WHO DO YOU SEE WHEN YOU LOOK AT ME?

That last memory clings to me like seaweed. Persistent, abrasive.

I’m back on the beach near the headland. I sit and lean against a dune. Close my eyes to ground myself. Feel the soft sand between my fingers, the sea breeze on my skin. Taste salt. Remember where I am. It doesn’t budge the knot in my stomach.

I’m a mess. I might not be able to speak to Jude or Rafa yet, but I need to talk to someone.

I call Mags.

‘Timing,’ she says, slightly breathless. She’s still in Rome with Jason, Dani and Maria. I wanted them away from the Sanctuary when we confronted Nathaniel. ‘We’re about to leave. Where are you?’

The sound of her voice tethers me more firmly to here and now.

‘Back in Pan Beach.’

‘Thank god. Who’s with you?’

She sounds the same. I feel the same listening to her. ‘The Outcast crew, plus Malachi, Taya, Micah and Daisy. We brought Simon and the Butlers with us. ’

‘Were you hoping for more Rephaim?’

Gatekeepers are coming to tear Pan Beach apart: yeah, I’d hoped for more. But I don’t want to scare her. ‘It’s enough.’ I stare out at the horizon, spot a freighter far out at sea. From here it looks like a toy. I blot it out with my thumb. ‘What are Dani and Maria doing?’

‘They’re coming with us. Maria’s not happy—no surprise there—but she caved in. Jason’s offered them his room. We’re picking up clothes for them on the way.’

‘Tell Jason to go to the resort when you get here.’

‘How come?’

‘Our place is crawling with Rephaim.’

‘Oh, okay.’ A pause, and then: ‘Is that surf I can hear? Are you at the beach?’

‘Yeah. I needed some air.’ I don’t tell her about the Immundi. I don’t want to freak her out any more than she already is. ‘How long will you be?’

She holds the phone away and speaks to Jason for a second. ‘Not long. A few minutes maybe.’

‘Can we talk when you get here? Alone?’

‘Of course.’ A pause. ‘Babe, are you okay?’

‘Yeah, sort of. I’ll meet you out front of the resort in five.’

I disconnect and get to my feet. I dust sand from my pants, stretch my arms above my head. I feel stronger—physically stronger—than I have in a long time. I flex my fingers, shake out the tension.

There’s no sign of Jude on the beach or in the water. Maybe he went after Rafa.

I head towards town. The boardwalk is crammed with women power-walking their prams, so I jog along the hard-packed sand at the water’s edge. The Lotus Resort is at the other end of the esplanade, right on the beach. It’s all white shutters, climbing jasmine and manicured date palms. Jason’s kept a room here all week, even though he’s spent most nights on my couch or Rafa’s or—more recently—in Maggie’s bed.

The Lotus is where the local seachange millionaires bring their city buddies for foie gras and French champagne. I’ve only set foot inside once. Maggie, Simon and I had drinks there one Friday night before Christmas, and we each blew a day’s wages to share a bottle of Billecart-Salmon Elisabeth Rosé. It was gone in half an hour and we couldn’t afford anything else. We finished off the night on the beach with a six-pack of beer from Rick’s Bar.

That’s what I love about Pan Beach. The Lotus, Rick’s Bar, and the blood-stained Imperial Hotel are all within three blocks of each other, all existing in their own orbits, ignoring the other. Pretending their reality is the only one. Why can’t my worlds function like that?

I lived at the Sanctuary for a hundred and thirty-eight years, in Pan Beach less than a year. And yet this place, with its lush mountain, turquoise ocean and chilled vibe feels more like home than the monastery ever did. Is that connection real or a lingering side effect of my fake memories? I fell in love with this place when I thought I was a teenage backpacker with shitty parents and a dead twin. When I was drowning in grief. Would I have reacted the same under different circumstances? Would I have become friends with Maggie? If I’d turned up as Gabe, would Maggie have wanted to share a house with me?

I’m fifty metres from the resort when I see Maggie half-jog onto the beach, peeling off the jumper she wore to Italy. She squints against the sun and holds up a hand to me. Her hair is tied back, two-tone blonde streaks shining in the sun. I veer towards her and slow to a walk. By the water, seagulls fight over an abandoned bucket of chips. Maggie scans my face when I get closer and stops a few paces away. She knows. She can see it.

‘What’s going on?’

I pause as if to catch my breath, but I can breathe fine. I’m checking if I really want to tell her. Because once this is out, I can’t take it back. I tuck a stray hair behind my ear, shake out my legs to keep the blood circulating.

‘Something happened in the shift, Mags. I remembered. I remember my old life.’

She frowns. Her lips part and then slowly form a single word: ‘Oh.’

I give her a moment to absorb it.

‘Oh,’ she says again and lowers herself to the sand. I hesitate, then sit down as well, not too close. She’s studying me more intently now, her jumper bunched in her hands. The seagulls keep arguing in the wash. ‘Are you still…you?’

‘Yes. I’m still me.’

‘Not Gabe?’ Not the hard-arsed, brother-shunning Rephaite?

Maggie swallows. She’s holding her breath. God, she’s unsure of me. It scrapes me raw to see that shift in her eyes, the tension around her mouth. I think about where all the pieces of me are settling. My past, my regrets. What shape they’re taking.

‘I’m still working that out.’

She nods, looks away. Why wouldn’t she be freaked out at the prospect of me being Gabe? She hasn’t heard too many pleasant stories about who I used to be. Maggie unzips her boots. Slips off one, then the other, and stands them in the sand. They slump a little, like soldiers at ease. Then she rolls up her jeans and presents her tanned shins to the sun. ‘Okay.’

‘That’s it?’

A quick nod. Nervous, but resolved. ‘I’m okay with whoever you are as long as you’re still my friend.’

The idea that she thinks it could’ve been otherwise brings a sharp jab to my heart. ‘Of course I’m still your friend. I wasn’t that much of a bitch.’

‘That’s not what I meant.’ She digs her French-polished toenails into the sand. ‘I don’t know how any of this works. Like, if you remember who you used to be, does that mean the last year doesn’t matter? Then my Gaby would be gone.’

I feel a strange tug at the way she called me ‘her’ Gaby. ‘I’m the same person I was an hour ago. And the last year means everything to me.’

She blinks rapidly, bites her lip.

‘Something happened between the Sanctuary and the bungalow,’ I say. ‘And when we came out the other side, Jude and I, we had the pieces we’ve been missing.’ A thought strikes. ‘Did anything happen with you guys?’

She shakes her head.

‘Nothing with Dani?’

A frown. ‘No…although she was a little quiet when we arrived.’ She squints against the sun. ‘How’s Jude coping?’

‘We haven’t talked about it yet.’

‘Why not?’

‘Long story.’ I look away and we’re silent for a moment.

‘So, does this mean you remember everything?’

I turn back to her. ‘Yeah. And I need to talk to someone about it before my head explodes.’

‘You haven’t spoken to Ez or Daisy? Or Micah?’

‘They don’t know yet. I wanted to talk to you first.’

‘Oh.’ Her face crumples a little, and then she smiles, wipes her eyes. ‘Sorry, I didn’t expect…I thought maybe… ’

I knock my runner against her calf. ‘Don’t underestimate the impact you’ve had on me, Margaret Jane.’

Her smile widens and for the first time since arriving back in Pan Beach, I almost fit back in my skin. ‘So. What happened with Rafa?’

And just like that, I’m smudged again. ‘Bloody hell,’ I say, trying for lightness I don’t feel. ‘Straight in for the kill.’

‘You don’t want to talk about him?’

‘No…Yes. Shit.’ I stretch my neck to one side, try to ease the tension.

‘Come on.’ She picks up her boots and jumper and helps me to my feet. We climb the steps up to the resort, find a patch of shaded grass under a clump of palm trees. Maggie crosses her legs and waits, straightens the folded cuffs on her jeans. I take my time pulling my thoughts together. I lean back against a palm tree, find the freighter on the horizon.

I tell her all of it. What happened on the island, that moment in Rafa’s room, finding out about Mya, and the fall-out with Rafa and then Jude. She asks questions as I go and when I finish—wrung out—she sits quietly, stares out over the sea while she assembles it all.

‘Rafa told you he loved you?’

She thinks that’s the most significant thing? ‘Did you miss the part where he hooked up with Mya and then came on to me an hour later?’

‘No, and I totally understand why you reacted the way you did, but didn’t you go to his room?’

‘That’s not the point.’ The memory feels new, raw. It still stings. ‘The Sanctuary was falling apart and I almost died on that island. He took advantage of the fact I wasn’t on my game.’

‘It sounds to me like something he’d been wanting turned up at his door and he made the most of it.’ She holds up her hands. ‘Which was selfish and dumb and just plain wrong.’

I run my fingers through the grass, rip a few blades from the ground. ‘Rafa never did anything that wasn’t self-serving.’ But even as I say it, I know it wasn’t true, even back then. It was just easier to believe that after he was gone from the Sanctuary.

‘Do you think he meant it…being in love with you?’

‘I don’t know if he was capable of loving someone.’

Maggie takes a slow breath. ‘And what about now?’

I rest my forehead on my knee. Rafa spent a year thinking Jude and I were dead. And then he found me alive, oblivious to who I was and the danger headed my way. He could’ve walked away. He could’ve messed with me so much more than he did. But he didn’t. He stayed and he kept helping me even when I made decisions that infuriated him. He tried to keep me at arm’s length. He made me stronger, tougher. And yesterday, he was willing to die for me.

Maggie reaches out and squeezes my wrist. Behind us, on the other side of the jasmine hedge, someone splashes in the resort pool. Someone else laughs.

‘Is it weird, these moments from your old life? Do they feel like your memories or someone else’s?’

I take off my shoes and socks while I turn the question over. I press my toes into the cool lawn. ‘They all feel like mine, but…I think the last year feels the most “real”. Which I guess makes sense.’

‘So, everything from when you woke up in the hospital in Melbourne?’

I remember lying helpless on starched sheets, sweating, sobbing, believing Jude was dead. Killed because we were arguing over music when he should have been watching the road.

That darkness ate away at me, hollowed me out even in the fug of pain from a broken leg, two broken ribs, twenty stitches in my neck, bruised spleen and the monstrous lump on my head.

‘I’ve never hurt so bad for so long.’ My bones ache again just thinking about it. ‘That’s what it feels like to heal normally? God, it’s so slow.’

She nods, a wry smile. ‘Sucks being human.’

I’m ashamed at how relieved I am to be Rephaim. But at least now I know how I really got those injuries, even if I still don’t remember how I got to the hospital. I push that troubling thought away.

‘You really need to talk to Jude about all this,’ Maggie says. ‘It must be the same for him.’

‘Maybe not.’ I look away. Anger stirs, faint and indignant. ‘He definitely had a hand in changing my memories.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘I heard him talking to someone. And then I turned into the sister he always wanted.’

‘You don’t know for sure he did that.’ She falters. ‘Do you?’

I pull up another patch of grass, crush the blades between thumb and fingers. ‘No,’ I concede. ‘Not for sure.’

Maggie taps her nail against a tooth, weighing up whether to push the issue. ‘Okay, but you have to talk to him. Like, as soon as possible.’ She holds out her palm. ‘Give me your phone.’

I hesitate but I know she’s right. And I really don’t have the luxury of a few days to work through this in my own head. We’re maybe a day away from a showdown with Gatekeepers. I stretch my neck one way and then the other. ‘Fine.’ I give her the phone.

‘I need to see Mum, so let’s make it at the Green Bean.’ She taps out a message, glances at me, blows her fringe from her eyes and hits send. ‘Good. Now, wait just a second—’ My phone buzzes. She checks the screen, smiles. ‘Excellent. He’s on his way.’