Judith
October 1971–April 1975
Judith had just finished her breakfast and was rinsing the dishes—part of a new regimen of punishment for her forays into the cove—when she saw the mailman climb out of his truck and take off his hat. She knew something was wrong because, for one, the mailman never got out of his truck, not after the neighbor’s dog hopped the fence and nearly took a chunk out of his calf. For another, the way he carried the letter, like there was a bomb attached to it, made Judith’s stomach clench. When he started up the driveway, her forehead started to sweat.
Her mom came downstairs, hairpins stuck between her lips and fussing with a ponytail. She pulled the pins out. “Don’t think you’re getting out of this by faking sick, Judith.” Then she got closer and saw the mailman. “Oh Jesus. Oh my God. Harry! Harry get down here now!”
Dad rumbled somewhere upstairs and then his heavy footsteps thumped all the way into the kitchen. “What is it? What happened?”
Mom pointed to the window.
The mailman had his head down, and he pinched the envelope by the corners with both hands. His steps were heavy. Slow.
Dad’s face went white. Judith knew what he was going to say before he said it. “Judith, go upstairs.”
For once, she didn’t argue. She cast one last look at the mailman before shutting off the water and wiping her hands on a dish towel. She went as far as mid-stairwell and sat. She doubted they’d notice.
Silence shrouded the house until the doorbell rang. Even the chipper ding-dong sounded ominous.
The mailman’s deep voice carried. “Harry.”
“Martin.”
There was a beat of silence, and Judith imagined the mailman handing her parents the letter, her mother trying to open it with shaky hands and then her father gently taking it from her to rip it open. She imagined their eyes passing over the contents while the mailman looked away, unable to stay, unable to go.
Mom sobbed once before her voice became muffled, probably by Dad’s shoulder.
The wind rushed out of Judith’s chest. It took all she had to make herself breathe in again.
Later, when Mom and Dad finally came out of their room, their faces gaunt and pale and splotchy and tearstained, they told her. Missing in action, the letter said.
“It means he’s lost,” Mom said.
Dad added, “It means he could still come home safe.”
“He won’t, though.”
Dad shot a look at Mom. “Di—”
Mom turned, quick as a snake, and slapped him.
For a second, no one breathed. Then Mom turned and shakily walked out of the room.
Judith didn’t care about being grounded anymore. Ground her forever, it wouldn’t make a difference. Her mom might have been right. Maybe the ghost girl didn’t grant wishes. Maybe by trying to speak to her, Judith had made her angry, so she refused to do anything to keep David safe. Or maybe it had nothing to do with Judith at all.
She thought of what Cassie said to her, that Lizzie—if that was her name—had been murdered. Could she be trapped somehow? That day at the cove, when she’d reached out for Judith, what if she’d been reaching out for help?
Cassie would know, she thought.
It’d been a month since she first met Cassie at the house on the hill, and she hadn’t been back since. Mostly because her parents had kept a closer watch on her, but also because she wasn’t sure she hadn’t dreamed it all up. Her nightmares had gotten worse, bleeding into mornings that left her gasping for air. In her mind, she opened her eyes to find herself underwater, no idea which way was up. She’d drowned a hundred times in the last week alone.
Heart pounding—she’d never openly defied her parents before—Judith marched downstairs and out the front door.
Someone had had a party at the house on the hill recently. The remains of a bonfire sat on the lawn, which was littered with beer cans. Inside, she could smell the ghosts of pot and cigarette smoke. On the wall, someone had drawn a penis next to “Lizzie’s” mouth.
The place seemed empty, but Judith didn’t want to accidentally stumble upon someone sleeping somewhere in one of the house’s nooks, so she made a show of stepping on every creaky board and tapping the walls as she moved from the front room to the small kitchen. The wood floor had been hacked away in places, revealing moss-covered stone underneath. Empty pizza boxes sat on the vintage stove surrounded by cheap candle stubs. Someone had tried to pry a metal fixture off the wall but abandoned the task halfway through; the iron hooks hung from stubborn iron nails.
“I swear to God.”
The voice came from somewhere else in the house, echoing down the hall. It sounded like…
“If you came back for the charm bracelet, I’m keeping it as payment for this fucking mess.” Cassie paused in the doorway, holding a black garbage bag. “Oh. It’s you.” She sniffed. “I was starting to think I got rid of you for good.” She pulled another garbage bag from a roll in her pocket and handed it to Judith. “Long as you’re here, you can help.”
Judith took the bag without complaint. She was grateful to have something to do with her hands. To distract herself from the news about David.
When the bags were full, they carried them down the hill, where Cassie’s car waited at the dead end. They dumped the bags into the hatchback.
“Not that I mind”—Cassie leaned against the open car door—“but you’ve been really quiet. Something wrong?”
Like a dam had been broken, she spilled everything. Almost everything. She told Cassie about her brother, that he was probably dead and her mom hated her and she’d thought she’d done a good thing, but now she wasn’t sure.
Cassie nodded thoughtfully but kept her arms crossed over her chest. “It’s not your job to fix everything, you know?”
Judith shrugged.
Cassie sighed. “About a month ago, my stepbrother knew the army was coming for him. He’d missed check-in, which means they find you and, if you’re lucky, arrest you. It was my fault.” She bit her lip. “I thought I could hide him. Stupid. Anyway, I was up here when I saw a military vehicle come down that big hill outside town. Ran to the house and told him. I figured he was gonna just lay low. Instead, he threw himself off the cliff. Washed up near your lighthouse.”
“Oh.”
“I’m not saying he’d be alive right now if it weren’t for me. If he’d been sent off like your brother, he might not have made it either. Still.” She rubbed her face. Sighed again.
“I thought—” Judith bit off the rest of her sentence.
“You thought what?” Cassie pulled a pack of cigarettes from somewhere in the car. “Lizzie got him?” She shook her head. “Lizzie doesn’t want us. She wants you.”
“Me?”
“All of you.”
The curse. She opened her mouth to ask if it was possible, only the moment she thought it, she realized she didn’t need to. It felt right. True. They were cursed. “Why us? What did we do?”
“Killed her. Obviously.”
“But who? When?”
Cassie ignored her, focusing on lighting her cigarette.
“If we’re in so much danger, why won’t you tell me anything?”
“I told you to leave.”
“We can’t.”
“Why not?”
Judith didn’t have an answer. Because they couldn’t. Because the thought of being anywhere else filled her with longing for the cape. As much as her mother used to complain, Judith knew she felt it too. There was a time, a little over a year ago, that Dad started looking at jobs in California. Almost had one, too, until Mom stepped in and talked him out of it. She didn’t want to uproot Judith and her brother, didn’t want to leave their family behind, excuse, excuse. So they stayed. They would always stay.
“Why should I believe you anyway?” Judith asked. “You could just be trying to scare me.”
Cassie smirked. “I don’t need to try. You’re plenty scared.”
Not scared enough to admit it.
Cassie paused a beat, then continued, “Do you remember what I told you? About my great-grandmother’s cousin?”
Judith nodded. A witch, she’d said.
“There’s this family story that she insisted the people she loved keep Thalias in their homes. Fresh, dried, didn’t matter as long as it was a Thalia. She was crazy about it, wouldn’t step foot outside her home without at least a few petals hidden somewhere in her clothes because, she said, they protected her from evil spirits. Story goes she wasn’t always that way, though. That it started about a hundred years ago, the night a couple of girls disappeared from your house.”
Judith swallowed, gaze darting up at the house, where she could almost feel Lizzie’s black eyes boring into her. “What else does the story say?”
“That instead of continuing the tradition of herbalism and magic, our family settled down to become nice, respectable florists.” Cassie opened the passenger side door and reached into the glove box. “Just think, if it weren’t for your family, I might have had powers beyond your wildest imagination.”
When she stood up again, she held a small velvet satchel. She considered Judith a moment before handing it over. “You probably need this more than I do.”
Judith peeked inside the satchel to find a handful of dried flower petals. “Can I come up here sometimes?” Judith asked. “I won’t bug you. Promise. I just…” God, she sounded like such a baby. “Please?”
Cassie took a long drag off her cigarette. Studied the embers before ashing over the top of the car door. Judith glanced through the back window and saw a couple of books, a jacket. Empty soda cans and bags of chips. Cassie wasn’t wearing a ton of makeup this time, and Judith realized she couldn’t have been older than sixteen.
“Fine,” Cassie said finally. “But don’t make a mess, and don’t bother me. And never on a full moon. Those are mine.”
“Okay.”
“And only if you promise, the first chance you get, you get out of the cape. Hell, out of Washington. Got it?”
“Got it,” Judith lied.
She couldn’t leave, wouldn’t, not without learning everything she could about Lizzie. She would cut herself off from the water, from Lizzie, until she learned to outsmart the curse. Until she could free herself and her family for good.
***
Time passed in which Judith and Cassie moved in and out of the house on the hill, one girl’s presence a ghost to the other—gum wrappers lazily left on the floor, replaced by an annoyed note. Soon gum wrappers turned into gifts—agates and bags of gummy bears and cigarettes—and annoyed notes turned into less-annoyed notes. Cassie might not have ever admitted it, but Judith thought of her as a friend. Her only friend.
Though Judith was tempted, she didn’t visit the cove, even when Mom stopped asking where she was going every time she left the house, even when Art and Carol begrudgingly invited her to bonfires on the beach, even when Uncle Thomas—the light’s current keeper—went to the hospital for a broken leg and the light stayed off for a full week and Judith could hear the ghost girl cry out to Judith in her dreams.
Now, it was nearing dusk, and Judith walked to the house on the hill wearing her brother’s jean jacket. A little over four years after the missing in action letter, David was now missing, presumed dead. Her parents hadn’t given up, but Judith was careful not to get sucked into their what-ifs and maybes. A little hope was a scary thing.
One of the first things Judith did when she started coming to the house on the hill regularly was rehang the front door. She’d helped her dad with handyman projects a dozen times, so it only took a couple of tries to get it right. She tried the door now, but it was locked. Weird, because they didn’t have a key, so unless you locked it from the inside, you couldn’t.
She went around to the back, where a door into the kitchen didn’t even have a handle, let alone a lock, and let herself in. The smell of incense hit her like a wall, and smoke lingered along the ceiling. She ran to the front room, thinking something had caught fire, but she found Cassie and a guy sitting on the floor, candle nubs flickering, while Cassie waved a burning bundle over their heads.
The guy caught Judith’s eye and smirked.
Judith’s face burned.
Cassie must have caught him looking; she turned and scoffed. “Full moon, Strand! It’s, like, my only rule.”
Judith arranged her face to look like she was as bewildered as Cassie, but in truth, Judith knew Cassie would be here tonight. She’d just hoped she’d beat Cassie to the house. She didn’t want to be alone, even if that meant bugging Cassie.
“Sorry,” Judith said. Then, “I can go…”
“Nah, let her stay,” the guy said. “More the merrier, right?”
“Fuck off, Jackie.” Cassie sighed. “Doesn’t matter. My chill’s all messed up.” She turned back to Judith. “We’re ending the war.”
“Oh?”
“See?” Cassie said to Jackie. “She doesn’t believe. She shouldn’t be here.”
“I didn’t say that,” Judith said.
“Didn’t have to.”
“Give her a break,” Jackie said. Then, looking at Judith, “We’ve all lost someone, right? We figure it can’t hurt to conjure a little peace.”
“Yeah,” Cassie interjected. “Except this was our last shot before I leave.”
Judith frowned. “You’re leaving?”
“Yeah. Had it with this place.”
“Where are you going? When?”
“Not sure yet. But this is my last full moon at the cape. I decided.”
“Okay.” It was hard to hide her disappointment. As much as Cassie feigned disliking Judith, they’d grown relatively close—as close as they could, given the circumstances. And truth be told, she’d miss Cassie. Having this house and Cassie’s perpetual frustration to occupy her mind, she hadn’t thought about the curse. Much. “Sorry to bug you. I’ll leave you to it, then.”
Cassie huffed, but was that a little regret on her face?
Jackie patted the floor next to him. “Stay.”
But Judith shook her head. “It’s my turn to cook,” she lied. “Better get back.”
As she moved past them toward the front door, she glimpsed the drawing of the girl on the wall. The crude doodles had long been scrubbed away, leaving the girl blurred at the edges.
Judith and Cassie never talked about Lizzie, ignoring her and her presence—something they both seemed to feel—as a kind of survival tactic. Judith still carried the Thalia petals, though. Whether they worked or not, she couldn’t be sure, but having them on her made her feel safer, even if she didn’t totally believe in their power the way Cassie did.
Once, Judith suggested they paint over the drawing of Lizzie. Cassie dismissed it right away. “You want to piss her off more?” she’d said.
It was the more that drove Judith to finally try to find out what she could about Lizzie. Whatever her mother might have known, she was keeping her secrets, so the only thing she could think to do was go through Cassie’s stuff. It didn’t make her feel good, breaching her only friend’s trust, but Judith needed answers.
The one thing Cassie could be counted on to bring to the house was her journal. She was a diligent writer, scribbling everything from poetry to shopping lists to snippets of thought that broke off midsentence. But Judith also knew that, stuck between the pages were articles and pictures, pieces of history and art and politics Cassie cared so deeply about she wanted them on her at all times.
The story about Lizzie was folded neatly at the back of the journal, tucked between a couple of crinkly, dry Thalia petals. The article looked like it’d been cut out of a book, only a couple of inches long with a picture of Judith’s house as it would have looked a hundred years ago in the center.
Lizzie’s actual name was Liza, and she had been fourteen when she disappeared. No one ever found her body or heard from her after she supposedly ran away from her aunt and uncle’s house. Judith’s house.
Now, when Judith looked at the drawing in the old house, she thought Liza, and it was like the darkness in Liza’s eyes deepened.
Liza was lost, Judith thought. Scared maybe. Trapped someplace she didn’t know how to escape. As much as the idea of facing her chilled Judith straight to her bones, she wondered if maybe she could help Liza somehow. If she did, maybe the curse that hung over her family like a guillotine would finally end. But what if she was wrong? She’d already done damage by attracting Liza’s attention. If she was wrong about this…
She needed air.
She left the house not realizing Jackie had followed. So wrapped up in her thoughts, she didn’t hear his footsteps behind her, so when he called her name, she practically jumped out of her skin.
Her face burned as he laughed.
“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“You didn’t,” she said too quickly. She looked past him, expecting to see Cassie too.
He must have noticed. “She’s communing.” He shrugged. “A lot of sitting around and doing nothing if you ask me, but don’t tell her I said that. She hits hard.”
When he smiled again, Judith’s heart thumped. It was easy to forget Jackie was attractive. He didn’t look all that different from the guys at her high school, but when he smiled at her, sometimes it felt like he was smiling just for her.
“I won’t,” she said finally.
A beat passed. Judith tried to come up with an excuse to walk away, but her brain seemed to glitch.
“I was just making sure you’re okay,” he said. “You look like something’s bothering you.” Then, “Do you want to talk about it?”
Before Judith could answer, he gently touched the small of her back and guided her toward an overturned tree where they sat. Judith was hyperaware of the miniscule distance between their thighs.
For a long time, neither of them said anything. Judith studied the tops of her shoes, the chip of blue nail polish on her thumbnail. She was overcome with a feeling of wanting to tell him everything and at the same time too terrified to say a word.
“I didn’t really mean it,” he said, “about the communing? I was just hoping it would make you laugh.”
“Oh,” Judith said, then laughed too loud. Jesus. What was wrong with her?
Then he smiled, and it didn’t matter. “I may not believe everything Cassie does, but I do believe in intention. I think what we do isn’t as important as our motives for doing it. Karma and all that.”
Judith frowned. “I don’t think that’s true. I think we can do horrible things with the best intentions, but it doesn’t make the horrible things less horrible.”
“Maybe. But it makes them easier to live with.” He gently nudged her, grinning when she nudged him back. “Besides, the important thing right now—the important thing always—is finding the courage to help, to give, when we’re needed. I’m not saying it was right that your brother, or anyone, was pulled into this pointless war, but when the time came, he had courage. Now, it’s our turn. Sometimes that’s communing the way Cassie does. Sometimes it’s standing in front of a building in the cold for hours with a sign. Sometimes it’s putting ourselves in danger for the sake of others.”
“Is that what you do? Put yourself in danger?”
“Did I mention that Cassie hits hard?”
Judith snorted. “Seriously, though. Do you?”
He seemed to think hard about it before answering. “Not as much as I should.”
“But why is it up to you? Why can’t someone else do it?”
“If we’re all asking that question, then who’s left?”
“So you…help, then. No matter what that means.”
“I think so. Yeah.”
She nodded. He was right, of course. Just not in the way he thought.
“Listen, I get that you might not want to talk about your brother or whatever it is that’s bothering you, and that’s okay,” he said. “But I wanted to make sure you knew that I’m around. I’ll listen if you want to talk. Or just sit in the quiet with you if you need.”
“Thanks,” she said. “Really.”
“And,” he added, leaning softly into her, “I would like to see you again. If that’s okay.”
A smile pulled at her lips. “You will.” Feeling brave, she planted a small kiss on his cheek before quickly standing and walking toward the path.
Jackie was right. She had to have the courage to help Liza. For Judith’s sake and for her family’s.
Once the thought was planted, there was nothing she could do to shake it free. She left the old house and walked in the direction of the water.
***
She reached the bottom of the bluff just as storm clouds started to roll in on the far edge of the horizon. She could see Uncle Thomas in the light room. He caught her looking and waved. At the pier, she spotted Art and Uncle Jon prepping a boat. The wind had picked up, snatching at her brother’s denim jacket, and she could smell rain in the air. Already the waves were choppy. Their small fishing boat rocked and swayed as they carefully stepped onto the deck. Art clung to the mast, his long hair whipping into his face.
The season had been pretty lean for Art’s family. It made sense they’d want to make use of whatever daylight was left, but the storm looked ugly. They’d be lucky to have twenty minutes.
Judith considered coming back another day—the rowboat she planned to take out didn’t stand much of a chance if the storm rolled in too quickly—but if she chickened out now, before she’d even had a chance to properly think about how stupid the idea was, there was no way she’d try again. It was now or never.
She waited until Art and her uncle were well on their way out before creeping along close to the rocks—mostly out of sight of the lighthouse—and then bolted across the way to the boathouse. She was pleased to find it unlocked. They would have been in a hurry and probably figured they were the only ones dumb enough to be out on the water today.
She dragged the rowboat out of the boathouse and around the pier to the sand. If she’d tried to put the rowboat in the water off the pier itself, the waves likely would have carried it away before she had the chance to get in it. Still, the slog was difficult. The boat weighed more than it looked—it was old and sturdy, with a heavy bottom and high sides—but the ground was dry here, and once she got a momentum going, the boat slid through the sand like it was water.
I’m coming, Liza.
At the edge of the shore, Judith gently nudged the bow of the rowboat into the waves, which lapped at the sides, splashing up her legs. She stiffened, the water so cold it felt sharp. But it also focused her. She climbed into the boat and scrambled to get the oars into the oarlocks before the waves pushed her back too close to the shore. Her arms burned with the effort to pull herself into deeper water. But she got into a rhythm and soon the shoreline fell away. Every few seconds, she shot a wary look up at the clouds. They covered the sky like a shroud, thick and dark and suffocating. The red light from the lighthouse slashed across the water, making the foam on the tops of the waves morph, and every time she blinked, she thought she saw Liza’s hollow eyes watching her.
A loud clap of thunder made her jump, knocking one of the oars out of the oarlock. As she struggled to get it back into place while the boat rocked her off balance, the red light flickered and died.
For a long moment, Judith didn’t move. The clouds had darkened, and without the glow from the lighthouse, the water was inky black. Somewhere behind her she heard her uncle’s shouts. She didn’t hear the words, but she did hear the motor start up. They’d probably spotted her. She didn’t have much time.
Kneeling unsteadily at the bottom of the boat, she gripped the side, stomach rolling each time a wave crested, dipping the bow and then pulling it up again. Icy water splashed over her, into her eyes and mouth. Her nails dug into the wood, and she cursed herself for not bringing a life jacket.
“Liza!” she called, her voice snatched by the wind.
Thunder rolled over and then a web of lightning struck in the distance. Her uncle’s motor sounded closer.
She felt ridiculous. Judith didn’t know anything about ghosts or communing the way Cassie did. Cassie would have known what to do.
Cassie would have said to stay away, she thought.
But Judith did know what it felt like to be lost.
She leaned over the side, squinting at the shadows as salt stung her eyes. “I just want to help. Please. Tell me what you need.”
Something struck the bottom of the boat just under where she knelt.
She jumped back from the side, knocking her elbow on one of the oars.
“Judith!”
She turned and spotted Uncle Jon and Art coming up on her side fast. Uncle Jon killed the engine, and the waves carried them the rest of the way. Art scrambled to the back of their boat, where he shouldered a length of rope.
Uncle Jon looked up at the sky and scowled before turning back to Judith. “What the hell is wrong with you, girl?” he shouted over the wind.
“I’m fine!” she called back.
He shook his head. “Catch the rope. Tie it around the bowsprit, and we’ll tow you back.”
Art rubbed water from his eyes and then held the twist of rope, indicating he was going to toss it. Judith waved him away, then eyed the oars. She was going to have to try to row away from them.
But Uncle Jon seemed to realize what she was doing. “Art!”
Something like fear flashed across Art’s face before he shouldered the rope again and then launched it at Judith. The rope smacked across her lap, and before she could nudge it away, Art climbed over the side, where a short, rusty ladder shortened the distance between them just enough he could fall into her rowboat. He whacked his head on the edge but shook it off, seemingly unharmed.
“Get out,” Judith ordered.
“My dad’s pissed,” Art said as he crawled past her toward the bow, dragging the rope.
Lightning flashed again, closer and brighter. In the dying light of it, Judith saw Liza. She wasn’t far, her face just visible above the waves. More shadow than girl, the glow of each lightning strike seemed to pierce through her. She beckoned, reaching toward Judith with gray, skeletal fingers stretched wide.
Art finished tying off the rope and shot Uncle Jon a thumbs-up. They hadn’t seen her.
This might be her only chance.
Heart in her throat, Judith took a deep breath and dove over the side.
The shock was instant. The cold was like a weight on her chest, and it took too long to propel herself to the surface. Gasping, she treaded water with limbs gone tingly. Soon she wouldn’t be able to feel them anymore. She frantically turned, searching for Liza, but the waves were too rough. She could barely keep her eyes open long enough to spot the lighthouse, to keep herself oriented.
Already she heard her uncle’s boat engine start up again, so she started to swim.
It was almost impossible to move through the choppy waves. Every few precious inches she put between herself and her uncle were lost with swell after swell. If she had any chance of losing them, she would have to go under. But the water was ice-cold, and she would only be able to open her eyes for brief bursts. With the chop and the wind, she could get disoriented and pulled farther out to sea, making her unable to swim back.
But she felt Liza out here. It was like an invisible rope, tugging her body and mind away from the shore. She remembered her mother’s fear at the idea of Liza, Cassie’s warnings… For an instant, she wondered if she had it all wrong. But then she remembered the way Liza reached out to her, and renewed determination tamped down her fear. She focused on Liza’s name, repeating it over and over in her head as she took two, three deep breaths. Finally she pushed into an oncoming wave and let it take her under, down into the dark.
She didn’t know how far below the surface she was. She kept her eyes squeezed shut, but she could hear the splash above her. The cold made it hard to focus on keeping herself calm. If she panicked, she wouldn’t be able to hold her breath. The jean jacket didn’t help. It was like a weight around her, but she refused to let go of it.
Come on, she thought. I’m here.
She decided to risk opening her eyes. The sting was immediate, but she fought the urge to close them. It was too dark to see farther than a few feet, and even that was questionable. She looked up and didn’t see the hull of either boat.
Already her chest began to ache. It’d been a while since she’d had to hold her breath for any amount of time, so her body fought against it. She couldn’t do this for much longer.
She swam toward what she hoped was shore, flicking her eyes open every few seconds. The last time she opened them, she thought she saw something white rippling in the wave above her. Her arms and legs were tired, but she fought against the current pulling her and looked up.
A girl hovered above her, limp body splayed just beneath the rolling waves. Her face was lifeless and pale. She wore a nightgown, torn at the edges, and her hair spread ink-like from her head.
Liza.
Judith had never seen her this way. So real. So delicate. It made her think that she’d been right. All Liza needed was someone to see her.
Judith stretched her arms upward as though to embrace her, mimicking the gesture Liza had made before. Liza drifted down toward her, her pale face growing grayer the closer she became. Her eyes flicked open, startling Judith, but Judith held still as best she could. She wouldn’t be afraid. She wouldn’t run away. Then Liza’s face darkened, black circles around her eyes engulfing them, leaving a cavernous nothing.
Liza reached for her, and the moment her skin touched Judith’s, her body became heavy. Lethargic. Her eyes burned with tears and salt as a feeling of despair overcame her. Liza wrapped her arms tight around Judith, and they began to drift down.
Unable to move, Judith felt her lungs hitch and contract. The urge to cough was overwhelming, but Liza only clung tighter. She pressed her lips to Judith’s ear as if in a whisper, and the edges of Judith’s vision darkened. She began to pull back into her body, like her mind was reconnecting to the rest of her, and she realized with frightening clarity: Liza was drowning her.
Somewhere deep within her, she found the strength to wedge her hands between them. She pushed, but Liza was stronger. Judith clawed at Liza’s chest, feeling the flesh give. Her stomach rolled.
Soon the gray light of the surface fell away, Liza’s body an anchor on Judith. Even if she somehow was able to escape Liza’s grip, she didn’t know if she had the strength, the air, to swim back to the surface, let alone to shore. If Liza didn’t kill her, the storm would.
A small voice told her to give up. It was useless. She was going to die no matter what she did. But just as she started to twitch, and the urge to breathe in the water was almost too great to push away, someone else pulled at her arm.
Uncle Jon held on to her wrist, shoving a line of rope into her hand. She understood immediately and gripped it. She watched him look hard at Liza, saw his face twist in confusion. He tried to pry Liza away, and it was like a bolt of energy shot through her. Liza turned to look at him, releasing Judith just long enough for her to pull the rope tighter. She twisted it around her arm for a better grip and kicked with what little strength she had, putting more distance between her and Liza. Art must have been above them in the boat, waiting for some kind of signal to start pulling them up because she shot upward, out of Liza’s grasp.
Uncle Jon reached for Judith, his eyes wide with panic. She put her hand out, but she was moving too fast. Their fingers brushed, but she couldn’t get a grip in time. The last thing she saw before breaking the surface was Liza wrapping herself around Uncle Jon. His mouth opened in surprise as they plummeted into the dark.
Finally above the water, she choked, struggling to breathe. Art hauled her over the side of the boat, then leaned over again, looking for her uncle.
“Where’s my dad?” he asked.
Judith couldn’t answer. Her throat burned, and every time she opened her mouth, a coughing fit took over. She was lightheaded, barely able to sit upright.
In the distance, she spotted the lighthouse. They were farther out than she thought. Another boat approached, flying across the waves as rain poured down. She crawled into the small enclosed steering room at the bow and leaned her head against the base of the console. Her pulse thumped in her head and fingertips, just louder than the voices outside.
She wanted to tell them there was no point, but she was too weak. She turned away from the window. She couldn’t bear to watch Art scream into the wind. On the floor was a tangle of net, recently pulled from the water. Seaweed and snags of fins were caught in the barbs. And in the middle, bright as a beacon, was her shell.
She reached for it, snatching her hand back when her skin grazed a sharp edge.
She was wrong. This wasn’t about a girl in need. It wasn’t about being courageous enough to help when no one would. It wasn’t about peace.
Finding the shell had nothing to do with a wish or even reaching out to Liza. She didn’t want Judith’s help. She wanted her dead. The shell wasn’t a gift—it was a threat.
It was one thing for Liza to threaten Judith’s life. Now Uncle Jon was dead, and if this shell was any indication that the death and destruction Judith’s mother had predicted wasn’t over, then someone needed to do something about it.
No, Judith thought. Not someone.
Me.