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“I’m not sure,” I said. “He doesn’t really show us stuff while he’s working on it.”

“Well, he’d better make me look good.” He laughed. Then he flicked his eyes across to where Liam was sitting. “Speaking of fathers . . .”

Liam nodded, as if he had expected this.

“How’s he doing? Enjoying the work?”

“Yeah, it’s been good.”

“It has, hasn’t it?” Finkle said enthusiastically. “I thought so, too. I mean, he really seems okay, doesn’t he?”

Liam flushed a little, then replied. “Yeah, it suits him. He says he likes the weeding best.”

“And what about you? Everything okay? Enjoy the camp, did you?”

“Um, yeah. It was great. Thanks.”

I frowned. It could only be our school camp that Finkle was talking about, but then why didn’t he ask me as well? And why was Liam thanking him? I tried to catch Liam’s eye, but he had looked away and was staring out the window.

We stopped at the bottom of the hill so Finkle could unlock the barrier, then eased out onto the main road. The smooth surface was a relief after the ridges of the dirt road and the way we had been careering wildly around the sharp turns.

We picked up speed for the short stretch of road until we came to the outskirts of town, then Finkle jabbed at the brake to slow us back down. We rolled past the school and the timber yard, then around the corner onto Main Street. As the town square came into view, Finkle flicked another glance at us in the rearview mirror.

“I’ll see you both at the centenary, I hope? Not long now.”

I nodded. I was only too aware of how close the centenary celebrations were, what with Hannah constantly stressing about the book, and Dad doing the same over the head and how to make Finkle look good while still maintaining his artistic integrity.

“Well, shall I let you out here somewhere?”

Finkle slowed to a stop, and Liam opened the door on his side. “Thanks,” he began, but then the truck jerked forward. Finkle was staring out the window to the left, at the clock tower.

“Maybe a bit farther?” he said suddenly. “Maybe just up here? Should we —?”

Liam yanked the door shut as the truck lurched forward past the square and into the intersection. A horn blared behind us.

“What are you doing?” A car swerved around us on the right-hand side, its driver yelling angrily out the window. “I thought you were parking!”

“Sorry!” Finkle called. “My fault. Changed my mind.” He swiveled in his seat. “Sorry. Just thought I’d take you a bit farther.”

“Just drop us off at the town hall,” Liam said. “You’re going there, anyway. And I can check on Dad.”

“Of course! Good idea.” Finkle sounded relieved as he kicked the truck back into gear and cruised up the hill.

When we had parked outside his office, he turned back toward us. “Remember what I said before. It’s not safe where you were. Technically, I could have you prosecuted. Don’t let me catch you up there again, okay?”

I stifled a smile as I climbed out of the truck, then hurried around to Liam’s side. I wanted to remind him how
technically
not being caught wasn’t the same as not going.

But Liam didn’t look my way. He followed Finkle inside, and the heavy door closed shut behind them with a sigh.

“I didn’t know if you’d come back,” I said as Liam pulled alongside the raft. I had seen him coming through the trees and down the bank. I had watched his long, relaxed stroke as he made his way to me across the water.

It wasn’t Liam I’d been keeping an eye out for. It was Finkle. Or any other so-called authorized person who might try to tell us we had to move on.

I even had my excuse all ready — that I had just come to get the raft, that I was heading straight back to the Point. Sure, I had been stopped in one spot for about half an hour, but everyone knew Cassie Romano had weak lungs. Everyone knew she had to pace herself.

Sometimes living in a small town could work to your advantage.

It didn’t make sense if you knew that my bike was up here, that I’d had to trek all the way up here on foot, and that paddling over to the Point would mean leaving it behind again.

But there was no way for anyone to know that.

No one except Liam.

He threw an arm up onto the side of the raft and swung one leg over. I shifted my weight to the other end as a counterbalance while he clambered up.

He stretched out next to me on the warm wood. “Did you think I was going to let Finkle scare me off? He’s all talk.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Yeah, you seem pretty friendly with him. Or he’s pretty friendly with you. Or something. How come he was asking about camp?”

Liam looked as if he wished he had a leaf to strip, but they were hard to come by in the middle of the lake. “I’m not really supposed to tell anyone. I mean, I don’t care, but he said not to make a big thing out of it.”

“Out of what?”

“The scholarship. At least that’s what he called it. For the fees.”

“The town council paid your camp fees?”

“Yeah. Or no. I’m not sure. I think he might have paid it himself. Mom said we couldn’t afford it. I don’t know if Dad mentioned it at work or something, but the next thing we know, Finkle’s on the phone offering to pay for the whole thing.”

“Wow. That’s pretty nice of him.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Our camp was a big deal. It wasn’t some overnight pitch-a-tent-in-the-bush-and-cook-your-own-bread trip. It was a train all the way up to the city, two nights in a hotel, surfing lessons, and a bus tour. It was expensive. Mom made me do chores for months to help pay mine off.

Liam raised his arms in a big, lazy stretch. “It’s so cool up here. We should tell the others.”

I felt myself stiffen. “It’s cool because it’s just us,” I said. “Don’t you think?”

“Maybe just a few?” He turned toward me slightly. “Maybe just —?”

I shook my head. “I don’t want to.”

How many was a few, anyway? Even if we only told Emily and Max and Amber, that would already be too many. That would already be splashing and squealing and the kind of loud messing around that left no room for scratching maps out of mud or trailing your toes lazily off a raft or sitting quietly with your back to the warm wood of a drowned tree.

I had always been the girl who focused quietly on the spine of a leaf while other kids ran around squealing. And Liam had always been the boy who looked up when someone came along, who stood up and walked off easily with them, smiling and talking.

Sometimes I wondered if it was because I spent the first couple of months of my life alone in a plastic box that I got used to being by myself,
with
myself. But Liam was born with a ready-made friend. So he learned to be with people, to make room for them in his space. And then all of a sudden he didn’t need to, because it was just him.

“Do you miss him?” I said. And then I froze. Because that was one of those thoughts that should have happened only in my head, and now there it was, hanging out in the still summer air.

“Miss who?”

I scrambled for something to say. His dad? Could I pretend that’s who I meant? Liam often talked about him when we sat out here like this, together but apart, looking out at the water and not at each other. Somewhere along the way that had become possible out here, but when we stood up to head back, we pretended it didn’t exist anymore, that those conversations had happened somewhere else, to other people.

But that didn’t make sense this time. His dad wasn’t gone. He was just . . . different.

Liam’s head turned slightly. “You mean Luke.”

“Luke?”

“My brother.”

I nodded. Yes. That’s who I meant.

“It feels weird to say his name.”

It felt weird to hear it. Everyone knew what had happened, of course. Everyone knew there was a
miracle baby
and another one who wasn’t so lucky.

“No one ever says it.” There was a tightness in Liam’s voice. “Like he didn’t live long enough to make it stick or something, like he wasn’t an actual person.”

“That’s not . . .” I began. “I mean, I just forgot — that’s all.”

“Yeah.” Liam drew his knees in to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. His knuckles clenched pale across the tan of his legs. “I know.”

We fell silent, but it wasn’t a comfortable silence. It was the kind of silence where it feels like time is stretching and stretching, and if you don’t let the pressure off, something will snap.

“Sorry,” I said finally. “I shouldn’t have asked that. You don’t have to talk about it. I mean, I know —”

“No, you don’t,” Liam said quietly. “You don’t know. People think they do, but they don’t.” As he spoke, the thumb of one hand ran roughly over and over the edge of his scar, turning it briefly white with each kneading movement. “I bet you didn’t know he was the good one,” he said. “Mom said so. I was always crying, and he was always calm. She said there was something in his eyes, like he was an old soul.”

“She said that to you?”

He shook his head. “It was in one of those baby books. She was writing everything down. Every time we burped and slept and cried. It’s all there, for five weeks. Then . . .”

I nodded. There was no need to say anything to fill in that gap.

“You know how there’s always one twin?” Liam went on. “One who takes more, who gets stronger, and one who hangs on and takes what’s left.” His voice took on a lightness that didn’t quite ring true, as if he was delivering a punch line he didn’t find funny. “So that’s me. The one who hangs on. Parents say they don’t have favorites, but he was hers already, and we were hardly even born.” He stood up suddenly and leaned out across the metal frame that surrounded the platform. “I always wondered if it was me . . . if I caused it.”

My head snapped up. He couldn’t mean what I thought he meant. That didn’t make any sense.

“He was the good one,” Liam repeated. “I was always crying. Screaming, Mom said. All the time. Like
all the time
.” He gouged a piece of rotting wood off the raft and crumbled it between his fingers. “She said car trips were horrible, that she was always turning around to settle me.” His voice cracked a little, coming out finally in a whisper. “I guess that’s okay when someone else is driving.”

“Liam . . .” I began, then trailed off. He was shaking his head.

“Dad was on his own with us. What if he was turning around? Because I was screaming. And then . . .”

“No,” I said quickly.

“Why not?” He glanced down at me briefly, then back out across the water. “There was no reason for it. Straight road. Good weather. Clear visibility. That’s what they said.”

“You can’t think like that. No one knows what happened, not really.” As I spoke, headlines unrolled themselves before my eyes. “Driver Error: Fatigue a Factor?”

“Yeah.” Liam let the crumbled pieces fall slowly through his fingers down onto the water. “But they think they do.”

He was right. People thought they knew stuff. They thought that what mattered was what they could see. They let what was on the surface tell the story.

I should have known better. I did know better. I knew that a heavy red glaze could cover a network of tiny hairline fractures that would shatter something utterly if you struck it hard enough in just the right spot. I knew that if you could bring yourself to stop staring at the smooth, clean surface and push your way through it, you might be surprised at the world buried deep underneath.

“You’re right,” Liam said suddenly.

“About what?”

“This.” He nodded out across the lake. “Let’s not tell anyone. Let’s just keep it for ourselves.”

“Yeah.” I smiled slightly, glad of the chance to talk about something simpler, to hear that easy lightness return to his voice. “Let’s.”

“And also,” he said, standing up suddenly, wobbling the raft so that I had to hang on to the sides to stop myself from tumbling off, “let’s find this thing.”

Liam had been clever yesterday.

While I was worrying about being prosecuted, he was counting his strokes. He was positioning the raft on the bank, pointing it in the direction we needed to go to get back to the spot.

“Good thinking,” I said, looking up at him from where I sat on the still-wobbling wood.