the objects that Flora had taken her obsessions too far. It seemed a waste to throw them out, to sell them, to send them away. These were treasures, regardless of where they had come from. Pieces of island history, truly irreplaceable.
It was Flora’s final gift. And despite it all, it was a gesture that touched something at Caroline’s core.
The delivery driver stared at her, trying not to seem impatient. “Ma’am? Where would you like me to put this stuff?”
Caroline considered for a moment. The cottage was far too small for any of this. But there was one place she knew of that could fit it all, and comfortably.
“The General Store has an upper level, a storage space,” she said. “Let’s put it all up there. At least for now.”
*******
The Princess of the Weathers swayed beneath them in the sunset evening as Reyville boiled the kettle for tea and Caroline sat cozy on the bed, the small woodstove crackling gently, filling the cabin with warmth.
It had been a long afternoon, moving all of the oddities from the truck into the upper-level of the store, then sorting through each box and labeling it with its contents to make things easier to find and organize later. Despite his misgivings, Reyville had been quite interested in many of the pieces, the books, the maps. Echoes of his pasts, perhaps.
As they had sorted through everything, Caroline thought about the passing comment she had made to Flora weeks earlier, about turning the collection into a museum. She began to imagine what that would be like: the General Store, spruced up a little bit, with its pie and coffee down below and a museum of oddities up top.
The Ferris Island Oddities Museum. It certainly had a ring to it.
Caroline sighed into the blankets. The slightly-ajar porthole windows allowed the scent of the Seavend marina to filter through, creosote and boat fuel and low tide. The other slips were nearly empty except for the year-rounders and live-aboards. All was quiet and still. Calm.
Yet she was deeply aware of the activity happening beneath their feet. Hidden depths, unmapped. Undersea gods, watchful. Fishmaids bearing the scars of prophecy. In the sea, in the soil, in the trees and the stones and the libraries and the shops and the tavern-basements were ghosts. The island was full of them. Some known, some still hidden. This was an island throbbing with spite and sorrow, with memories and madness, but also generosity. Some type of strange kindness, unnameable.
Reyville brought her a cup of tea, smiled softly as he sat beside her on the bed. “What’s on your mind?”
“Everything,” she said, and smiled up at him.
“That’s too much for one mind to handle.”
“True.” Flora had certainly found that out. Caroline cradled the tea in her hands. “Do you remember the albatross?”
Reyville paused, considering, before he remembered. “Oh. The one from the woods, in the web, when we first saw Longshank.”
She nodded. “You said it could go either way.”
“Luck does, as a rule.”
“And with us?”
He smiled. “With us, it always seems to rise and fall. With us, luck is tidal.”
She laughed. “Trust a sailor to say that.”
“No, no. Never trust a sailor,” he said, mock-serious. “We’re easily swayed by storms. Not enough time on land to keep us grounded.”
She looked down at her hands holding the cup, soft and brown, so capable one minute and so weak the next. “I don’t know…how this is all going to go. The store, and Flora, and us…all of it. It feels like the albatross. It feels like it could all go either way.”
He did not reply, sensing—perhaps—that no answer he could give would be sufficient. Instead, he raised his cup. Following his lead, she tapped it with her own in a toast.
“To what?” she said.
“To all of it,” he replied, blue eyes without a single storm on the horizon. “All the questions, all the answers. To everything.”
She did not sip from her cup. Instead, she leaned forward and sipped from his lips.
Yes, yes. To everything. To the sea. To the harbor. To the Princess. To the Sisters and their prophets. To Vee. To Andy. To Druid and his trees. To the Fishmaid’s Wake and Zeke’s scowling face. To two glasses of ginger ale. To Mothwood, dark corners full of mysteries. To Longshank and his lady-love, worth one moment in eternity.
To this island, this haunted island. To every soul we’ve seen and saved. To the lost. To Flora.
Yes, to Flora, wherever she is.
Caroline pulled Reyville nearer, deeper, eyes closed, hearts beating as one.
To all of the pasts.
To this passion, this present.
To the future—yes, especially the future.
To everything. To everything.
The kiss was interrupted unceremoniously by the sound of Reyville’s phone in his coat pocket where it hung on the back of the cabin door. The two lovers pulled away from each other, laughing, catching breath, trying not to spill their tea.
Reyville hopped up and crossed the cabin, pulled his phone out of his coat pocket, and checked the texts.
He looked up from the screen. “We’ve got a case,” he said. “A haunting.”
Caroline met his eyes. Those eyes, clear and cloudless. There was a question in them that only she could answer.
She reached out and patted her bag perched on the floor, where she knew Scully was waiting, her eyes in the dark.
Yes. To everything.
Caroline lifted her tea. A toast.
“Got plans tonight, Captain?” she said.
END
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This was a perfect ending for this season! I loved how some of the characters mirrored each other. Caroline and Flora. Reyville and Longshank
A lovey finishing. Like others, the duality of the characters crept up on me slowly and was all the more satisfying for it. I don't think it's a forlorn hope to be looking forward to more, whether it's a new series, or self-contained stories. This has been a delightful journey with interesting and compassionate travellers, and no too-easy tied up loose ends. Thank you for sharing your writing talent with us.