ELEVEN
My mind stirs and rattles with all the secrets held captive inside it. I won’t be able to sleep. Not now that I know the truth about Bo, about his brother’s death.
And I need to keep him safe.
I make a cup of lavender tea, turn on the radio, and sit at the kitchen table. The announcer repeats the same information every twenty minutes: The identity of the two drowned boys has not yet been released, but the police don’t believe them to be locals—they’re tourists. Eventually, the drone of the announcer’s voice bleeds into a slow, drowsy song—a piano melody. Guilt slithers through me, a thousand regrets, and I wish for things I can’t have: a way to undo all the deaths, to save the people who’ve been lost. Boys die all around me. And I do nothing.
I don’t realize I’ve dozed off until I hear the ringing of the telephone mounted to the kitchen wall.
I jerk upright in the stiff wood chair and look to the window over the sink. The sun is barely up—it’s morning—the sky still a subdued, pastel gray. I stand and fumble for the phone. “Hello?”
“Did I wake you?” It’s Rose’s voice on the other end.
“No,” I lie.
“I stayed up all night,” she says. “Mom kept feeding me cakes, hoping it would help me forget everything that’s happened in the last week, but I was so jittery from all the sugar that it made it worse.”
I feel distracted, and Rose’s words slip ineffectually through my mind. I keep thinking of Bo and his brother.
“Anyway,” Rose continues after I don’t respond, “I wanted to tell you not to come into town today.”
“Why?”
“Davis and Lon are on some kind of crusade. They’re questioning everyone; they even cornered Ella Garcia in the girls’ bathroom at the Chowder, wouldn’t let her leave until she proved she wasn’t a Swan sister.”
“How’d she prove it?”
“Who knows. But Heath heard that she just started bawling, and Davis didn’t think a Swan sister would cry so hysterically.”
“Isn’t anyone stopping them?”
“You know how it is,” Rose says, her voice drifting away from the phone briefly like she’s reaching for something. “As long as they don’t break any laws, everyone would be relieved if Davis and Lon actually figured out who the sisters were—then maybe they could put an end to all of this.”
“There’s no ending it, Rose,” I reply, thinking back to my conversation with Bo last night in his cottage. He wants to end this too—an eye for an eye. One death for another. But he’s never taken a life before—it isn’t who he is. It will change him. I hear a ding pass through Rose’s phone.
“Heath is texting me,” she says. “I’m supposed to meet him at his house.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t leave your house either,” I warn.
“My mom doesn’t know about Heath yet, so I can’t invite him over here. She thinks I’m meeting you for coffee.”
“Just be careful.”
“I will.”
“I mean be careful with Heath.”
“Why?”
“You never know what will happen. We still have a week to go.”
“He might drown, you mean?” she asks.
“I don’t want you to lose someone you care about.”
“And what about Bo? Aren’t you worried you’re going to lose him?”
“No,” I say too quickly. “He’s not my boyfriend, so I don’t . . .” But I feel the lie churning inside my chest and it takes the weight out of my words. I am worried—and I wish I weren’t.
Another text chimes through her phone. “I gotta go,” she says. “But I’m serious about not coming into town.”
“Rose, wait,” I say, as if I have something else I need to tell her: some warning, some advice to keep her and Heath safe from the Swan sisters. But she hangs up before I can.
* * *
I pick up my mug of cold tea from the table and walk to the sink. I’m about to pour it out when I hear the creaking of floorboards.
“Were you practicing reading the leaves?” she asks from the doorway.
I turn on the faucet. “No.”
“You should practice every day.” She’s chewing on the side of her lip, wearing the black robe that hangs loose across her frame. Soon she’ll be so tiny that the wind will carry her away when she stands on the cliff’s edge. Maybe that’s what she wants.
When I meet her eyes, she’s looking at me like I’m a stranger, a girl she no longer recognizes. Not her daughter, but merely a memory.
“Why don’t you read the leaves anymore?” I ask, rinsing out the mug and watching the amber tea spiral down the sink. I know this question might stir up bad memories for her . . . but I also wonder if talking about the past might bring her back, shake her loose from her misery.
“Fate has abandoned me,” she answers. A shiver passes through her, and her head tilts to the side like she’s listening for voices that aren’t really there. “I don’t trust the leaves anymore. They didn’t warn me.”
The old silver radio sitting on the kitchen counter is still on—I never shut it off before I fell asleep last night at the table—and music quietly crackles through the speakers. But then the song ends and the announcer promptly returns. “She has been identified as Gigi Kline,” he is saying. “She left her home on Woodlawn Street on Tuesday morning and hasn’t been seen since. There is some speculation that her disappearance may have something to do with the Swan season, but local police are asking anyone who may have seen her to contact the Sparrow Police Department.”
“Do you know Gigi?” Her voice shakes as she asks it, her eyes penetrating the radio. The announcer repeats the same information again then fades to a commercial.
“Not really.” I think of Gigi spending the night inside the boathouse, probably hungry and cold. But it’s not Gigi who will remember being tied to a chair; only Aurora—the thing inside her—will recall these frigid, shivering nights for years to come. And she will probably seek her revenge on Davis and Lon—if not in the body of Gigi Kline, then next year, inside the body of another girl. Assuming they let Gigi go eventually, and Aurora is able to return to the sea before the Swan season ends.
“When your father disappeared, they announced it on the radio too,” she adds, walking to the sink and staring out the window, pushing her hands down into the deep pockets of her robe. “They asked for volunteers to search the harbor and the banks for any sign of him. But no one came out to help. The people in this town never accepted him—their hearts are cold, just like that ocean.” Her voice wavers then finds strength again. “It didn’t matter, though; I knew he wasn’t in the harbor. He was farther out at sea—he was gone, and they’d never find him.” This is the first I’ve heard her speak of him as if he was dead, as if he wasn’t ever coming back.
I clear my throat, trying not to lose myself in a wave of emotion. “Let me make you some breakfast,” I offer, walking past her. The sunlight is spilling across her face, turning it an unnatural ashen white. I open a cupboard and set one of the white bowls on the counter. “Do you want oatmeal?” I ask, thinking that she needs something warm to shake off the chill in the house.
But her eyes sweep over me and she grabs on to my wrist with her right hand, her fingers coiling around my skin. “I knew,” she says coldly. “I knew the truth about what happened to him. I always have.” I want to look away from her, but I can’t. She’s looking through me, into the past, to a time we’d both like to forget.
“What truth?” I ask.
Her dark hair is tangled and knotted, and she looks like she hasn’t slept. Then her eyes slide away from mine, like a patient slipping back into a coma, unable to recall what had stirred them from unconsciousness in the first place.
Gently, I pull my arm away from her, and I can see that she’s already forgotten what she said.
“Maybe you should go back to bed,” I suggest. She nods, and without any protest, she turns and shuffles across the white tile kitchen floor, out into the hall. I can hear her slow, almost weightless footsteps as she makes her way up the staircase and down to her room, where she will likely sleep for the rest of the day.
I lean against the edge of the counter, pinching my eyes shut then opening them again. Against the butter-yellow wallpaper on the far wall of the kitchen is a distorted, stretched-out shadow of me, formed by the morning sunlight spilling in through the window over the sink. I stare at it for a moment, trying to match up elbows and legs and feet. But the more I look at the gray outline against the sun-bleached daffodil wallpaper, the more unnatural it seems. Like an artist’s abstract sketch.
I push away from the counter and head for the front door. I can’t get out of the house fast enough.
* * *
The skiff floats perfectly still against the dock. Not a ripple of water or gust of wind blows across the harbor. The sun is hot overhead, and a fish jumps from the surface of the water then splashes back into the deep.
I’ve just begun untying the boat and tossing the lines over the side when I sense someone watching me. I whip around and Bo is standing on the starboard side of the sailboat—the Windsong—one arm raised, holding on to the mast.
“How long have you been out here?” I ask, startled.
“Since sunrise. I couldn’t sleep—my mind wouldn’t turn off. I needed to do something.”
I imagine him out here, climbing aboard the sailboat, the sun not fully risen, checking the sails and the rigging and the hull to see what’s still intact after all these years and what will need to be repaired. His mind working over the problems—anything to keep him from thinking about yesterday at the boathouse, about last night in his cottage. I have to stop them from killing anyone else, he had said to me. A promise—a threat—that he would find his brother’s killer.
“Are you going into town?” he asks, his jade eyes shivering against the early sunlight.
“Yeah. I have to go do something.”
“I’m coming with you,” he says.
I shake my head, tossing the last rope into the bow of the boat. “I need to do this by myself.”
He drops his arm from the mast and steps over the side rail of the sailboat then hops down onto the dock in one fluid motion. “I need to talk to that girl in the boathouse—Gigi,” he says. “I need to ask her about my brother, see if she remembers him.”
“That’s not a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“Olivia might be waiting for you.”
“I’m not worried about Olivia.”
“You should be,” I say.
“I think I can resist whatever powers of seduction you think she has over me.”
I let out a short laugh. “Have you been able to stop thinking about her since she touched you yesterday?”
His silence is the only answer I need. But I also feel a sharp stab in the core of my heart, knowing he’s been thinking about her all night, all morning, unable to shake the image of her. Only her.
“You’re safer here,” I tell him, stepping onto the skiff as it begins to drift away from the dock.
“I didn’t come here to be trapped on an island,” he says.
“Sorry.” I start the engine with a swift pull on the cord.
“Wait,” he calls, but I shift the boat into gear and pull away from the dock, out of reach.
I can’t risk bringing him with me. I need to do this alone. And if Marguerite sees him in town, she might try to take him into the harbor, and I don’t know if I can stop her.
* * *
Today is the annual Swan Festival in town.
Balloons bounce and swerve across the skyline. Children squeal for shaved ice and saltwater taffy. A red-and-yellow banner stretches across Ocean Avenue announcing the festival, with cartoon cobwebs and full moons and owls printed at the corners.
It’s the busiest day of the year—when people drive in from neighboring towns up and down the coast or board buses that shuttle them into Sparrow early in the morning, then haul them back out in the evening. Each year attendance grows, and this year the town feels close to bursting.
Ocean Avenue has been closed off to traffic and is lined with booths and stands selling all manner of both witchy and unwitchy items: wind chimes and wind socks and local boysenberry jam. There is a beer garden selling old-style craft beers in large steins, a woman dressed as a Swan sister reading palms, and even a booth selling perfumes claiming to be some of the original fragrances the sisters once sold at their perfumery—although everyone in Sparrow knows they aren’t authentic. Much of the crowd is dressed for the period in high-waisted gowns with ruffles at the sleeves and low necklines. Later tonight, at the stage set up near the pier, there will be a reenactment of the day the sisters were found guilty and drowned—an event I avoid each year. I can’t bear to watch it. I can’t stand the spectacle it’s become.
I push through the crowds, winding my way up Ocean Avenue. I keep my head down. I don’t want to be seen by Davis or Lon—I don’t need an interrogation from them right now. I leave town and the bustle of the festival, reaching the road that winds through the brambles to the boathouse. There’s no way to access it except from this road; I don’t have a choice but to walk straight down it.
Seagulls turn and spiral overhead like vultures waiting for death, sensing it.
When the road widens and the ocean comes into view, flat and glittery, the boathouse seems small and plain, more sunken into the earth than it did yesterday. Lon is sitting on a stump against the right side of the boathouse. At first I think he’s staring up at the sky, soaking up the sun, but as I inch closer I realize he’s asleep, his head canted back against the outer wall. He’s probably been out here all night guarding Gigi, one leg stretched out in front of him, arms hanging limp at his sides, jaw hung slightly open. He’s wearing one of his stupid floral-print shirts, teal with purple flowers, and if it weren’t for the dreary backdrop he’d almost look like he was on a tropical beach somewhere, working on his nonexistent tan.
I move quietly, careful not to step on a twig or dried leaf that might give me away, and when I reach the boathouse, I pause to look down at Lon. For a brief moment, I think maybe he’s not breathing, but then I see his chest rise and his throat swallow.
The wood door isn’t locked, and I push it easily inward.
Gigi is still sitting in the white plastic chair, arms tied, chin to chest like she’s sleeping. But her eyes are open, and she slides them up to meet mine as soon as I step inside.
I walk toward her and pull the gag out of her mouth then take a swift step back.
“What are you doing here?” she asks, lifting her chin, her cropped blond hair falling back from her face. She stares at me through her lashes, and her tone is not sweet, but low, almost guttural. The waspy, flickering outline of Aurora shifts lazily beneath her skin. But her emerald-green eyes, the same inherited color of each Swan sister, blink serpent-like out at me.
“I’m not here to save you, if that’s what you think,” I tell her, keeping my distance back from the white chair that has become her cage.
“Then what do you want?”
“You killed those two boys they pulled from the harbor, didn’t you?” She eyes me like she’s trying to understand the real motivation behind my question. What purpose I have for asking it.
“Maybe.” Her lips tug at the edges. She’s holding back a smile—she finds this amusing.
“I doubt it was Marguerite.” At this her eyes broaden to perfect orbs. “Only you would drown two boys at once.”
She shifts her jawbone side to side then wriggles her fingers like she’s trying to stretch them, her wrists confined by zip ties. The lime-green polish on her fingernails is starting to chip, and her hands look waterlogged and pale. “You came here just to accuse me of killing those boys?” she asks.
I stare through her sheer exterior, beyond Gigi, finding the monster inside her—meeting Aurora’s gaze. And she knows it. Knows I’m looking at the real her.
Her expression changes. She grins, revealing Gigi’s bleached white and perfectly aligned teeth. “You want something,” she says pointedly.
I take a deep breath. What do I want? I want her to stop. Stop killing. Stop seeking revenge. Stop this vicious game she’s been playing for too long. I’m a fool to believe she would listen to me. Hear my words. But I try anyway. For Bo. For me. “Stop this,” I finally say.
“Stop?” Her tongue pushes against the inside of her cheek, and she examines me through lowered eyelashes.
“Stop drowning boys.”
“I can’t do much drowning tied up in here, can I?” She sucks in a long breath through her nostrils, and I’m surprised when she doesn’t grimace—the boathouse smells fouler than I remember. Her eyes narrow. “If you untie me, then perhaps we can discuss this little idea of yours.”
I examine the zip ties around her wrists and ankles. A quick yank, and I might be able to break them free. If I had a knife, I could easily slice through the plastic. But I won’t do that. I won’t set her loose on Sparrow again.
I shake my head. “I can’t.”
“You don’t trust me?” She doesn’t even try to hide the wicked curl of her upper lip or the playful arch of her left eyebrow. She knows I don’t trust her—why would I? “ ‘Trust’ is an irrelevant word anyway,” she sneers when I don’t respond. “Merely a lie we tell each other. I’ve learned not to trust anyone—a symptom of two centuries of existence. You have the time to consider such things.” She tilts her head, looking at me from the side. “I wonder who you trust? Who you would trust with your life?”
I stare at the thing beneath Gigi’s skin, eyes milky white and watching me.
“Who would you trust with yours?” I counter.
This forces a laugh from deep within her gut, eyes watering. I take a step back. Then her laughter stops, blond hair sliding forward to cover part of her face. Her arms stiffen against her restraints and her real eyes cut through me. Her mouth twists into a snarl. “No one.”
The door behind me suddenly bangs open and Lon bursts into the room. “What the fuck are you doing in here?” His eyes are huge.
I glance from Gigi back to him. “Just asking her a couple questions.”
“No one’s allowed in here. She’ll trick you into letting her go.”
“That only works on the weak-minded male specimen,” I tell him.
His lips stiffen together, and he takes a quick step toward me. “Get the hell out of here. Unless you want to confess to being one of them, then I’ll gladly lock you up too.”
I glance at Gigi, who sits defiantly blinking back at me, the side of her lip turned upward. She looks like she might even dare to laugh—she finds his threat amusing—but she holds it in. Then I step back out the door into the daylight.
“You realize the police are looking for Gigi,” I tell Lon when he follows me out, closing the door behind him with a loud clatter.
“The police in this town are idiots.”
“Maybe. But it’s only a matter of time before they check the boathouse.”
He waves a hand in the air dismissively, his floral shirtsleeve flapping with the motion, and returns to his post on the stump, leaning back against the wall and closing his eyes, obviously not concerned about Gigi escaping. “And tell your friend Rose not to come back either.”
I stop midstride. “What?”
“Rose . . . your friend,” he says mockingly, as if I don’t know who she is. “She was here twenty minutes ago, caught her sneaking through the brush.”
“Did she talk to Gigi?”
“My job is to keep people out, so no, I didn’t let her talk to Gigi.”
“What did she want?” I ask, although I’m certain whatever she told him was a lie.
“Hell if I know. Said she felt bad for Gigi or some crap, that it was cruel to keep her locked up. But you both had better stay away unless you want to be suspects.” His voice lowers a bit like he’s telling me a secret, like he’s trying to help me. “We’re going to find all the Swan sisters one way or another.”
I turn and hurry up the road.
* * *
Alba’s Forgetful Cakes smells like vanilla bean frosting and lemon cake when I step through the door. A dozen people crowd the small store—some wearing festival costumes, kids with faces painted in glitter and gold—picking out tiny cakes from the glass cases to be boxed up and tied with bubblegum-pink ribbon. Mrs. Alba stands behind one of the deli cases helping a customer, carefully placing petit fours into white boxes. Two other employees are also moving quickly around the shop, ringing people up and answering questions about the effectiveness of the cakes at wiping away old, stagnant memories.
But Rose is not in the store, and I wait several minutes before Mrs. Alba is free.
I press my fingertips against a glass case, hoping to get her attention. “Penny,” Mrs. Alba chirps when she sees me, her grin stretching wide across the soft features of her face. “How are you?”
“I’m looking for Rose,” I say quickly.
Her expression sags and then her eyes pinch flat. “I thought she was with you.” On the phone, Rose told me that she had lied to her mother, saying that she was meeting me for coffee when she was really meeting Heath. But since she obviously wasn’t meeting Heath, either, unless they went to the boathouse together to see Gigi, I thought Mrs. Alba might actually have seen her.
“I think I just got the time wrong, or where we were supposed to meet,” I say with an easy smile—I don’t want to get Rose into trouble. “I thought maybe she’d be here.”
“You can check the apartment,” she says, turning her gaze as several more customers enter the shop.
“Thank you,” I answer, but she’s already shuffled away to help the new patrons.
Back outside, I turn right and climb the covered stairs up to the second floor. The gray-shingled walls of the building are protected from the rain under a narrow roof, and at the top of the stairs there is a red door under a white archway. I press my finger against the doorbell, and the ring echoes through the spacious apartment. Their dog, Marco, begins yapping furiously, and I can hear the clatter of his paws as he races to the door, barking from the other side. I wait, but no one comes. And there’s no way Rose could be inside and not know someone was at the door.
I head back down the stairs and push through the crowds across Ocean Avenue. I start down Shipley Pier toward the Chowder, when I spot Davis McArthurs. He’s standing halfway down the pier among the throngs of people, talking to a girl I recognize from the boathouse when they first caught Gigi. She had argued with Davis about keeping Gigi locked up. His arms are crossed, his eyes surveying the outdoor tables like he’s looking for any girl he’s missed—who he hasn’t yet interrogated for being a Swan sister.
A burning fury rises inside me at seeing Davis. But there’s nothing I can do.
Rose wouldn’t be on the pier anyway, not with Davis strutting around. She’s probably back at Heath’s house, but I don’t know where he lives—and I’m not about to ask around and make myself known. So I hurry back to the marina before Davis sees me, and I motor across the harbor to the island.