“Not the police, us,” he clarified. “It is almost always necessary that you join an officer on a trip out to the islands. The people that live on the other islands have no interest in speaking to me or anyone from my department. You are the one figure that they will respect.”
It still made no sense to me and I felt like I had been asked to complete a puzzle and was being given random pieces one at a time that I couldn’t put together.
“Miller,” I said, running ahead of him and turning back so that he would stop walking. “Could you just pretend that I have no clue what you’re talking about? Act as if this whole island is a completely foreign concept to me, because at the minute I think you’re all talking total nonsense and I think you all need medicating.”
He looked at me for a second and ran a hand through his hair, his eyes squinting as they looked out at the shimmering ocean.
“Sadie, I can’t tell you everything because I’ll get in trouble,” he began. “It has to come from one of your own, if I am the one to fill you in then I’ll be accused of trying to corrupt you by the outer islands.”
I folded my arms and stuck out a hip to emphasize my lack of patience with him as no one had given me a straight answer since I arrived.
“All I can tell you is that you come from a blended blood line, you have humans in your family tree which gives you enough clout to keep the humans on the islands happy, but most importantly you have a connection to some of the strongest witches this island has ever known. The families here generally keep to themselves; it’s all arranged marriages and carefully planned unions to keep blood lines going, your family wasn’t like that.”
“So, the human and witch parts of my family history make me the peacekeeper?” I asked.
“Exactly. Your family was forged on connections, marriages weren’t pre-determined or designed on the basis of alliances, but because people wanted to be together. Almost every family on the islands has some part of your family history and this uniquely places you as the official voice of reason that everyone around here will listen to,” he smiled.
“I think that’s our boat,” I said, pointing down the beach to a guy that was jumping and waving at us.
“I’m sorry that I can’t tell you everything right now, it’s a messy, twisty, weird situation and there is so much more to say about it, but we need to run to get to that boat because he will leave without us,” Miller said. He stepped to the side of me and started to run along the sand and I stood frozen for a second as my legs tried to remember what they needed to do.
I had my arms up in the air as I ran, like I was walking on a high wire and needed them for balance. I must have made quite a sight as people at the marina were pointing towards me and I could feel their gaze on me. “I’m wearing flip flops!” I yelled defensively, but that didn’t matter. If what Miller had said was true, then I was worth staring at.
A peacekeeper. I was a peacekeeper. I played with each word that he had said, jumbled up the sentences to see if there was any other way to interpret it all. No. Multiple people had said that I was a witch, and no one appeared to be joking. Shouldn’t I have a broomstick and a big, tall hat? Where was my dark, spooky house and the cobwebs?
By the time I reached the boat, Miller was already onboard. The guy that had been waving offered me a hand so that I could step off the small wooden pier and join them. My name was being whispered like a breeze through the trees, like my entire existence was enveloped in rumor and intrigue. I was so regular that it bored even me.
“She’s here, after all this time, an Adler. They’re not gone.”
“I’m going to need you to wear this,” the boat’s captain said thrusting a life jacket in my direction. “If anything were to happen to you then I’d be in the deepest of trouble. Oh, and you can have this one, it probably still floats,” he added as he passed Miller one that didn’t seem to fasten at the sides.
“See what I mean?” Miller smiled. “You’re top dog around here.” The boat slowly pulled away from the shore and then picked up speed. There were some rope loops on the inside of the boat along the benches where we were sitting. I put both hands through the closest loops and steadied myself as the boat began bobbing up and down over the waves. Miller seemed able to sit still without holding on at all.
“Port Wayvern is close, it won’t take long,” Miller yelled. I could see from his face that he was shouting at top volume, but I only just heard him over the sound of the engine and the water crashing into us. The ocean wasn’t choppy, but there was still some turbulence. I had never been a huge fan of water, possibly something I should have considered before moving to an island.
The main island was so beautiful from this distance and I could spot the café nestled into the sand as if it had sprung from the earth. There was a balance of greenery and beach, flat spots and cliffs. The crystal blue water was postcard perfect and just as I was wishing I had brought a camera out here, the boat turned.
We had gone out from the island into the deeper water and were now headed towards an island that I hadn’t seen before. The plane I had taken had
