Surfacing - Book One in the Swans Landing Series

Chapter 16

Chapter Sixteen

“What exactly is it you do that requires you to be gone all night?” I asked.

Lake moved around the kitchen/living room, checking to make sure I had food, checking that all the windows were locked, checking for I didn’t even know what. It all seemed like a lot of preparation for one night away.

He had informed me earlier in the afternoon that he would be leaving before sunset and wouldn’t be back until late the next morning. He wouldn’t say why he was going, only that he had to.

“Just some fishing thing,” he told me.

But he walked around the house, murmuring to himself and giving me reminders about what to do, things like “brush your teeth” and “don’t let strangers in”—obviously forgetting that almost everyone on this island was a stranger to me. He acted as if he thought he may be gone for a very long time, despite the small duffel bag he deposited next to the front door.

I took a sip of my salt water. The cravings had grown stronger over the course of the day, probably stronger than I’d ever felt them before. If anything, living near a huge ocean of salt should have eased the cravings a little, but it had only made them worse.

“Who fishes at night?” I asked.

“What? Oh, sometimes it’s the best time.” Lake completed his final round of checking the windows and then looked at me. “Well. I guess I should go.”

I looked back at him. “Okay.”

“Remember what I told you,” he said.

“Right. Have a wild party and be sure to invite only people I’ve never seen before.”

Lake stared back at me with a blank expression.

“You should really grow a sense of humor,” I told him.

“Okay,” Lake said. He looked around the room one last time, then at me, as if he were debating something. Then he turned toward the door.

“Hey, Lake?” I asked, gazing into my glass of saltwater.

His footsteps stopped. “Yes?”

I opened my mouth to ask him if I could go too. I didn’t want to spend all night on a boat, but spending all night alone wasn’t appealing either. Nothing here comforted me enough to keep away the nightmares.

But I couldn’t ask Lake for anything he wasn’t willing to offer on his own. So instead I said, “Don’t forget your bag.”

Lake blinked, then looked to where he had tossed the bag, as if he’d forgotten it was even there.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Thanks. See you tomorrow, Mara.”

And then he left and I was alone with my mostly empty glass of salt water.

I got up and dumped the rest of the water into the sink. I walked around the house for a while, trying to find something to occupy my mind. My fingers trailed over the scattered shells and sea glass on the work table. I picked up a bracelet made of pale blue shells and slipped it onto my wrist. Dylan had finished it earlier in the day, while I pretended to study as he worked. He said he had no skill with the shells, but they had been pieced together in an artistic way along the length of the bracelet. Maybe he couldn’t craft anything as complex as what Lake made, but Dylan had his own talent in the jewelry.

I returned the bracelet to the table. My body felt restless. Every time I sat down, I’d stand up again within a few seconds. I went up to my room to lay down, but I felt too wired to relax. The sun slowly sank over the horizon beyond the sound. I could see it from my place on the bed, looking through the tiny window that peered out toward the west.