AT THE TOP OF THE HILL, Eli and Josie crept to the front entrance of the house. In the foyer, Eli found his suitcase propped against the wall. From down the hall, voices of the wedding party echoed, arguing about one thing or another.

Josie led the way upstairs and stopped outside her bedroom, then pointed several doors down to where she remembered Margo Lintel had said Eli would be staying. “There’s a bathroom across the hall,” she said, touching her chin to remind him to clean away the blood on his own.

“Thanks,” he whispered.

When he’d gone, Josie glanced into her own bedroom. She listened for a moment, trying to make out the sound of breathing or maybe a creak as someone hidden shifted his or her weight. After she was certain she was alone, she stepped inside. The clouds through the window had grown denser. Darker. The ocean in the distance was speckled with bits of white, where foam frosted the largest waves. A storm was coming, no matter what the weather people had predicted, no matter how much Aimee cried or how much Bruno tried to comfort her.

Josie thought of the girl who’d burst through her door earlier that morning. She remembered the panicked look in her eyes. If the girl had experienced the same kind of strangeness that Josie and Eli had encountered down at the fort, it was no wonder she’d seemed so out of it. Josie didn’t know what she would have done if she’d been alone down in that cavern when the voices started screaming. She wondered, What amount of fear does it take for a person to completely lose it?

She decided to leave her bedroom and wait for Eli down in the foyer instead.

Fifteen minutes later, Eli found her sitting on the bottom step of one of the dual staircases, fiddling with her phone. Electronic beeps and blips reverberated around the white room. She was engrossed in a game and didn’t hear him approach.

He grasped the banister at the balcony, certain that anything he said or did would make her jump. The alternative was to leave her alone and stay by himself in his room, but he didn’t feel like doing that anymore. They were about to become family. If Eli had gone out to the spit to steer his own ship, maybe Josie’s arrival meant that they were riding in the boat together now.

“Hey,” he said quietly. She flinched and then whipped her head around to look at him. “Sorry!” he said. But she smirked. No harm done. “I guess you still have some battery left?”

“A bit,” she said, slumping her shoulders. “I really should charge it before it dies.”

Eli started down the stairs. He’d washed his face and wetted his hair. The cut on his chin was a mere nick, barely noticeable. He’d wiped the muck away and then changed his jeans. The morning had felt epic. According to the clock on the table next to his bed, it was barely noon. But Eli felt new. Fresh. Ready to find some answers to the frightening questions that they’d raised in the fort at the end of the craggy spit.