My mind stirs and rattles with all the secrets held captive inside it. I won’t be able to sleep. Not now that I know the truth about Bo, about his brother’s death.
And I need to keep him safe.
I make a cup of lavender tea, turn on the radio, and sit at the kitchen table. The announcer repeats the same information every twenty minutes: The identity of the two drowned boys has not yet been released, but the police don’t believe them to be locals—they’re tourists. Eventually, the drone of the announcer’s voice bleeds into a slow, drowsy song—a piano melody. Guilt slithers through me, a thousand regrets, and I wish for things I can’t have: a way to undo all the deaths, to save the people who’ve been lost. Boys die all around me. And I do nothing.
I don’t realize I’ve dozed off until I hear the ringing of the telephone mounted to the kitchen wall.
I jerk upright in the stiff wood chair and look to the window over the sink. The sun is barely up—it’s morning—the sky still a subdued, pastel gray. I stand and fumble for the phone. “Hello?”
“Did I wake you?” It’s Rose’s voice on the other end.
“No,” I lie.
“I stayed up all night,” she says. “Mom kept feeding me cakes, hoping it would help me forget everything that’s happened in the last week, but I was so jittery from all the sugar that it made it worse.”
I feel distracted, and Rose’s words slip ineffectually through my mind. I keep thinking of Bo and his brother.
“Anyway,” Rose continues after I don’t respond, “I wanted to tell you not to come into town today.”
“Why?”
“Davis and Lon are on some kind of crusade. They’re questioning everyone; they even cornered Ella Garcia in the girls’ bathroom at the Chowder, wouldn’t let her leave until she proved she wasn’t a Swan sister.”
“How’d she prove it?”
“Who knows. But Heath heard that she just started bawling, and Davis didn’t think a Swan sister would cry so hysterically.”
“Isn’t anyone stopping them?”
“You know how it is,” Rose says, her voice drifting away from the phone briefly like she’s reaching for something. “As long as they don’t break any laws, everyone would be relieved if Davis and Lon actually figured out who the sisters were—then maybe they could put an end to all of this.”
“There’s no ending it, Rose,” I reply, thinking back to my conversation with Bo last night in his cottage. He wants to end this too—an eye for an eye. One death for another. But he’s never taken a life before—it isn’t who he is. It will change him. I hear adingpass through Rose’s phone.
“Heath is texting me,” she says. “I’m supposed to meet him at his house.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t leave your house either,” I warn.
“My mom doesn’t know about Heath yet, so I can’t invite him over here. She thinks I’m meeting you for coffee.”
“Just be careful.”
“I will.”
“I mean be careful with Heath.”
“Why?”
“You never know what will happen. We still have a week to go.”
“He might drown, you mean?” she asks.
“I don’t want you to lose someone you care about.”
“And what about Bo? Aren’t you worried you’re going to lose him?”
“No,” I say too quickly. “He’s not my boyfriend, so I don’t...” But I feel the lie churning inside my chest and it takes the weight out of my words. I am worried—and I wish I weren’t.
Another text chimes through her phone. “I gotta go,” she says. “But I’m serious about not coming into town.”
