“Magical or in on it,” I replied.
My mom hurried to meet us.
“Mom!” I threw my arms open and she landed with the force of a mother.
Berron stepped back, trying not to get in the way of a family reunion, but was soon hauled in by Aunt Belinda and Mom for hugs so all-encompassing he had to drop the beach chairs.
Aunt Belinda took charge. “You all take a walk or take a load off while we get the grill going,” she said, gesturing back to the picnic tables.
“Yes, ma’am,” Berron said. He was learning fast. He opened the chairs side by side and dropped his bag into one of them.
I set mine in the other.
“Last one in the sea’s a rotten egg!” he said. Then he took off running, pell-mell, toward the waves.
“No fair!” I launched after him, Jester flying alongside.
Berron beat me to the water, but when I got to him, I pushed him so hard he fell over into the waves. He emerged dripping, laughing, and pushing his locks out of his face.
The setting sun gilded the water and made the sky rose-pink on the eastern horizon. The water, cool at first, became a warm bath. A school of tiny silver fish flashed through a wave as it slid into shore. When the wave retreated, colorful periwinkles burrowed into the sand.
Jester pranced through the water and took an experimental nibble of sand.
When we’d had enough of splashing and looking for shells—I found an absolutely perfect whelk—we flopped in the chairs and dug our toes in the sand. Jester stretched out like a fuzzy sphinx and panted with a happy expression.
Berron opened his bag and removed a bottle of Suntan Queen sunscreen, setting it in the sand. Then he took out a wooden case.
“What’s that?” I said, recognizing Berron’s own woodwork.
He clicked open the clasps and revealed a flamingo-stemmed goblet that caught the remaining sunlight in its details. “Ta-da!”
“Is that… mine? Or did you steal the one from the museum?”
“Yours.”
“You can’t bring something like that to the beach.”
“Why not?”
“Because—”
He stopped moving and looked at me patiently.
“What are you going to do, drink from it?” I said. When he didn’t sayno, I continued. “If you drink from something like that, you’re going to start seeing little fairies everywhere.”
“I see a big one in the mirror every day.”
I put my head in my hand.Give me strength. “You don’t have anything to put in it.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” he said, fishing in his bag again. “Remember that produce stand I made you stop at?” He pulled out a bottle of fresh-squeezed orange juice wrapped with ice packs. Condensation beaded on the sides.
“Zelda!” my mom called. “Supper’s ready!”
“Oh, thank God,” I said.
We climbed the wooden stairs back to the picnic area overlooking the beach. One of Luella’s friends, dressed all in black, discreetly lit candles with the touch of her finger. A fit and shirtless British man called us over and handed Berron a veggie burger, me a regular burger, and Jester his very own patty. Another friend of Luella’s, an energetic woman with curly hair, waved her hands at us and all the water evaporated from our clothes and Jester’s fur.
The sun had almost disappeared, but I was warm and dry and safe.
