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.
I needed something to take my mind off my restless body. Dylan had given me his number right after we met, but I hadn’t ever bothered using it before now. I found his name in my contacts and pressed the button to call him.
The phone rang once. Twice. Again and again. Finally, his voice mail picked up. “Hey, this is Dylan…”
I hung up without leaving a message. What could he be doing tonight that he wasn’t answering the phone? I wondered for a moment if he was with Sailor. Maybe they were secretly more than friends, even though he never acted that way toward her. Or at least, he never acted that way toward her around me.
But regardless of what they may or may not be to each other, my options of companions for the night had run out. Besides Sailor and Dylan, I didn’t know anyone else. The other kids in school hadn’t exactly welcomed me with open arms.
Well, there was always one other person.
But I was not calling Josh.
I wandered around the house again until darkness fell. It was still early, but I’d drive myself crazy with nothing to do all night, so I went to bed. I tossed and turned for what felt like hours, my legs becoming twisted in the sheets.
When I finally admitted defeat, I sat up and saw that only fifteen minutes had passed. This wasn’t working. I had to get out of here.
Swans Landing wasn’t exactly a sprawling metropolis full of activity, but it seemed even more silent and empty as I pedaled through the moonless night. The homes I passed were dark, with the curtains drawn tight over the windows. The last shops still open this time of year had all closed already for the night, their black windows staring back at me as I passed.
Dylan’s house had been dark when I rode by. Apparently, his family had gone out for the night. I didn’t pass anyone as I pedaled through town. No cars drove down the narrow street. The wind sent dry leaves skittering across the road and the shrill sound of a bird in the distance echoed around me. I pedaled faster, my heartbeat pounding in my ears.
The evening grew colder and it was hard to see very far in the dark. Brilliant stars dotted the sky and the blinking lights of a plane passed high overhead. The Swans Landing Lighthouse shone over everything, its light sweeping in an arc across the sky.
At first, I didn’t know where I was going, but eventually I found myself riding toward the path leading to Pirate’s Cove. My nose was running from the cold by the time I reached the little marker indicating the path to the beach. I parked my bike without bothering to lock it up.
The trees stood in front of me, the darkness under their branches impenetrable. I had walked this forest several times since Josh had showed me the way, but now it looked entirely different in the dark night. It occurred to me that anything could be hiding in there, just waiting to grab a stupid teenage girl wandering around alone. I took a step back toward the safety of the road.
But something drew me toward the woods. It wasn’t an accident that I had ended up here tonight. Something I couldn’t quite figure out had called me here and it was calling me even now, growing stronger by the second. I sucked the cold air in between my teeth, filling my lungs with it, and then let it back out slowly as I stepped forward into the trees.
It was beyond dark inside the forest. So dark I wasn’t even sure if my eyes were really open and so I stretched my eyelids as wide as they would go, trying to find any bit of light that I could see by. But there was nothing except the blackness. One day maybe I would learn to plan things better. Like, bringing along a flashlight would have been nice. My stomach growled. And maybe a snack.
The wind whistled as it swirled through the forest, making the branches overhead sway back and forth, groaning a little with the effort. Under my feet, the ground was soft, blanketed by rotting leaves and sand. The thick air smelled salty and woodsy and I jumped at the chatter of some kind of animal I couldn’t identify.
My hand found my cell phone in my pocket and I pressed a button to make its light come on. It wasn’t much, but the soft blue glow at least provided a little bit of illumination. I could see the area immediately surrounding me in a small half-circle, not more than a foot in any direction I aimed the phone.
I walked farther into the trees, carefully and slowly picking my way through. The path was hard to see in the dim light of my phone and with every step I took, a voice screamed in my head that I was insane. I should be home, in my warm bed, not getting myself lost in a creepy forest.
After a long time, I stopped and tried to listen over the sound of my own pounding heart. I had that eerie feeling that something watched me from the shadows. But I heard nothing other than the occasional crack of wood or bird call. If it was possible, the woods around me seemed to have gotten darker.
A loud crack to my left made me jump at least a foot. The hairs all along my arms and all the way up my spine were certainly standing on end. I turned my cell phone in that direction, extending a frozen and trembling arm to try to make the light reach farther into the darkness.
“Anyone there?” My voice was low and shaking, barely above a whisper. I cleared my throat and tried again. “If you’re out there, come here or I’ll find you and kick your ass for scaring me.”
My eyes searched the darkness, but no one came forward despite the definite feeling that unseen eyes hid within the trees. I listened again for several moments, but there were no sounds other than the usual woodsy ones.
If I survived this night in one piece with my sanity still somewhat intact, I would never come back into these trees again.
And then I heard it.
I spun around, trying to determine what direction it came from, but it was impossible. The song seemed to be coming from everywhere all at once.
It started as a low hum at first, soft and sighing, but gradually it grew in volume and intensity. The sounds vibrated through me and I suddenly craved saltwater more than ever. My body cried out for it and every bone in me ached and popped and itched. For what, I didn’t know. My only thought was that I wanted to go toward the sound, even though I still couldn’t determine where exactly it came from, and so I started forward, stumbling over a tree root.
A hand closed around mine, stopping me. My head whipped around to find Josh’s face peering at me in the dim glow of my phone.
“What—” I started to say, but he shook his head. His expression was tight, his lips a thin straight line. He closed his eyes, swaying slightly, and a look of pain washed over his face.
“What’s going—” The words died in my throat. A movement out of the corner of my eye caught my attention.
When I turned in that direction, I saw a figure slip between the trees, into the darkness.
My mother.
I stared hard at the area where she’d disappeared, searching the shadows. She was there, I knew she was even though at the same time I knew this was impossible. Mom was dead and her body was buried in a little cemetery in Tennessee. My mom was not wandering around Pirate’s Cove in Swans Landing.
And yet I smelled her perfume. She whispered my name and then laughed. She was there.
“Mom!” I called.
But Josh clasped his free hand over my mouth, his eyes still closed and his face contorted in pain. I struggled against him, trying to break free. Mom was there in the woods and I needed to find her. But the more I struggled, the more Josh pulled me against him, his arm wrapped around my ribcage and crushing me to his chest.
I fought against him, kicking and hitting. My teeth clamped down on his hand.
“Ow!” he cried, letting me go.
With my newfound freedom, I lurched forward, stumbling over roots. I ran through the trees, narrowly missing hitting my head on a low branch. “Mom!” I shouted. My eyes scanned the darkness of the forest, desperate to find her.
Josh caught up to me and grabbed me again. I tried to break free, struggling against the violent craving for salt water that wracked my body in order to keep my wits about me. But maybe I had long ago lost my sense of reality. I didn’t know what was really true anymore.
Josh’s fingers dug into my wrist. “Mara, no!”
“I have to find her,” I told him, my voice high-pitched and wild even to my own ears.
He wrenched me toward him. I raised my fists to push away, but Josh’s arms enveloped me, pressing me close.
And then his lips met mine and the world I barely had any remaining grip on slipped away completely.