“There’s probably hundreds—no, thousands of dollars in quarters down there,” Rose says, waving a hand in the air as if she were a magician.
“Or just a pile of pennies,” I say.
Heath checks his pockets and produces a dime and a quarter. Bo pulls out three quarters and several pennies. “The higher denomination the coin, the greater the chance that they’ll grant your wish. Pirates are greedy, obviously,” Rose says as she snatches the quarter from Heath’s palm.
Bo and I each take a penny, and Heath holds the dime. Apparently, Bo and I aren’t very optimistic about our wishes actually coming true.
But still, I know what my wish will be—the same wish I’ve always had.
We each extend our arms over the side of the boat, fists clenched, and Rose counts us down from three. “Two . . . one,” she says, and we all open our palms and let our coins plop into the water. They flit down quickly, reflective at first as they sink among the serrated, cavernous angles of wreckage, and then they’re gone.
We are still for a moment, holding our breath . . . waiting for something immediate to happen. But when nothing does, Bo lets out a breath of air, and I cross my arms, feeling chilled. Anxious even.
We shouldn’t be here, I think suddenly. Out on the water so soon after the sisters have returned. It’s dangerous, risky for Heath and Bo. And something doesn’t feel right. “We should head back to the island,” I suggest, trying not to sound panicked, looking up at Heath, hoping he’ll start the engine.
The ocean seems too calm. The singing now gone, the storm passed. Only a ripple laps up against the side of the boat.
I sense it even before I see it: The temperature drops; the sky yawns open so huge that the stars could swallow us like a whale drinking down a school of fish. The sea vibrates.
My eyes lock on something dark swaying with the current. A body is drifting faceup only a couple yards from the boat, eyes open but lost of all color. The first dead boy.
* * *
“Oh my God,” Rose screeches, eyes bursting to globes, finger pointing at the corpse.
The arms are spread wide, the legs half-sunk beneath the water, and a navy-blue sweatshirt hangs from the torso like it’s two sizes too big.
“Shit,” Heath mutters under his breath, like he’s afraid to speak too loudly or he might wake the dead.
The moon breaks through the clouds, shining over the water. But it’s not a milky white, it’s a pale red. Blood on the moon—a bad omen. We shouldn’t have come out here.
“Who is it?” Rose asks, her voice trembling, fingers reaching for something to grab on to. Like she’s reaching for the body.
The face comes into view: ashen, hollow cheeks. Short blond hair swaying outward from a pale scalp. “Gregory Dunn,” Heath answers, wiping a palm over his face. “He graduated this year. Was going to college out east in the fall. Boston, I think.”
Bo and I are completely silent. He touches the side of the boat, blinks, but doesn’t speak.
“We have to do something!” Rose says, standing up suddenly. “We can’t leave him in the water.” She takes a step forward, toward the starboard side of the dinghy, which has now drifted closer to the body. But her movements shift the boat off center, and it rocks toward the water.
“Rose,” I bark, reaching out for her. Heath makes an attempt to grab for her too, but the momentum has tipped the boat too far and she stumbles, her legs unbalanced, hands scrambling to brace herself on something. She pitches headfirst into the icy water.
Bo, for the first time, reacts. He’s at the side of the boat before I’ve even had time to process what’s happened. Ripples cascade outward toward the corpse of Gregory Dunn. Thankfully, Rose didn’t land on him when she went over.
Bo leans over the starboard side of the boat, plunges his arms down into the frigid water, wrapping his hands beneath Rose’s arms, and hoists her in one swift motion back into the boat. She collapses instantly, knees pulled up, shaking and convulsing uncontrollably. Health grabs a blanket from under one of the seats and wraps it around her. “We need to get her to shore,” Bo says in a rush, and Heath starts the motor again. I crouch down next to Rose, an arm wrapped around her, and we race toward the marina, leaving the body of Gregory Dunn behind.
When we reach the shore, I walk quickly up the docks to the metal bell that hangs from a wood archway facing the harbor. The Death Bell, everyone calls it. Whenever a body is discovered, someone will ring the bell to alert the town that a body has been found. It was installed twenty years ago. And during the month of June, up until the summer solstice, the bell becomes the tolling sound of death.
Each time it rings, locals wince and the tourists grab their cameras.
I reach for the rough fiber of the rope and clank it twice against the inside of the bell. A hollow tolling sound echoes up through town, bouncing among the damp walls of shops and homes, waking everyone from sleep.
* * *
It takes an hour for the police and local fisherman to finally head back into port, having retrieved the body of Gregory Dunn from the water. They took their time collecting any evidence, of which there will be none. No blood, no marks, no sign of a struggle. There never is.
Rose is shivering beside me, sipping numbly on a cup of hot chocolate that Heath retrieved from the Chowder, which opened early—three a.m.—to serve the townspeople who awoke to come see the first body pulled from the sea.
We all wait on the docks, watching the parade of boats slice through the water. People stand in their pajamas and wool caps and rain boots. Even children have been pulled from bed, stumbling down with blankets slung over their shoulders to see this annual, gruesome event.
But the local police have learned to minimize the spectacle. And when they move the body onto a stretcher on the dock, they make sure it’s completely covered. But people still snap photos, kids still begin to cry, and people gasp then cover their mouths with gloved hands.
“You were right,” Bo whispers against my ear when the ambulance whirls away with Gregory Dunn’s body strapped onto a cold metal stretcher in the back. “You said it would happen tonight, and it did.”
I shake my head. It’s not a contest I wanted to win.
The crowd around us slowly dissolves, and people begin tromping back to their beds or to the Chowder to discuss this first drowning. Heath approaches, eyebrows cut sharply into a grave frown. “I’m going to take Rose home,” he says. “She’s pretty shook up.”
“Okay.” I glance to Rose, who has already slipped away from my side and is walking up the dock, the striped red-and-gray blanket from Heath’s boat falling from her shoulders. She looks stunned, and I know I should probably go with her, but she seems to only want Heath right now, so I let him take her.
“I’ll come back to take you guys over to the island,” Heath says before walking after Rose.
I nod. Then Bo and I follow the drowsy stream of people to Shipley Pier, where a waitress at the Chowder is wearing blue polka-dot pajamas and fuzzy Ugg boots. “Coffee?” she asks us. I scan her face, settling on her eyes, but she looks normal. Human.
“Sure,” Bo answers.
“Black tea, please,” I tell her.
She frowns briefly and makes a snort sound, like my request for tea will require more effort than she’s willing to give at this hour, but she shuffles away in her boots, and Bo and I stand at the end of the pier, leaning against the railing and facing out to sea, waiting for the sunrise.