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I shook my head. I signaled to Lily and she ducked out the door.
“What the heck?” she said with amusement. “He didn’t even ask for IDs.” She twisted her hair up on top of her head and wiggled the helmet over the top.
“Good thing,” I said, winking. “I don’t have one.”
“Did you even pay for these?”
I straddled a blue Honda and revved the engine. Lily hoisted up her skirt and got on behind me. We bounced softly on the tires a few times before taking off up Middle Road. Lily wrapped her arms around my waist, her palms gliding across my sides, her thumbs pressed into my abs, and laid her head against my shoulder blade. I sank back against her heat.
The tiny town gave way to forest, and the trees pressed in on both sides. Long shadows cut across the road. I could hear the thoughts of several deer and a fox, lurking in the woods, just out of sight from human eyes. They watched me pass. Wondering. Worrying. The fox skittered into a hollowed- out log and crouched low.
I kept my eyes straight ahead, waiting for the point where the road would come to the northeastern shore and take a ninety- degree turn to the left, toward the Town Park. I pointed ahead of me toward the lake, and Lily nodded against my back. The sun hit the water, turning it silver, and I banked the moped into the curve. A few minutes later, the brown Town Park sign was in front of us and we were pulling into the parking lot. I killed the engine and knocked down the kickstand. Lily swung her leg over the back to dismount.
“Do you think it’s warm enough to swim?” she asked.
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“For you, maybe,” I said. “You have a higher tolerance than anyone I’ve ever met.”
“Including you?”
“Definitely including me. I’ll be staying on the beach.”
“Oh, don’t be such a baby.”
“We’ll see.” I took a risk and grabbed her hand. The familiar tingling sensation tickled up my arm to my heart, and the fluorescent pink glow pulsed out of her shoulders, spreading over her body like a perfect outline. I dropped her hand, and the glow dimmed to a rust- colored shadow.
Interesting.
She was happier when I held her hand.
We followed the lichen- crusted boardwalk to the steps that led down to the bridge. A few boards were rotted and broken, so we passed carefully, crossing the ravine and then marching across the sand, through the trees and onto the sun- flooded beach. A few families walked the beach.
Lily ran ahead of me, shedding her clothes. I didn’t know what was more appealing, the soft dip of her waist or the orange glow that streamed down her arms and dripped from her fingertips like melted ice cream. The other beachgoers watched incredulously as Lily splashed into the water and then ran back to me, crashing herself against my chest.
Her skin glistened and goose bumps rose all over her body. I reached behind me and pulled my sweatshirt over the top of my head. Lily put her arms in the air, and I pulled the shirt back down over her, inside out.
Maris’s voice growled in my ear.
Remember why you’re here, Calder.
I remember,
I thought, dragging my finger around Lily’s ear to secure a lock of hair.
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Go too far and I swear I’ll . . . ,
Maris’s voice warned.
What’s too far?
I wondered. Lily shivered.
I can do this,
I thought.
I can straddle this line. I can satisfy Maris and still somehow care for this girl.
I pushed all contradictory thoughts to the back of my mind. What other choice did I have?
A cold wind snapped at my bare chest, and Lily looked at me apologetically. “I should have brought a towel,” she said. “What was I thinking?”
“I would have brought one for you if I’d thought you were insane enough to go in.” I regretted my choice of words, but she smiled broadly. “I thought you were kidding.”
“Insanity. I guess it’s in my blood.” She pulled out her ponytail and shook her hair.
“Hmm. Right. Your crazy gene pool.” I kept my eyes on my feet as I asked the question that had plagued me since I was just a kid. “So, what happened to your grandpa anyway? After he left here.”
I rolled my ankles in the sand, trying to sound oh- so- casual— as if I didn’t really care— but my skin prickled with expectation. Over the years, my fantasies had been colorful. The one I’d finally settled on included Tom Hancock hiding in a cave, eating vermin.
“I already told you,” Lily said, brushing a dragonfly off my shoulder.
“I mean, how did it end?”
She looked down at the sand and covered my toes with her own. “Alzheimer’s. By the end, he didn’t even recognize my dad. Every little bit of
normal
just trickled away. The last thing he ever said to my dad was ‘Your mother’s calling, but don’t go home.’ ”
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“What was that supposed to mean?”
“Seeing as my grandma died five years before, not a whole heck of a lot. My dad took it to mean that Grandpa wanted him to stay with him. So of course he did. He held Grandpa’s hand while he died. Still going on about the monster . . .” Lily stole a glance at me. “It broke my dad’s heart. Mom wouldn’t let us stay to watch. I’m not sure I would have wanted to. Have you ever known anyone with Alzheimer’s?”
“No.”
“It’s awful. Watching someone fall apart like that, little by little. I’m not sure I could have watched him go. In the end.”
There was a moment of silence and then Lily smiled and shrugged, changing the mood as easily as turning the page of a book. She pulled me to what she declared to be the “perfect spot” and spread out her skirt on the sand like a beach blanket. I lay next to her, wriggling my body until I was form- fitted into the sand. I concentrated on the heat behind me, rather than the coolness of the breeze over my skin. My eyelids burned red and then darkened as a cloud passed over. Lily sat up, but I didn’t move. I was thankful for the quiet. A few minutes later I was asleep.
But the monster had never been more awake.
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21
DON’T TEMPT ME
H eat. That was the first thing I noticed and the reason I knew I was dreaming. It was the kind of heat that came from being baked from the sun above and the hot sand underneath. In my dream, I opened my eyes, recognizing my surroundings, grateful to be back in the Bahamas. Turquoise and pink replaced the dark browns and greens of the North Woods. A dark- skinned man played a steel drum under a striped awning while vacationers sipped brightly colored drinks through plastic straws. The sand was powder under my skin, and I let it trickle through my fist like an hourglass.
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In contrast to the heat on the outside, my heart shook with cold. My mind clouded over, dark and bleak, battling back the threads of despair that were now woven through me like the wefts and warps on a loom. With each passing second, the threads pressed more tightly together, until the despair nearly choked me.
I’d known this feeling before. Way too many times before. It was only a matter of minutes before the depression grew so thick it would overtake any sense of reason I might have left. I wondered what would set me off this time. A smile? A laugh? I just hoped, whoever it was, they wouldn’t be too young. Children were harder to get over once the initial high wore off.
And then the dream shifted with the sand as someone stepped closer to me.
A low whisper in my ear: “Remember us?”
An anticipatory tremor ran through my legs.
I looked up, shielding my eyes from the sun. Two silhouetted figures looked down at me, their arms strangely elongated, their heads small.
“From the bar last night,” I said groggily, trying to remember their names.
Of course, they couldn’t see the danger I presented. They saw me as nothing more than the perfect summer fling: exotic, affectionate, generous with a laugh. I loved them so they wouldn’t be afraid— nothing like Pavati, who toyed with her prey like a kitten with its ball of string, letting it roll away before pulling it close again, slowly teasing the emotion out of her victims until they were too numb to fight back. No. I was nothing like Pavati. My
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victims always died with dignity; at the very least, I made it quick.
“We’re going skinny- dipping,” one of the girls said, her voice sounding far away, while the other laughed. My eyes darted to her, and my heart lurched with longing.
“We thought you’d like to join us?” she suggested.
One of the girls— I couldn’t tell which— grabbed my hand and pulled me up, leading me to a secluded spot, on a high perched rock away from the public beach. I felt her pulling my arm although my vision was tunneling and I couldn’t see her anymore.
She stopped. Turned. Kissed me. She laughed in a way that made my insides bubble over. The second girl said, “Kiss me, too, Calder,” and her smile flashed like lightning, illuminating the whole scene.
Finding myself naked, I gasped, and in one fluid motion wrapped both of them in my arms. Their joyful shrieks filled my ears as I dove into the ocean, taking them deeper, pressing their bodies to my chest while the metamorphosis took over.
As we went deeper, the increasing pressure of the water helped me squeeze the life from their bodies. Their bright emotions seeped through their skin and into my own.
Like champagne osmosis.
It bubbled through my veins and made me so light I had to struggle not to float to the surface. But I pressed on, spiraling them down toward the sand, wringing them out like dishrags, not looking at their faces, not wanting to see their eyes roll back, their mouths go slack.
It only took a minute.
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When I absorbed everything I could, I gave one final squeeze, then discarded their empty shells in my usual spot.
Exalting, I resurfaced, feeling ten times bigger and drunk with triumph.
And then I was conscious of someone watching me.
It was Lily. I was awake. And—
damn it
— I was cold. I gulped back the hunger that now tore with razor sharp teeth at my heart.
“What are you looking at?” I growled. I flung my arm over my eyes.
“Who says I’m looking at anything?” she snapped back.
“I do. I can feel you staring at me.” It amazed me how conscious I was of her. I wondered at what distance I could feel her. “What are you doing?”
“Writing.”
I pulled my arm back and squinted up at her. She had a notebook balanced on her knees and an open backpack by her feet. Her head was bent over the page while her pen scritch- scratched across the paper. “What are you writing?”
“I’m writing about you,” she said without looking up and without any apology.
I laughed a hard, bitter laugh. “I don’t think I want to hear it.”
“I’m just trying to describe what you look like. Are you Italian?” This time she looked at me with narrowed eyes.
“No.”
“Irish? Armenian?”
“No, why?”
“I’ve never seen anyone who looks like you before. Black curly hair. Olive skin. But you don’t look like you
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have to shave— not even a little stubble. And you’ve got green eyes. I mean, who has eyes like that? They probably glow in the dark.”
“They don’t.”
She trailed her finger over my arm, feeling the smoothness. “Do you wax your arms or something?”
“I’m on the swim team,” I explained, the corners of my mouth twitching.
“You’re lying.”
“A little.”
“Don’t do that.”
“I’m sorry,” I squinted up at her and she was blushing.
“Okay, so what are you?” she asked, emphasizing the
what
more than I thought was normal. Or was that in my head?
“I’m here. That’s what I am.”
Her mouth twisted into a smile. “I guess that’s enough.”
I rolled up on one elbow and leaned closer to her. “So, do I still make you nervous?”
“Abso- freaking- lutely.” Lily returned to her notebook. I lay back flat in the sand and allowed my fingers to draw circles over the tattoo on the small of her back. The sun had all but disappeared, and the wind was growing colder.
“Lily?”
“What?”
“Are you sure you’re going to Pettits’ tonight?”
“Are you sure you’re
not
?”
“I’m sure,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to ruin Jack’s party.”
“I was hoping you would.”
“What? Ruin his party?”
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She hit me over the head with her notebook. “No, stupid. I was hoping you’d go.”
“We’ll see,” I said, relieved I was making enough progress to keep
both
me and Maris happy for one more night. “Now let’s get you dressed. It’s cold. I want my sweatshirt back.”
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22
BONFIRE
A yellow Lab paced back and forth along the shoreline behind the Pettits’ shed. She watched
me
watching
her.
Now and then she’d lower herself onto her front legs, then jump to all fours, then down and up again. The bonfire burned behind her. It was built in a ceramic bathtub half buried in the ground, just thirty feet from the shore, and the dry branches piled up inside it burned bright, scattering sparks into the air.
Someone threw an armful of leaves into the fire over the protests of several girls, and a cloud of smoke billowed
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out of the bathtub. The partygoers backed up into the trees to avoid the toxic smell, and a gray cloud poured out over the lake.
The smoke choked off any light the fire created, and I had to work hard to find Lily in the haze. She was— as I suspected, or maybe feared— standing in the dark next to Jack Pettit. Or maybe
he
was standing next to
her,
because when she sidestepped away, he closed the gap again. He leaned in to whisper something in her ear. She smiled. Her back was pressed up against a tree. I couldn’t tell if she was amused or merely being polite, and—
What the hell was she wearing now?
Jack fingered the fringe on a silk scarf she’d wrapped around her head.
The light reflected off something behind her. I squinted through the darkness and realized a garbage bag was hanging from a pine tree. At least a dozen crushed beer cans and plastic cups littered the ground by her feet. A silver keg was half visible behind the tree.
“Who’s your friend?” a boy asked Jack.
“Lily Hancock,” Jack said, obviously enjoying his familiarity with her. “Lily, this is my buddy Bryce. He’s a senior this year.”
“I don’t remember seeing you around school,” Bryce said. “You must not go to Bayfield.”
“Just moved here,” Lily said. “Plus, I’m homeschooled for now.”
“That’s too bad.” Bryce placed his hand against the tree where Lily stood, and leaned in close. “It’d be nice to have a new face at school. I’ve known these other girls since kindergarten.”