“Oh,” I said.
“Oh shi-i-it,” Mary whispered. “What time is it, Georgie?”
“I’m not saying.”
“Georgieeeee.”
“I’m not saying it.”
“Georgie, what time is it?”
“Cute o’clock,” I relented. “It’s cute o’clock, okay, you psychopath.”
I stepped off the porch, waiting on the last step as Seymore helped our very young and attractive guests with their luggage. This was no married couple. The guy looked like he was a few years older than me—twenty-three or twenty-four—and the girl seemed about my age.
Suddenly Mary’s mouth was right next to my ear.“There’s one for each of us,”she hissed, and when I turned around to smack her she leapt gracefully out of my reach. Winking, she retreated into the inn.
I walked closer to the car. The guy was paying Sey-more, thanking him, laughing about something. The girl was blank-faced, unreadable, looking past me and up at the inn. She slid her red-framed sunglasses up onto her headand finally noticed me, holding my gaze for a long time, for as long as it took the guy to finish paying. When her traveling partner tapped her on the shoulder and handed her a suitcase, she took it without complaint and shifted her focus from me to him. An unkind sort of look. A look of annoyance. If theyweremarried, it was definitely not a happy union.
I made the conscious shift from normal-Georgina to working-Georgina, checked that my smile was as genuine as possible, and met them on the driveway.
“Hi, there! Welcome to Fernweh Inn. Is this your first time on By-the-Sea?”
“It is!” the guy said, dropping one of his bags so he could shake my hand. “I’m Harrison Lowry. This is Prudence.”
“Prue,” she corrected, extending her hand and giving a weak, but not unkind, smile. Then Harrison reached over to tousle her hair, and her eyes rolled back so far in her head that I knew instantly: oh, duh. Brother and sister.
“I haven’t been able to get a signal since we left the mainland,” Harrison said, holding up his phone. “Is that normal?”
“Welcome to By-the-Sea,” I said, sweeping my hand over the island. “That’s just kind of how it is.”
He smiled and shrugged a bit. “Well, I guess that can’t be helped.”
Harrison was cute, I had to give him that. He was tall and his hair was a messy brown and his eyes were brightand his smile was genuine. He wore long pants and actual suspenders with a short-sleeved button-up shirt. He had that nerdy-but-I’m-running-with-it thing. I wouldn’t have expected him to be a birdhead, but the evidence was there: oversized leather camera bag, small binoculars already slung around his neck, dingy suitcase practically covered in antique bird patches.
Prue was more of a mystery. She wore high-waisted jean shorts that looked vintage, a blue-and-white-striped T-shirt that looked vintage and French, and faded red lipstick that just looked really, really good. Her hair was a darker brown than her brother’s and hit just above her shoulders. They looked alike in a vague sort of way, just how two people who’ve lived together their whole lives inevitably start to blend a little around the edges.
“Where are you visiting from?” I asked.
“Just flat dab in the middle of the mainland,” Harrison said, adding “kind of person who says flat dab” to my short list of things I knew about him.
“Oh, well, that’s nice you’re able to travel together. Are you two...”
“Brother and sister,” Harrison finished, confirming my suspicions.
“Georgina! I’m sure our guests want to get inside and see their rooms,” Mary said, bounding up next to me. I hadn’t even heard the front door open. She was sneaky, my sister. She linked her arm through mine, and her smilewas so bright I could feel the heat coming off her face. “I’m Mary,” she continued, detaching herself from me and sticking a hand out to Harrison, then Prue.
“Harrison,” he said. “My sister, Prudence.”
“Perfect,” Mary purred (there really isn’t a more accurate word for it). “I’ll get you guys all settled into your room. It’s one of our nicest ones; excellent view of the sea.”
Wishful thinking, maybe, but I almost swore that Prue met my eye for just the tiniest fraction of a second and smiled just the tiniest fraction of a smile.
There was a big dinner that night to celebrate the birdheads’ arrival (and the, like, four inn guests who weren’t birdheads but whowerevery confused and kept looking around like they had gotten off at the wrong island). Aggie went all out in the way she always did the first night of the season. We had it in the backyard and practically the entire population of By-the-Sea showed up.
Mary and I ate at a table with Vira, Abigail, Eloise, and Shelby. We were exactly two tables away from Harrison and Prue, and my sister’s eyes were trained on the former in anot-at-all-serial-killer way, thankyouverymuch, Georgina, and also mind your own damn business.
“Youaremy business,” I said. “We’re twins, so people automatically lump us together. When you do asinine things, they just naturally get associated with me.”
