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I’m rewarded with a dazzling smile, and when Mable wraps her arms around my neck, I find one just as brilliant, tugging at Penelope’s lips.
“Let’s go before they take all the good shells,” she says, taking the girl’s hand.
The sun heats my face when we step out of the house and down the steps leading to a beach. Hot sand slips between my toes, tickling my feet as we walk toward the navy-blue water.
Mable scampers ahead, giggling when she finds a rock that looks like a fairy house for her jar. The other kids follow behind us, collecting shells along the way before carefully arranging them around Mable’s find. Even Brantly joins in, his scowl having softened into something like contentment and innocent wonder that he appears to have outgrown far too early.
The smell of fried fish from distant street vendors mixes with the salty air. Waves crash beneath the dilapidated pier, Penelope’s laugh mingles with the kids’, and something wriggles inside my chest like an itch I can’t scratch.
To outsiders, this area is nothing more than a bag of bones Anchorage Harbor never parted with. But looking out at the sun glinting off an ocean that crashes against a white sand beach, I understand my father’s sudden interest in pushing business in this direction.
More than that, I’m excited about what our properties will bring to this place. What my properties will bring to it.
Seaside will be Summit Estates’ first grand adventure. Dad said it himself, once he gets an investor secured, I’ll finally be able to make my own business decisions.
Will you? A sliver of doubt pricks the back of my mind, settling in with the conversation I heard between him and Nathan Reid at the market.
I shut it down. He’s just playing it safe and keeping the finer details to himself. That doesn’t mean he’s going to take control of this development.
Pen drops to her knees beside her friends in the sand.
“So, what exactly is a dream jar?” I ask, picking up Mable’s glass, turning it this way and that.
Wrist-deep in a treasure trove of seashells buried by the tide, Mable shrugs. “I dunno. Miss Carrie told us, but I forgot.”
A raven-haired young woman, the eldest in the bunch, pipes up from her spot beside them, “We’re supposed to fill the jars with sand and shit, and then write our ‘biggest dream’ on a piece of paper and stick it inside.”
Sarcasm coats her tone as she picks through various shells. But as annoyed as she seems, she carefully places individual shells inside the fortress Mable has created for her faeries.
Mable’s nose crinkles when she peers up at me. “We gotta put shit in there?”
“Little ears, Tarra…” Pen says with a pointed look at the older girl.
“Don’t say shit, Mable,” she mutters.
Tarra’s a fragile thing, skinny enough that the bones in her shoulders strain her thin, pale skin, and despite my disposition, I can’t help but feel curious about her story—about all their stories.
“What’s your dream?” I ask, nodding at the glass beside her.
She’s cautious, flicking her hollow eyes to mine, and the nervous jitters forcing her back half an inch make my stomach clench.
I hate that I know the tells. What it feels like to be hurt by someone who’s supposed to love you, and how that dictates every reaction, every decision of who to trust.
“I… don’t have one.”
“A ‘course you do.” Mable snorts. “You wanna be a famous makeup artist. That’s why me, you, and Nellie have fancy makeup parties. How do you not ‘member that?”
“Will you shush,” Tarra hisses with a big sister tone. She bends her knees, winding her arms around them and resting her chin on top. “This whole thing is silly. We’re a bunch of orphans, doomed to be alone forever. Our dreams don’t matter.”
“Don’t be depressing,” Brantly grumbles, but I don’t miss the dejection on his face as he circles his finger in the sand.
“Whatever. You think this is just as dumb as I do.” To me, her sharp tongue lashes. “You’re old, and obviously well off. What’s your big dream?”
Penelope’s attention is on the hole she’s digging, but her movements are mindless, as if she’s secretly listening.
The kids blink at me as if waiting for some great philosophy, and I’m amused at their perception. Children think adults have it all figured out just because we have jobs, pay bills, and drive cars. But the truth is, oftentimes, we’re just as lost, lonely, and misunderstood as they are.
“Well, my father and I own a large business here on the island. I guess my dream would be seeing it continue to flourish, so when I take it over some day, I’ll be as successful as he is.”
