She tells us that Davis and Lon are searching for Gigi, that they’re worried they’ll get in trouble if she goes to the police and rats them out for keeping her locked up in the boathouse. Somehow no one seems to suspect that she might be on Lumiere Island, secretly incarcerated in one of the cottages.
Bo spreads out books on the floor of his cottage each evening, fire blazing, his eyes watering and tired from reading late into the night. He is searching for a way to kill the Swan sisters but save the bodies they inhabit—a pointless endeavor. I know things he doesn’t. And I, secretly, am hoping for a way to keep this body forever.
I read books too, curled up on the old couch, the wind rattling the cottage windows. But I’m looking for something else: a way to remain, to exist above the sea indefinitely—to live. There are legends of mermaids who fall in love with sailors, their devotion granting them a human form. I read about the Irish tales of selkies shedding their sealskins, marrying a human man, and staying on land forever.
Perhaps this one thing is enough—to fall in love? If love can bind something, can it also undo it?
On the eve of the summer solstice, Bo passes out beside the fire with an open book on his chest. But I can’t sleep. So I leave his cottage and wander up to the orchard alone.
From the rows of trees, I can just barely make out Mom—Penny’s mom—standing out on the cliff’s edge, the shadow of a woman waiting for a husband who won’t return. Seeing her out there, alone, her heart cleaved in half by pain, I could easily let the grief buried inside this body rise up to the surface. Not only are memories stored in the bodies we take, but emotions as well. I can feel them, resting broad and deep inside Penny’s chest. If I look too close, if I peer into that darkness, I can feel the gaping sadness of losing her father. My eyes will swell with tears, an ache twisting in my heart, a longing so vast it could swallow me. So I keep it stuffed down. I don’t let that part of the host body overcome me. But my sisters have always been better at it than me. They can ignore whatever past emotions have ruled the body, while I tend to feel the sorrow and grief creeping through my veins, up my throat, trying to choke me.
I stop at the old oak tree at the center of the grove—the ghost tree, its leaves shivering in the wind. I press my palm against the heart carved into the trunk. I stare up through the limbs, a theater of stars blinking back at me. It reminds me of the night so many years ago, lying beneath this tree with the boy I once loved: Owen Clement. He held a knife in his hand and carved the heart there to mark our place in the world. Our hearts bound together. Eternity pumping through our veins. It was on that same night that he asked me to marry him. He had no ring or money or anything to offer except himself. But I said yes.
A week later my sisters and I were drowned in the harbor.
INQUISITION
A gust blew in through the open door of the perfumery, scattering dead leaves across the wood floor.
Four men stood in the doorway of the shop, muddy boots and filthy hands. Stinking of fish and tobacco. Against the stark white walls and the air tinged with the delicate intermingling of perfumes, their presence was alarming.
Hazel stared at their filthy boots and not their faces, thinking only of the soap and water she would need to scour the floor clean once they had left. She did not yet realize the men’s intent or that she would never see the perfumery again.
The men grabbed the sisters by their forearms and dragged them from the shop.
The Swan sisters were being arrested.
They were hauled down Ocean Avenue for everyone to see; fat drops of rain spat down from the sky; muck from the street stained the hems of their dresses; the townspeople stopped to gawk. Some followed them all the way to the small town hall that was used for town meetings, a gathering place during bad storms, and occasionally but quite rarely, also for legal disputes. A squabble over a missing goat, disagreements over dock anchorage, or property lines with neighbors.
Never before had an accused witch been brought into the building, let alone three.
A group of selectmen and town elders had already gathered, awaiting the Swan sisters’ arrival. Marguerite, Aurora, and Hazel were brought before them and made to sit in three wood chairs at the front of the room, their hands tied behind them.
A bird fluttered in the rafters, a yellow finch, trapped just like the sisters.
Quickly, the women of Sparrow came forward, pointing fingers at Marguerite and occasionally Aurora, telling lurid tales of their misdeeds, their infidelity with the husbands and brothers and sons of this town. And how no woman could be so enchanting on her own—it surely must be witchcraft that made the Swan sisters so irresistible to the poor, unwilling men in town. They were merely the victims of the sisters’ black magic.
“Witches,” they hissed.
The sisters weren’t allowed to speak, even though Aurora tried more than once. Their words could not be trusted. Too easily spells could be uttered from their lips to charm those in the room and then they could use their power to demand they be released. They were lucky, one of the selectmen said, that they hadn’t been gagged.
But there was another voice, one of the elders, a man who was blind in one eye and would often be seen standing on the docks staring out at the Pacific, longing for the days he once spent at sea. His voice rose above the others: “Proof !” he called. “We must have proof.”
This single demand forced silence through the courthouse, overflowing with spectators. A crowd pushed against the doors outside, straining to hear the first-ever witch trial in the town of Sparrow.
“I’ve seen Marguerite’s mark,” a man called from the back of the room. “On her left thigh, there is a birthmark shaped as a raven.” This man, who had emboldened himself to speak at the urging of his wife, had shared a bed with Marguerite some months back. Marguerite’s eyes went wide, and fury brewed behind them. She did in fact have a birthmark, but to call it the shape of a raven was the result of a clever imagination. The mark was more of an inkblot, but it made no difference; a mark of nearly any kind was considered the brand of a witch—proof she belonged to a coven. And Marguerite could not wipe away that which she was born with.
“What of the other two?” the half-blind elder called.
“Aurora,” spoke a much quieter voice, a boy of only eighteen. “Has a mark on her shoulder. I’ve seen it.” And he had, as he had claimed, seen the collection of freckles on her right shoulder. His lips had pressed against her flesh on several nights previous, tracing the freckles that dotted much of Aurora’s skin. She was like a galaxy, speckled with stars.
Aurora’s gaze met the boy’s. She could see the fear obvious in his eyes. He believed Aurora might in truth be a witch as the town had claimed, and perhaps she had used dark magic on him, making his heart race whenever she was near.
“Two honorable men have stepped forward with proof of guilt for two of the accused before us,” said one of the selectmen. “What of the last sister? Hazel Swan? Surely someone has spied the mark of a coven on this enchantress’s skin?”
A stir of whispers carried through the room and echoed off the steep ceiling, voices trying to discern whom among them might have found themselves ensnared by Hazel, coaxed to her bed unwittingly.
“My son will tell you.” A man’s deep voice broke through the chatter.
Owen’s father appeared at the back of the courthouse, and trailing behind him, head down, was Owen. “My son has been with her. He has seen what marks she conceals.”