Swans Landing #1 - Surfacing (8 page)

After a moment, Josh finally spoke. “People here aren’t always what they seem to be. This island has a lot of secrets.”

More riddles. “Take me back. Now.”

Josh nodded, let go of my arm, and silently headed back into the shadowy trees.

Chapter Eight

“I think you dropped this.”

The girl from gym class, Claire, looked up at me through her huge glasses. Then she looked down at the pink sweater I offered her as if she’d never seen it before in her life, despite the fact that it had slipped from the strap of her backpack where she’d stashed it.

“No, seriously,” I said, trying not to be sarcastic. “No need to thank me.”

She glanced around at the other students that passed us by, then she stuck one hand out, snatching the sweater so quickly I barely had time to let go. “Thanks,” she whispered almost too low for me to hear.

“You shouldn’t let girls like Elizabeth tell you what to do,” I said.

She didn’t answer as she hugged the sweater to her chest, her eyes still on the floor. I shook my head as she scurried away. I didn’t understand why Claire would let other people control her like that.

My shoulder slammed suddenly into the concrete wall, sending my books flying across the floor as streams of pain radiated down my arm.

“Freak,” the tall guy who had knocked me into the wall muttered. He shot me a disgusted look before continuing down the hall.

No one stopped to see if I was okay or offered to pick up my books. Most of them looked away when I glanced around the hall. I gasped at the pain in my shoulder, rubbing it gently as I straightened back up.

The guy did not look familiar at all. Why he would have a problem with me was a mystery.

But then, a lot of things going on around here were a mystery.

I hurried through the lunch line as quickly as I could and found an empty table in a corner of the cafeteria. The room hummed with activity from other students eating and laughing and talking, but I wanted to be invisible for a little while.

It didn’t take long for me to be discovered.

“There you are. Hiding out?” Dylan asked.

“Um,” I said, feeling a little embarrassed. Dylan always looked so put together and confident, how could he understand my need to not exist for a little while? “Not really,” I lied. “This table has the best view.” I gestured toward the plate glass windows along the front of the cafeteria that looked out at the tree-lined street and houses across from the school.

Dylan sat down and dug into the food loaded on his tray, eating as if he hadn’t had anything in days.

“Sorry,” he said, swallowing a mouthful of food when he noticed me watching. “I’m starving today.”

“No problem,” I said and scooped up some mashed potatoes on my fork.

Some people in life couldn’t tell when another person wanted to be left alone. Dylan seemed to be one of them. “How do you like school so far?” he asked me.

“Fine. It’s school, I guess.”

“I’ll bet you miss your friends back home.”

I stirred my fork through my potatoes. Mom’s cancer had taken away my time spent hanging out and going to the movies, and eventually, at the end, I had no contact with anyone other than her doctors and nurses. There weren’t exactly any friends left to miss.

“Sorry,” Dylan said in a quieter voice. “I’m sure friends are the least of the people you miss.”

The truth was, I did miss my friends. I missed being just another kid, with no worries outside of what to wear on date night or what great movies were coming out next. I had drowned when my entire world became engulfed in Mom’s cancer and I hadn’t even begun to kick my way back to the surface.

As my gaze lifted from my lunch, I caught sight of Josh across the room. He sat alone at the end of a table, hunched over his own tray and thumping his spoon against his food, not really eating it. At the other end of the table sat the girls from gym class, Elizabeth and Jackie, and a couple of guys, including the one that had shoved me in the hall. They all laughed and looked completely at ease. The girls tossed their hair back, obviously trying to get the guys to check them out. Two of the guys tossed potato chips back and forth at each other in a mini-food fight.

Josh didn’t seem to notice any of this as he picked at his food and pulled his knit cap low over his head.

Since our encounter at Pirate’s Cove the day before, we just kind of stayed out of each other’s way. But that didn’t mean I hadn’t looked at him. Whenever he passed by in the hall, my eyes followed. Something about him didn’t fit in with everyone else. He usually kept himself distanced from the rest of the school, but even when he walked with a friend, his eyes never really lit up when he laughed. Like he existed separate from everyone else, not really a part of the rest of the world.

Like maybe he wanted to be invisible, too.

“Yoohoo,” Dylan said, waving his fork in front of my face. “Earth to Mara.”

I looked back at him. “Sorry. What?”

“You zoned out for a minute there. What are you staring so hard at?”

My gaze flickered toward the other side of the room again for a second. “What do you know about that guy Josh?” I asked, unable to stop the question from spilling out of my mouth.

Dylan’s smile faltered. “Josh Canavan? Um, not much.” He shrugged and bent his head over his tray. “Why do you want to know?”

“No reason.” I didn’t want to tell Dylan about my interactions with Josh or about Pirate’s Cove.

Sailor arrived in a whirlwind of movement, thumping her tray down on the table as if it was the most disgusting thing she’d ever seen. The chair screeched as she snatched it across the floor, which attracted annoyed glances from several people throughout the room. But Sailor didn’t notice as she plopped down in the seat next to Dylan, her hair falling loose from her messy bun.

“Ugh,” Sailor groaned, poking her lower lip out into a full on pout.

I raised an eyebrow in her direction, but didn’t say anything.

“Let me guess,” Dylan said. “Mr. Venugopal again?”

Mr. Venugopal was our history teacher. Other than being so monotonous I was in danger of falling asleep in his class, he didn’t seem to be that bad.

“He’s
so
unfair,” Sailor said as she stabbed at her peas with a fork. “He called my paper on the earliest settlers of the Outer Banks unresearched and based on
stories
because it didn’t match what his precious history books say. Almost everything in those books is based on stories! How does he know that the first settlers of Swans Landing
weren’t
finfolk—”

“
Sailor
,” Dylan said in a stern tone.

Sailor rolled her eyes, but she stopped talking and focused on her lunch.

What was that all about? I replayed what Sailor had said in my head and tried to make sense of Dylan’s reaction. There was only one word I didn’t understand.

“What are finfolk?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Dylan said, with a shrug. “Just an old story people tell. Sailor really should know to research her papers properly.”

She glared back at him and shoved a forkful of fried chicken into her mouth.

This place roiled with riddles and secrets. Was it possible for anyone to ever say exactly what they meant?

Across the room, Josh stood from his table. My eyes followed him toward the door and out into the hall. He walked alone, his hands shoved deep into his pockets and his shoulders curled in toward himself.

“The one last thing I’m going to say,” Sailor said, holding up a long, slender finger, “is that if there were more people like us around here, this place would be ten times better.”

Instantly, my gaze snapped from Josh’s retreating back to Sailor’s thin face in front of me. My fist tightened around my fork. A replay of what had happened in gym class with Elizabeth flashed before my eyes. “What exactly does that mean? People like
you
?”

“I said, people like
us
,” she corrected me, staring back as hard as I did. She waved her hand in a vague circle, indicating the three of us.

I blinked and leaned back a little. “What kind of people are
we
?” What could Sailor possibly think I had in common with her?

“Sailor!” Dylan practically shouted. His knuckles bulged from his tightly clenched fists on the tabletop.

Sailor pushed back her chair, sending a piercing screech through the room again. “I’m not going to play these games just because
she’s
here. I have as much right to say anything I want as she does.”

Dylan stood, grabbing her arm to pull her close enough that he could whisper in her ear for a moment. But Sailor pulled herself free, shooting both of us dark glares, and grabbed her tray before stalking across the room toward the trash can.

“Sorry,” Dylan said as he returned to his seat. “Sailor can get easily wound up.”

“Really? I hadn’t noticed,” I said.

I watched him, but he kept his eyes on his food and pushed mashed potatoes around with his fork.

“Well?” I asked.

His gaze flickered up to me. “Well what?”

“Are you going to tell me what that was all about? What did she mean by people like us?”

“Oh.” Dylan shrugged, but he looked a bit flustered at my question. “She meant native Swansers.”

“I’m from Tennessee,” I pointed out.

“But you’re originally from the island. That makes you a Swanser.”

I shot him a smirk. “Oh, really? I’ve been a Woodser all this time, but now you’re telling me I’m a Swanser?”

Dylan laughed. “You’re a Woodser-Swanser. How’s that?”

I made a face. “Why can’t I just be Mara?”

“Okay,” he said. “Mara.”

It was hard to look away from those clear blue eyes. There was something so familiar, so comforting in them. The noise in the room seemed to drop to a dull whisper as I looked at him. It took a great effort to break our gaze and think about something other than Dylan sitting across from me. I sucked in a long shuddering breath, as if to assure myself that yes, my lungs still worked.

“You okay?” Dylan asked.

“I’m fine.” I tossed my napkins and fork into my tray. “I—I need to go by my locker. See you later.”

I hurried across the room without giving him a chance to stop me, dodging around a younger boy who pretended to be going for a touchdown with a carton of milk. After dumping the contents of my tray, I slipped out of the cafeteria and down the mostly empty hallway. Signs congratulating the Fighting Swans basketball team on their winning season hung from the ceiling, almost suffocating me as I raced under them. A teacher leading a group of elementary students toward the bathroom glowered at me when I skirted past.

I needed to get away from everyone, especially Dylan. I needed to be completely invisible for a while.

I collided with a solid form, which snapped me out of my thoughts. Josh Canavan had emerged from the guidance counselor’s office. His arms reached out instinctively to grab mine and keep me from falling backward. Electric currents exploded from where his fingers pressed into my flesh.

“Are you stalking me?” I gasped out, as if I’d been running across the whole island.

“You ran into me.” He dropped his hands from my arms.

Mr. Richter, the guidance counselor, stuck his perfectly combed head out of his office door. “Oh, hello, Miss Westray,” he said as he grinned at us. “I was just thinking about you. How are you doing?”

I cleared my throat and took a step back from Josh. “Um, fine.”

“Adjusting to your classes okay?”

I could feel Josh’s stare on the side of my face, but when our eyes met he looked away quickly.

“Yes, everything’s fine,” I assured Mr. Richter.

He nodded. “Okay, then. But remember,” he said, tapping his office door, “open door. Come by anytime you want to talk.”

“Sure thing,” I said.

Mr. Richter turned to Josh. “I wanted to catch you before you left. We need to reschedule your next appointment. Come by on Monday instead of Wednesday, okay? Same time, different day.”

Josh adjusted the strap of his backpack on his shoulder and nodded. “Yeah, that’s fine. Monday.”

Mr. Richter smiled at us and then disappeared back into his office.

I eyed Josh. Why was he seeing the guidance counselor? The question hung there on the tip of my tongue, waiting to be set loose, but the hard look in his eyes kept my mouth shut. After another moment of complete silence, he started to walk around me. I was hit by the sudden desire to keep him close.

So I said the first thing that popped into my head.

“What do you know about finfolk?”

Josh stopped, his shoulders stiff. His chest rose and fell rapidly as he turned to look back at me.

“What did you say?” he asked in a low voice.