4

I HEARD LIAM calling my name, but I was still rooted in place. It took me what felt like an eternity to start moving. Longer to get my voice back and call to him. He looked at me wildly, like it was impossible that I was standing there.

Then he grabbed me in a tight hug, releasing me before I could decide how to respond. He cleared his throat, looking awkward. “Sorry. It’s just I saw—I thought I saw—”

I didn’t get to hear what he was going to say. From farther along the beach came a crash and a scream. We exchanged a look that meant something like Now what?

Liam sprinted toward the sound, awkward in his unlaced boots. I followed a beat behind. The sound had come from the end of a spit of rock, and as we drew closer a light stuttered near the water, accompanied by a string of frantic cursing.

A small motorboat had slammed up against an outcropping of sharp black rocks about ten feet out from where we stood. Razor-sharp barnacles studded the slick rocks. The boat was taking on water rapidly, sinking, and a girl who looked about my age had flung herself up on the rock, scrambling for purchase, a heavy bag slung over her shoulder. Her foot slipped, and she plunged up to her waist in the water with a yelp.

“Hang on,” Liam called to her.

“What d’you think I’m trying to do?” she hollered back. Her voice sounded familiar. She braced and hauled herself upward again, but she was still submerged to her knees, and her hands were bloodied.

Lily and Kenny came racing into view. “What’s going on?” Lily asked, and then she saw the girl. “Oh, shit.”

The boat listed and slipped out of sight beneath the water. Beyond the girl, the water was deep, but between her and us I could see the shapes of rocks maybe a foot or two below the surface. Slippery, but better than plunging into ice-cold water. Hopefully.

Automatically, I started to push aside my fear, but then I remembered how it had rushed back into me immediately, worse than before, how it had left me frozen. So I let it stay.

“Liam, grab my hand,” I said, voice shaking but determined. I didn’t wait for anyone to object. I stepped out into the water. Liam lunged to grab me, getting his hand around my wrist to steady me as I balanced, my bare feet going instantly numb. I met the girl’s eyes. “You’re going to have to get closer,” I said.

She began to inch around the rock. I stepped out as far as I could, Liam leaning to support me while Kenny grabbed his elbow to steady him. The girl reached toward me. Our hands met, her frigid, wet fingers closing over mine. “Got it?” I asked, teeth chattering.

“I’m good,” she said tightly, hiking her bag up higher, and levered herself carefully off her perch, stepping onto one of the submerged rocks. She wobbled. I wobbled. But Liam steadied me, and none of us fell. We picked our way carefully to dry land. Liam let go of my hand as soon as we were safe, but I kept my grip on the girl until she straightened up, pale and shivering.

“Thanks,” she said, giving me an odd look. I knew where I’d heard that voice before. Abigail Ryder. The girl who’d told me about my mother. I stared at her. And she—winked.

“Who the hell are you?” Lily demanded. “What are you doing out here?”

I didn’t want her answering that question. Or giving me away. “Maybe we can hold off on interrogating her until she’s inside and not hypothermic,” I suggested, putting the kind of steel behind the words that tended to make people hop into action without questioning. Kenny gave a little jerk and nodded, but Lily’s look was skeptical. Abby shivered theatrically.

“G-good idea.” She might have been playing it up, but her lips were turning blue.

Of the four of us, only Kenny had managed to grab a coat on his way out the door, and he hung it around Abby’s shoulders as we helped her toward the house. Mrs. Popova stood on the back porch, holding her rifle loosely.

“She crashed on the rocks,” Kenny said. “We’ve gotta get her warmed up.”

Mrs. Popova’s lips thinned. She looked out past us—at what, I couldn’t imagine.

“S-sorry to impose,” Abby said, teeth chattering.

For a wild moment, I thought Mrs. Popova was going to refuse. But then she stood aside. We trooped in and Kenny settled Abby on the couch before going to get the fire started. Mrs. Popova looked outside one last time, then closed the door and threw the deadbolt.

I stood a few feet away from Abby as she stripped down to her underwear, the guys turning tactfully away, and wrapped herself in a heavy quilt. What was she doing here? No, that was the wrong question—I knew what she was doing here. She was chasing the same answers I was. But I didn’t know why, and that worried me.

“Liam,” Mrs. Popova said, her voice clipped, “call your mother and tell her about our guest. And you.” She looked at Abby. “Who are you and what on earth are you doing out here?”

“Abby. Abby Ryder. Nobody would take me, so I had to find my own way here,” Abby said. “I was trying to beat the storm, but I got a bit lost. With all the mist I didn’t even know I’d found the place until it busted a hole in my boat.”

“You were trying to get here?” Kenny asked, mystified.

Abby gave a sharp little laugh. “Assuming this is Bitter Rock, yeah.”

“But why?” Kenny pressed.

Abby’s eyes flicked to me for a split second. “I’m doing this school project. About mass disappearances. I was in Juneau visiting my aunt and I heard about the whole Landontown thing. I wanted to visit and check it out, and, well . . . I guess I got carried away?”

She was lying. She’d called me about Bitter Rock months ago, and she hadn’t said anything about a school project then. She’d said she worked for a professor or something—Dr. Ashford. She said he investigated “this kind of phenomenon.”

“So you’re one of those,” Mrs. Popova said, shaking her head with obvious disapproval. Abby had opened her bag and pulled out a wad of wet clothes, grimacing.

“I’ll grab you something to borrow,” Lily said. “Put those by the fire to dry.”

Liam was speaking quietly on the phone in the kitchen. He hung up and joined us. “Dr. Kapoor says to stay put. Bring her to the LARC in the morning,” he said.

“For now, everyone should get some sleep,” Mrs. Popova said. “And get out of those wet clothes. Especially you, Ms. Hayes.”

Abby’s eyebrow quirked at the surname. I looked down at my soaked jeans and bare feet, the latter of which were an unsettling shade of gray. “Right,” I said.

“Where’s she going to sleep?” Lily asked, returning with the offered clothing.

“She can bunk with me,” I said immediately. “I don’t mind.”

“Sounds good to me. Sorry again. And thank you guys for saving my ass,” Abby said.

“There will be a reckoning in the morning,” Mrs. Popova said, more a warning than a threat. Dr. Kapoor, I imagined, was not going to be pleased.

And I could be sunk before I’d even gotten started.

I pointed Abby toward the room and started to follow, Abby awkwardly carrying Lily’s borrowed clothes and her own bag while keeping the quilt wrapped around her. Liam grabbed my arm. “I know I’m not supposed to ask if you’re okay, so this is me not asking if you’re okay,” he said quietly.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” I asked. I didn’t ask it dismissively—I needed to hear the answer.

He swallowed. “Something happened out there.”

“You saw something?” I wanted the answer to be yes. Because that would mean it wasn’t just me, letting my imagination run wild.

“There was someone out there,” he said. “And she looked . . .”

“What?” I asked.

His hand dropped from my arm. “I don’t know. The mist was really thick.”

Disappointment and something deeper sang through me. For as long as I could remember, I’d been waiting for someone to tell me that they saw what I did. That I wasn’t alone. Or delusional. But anytime anyone came close, it ended like this. They saw something they couldn’t explain, and they ran as fast as they could in the other direction.

At least, that was what it had been like when I was younger. Before everyone figured out what a freak I was and stayed away in the first place. Liam would figure it out too.

“Good night,” I said, and told myself I was used to it. That I didn’t care what Liam Kapoor thought about me.