Authors: Quinn Loftis
Want the recipe for a great book?
Try this.
3 parts Mystery
2 parts Romance
1 part Paranormal
3 parts Action
A dash of Fun
This book is best when read ASAP. Read until done.
Enjoy!
What are clicks?
Waves that experienced surfers sense instinctively before they can be seen or heard. Winners trust their clicks and get in position, dropping in on the beginning swell and taking even the biggest monsters on a ride. Then there are the rest of us. We wait; jump on at the wrong time. Best case, we hang on. Worst, we’re sent crashing to the ocean floor trying desperately not to drown.
The ocean never clicked for me. Not like it did for my brother, or my grandmother, or the many ancestors who’d come before. Still, they expected me to commit for life, guarding the ocean and the land, just because I was first born. I wanted none of it. But I let them train me so that I could win the Surf Carnival and get the heck out of town.
So I begged the universe for clicks, and when they came, fast, furious, I couldn’t catch them fast enough. These waves weren’t tricks to be tamed. They were warnings from the universe that everything would change. But I didn’t listen with my heart or trust the messaging to stop the disasters before they came.
And even when I wasn’t in the water, it felt like I had drowned.
<<>>
One
When I walked out of my house, Blake whistled.
“Lookin’ good,” he said with a wink of his turquoise eye. The other, his right one, was half that same startling blue and half grayish silver, like my own.
Ours was a small island with a shallow gene pool. Endless summers gave everyone the same sun-kissed, tanned glow, even before you factored in the many sets of identical twins that comprised an unusually high portion of our population.
Blake was the poster child for life here on Pinhold. Literally. A blond, tan, sixteen-year-old swimming god featured in the ad campaign for this year’s Surf Carnival, the competitive swimming and surfing event drew international pros from both sports to our tiny town.
Blake’s twin, Kaleb, had left Pinhold when we were all thirteen. He’d been my best friend, just as Blake was my twin brother Mica’s.
Blake and Kaleb were mirror twins—identical polar opposites. Blake’s right eye matched Kaleb’s left, Kaleb’s nose hooked the tiniest bit right, while Blake’s had the same angle going the other way. They had corresponding crescent birthmarks in exactly the same place on their left and right knees.
Like all magnetic objects going in the same direction, they repelled each other. Blake dove in head first into island life while Kaleb rejected almost everything, especially The Guard. He hated how Blake and Mica got serious about joining, and blamed them for dragging me along. He never understood my reasons were my own.
We’d all fought badly and Kaleb went in search of trouble bad enough to get him sent off for good. He snuck over to the tiny island to see Pinhold’s secret symbol for himself. The ancient pin supposedly stood straight up on a tiny tip, balanced magnetically on a rock in the middle of our archipelago.
Only members of the island elite had seen it, only those in The Guard, and Kaleb, who resented them tremendously, didn’t believe in the pin’s existence, and had attempted to see it for himself. Tonight, I’d see it for the first time, so of course, Kaleb was on my mind.
For Blake, Mica and I, this was the beginning of everything – the annual summer kick off called First Night. We went to have fun, eventually, but our attendance was symbolic.
We’d pledge our interest The Guard and spend the next few months competing for a few limited openings. First Night also kicked off the new season of the Surf Carnival, a two-month competition in extreme surf rescuing. I didn’t plan to join The Guard but I needed to win enough contests to be able to leave the island for good.
Unlike every girl for a hundred miles, I usually ignored the flirtatious compliments that rolled so easily off Blake’s tongue. I was well aware that he was gorgeous, technically. Be he didn’t attract me at all.
Still, tonight I’d worked hard on getting the right look. I’d skipped my basic racing tank and board shorts, pairing a white bikini and red tank with a denim skirt that looked nearly too tight in just the right way.
“You did not look like that when I came home for Spring Break. No one’s gonna mistake you for Mica again,” said Blake’s big brother, Billy, as he came down their driveway pushing a keg. My face reddened more as the older boy called attention to the fact that with his longish surfer boy hair and my complete lack of girlish curves, Mica and I had passed for identical twins, until only very, very recently.
“Missed you too, Billy,” I grumbled, accepting a huge bear hug. Mica and I had adopted Billy as our surrogate big brother ages ago and I’d missed him when he left for college. He’d come back to do his medical residency and he’d brought his girlfriend, Celeste. “When did you get here?” I asked.
“A couple hours ago. I went up to see Kaleb after I took my boards. “He wanted me to wish you good luck for tonight,” Billy said.
“Sure he did.” Mica snorted, echoing my own sentiments. As Nippers, Kaleb and I had vowed that we’d never join The Guard. I planned to keep that promise, although Kaleb didn’t know it. No one did.
Billy looked at the pink of the sky, picked up the keg and plopped it into the passenger seat of the small electric vehicle. Proper cars and gas engines of any kind were banned on Pinhold, for environmental reasons. So we got around in dune buggies and golf carts. Billy had borrowed a golf cart with the back of a small truck to transport the keg to the party spot.
“That puts you lot in back,” he said, gesturing to the small flatbed.
I attempted to climb up into the truck and came up against the limits of my short skirt, falling backwards into Blake. He caught me before we both tumbled to the ground, his large, square hands stayed on my hips, holding me up. I jumped away from him, quickly, like I always did when we wound up touching.
Mica put his hands on the rails and vaulted gracefully into the back. Which made me want to pound him with my something.
“Let me help,” Blake offered, lifting me into the back of the cart before climbing in myself. I crammed against Mica, attempting to sit down, but no matter how I wiggled, we couldn’t fit all three of us across.
“This worked a lot better last summer,” Blake said in that smooth, slow tone that made people lean in to hear him.
“Extra workouts paid off,” Mica said, giving Blake a high five.
I squirmed away from both of them, standing again.
“I’ll walk,” said Blake, getting up like a gentleman.
“Nah,” said Mica, squinting at the setting sun. “Can’t be late. Cami can sit on your lap.”
When the boys had satisfactorily arranged their legs, I settled on Blake, gingerly, trying not to keep some space. Then, Billy gunned the gas and the cart took off.
I flew sideways and back down on Blake. “I’ve got you,” he said locking his arms around me, holding on just tightly enough to keep me safe. Being this close to him made me slightly nauseas, like nails on the chalkboard. He disrupted my equilibrium, and not in a good way. I liked him plenty as a friend and appreciated him as eye candy, but I wasn’t attracted to him that way at all. Probably because I’d been hearing how perfect he was for me every day since birth.
Billy slowed down through the center of town to avoid the day-trippers who walked slowly back to the ferry, blissed out from their beach days.
“Mainer,” Mica muttered under his breath, when a cute guy with a surfboard locked eyes with me. I smiled back, only to get an elbow in the gut from my brother.
“Be nice,” Billy called from the front. “Those folks pay your salary this summer and make The Guard possible. Which you’ll appreciate, if you get in, of course.”
“Have you seen me swim lately? I’ve beat all the local records—even yours,” Mica said.
“Tonight’s not about speed. Swimming from the little island the main beach represents rebirth,” said Billy.
“Don’t go all zen surf nut on me, Bill,” laughed Mica. “This is Pinhold. It’s a race every time you get in the water.”
“For Nippers, yes. But The Guard’s about other things,” Billy warned, wrestling the golfie onto the beach path. Dune buggy wheels helped but it was still a bumpy ride.
“I’m more than ready for the big game,” Mica said.
His casual tone disguised his frustration at having to wait so many years. Those feelings sent to me—dark, angry thoughts that clicked directly from his brain to mine like telepathic text messages that I loved and hated. Our deepest secrets bounced between our brains, and I couldn’t hide anything. Mica was half of my heart; but I was never alone with my thoughts.
Right then, he knew I wasn’t comfortable in my own skin. Blake had me so itchy I couldn’t wait to get off of him. I jumped as soon as the truck got close to the bonfire spot, before we’d even stopped. I shed my skirt and tank and ran to the water’s edge where antique wooden watercrafts and Billy’s girlfriend, Celeste, waited for us.
“I’m so curious, even though I know I shouldn’t be,” Celeste whispered as she gave me a hug.
“They don’t really appreciate curiosity,” I said in agreement. Technically, The Guard was a surf rescue club. They existed in popular surfing spots around the world to supplement the beach lifeguards and they hosted surf carnivals. But here on Pinhold, they acted more like a secret society, with ceremonies and rituals for members only.
Celeste hadn’t been born on Island or descended from one of the original ten families who had landed here eons ago, so she would never get in. Blake, Mica and I at least had a chance.
Billy paddled to a little island that sat independent of the rest of Pinhold, broken off from the larger landmass with the eruption of an ancient volcano.
I jumped from the wooden craft and ran through the shallow surf. Thirty lava rocks swirled in a sacred spiral, with members of The Guard around them. Some held torches to provide fire and light, and others beat rhythms on stones that sounded like ocean waves, like the ancient conversation between sea and land.
I’d heard the drums from home over the years, but they never sounded like this before. It enveloped me, connecting me to the union of nature, time, and the many who’d come here before me. I breathed in, savoring the connection, when Blake caught my eye. He smiled, and I knew he felt the same.
His grandfather, Stoney and my grandmother, stood in the middle of the circle. Both were Elders in The Guard, revered for their wisdom, athletic prowess, and lifelong commitment.
The single most important thing drilled into us, year in and year out, was a responsibility to take care of the island and the ocean around us. Tonight’s ceremony renewed that commitment for all attendees. But my friends and I would take the pledge for the first time.
Can’t we just skip to the party? Mica clicked, disturbing me with his intense impatience. His average emotional temperature always burned higher and dipped lower than mine. His feelings influenced us more frequently, but I wanted to enjoy tonight.
Stop. Breathe. This is happening. Look around and enjoy it, ok? I clicked back, attempting to do the same.
Two sets of twins—me and Mica, and Andrew and Darwen. Blake stood by Shayla, mismatched because neither of their twins were there. Around us stood relatives; the combined generations of The Guard who’d prepared us for this since we were born.
“Welcome to First Night,” said Stoney. He was Blake’s grandfather and their rumbly voices were so much alike. “Please close your eyes.”
Following orders, I concentrated on the shadows and flashes in my mind and let my other senses capture the moment. Briny saltwater and honeysuckle hit my nose, the wind shivering with expectation.
“On this First Night, we rededicate ourselves to an ancient covenant symbolized by this pin which represents the balance in our world. You join those who’ve come before you and vow to protect the ocean from land, nature from man. You may now look.”
As head lifeguard, Stoney had top authority on our Island and the run of this ritual. Silver flashed through his long fingers, the famous pin. I recognized it without ever seeing it before. Stoney placed it on a central stone.
The pin needed to stand at a right angle to the ocean, representing the pivotal balance between ocean and land, animal, and man. When it did, our Island, our people, and the ocean stayed healthy. When it tilted, disease and disaster would come.
I held my breath, wondering how it looked for us this year. The pin wavered for just a moment, then landed perpendicular to the horizon line. A celebratory cheer went up all around us, and the music started again.
A combination of beats, claps, clicks, and hums were something I’d heard since birth, but never in a ceremony like this. Rhythm and music were a big part of Pinhold life. Visitors joined our weekly drum circles on the beach, and stayed to listen to the wave organ built into the cliffs th
at played a series of gongs at high tide. Tonight, they stirred that feeling of connection and continuity that had always eluded me before.
To the untrained ear, the clicks and whistles probably sounded like nothing more than rhythmic nonsense playing along with the beat. In reality they were imitations of the sounds made by the dolphins that lived in our bay—we were inviting them to join us and witness our commitment to protect their home.
“We call you to pledge yourself as the guardians of the sea. Witnessed by the sacred swirl, do you pledge to protect the ocean from land and the animals from man?” Stoney asked. His voice pulsed in time with the pounding drumbeats.