LIAM GAVE ME an amused look as we started off toward Mrs. Popova’s. “So you must really love birds,” he said.
“I guess,” I replied, then cursed myself silently. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to give myself away before I ever stepped foot in the LARC. And then I’d get sent home without finding out anything about my mother.
“Is there another reason you’d want to fly out to the edge of the world for an entire summer? Because if you came for the nightlife, you are going to be deeply disappointed,” he said, his tone teasing. “And according to Dr. Kapoor, you were extremely persistent. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who could wear her down before.”
“‘Persistent’ is one word for it,” I said. My teachers tended to go with “stubborn.” My last foster mother had preferred “goddamn pigheaded.” I’d been emailing Dr. Kapoor for months, trying to convince her to let me work for the LARC over the summer. Nobody just visited Bitter Rock. I needed a reason to be here. But I couldn’t tell Liam any of that, and he was still looking at me like he was waiting for an explanation. “So you call your mom Dr. Kapoor?”
“Since I was five,” he said. “She’s never seen fit to correct me.”
“Should I check in with her? Before I turn in?” I asked.
“She and Dr. Hardcastle are over on Belaya Skala doing their science . . . stuff,” he said, waving a hand vaguely. “Dr. Kapoor meant to be back to greet ‘our wayward intern,’ but then we heard the storm warning, and we assumed you’d be delayed.” He raised an eyebrow, like it was a downright supernatural phenomenon that had ushered me here in defiance of bad weather.
“I talked Mr. Nguyen into it,” I said with a half shrug.
“That would be why I’m staring at you. Mr. Nguyen’s from the mainland. And nobody from the mainland comes out here if they can avoid it when there isn’t a storm.” He looked like he was going to say something more, but then the radio at his belt crackled to life.
“Liam?” it was a woman’s voice, distorted by static.
Liam held up a finger to ask me to wait as he replied. “Here.”
“That storm’s staying offshore, but the mist’s coming in quick. Where are you?”
“Walking toward Mrs. Popova’s. The intern got here. Sophia.”
I wasn’t sure if I should say hello, but the voice continued without giving me the chance. “Get yourselves back to Mrs. Popova’s and stay there. I don’t want you to get caught out in the mist trying to get back to the house on your own.”
“What about you?”
“We’ll be fine. I’ll see you in the morning.” There was a finality to the clipped words.
“You heard the boss lady. Mist’s coming,” he said. “Best hurry.”
“What’s the big deal?” I asked. “Can’t you just walk home?”
“Nobody goes out in the mist. There are so many sharp drops and rocky hills around here, even just walking around when the mist is up is dangerous. Driving is worse, given the quality of the roads. Driving in the mist in the dark is suicidal.”
“It doesn’t get dark this time of year,” I pointed out.
“Then we may yet survive our journey,” he told me, mock-dramatic. I chuckled, amusement cracking through my tension for a moment, at least.
I was actually relieved that I’d beaten Dr. Kapoor back to Bitter Rock. My exchanges with her had all been over email, but even in text you could feel her glaring at you. I had to keep fooling her into thinking I was just a bird-obsessed teenager trying to “get some real-world experience.” I’d already slipped up with Liam. I had to be more careful.
We trudged down the gravelly, pockmarked road, the only one that wound along the length of Bitter Rock’s main landmass. There were no trees on the island, but the rocks and hills hid our destination from view until we were almost on top of it. “This is it,” Liam said as we approached. In another setting, the cottage-style house might have looked cute, but the salt had stripped its paint until what was left hung in tattered strips from gaunt gray boards, and the roof shingles were patchy. Not even the floral curtains in the windows could rescue it from looking on the brink of ruin. “The Bitter Rock Chalet, aka Mrs. Popova’s house. Everyone from the LARC stays here. Except Dr. Kapoor, who has her own house, and Dr. Hardcastle, who claims to have a cot in his office but I’m pretty sure sleeps upside down in the closet like a vampire.”
“I think vampires sleep in coffins,” I said.
“He might have one of those in one of the storage rooms, actually,” Liam said. “The only people who ever come here are LARC researchers or really, really dedicated bird-watchers. The only place to stay is Mrs. Popova’s. So it doesn’t need a sign or anything.”
The front door opened, and a sprig of a woman, gray-haired and with glasses that took up half her face, stepped out and crossed her arms. Her tan cardigan hung to her knees, emphasizing her thin build. Her face was creased and wrinkled, her skin light brown and decorated with liver spots. “Liam Kapoor,” she declared as we approached. “What are you doing out with the mist coming in?”
“Fetching lost interns,” Liam said. “I’m thinking of starting a collection. Mrs. Popova, Sophia. Sophia, this is Mrs. Popova.”
“I knew a Sophie once,” she said. There was something odd in her voice—almost grief and almost anger. Sophie—I hadn’t gone by that since I was little, and there was something unsettling about hearing it now.
“It’s a pretty common name,” I replied. In the top fifty the year I was born, a fact I had confirmed before deciding to keep my first name for this deception. It was too hard to train myself to react properly to a fake one.
“Wait, you mean the girl in the boat?” Liam said, sounding startled.
“Who’s the girl in the boat?” I asked.
“It’s nothing,” Mrs. Popova said with a sigh.
“It’s sort of like a ghost story,” Liam said.
“And not a pleasant one,” Mrs. Popova added, in a tone that precluded any further discussion. She waved both of us toward the house, eyeing the mist with more wariness than I thought was warranted. “Best get inside quickly, before this gets any worse. I’ll make cocoa.”
I followed Mrs. Popova inside. A ghost story. The girl in the boat. So the memories haunting me had a name.
A clatter of voices greeted us in the entryway. By the time I’d stripped off my shoes, I’d sorted them into two speakers, one male and one female.
Mrs. Popova ushered me farther in. The kitchen was a mix of weathered practicality and grandma flourishes, much like the exterior. A rifle sat propped against the back door; every cup and kettle had a lace doily to rest on.
Two people sat at the kitchen table. The first was a tiny white woman, a brunette with hair that stuck up in a way that made her look perpetually surprised. Even indoors she wore a puffy blue coat that seemed on the verge of swallowing her up and digesting her. The man, who had East Asian features, was short and solidly built, the sides of his head shaved and the rest of his hair swept back in a startled swoop.
“Hey, you found the fledgling,” the man said. He had a Midwestern accent that charmed me instantly.
“Is the queen back in her castle?” the woman asked. Her chirpy voice held hidden barbs.
“She’s up at the LARC by now,” Liam said. “She said they’d stay there for the night, and I’m stuck with you lot.”
“Poor thing.” The woman tutted, and laughed.
“I’m making cocoa for anyone who wants it,” Mrs. Popova declared. “And tell the poor girl your names.”
“Kenny Lee,” the guy said. “We had a bet going on whether you’d show up, you know. Figured it was even odds you were a prank.”
“I’m Lily,” the woman said.
“Lily Clark, right?” I asked.
“That’s right.” She stuck out her hand and I had to step up to take it. Her skin was startlingly cold, her handshake firm enough you knew she’d practiced it. “How’d you know?”
“Your pictures are all up on the website.” Except for Liam’s; he’d surprised me. And I didn’t like surprises, not right now.
“We have a website?” Kenny asked. “Why didn’t I know about that?”
“Because Will had me put it together without telling Dr. Kapoor. Something about dragging her kicking and screaming into the modern era,” Lily said.
“What picture did you use?” Kenny asked suspiciously.
“Just one I grabbed from Facebook,” Lily said.
“They’re nice photos,” I supplied.
“Probably not very accurate, then,” Kenny said with a laugh. “We’re usually bedraggled, muddy, exhausted, or all three at once. You can identify a LARC employee by the dark circles under our eyes and the stray feathers tucked in odd places.” He leaned back in his chair and waved at us to take our seats. The chair creaked alarmingly under me, but held up. “This is great, you know. I don’t have to be the new guy anymore. You get all the abuse.”
“Nah, she’s just a kid,” Lily said. “I’ll be nice to her.” Kenny groaned good-naturedly.
“How long have you been at the LARC?” I asked him.
“Two summers, but I got here a week after Lily. I’ve been ‘new guy’ ever since,” he said. “It’ll be great having some extra company, at least. Especially since Liam’s leaving.”
“What?” I asked, startled and, I had to admit, a bit disappointed.
Liam gave a too-casual shrug, slouching in that boneless, expansive way that only tall, skinny guys can manage. “My mum—my other mum—didn’t precisely check with Dr. Kapoor before she put me on a flight to Anchorage. The only reason I’ve been here this long is that Mum took off for a research trip to Morocco for a book, and my grandparents are visiting my cousins in Delhi and can’t get a flight back until next week. I think Mum was trying to force us into some quality time together, but Dr. Kapoor’s busy with her feathered children. And I know better than to compete with them for her affection.”
Mrs. Popova whisked the cocoa and pursed her lips, shaking her head as if in regret.
“I’m sure your mom loves you more than birds,” Kenny said awkwardly.
“More than any one of them, to be sure,” Liam said. “But in the aggregate, sometimes I wonder.” He smiled that easy smile to take the edge off his comment.
The silence threatened to get truly excruciating, and I cleared my throat. “You mentioned a ghost story?”
“A ghost story?” Kenny asked, perking up.
“I said it was like a ghost story,” Liam hedged.
Mrs. Popova clicked her tongue. “All stories turn into ghost stories if you wait long enough,” she said. She paused in the midst of stirring the cocoa, looking out the kitchen window at the gray of the mist. “No, she wasn’t a ghost. She was just a child.”
“The girl in the boat?” Kenny guessed.
Mrs. Popova sighed. “It’s not a story I care to tell or hear without a bit of whiskey in me, and I haven’t got any. So if you’ll excuse me, I’ll get myself to bed. Enjoy your cocoa. Lock the doors. And—”
“Don’t go outside,” Kenny and Lily chorused. They laughed, but my skin prickled.
Once Mrs. Popova was in her room, I turned my gaze on Liam. “So. The girl in the boat,” I said, ready to shake him by the shoulders until he explained what the hell he was talking about.
“You’re not saying it right,” he informed me.
“How am I supposed to say it?” I asked.
“Like this: the Girl in the Boat,” he intoned. Like a title. Like a figure from myth. Like, I thought, a ghost story.
“It’s kind of LARC legend,” Kenny said. “Passed down to the new grad students and post-docs.”
Liam nodded. “I heard it from one of my mom’s students at the University of Alaska when I was a kid. It’s been around awhile. There are a few different versions.”
“And what version would you tell me?” I asked.
“The spooky version, of course,” Liam said, and grinned. He sat up, leaning forward a bit and holding up his hands as if framing the scene. “A fisherman is out on the ocean. No one for miles around, as far as he knows, and fog all around him, so thick he can’t see. And he starts to hear this bird. Like a loon, maybe. Mournful, sad. This broken cry calling out again and again. He tries to ignore it. It’s just a bird, and he has a catch to haul in. The cry starts to fade. Like it’s getting weak. And he doesn’t quite know why, but he starts heading toward it.”
I shivered. The cadence of Liam’s voice had changed. It was low and haunting, his eyes fixed on mine as he spoke. Kenny and Lily seemed just as spellbound, leaning forward in their seats, even though they knew the story.
“Then he can’t hear it anymore. And he can’t see anything through the fog. So he cuts the engine. All he can hear is the water against the hull of his boat, and his own heavy breath.” He let the silence hang, leaving us to imagine that eerie stillness. When he spoke again, it was softly. “And then . . . he sees it. Emerging from the fog. A low shape on the water. A boat. Just a rowboat, but it hasn’t got any oars. He draws up alongside it and looks inside. And he sees a little girl, curled in the bottom of the boat. So cold and so tired and so hungry that she’s lost even the strength to cry. He takes her back to shore, and bundles her up, and gets her help. If he hadn’t come upon her then, she would have died.”
“But she didn’t,” I said. My mouth was dry. I struggled to keep my voice even, the normal level of curious. “So it isn’t a ghost story after all.”
“I don’t know,” Liam said. His head tilted. “Maybe you don’t have to die to be a ghost.”
I couldn’t tell if he was joking. And I didn’t know what my answer might be if he wasn’t. Was that what I was? A ghost? “Did it really happen?” I asked.
“Maybe?” Kenny said, but Liam looked thoughtful.
“There was this thing,” he said. “When I was little, Dr. Kapoor was a postdoc, and she was spending the summer here. When she got back, she was really . . . withdrawn, I guess? I was too little to know why, but I heard her talking with Mum once. I remember something about a girl, and I remember having the impression something bad had happened to her. That would have been . . . 2003?”
“That’s the year that storm happened,” Lily said.
“What storm?” I asked. As if I didn’t know.
“It was this awful accident,” Lily said. “Some idiots went out on the water during the mist, and the weather turned. The boat sank, or something? Three people died. They never even found the bodies. But I don’t remember there being a kid involved.”
“No one really talks about it,” Kenny pointed out. “Could be we don’t have all the details. The only people around from back then are Hardcastle and Kapoor, and good luck getting anything out of them about it.”
“Ah,” I said, as if that satisfied my curiosity, as if it didn’t really matter to me at all. A storm. Three people dead. Just a number, some faceless figures. But I knew their names. Joy Novak. Martin Carreau. Carolyn Baker. The coverage was obscure, the records thin, but I knew they’d been here. And then . . . they weren’t.
“Are you all right?” Liam asked.
“I thought we agreed you wouldn’t ask me that,” I replied. I wasn’t all right. My nerves jangled, and a familiar vertigo swept over me, the prelude to the crash that always came after I pulled my little trick with unwanted emotions. I was out of time. “I’m just tired. I think I should get some rest,” I said. Was my voice too loud, too frantic? Liam frowned slightly, but the others looked unconcerned.
“You’re the third door on the left,” Lily informed me. “Bathroom’s at the end of the hall.”
“Thanks.” I stumbled as I stood, but I hoped they’d just pass it off as weariness from a long trip. I offered an anemic wave and hurried down the carpeted hallway, hearing my breath too loudly in my ears.
I barely got the door closed behind me before my knees went out. I sagged and slid, letting my bag fall to the ground beside me, as the fear I’d pushed away less than an hour ago slammed back into me.
I screwed my eyes shut. I shoved one hand into my pocket and wrapped it tight around my mother’s wooden bird, letting the sharp points of the wings bite into my palm. I sucked in breath after breath through my nose, and told myself I was safe, that there was no reason for this surge of adrenaline, this racing pulse, this wild, untamed fear.
I counted breaths. Fifteen. Thirty.
By forty-five, I was something approaching calm. I relaxed my hands, opened my eyes, and let my head loll against the door. That hadn’t been so bad. I hadn’t felt like I was dying. I hadn’t thrown up. And no one had seen.
I stood up shakily. The window threw my reflection back at me—hollow eyes, hair like a mass of briars around my face. I looked away quickly. I hated seeing my reflection. Especially after one of my crashes—that emotional collapse that inevitably followed after I’d shoved away fear or sorrow into that empty void-space. Though sometimes the blinding fear or anger or rending sadness rushed over me like a wave with no reason at all. I was lucky this time. I’d had warning and somewhere private to ride it out.
I dropped my bag on the bed and sat next to it. I pulled out my clothes, stacking them side by side on the bed to store later, and reached to the bottom of the bag, to the most important object I carried with me: a printout of a scanned photograph.
The phone call had come late at night, when I was leaving my shift at the burger place near my school, walking back to my foster home. It was short-term placement—three months left and I’d be out on my own, eighteen and done with high school. I never answered unknown numbers, but for some reason I picked up.
What do you know about Bitter Rock?
I was sure Abby had the wrong person. Or that it was some kind of prank. And then she texted the scan to me: a photo, front and back.
The photo showed my mother and me. I was maybe three. Small, but I always have been. I was pressed against her side, grinning up at her. I’d had brown hair as a kid; it had only lightened to blonde as a teenager. The same as hers, which was pulled back in a braid, the same way I wore mine now. A close-mouthed smile made her look like she had a secret and wanted you to know it. Her hands were in the pockets of a puffy vest; her gaze was fixed squarely on the camera. Behind her was the sky, and scrub grass, and a rocky cliffside. And in the corner of the photo was the edge of a sign. LANDON AVIAN RES—
That’s all you could read. There was a date scrawled on the back of the photo, next to our names. August 10, 2003. Days before she died. She looked happy. She looked well. She looked a world away from dying in a Montana hospital.
I lay down on the bed, holding the small wooden bird between my thumb and forefinger. Now that I’d seen one in person, there was no mistaking that it was a red-throated tern. A bird that only came from one island.
I knew a Sophie once, Mrs. Popova had said. Who else could she mean? I didn’t remember her. Did I? I shut my eyes and summoned up an image of Mrs. Popova’s face, and something kicked hard at my gut, the same not-quite-memory that I’d gotten looking at Mikhail.
Abby, the girl who called me, had told me about 2003, the summer when my mother, Martin Carreau, and Carolyn Baker went missing. Their deaths—or disappearances—were strange enough on their own, she said, but it wasn’t the first time it had happened.
She didn’t tell me more than that, so I found it on my own. The disappearances weren’t tied to Bitter Rock directly, not overtly, but you could make the connection if you knew what you were looking for. A small island. People missing. Investigations that petered out far too soon.
The Krachka first—a fishing boat. The crew missing and an entire village with it. An airbase in World War II abandoned without explanation. A back-to-the-land commune wiped off the map.
And three vanished ornithologists in 2003.
Abby wasn’t the first to put the pieces together and see the pattern. I’d found other theories—internet forums teemed with posts suggesting the missing were the victims of aliens, government experiments, the Rapture in miniature. And then the voices of reason always chimed in: coincidence. It was a dangerous part of the ocean. Lots of storms and lots of rocks. It was too remote for emergency services or search crews to get out there, increasing the chances of bodies going unrecovered. And, of course, some of it could be made up or exaggerated. It was the obvious explanation. The one that didn’t require you to believe in the impossible.
But I already believed in impossible things.
Because I was one of them.