“I’m . . . sorry,” I manage, barely above a whisper. A ripple of something shudders through me. A pain that I crush back down.
“He had a scholarship to Montana State in the fall. He had a girlfriend who he wanted to marry. It didn’t make any sense. I know he didn’t commit suicide. And he was a good swimmer. He surfed every summer; it’s not like he would have accidentally drowned.”
He takes a step back, unmooring me, and I let out a swift breath I didn’t even realize I had been holding in. “None of them committed suicide,” I say, thinking of all the boys who’ve waded out into the harbor, lured to their death.
We look at each other, the seconds stretching out between us.
“Maybe you’re wrong about the Swan sisters,” he says, extending an arm to touch the mantel over the fireplace, index finger brushing over a scratch in the wood. The heat from the fire has made his cheeks flushed, his lips pink. “Maybe it’s just a story that locals tell to explain why so many people have drowned. Maybe someone really is killing them; maybe that girl in the boathouse, Gigi Kline, did do it. Not because she has some ancient witch inside her who’s seeking revenge, but because she’s just a murderer. And maybe she’s not the only one; maybe there are other girls who are killing too . . . who killed my brother.”
“But that doesn’t explain why boys have drowned in Sparrow for the last two centuries.” I need him to believe—to know the Swan sisters exist.
“Maybe it’s like a cult,” he answers, refusing to accept the truth, “and every generation, its members drown people for some unexplained sacrifice or something.”
“A cult?”
“Look, I don’t know how cults work. I’m just trying to figure this all out as I go.”
“So if you really believe it’s just some cult . . . then what?”
“Then I have to stop them from killing anyone else.”
“I thought you wanted to go to the police and tell them about Gigi Kline locked in the boathouse? Let them handle it?”
“Maybe that’s not enough. Maybe that’s not justice—for my brother, for everyone else who’s been killed.”
“Then what? What would justice be?”
“Putting an end to whatever is happening in this town.”
“Killing a Swan sister, you mean? Killing Gigi?”
“Maybe there’s no other way,” he says.
I shake my head. “There is another way—you can leave Sparrow,” I say. “You can go and never come back, and maybe someday you’ll even start to forget this place, as if you were never here at all.” I don’t mean the words I say. I don’t want him to leave. Not really. Except I need him to leave so he doesn’t get hurt, so he doesn’t end up like his brother.
A storm builds in the features of his face, a coldness in his eyes I haven’t seen before. “You don’t know what it feels like—this pain that won’t go away,” he says. “I know my brother would do this for me; he wouldn’t stop until he found out who was responsible for my death. And he would get revenge.”
“This town was built on revenge,” I say. “And it’s never made anything better or right.”
“I’m not leaving,” he says with such finality that I feel my throat tighten.
I look up at him like I’m seeing him for the first time, the resoluteness in his eyes, the anger in his jaw. He’s searching for a way to rid himself of the pain of losing his brother, and he’s willing to sacrifice everything, do whatever it takes, pay any price. Even end someone else’s life. “It wasn’t those girls,” I tell him, pleading with him to understand. “It was the thing inside them.”
“Maybe,” he answers, lifting his gaze. “But maybe there’s no difference between the girl and whatever evil makes them commit murder.”
The fire crackles, spitting out sparks onto the wood floor that darken and turn to ash. I walk to the bookshelf beside the fireplace, examining the spines of each book, looking for a way to make him understand without telling him what I know—what I can see.
“Why are you so certain it’s real?” he asks, reading my thoughts, and I let my hand fall away from one of the books. I shift onto my heels and turn to face him. He’s stepped closer to me, so close I could reach out and touch his chest with the tips of my fingers. I could take one swift step forward and tell him everything, tell him all my secrets, or I could press my lips to his and silence the turmoil rattling around inside my head. But instead I ignore every urge snapping through my veins.
I draw in my lips before I speak, careful to control each word. “I want to tell you,” I say, a thousand tons of stones sinking into my stomach. “But I can’t.”
His eyes flatten on me at the same moment the fire ignites over a dry log and floods the room with a sudden burst of glowing orange light. I was right about Bo, and I was also wrong: He didn’t end up in Sparrow by accident. But he’s also not a tourist. He came for his brother—to find out what happened to him. And what he found here is far worse than anything he could have imagined.
The pressure in my head expands, the cottage walls start to rotate off axis like a carnival ride out of control, and I feel like I might be sick. I can’t stay in here with him. I don’t trust myself. I don’t trust my heart, thumping wildly like I might do something reckless that I can’t take back. I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel, supposed to say. I shouldn’t allow myself to feel anything. It’s dangerous, these emotions, the fear pumping through my chest, cracking along each rib. My head isn’t thinking straight; it’s tangled up with my heart, and I can’t trust it.
So I walk to the door and touch the knob, running my fingers around the smooth metal. I close my eyes for a half second and listen to the sounds of the fireplace behind me—warmth and fury, the same exploding conflict happening inside my head—then I open the door and steal out into the evening light.
Bo doesn’t try to stop me.
THE OUTSIDER
A year earlier, five days into the start of Swan season, Kyle Carter left the Whaler Bed-and-Breakfast just as the rain lifted. The sidewalks were slick and dark, the sky muted by a cloak of soft white clouds. He had no destination. But the allure of the marina drew him closer.
He reached the metal gangway that led to the marina, rows of boats lined up like sardines in a tin can, and he spotted a girl walking down one of the docks, ebony brown hair loose and sweeping across her back. She looked over her shoulder at him, settled her deep, ocean-blue eyes on his, and then he found himself stumbling after her.
She was the most stunning thing he had ever seen—graceful and enticing. A rare species of girl. And when he reached her, she stroked a hand through his dark hair and pulled him close into a kiss. She wanted him, desired him. And he couldn’t resist. So he let her spool her fingers between his and pull him out into the sea. Their bodies entwined, languid and insatiable. He didn’t even feel the water when it entered his lungs. All he could think about was her: warm fingers against his skin, lips so soft they melted his flesh, eyes seeing into his thoughts, unraveling his mind.