But this year, this summer solstice, I’m going to try. Maybe I can fight it. Resist the pain and the grinding force pushing me down. Maybe I’m stronger now, more deserving even. Maybe this year will be different. I haven’t taken a single boy’s life—perhaps the curse will release me, allow me this one thing.
Just like in the books I’ve read, about the mermaids and selkies who found a way to be human and exist above the sea, I’m going to stay in this body.
Even if Penny will be stifled indefinitely, I’m willing to be selfish to have this.
“I need to go into town,” I say, my voice scratchy. Last night, sitting beside the oak tree, I realized that if I truly want to have this life with Bo—if I love him—then I need to let go of the one thing I’ve been holding on to.
“For what?” he asks.
“There’s something I need to do.”
“You can’t go by yourself. It’s too dangerous.”
I pull down the royal-blue T-shirt that wrapped itself around my torso while I slept, tossing and turning fitfully as I battled my nightmares. “I have to do this alone.” I yank on the dark gray sweatshirt I was using as a pillow then stand up.
“What if one of those guys—Davis or Lon—sees you? They might question you about Gigi.”
“I’ll be fine,” I tell him. “And someone needs to stay here—keep an eye on Gigi.” He knows I’m right, but the green of his eyes settles on me like he is trying to hold me in place with his stare. “Promise me you’ll stay away from her while I’m gone.”
“Time is running out,” he reminds me.
“I know. I won’t be gone long. Just don’t do anything until I get back.”
He nods. But it’s a weak, uncommitted nod. The longer I’m off the island, the greater the risk that something bad will happen: Bo will kill Gigi; Gigi will seduce Bo and coax him into the ocean, where she’ll drown him. Either way, someone will die.
I leave the cottage, closing the door behind me. And then another thought, a new fear rises inside my gut: What if Gigi tells Bo what I really am? Would he even believe her? Doubtful. But it might edge a sliver of suspicion into his mind. I have to go quickly. And hope nothing happens before I get back.
* * *
The harbor is crowded, fishing boats and tour barges chugging out past the lighthouse. The clouds are low and heavy, so close it feels like I could reach up and touch them, swirl them with my fingertip. But no rain spills from their bloated bellies. It waits. Just like everyone is waiting for the next drowned body to be found—the last of the season. But I’m the only sister who has yet to make a kill, and I refuse to do the thing I know both Aurora and Marguerite want me to do: drown Bo.
It’s never happened before: a summer where one of us didn’t make a single kill. I don’t know what will happen, how it will change things—change me—if at all.
I feel the sea already, tugging at me, calling me back into the water. The need to return will grow stronger as the day wears on. It happens every year, a pulse behind my eyes, a twitch inside my ribs, drawing me back to the harbor, back into the deep where I belong. But I ignore the sensation.
The skiff motors past the orange buoys and through the marina, gliding into place at the dock.
Sparrow is teeming with tourists. Along the boardwalk kids run with rainbow-colored kites, struggling to get them airborne without any breeze; one is even tangled around a street lamp with a little girl tugging against the string trying to pull it down. Seagulls peck along the concrete for scraps of popcorn and cotton candy. People stroll the shops; they buy saltwater taffy by the pound; they take pictures beside the marina; they know the end is near. Today is the last day. The season is coming to a close. They will return to their normal lives, their normal homes in normal towns where bad things never happen. But I live in a place where bad things surround me, where I am a bad thing.
I don’t want to be that anymore.
I move in the opposite direction of Coppers Beach and the boathouse, and I head up to Alder Hill at the south end of town. The same part of Sparrow where I was supposed to deliver a vial of rosewater and myrrh perfume the day I met Owen Clement. I never made the delivery.
Blackbirds circle above, eyes roving the ground, following me. Like they know where I’m headed.
Alder Hill is also the location of the Sparrow Cemetery.
The graveyard is a broad, grassy plot of land encircled by a partially fallen-down metal fence overlooking the bay so that the fisherman buried here can watch over the sea and protect the town.
I haven’t been here in a very long time. I’ve avoided this place for the last century. But I find my way to the tombstone easily, my feet guiding me even after all these years, past graves covered in flowers and graves covered in moss and graves left bare.
It’s one of the oldest stone markers in the cemetery. The only reason it hasn’t turned to dust is because for the first century I made sure to keep the weeds from growing over it and the earth from pulling it under. But then it became too hard to come. I was holding on to someone who I would never see again. It was my past. And the person I had become—a murderer—was not who he had loved. I was someone else.
It’s a simple marker. Rounded sandstone. The name and date carved into the rock have long ago been smoothed away by wind and rain. But I know what it used say; I know it by heart: OWEN CLEMENT. DIED 1823.
* * *
After the day his father caught us together in the barn’s loft, Owen wasn’t allowed to leave the island. I tried to see him, I rowed across the bay, I pleaded with his father, but he forced me away. He was so certain I had cast a spell on Owen to make him love me. That no boy could love a Swan sister without the sway of some hex or wicked enchantment.
If only love were so easily conjured, there wouldn’t be so many broken hearts, I remember Marguerite saying once, back when we were alive.
I didn’t realize what was coming—what Owen’s father was plotting. If I had known, I wouldn’t have stayed in Sparrow.
Clouds hung heavy over the town the day my sisters and I were led from the courthouse down to the docks. Aurora wailed, screaming at the men as they forced us aboard a boat. Marguerite spit curses into their faces, but I remained still, scanning the crowd of gathered spectators for Owen. I had lost sight of him after we were taken into a small dark room at the back of the courthouse, stripped bare, and forced into simple white gowns. Our death gowns.
They knotted rope around our wrists and ankles. Aurora continued to weep, tears making lines down her cheeks. And then just as the boat pushed back from the dock, I saw him.
Owen.
It took three men to restrain him. He yelled my name, scrambling to the end of the dock. But the boat was already drifting too far away, with his father and several other men steering us out to the deepest part of the harbor.
I lost sight of him in the low fog that settled over the water, muffling all sound and obscuring the dock where he stood.
My sisters and I sat together on a single wood bench at the bow of the boat, shoulders pressed together, hands bound in front of us. Prisoners being led to their death. The sea spray stung our faces as the boat pushed farther out into the harbor. I closed my eyes, feeling its cool relief. I listened to the harbor bell buoy ringing at long intervals, the wind and waves gone nearly still. One last moment to breathe the sharp air. The seconds stretched out, and I felt as if I could slip into a dream and never wake—like none of it was real. It’s rare to know your death is approaching, waiting for you, death’s fingers already grasping for your soul. I felt it reaching out for me. I was already half-gone.