“The sisters have all found bodies.” The words seem pulled from my throat. The quiet settles between each of my ribs, it expands my lungs, it reminds me of what’s to come. “They’ve all returned.” I close my eyes, focusing on the silence. It’s the fastest it’s ever happened before.
Now the drowning will begin.
A WARNING
We wait for death. We hold our breath.
We know it’s coming, and still we flinch when it claws at our throats and pulls us under.
—Plaque located on the stone bench on Ocean Avenue, facing the harbor (commissioned in 1925)
SIX
The soil squishes away beneath my rain boots. A steady, uninterrupted drizzle collects on the waterproof sleeves of my raincoat as I move back down the rows of the orchard.
Bo is back in his cottage. We parted ways an hour ago. And even though I thought about going back to bed—my head still pounding, my skin rattling against my bones—I decided I wanted to be outside, alone.
I find the familiar old oak tree that grows at the center of the orchard, where Bo and I passed by not long ago. But we didn’t stop here.
This is my favorite place on the island—where I feel protected and hidden among the old, rotted fruit trees. Where I let memories slide over me like a cool stream. This oak tree stands alone among the rest, ancient and weathered from the sea air—its growth stunted. But it’s been here since the beginning, nearly two hundred years, back when the Swan sisters first stepped onto land, when they were still alive.
I run my fingers along the crude heart etched into the wood, cut there by lovers long ago dead. But the heart remains, the bark fallen away, permanent.
I slide down against the trunk of the tree and sit at its base, leaning my head back to look up at the sky, speckled with dark clouds caught in the fickle ocean winds.
The Swan season has begun. And this little town tucked along the shore will not come out unharmed.
* * *
A storm is blowing in from the ocean.
The clock beside my bed reads eleven p.m. Then midnight. I can’t sleep.
I walk from my bedroom into the bathroom across the hall, my thoughts straying to Bo. He’s not safe, even on the island.
I can hear Mom’s fan blowing in her room two doors down while she sleeps. She likes to feel a breeze, even in winter; she says she has nightmares without it. I flick on the bathroom light and look at myself in the mirror. My lips are pale, hair lying flat across my shoulders. I look like I haven’t slept in days.
And then a sliver of light blinks through the bathroom window and reflects back at me in the mirror. I lift a hand to block it. It’s not the beam of light from the lighthouse. It’s something else.
I squint through the rain-streaked window. A boat is pulling up to the dock down on the lower bank.
Someone is here.
* * *
I shrug into my raincoat and boots and slip out the front door quietly. The wind howls over the rocky outcroppings on the island, blowing the hardy sea grass sideways and swirling my hair across my face.
As I get closer, I see a light pass over the dock—a large flashlight—the kind used to see into the fog when you’re trying to pick your way through the wreckage of the harbor back to port. There is a low exchange of voices and the stomping of feet on the wood dock. Whoever it is, they aren’t trying to be quiet or covert.
I lift a hand over my face to block the wind. And then I hear my name. “Penny?”
In the dark, I make out Rose’s wild hair caught up in a gust. “Rose—what are you doing out here?”
“We brought wine,” says Heath Belzer—the boy who walked Rose home from the Swan party last night, and who is now standing beside her, holding up a bottle for me to see.
The boat behind him has been secured sloppily to the dock, ropes hanging down into the water, and I assume it must be Heath’s parents’ boat.
“The singing stopped,” Rose says in a hush, like she doesn’t want the island to hear.
“I know.”
She takes several steps toward me, swaying a bit, obviously already a little intoxicated. Heath looks back at the harbor, the sea lapping against the dock. Out there, in the darkness, is where at least three boys’ lives will be taken.
“Can we go up in the lighthouse?” Rose asks, changing the subject. “I want to show Heath.” Her eyebrows lift, and she bites the side of her cheek—looking like a cherub all rosy-cheeked and saucer-eyed. I can’t help but love her—the way she always brightens the air around her as if she were a light bulb. Like she were a summer day and a cool breeze all in one.
“Okay,” I say, and she smiles big and dopey, tugging me up the boardwalk with Heath following.
“I seem to recall a boy with you last night,” she whispers in my ear, her breath hot and sharp with alcohol.
“Bo,” I answer. “I gave him a job on the island. He’s staying in Anchor Cottage.”
“You did what?” Her mouth drops open.
“He needed work.”
“You must have been drunk if you were willing to take in an outsider. You realize he’s probably just a tourist.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then why’s he here?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Penny,” she says, slowing her pace up the path. “He’s living on the island with you. . . . He could murder you in your sleep.”
“I think he has more to fear than I do.”
“True,” she agrees, pulling down the sleeves of her white sweater so her fingers are tucked in out of the cold wind. “He couldn’t have shown up at a worse time. We’ll see if he makes it until summer solstice.”
A chill shuttles down my spine.
Once we reach the lighthouse, Rose giggles as she sways unsteadily up the spiral staircase, and Heath keeps grabbing on to her to prevent her from tumbling backward.
At the top of the stairs, I push through the door into the lantern room. But it’s not dark like I was expecting. The lamp resting on the white desk on the right-side wall has been switched on, and a silhouette is standing at the glass, one shoulder leaning against it.
“Bo?” I ask.
“Hey.” He turns around, and I notice a book held in his right hand. “I came up to watch the storm.”
“Us too,” Rose squeaks. She steps forward to introduce herself. “I’m Rose.”
“Bo.”
Rose grins and looks back at me, mouthing he’s cute so no one else will see.
Bo and Heath shake hands, then Heath holds up the bottle. “Looks like we have a small party.”
“I should probably head down,” Bo offers, tucking the book under his arm.
“No way,” Rose says, grinning. “You’re staying. Three isn’t a party, but four is perfect.”
Bo glances at me, as if looking for permission, but I stare back at him blankly, unsure what to think about him up here all alone, reading or watching the storm. Whatever the truth might be.
“All right,” he agrees, a hint of reluctance in his eyes.
Heath produces an opener from his coat pocket and begins uncorking the bottle.
“Heath stole two bottles from his parents’ B and B,” Rose says. “We drank one on the way over.” Which explains why she’s already so tipsy.