And then the ocean drew him under and never let go.
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.