“I’m carrying my backpack,” I said.
“Fair enough.”
We didn’t talk as we started across the field. I was grateful for the silence; it gave me a chance to try to sort out everything that had happened. Parker had seemed sincere and interested only in making up for not knowing about Justine. He’d been genuinely concerned and had taken care of me when I almost passed out. But was all that because he felt badly for not knowing about Justine and wanted to make it up to me? Or was it because I’d already affected him?
We were halfway through the park when my cell phone buzzed. I took it from my skirt pocket and opened the new text message.
Miss you. Thought you should know
.—S
I glanced at Parker. He was looking straight ahead and didn’t seem to even notice me check my phone… but this was a good opportunity.
“Just got a text,” I said. “From Simon. My boyfriend.”
I watched his face for a frown, tension in his jaw, lowering eyebrows—some sign of disappointment or jealousy. But there wasn’t any. Not only that, it took him a second to respond, like he was distracted. Like he wasn’t thinking of me at all.
“Cool.” He flashed me a quick smile, then looked straight ahead again.
I stared at the cell phone screen without seeing Simon’s words. This was good news. Whatever was going on with Parker, his feelings for me were still platonic at best.
But that meant I knew even less about my condition than I thought I did.
T
HE ONLY THING
I wanted to do when I got home from school later that day was soak in a cold bath. I’d visited the water fountain and refilled my bottle between each period, and though my thirst and headache had abated, my skin still felt tight, like it was too small for my body.
But as soon as we opened the front door of our house, I knew a bath would have to wait a few minutes more.
“Did I unpack too soon?” Paige asked.
“Don’t worry.” I closed the door and stepped over a large cardboard box. “We’re not moving. We’re having a meltdown.”
“Oh, good—you’re home!” Mom called up the basement stairwell. “Vanessa, sweetie, do you remember what I did with the talking witch?” The question faded as she walked away from the stairs without waiting for an answer.
“She turns to stuff when stressed,” I explained as a loud crash sounded downstairs.
“I think I’ll give Grandma B a buzz,” Paige said. “Unless you want me to… ?”
“No,” I said, eyeing the basement door. “But thanks.”
As she headed for the kitchen, I took another look around the living room. Dozens of cardboard boxes were scattered across the floor and furniture. Long plastic storage bins sat in stacks taller than me. Black trash bags filled doorways. Dust floated through the air.
Mom liked her house one way—pristine—so whatever had set her off this time must have been serious.
“A talking witch?” I asked when I reached the stairwell landing.
She stopped pulling my old stuffed animals from a shelf and spun around. “What are you doing down here?”
“I thought you needed help.”
“And I thought you’d just yell down the stairs.” She stepped toward me, holding the ratty stuffed crab Dad had bought me at the New England Aquarium years ago. “You hate the basement.”
She had a point: I
used
to hate the basement. But things were different now. Mostly because I’d learned that the scariest monsters didn’t hide in shadows, waiting for you to find them. If they wanted you, they came and got you.
“Halloween’s in three weeks.” She turned back to the shelf and started replacing the stuffed animals. Her hands shook so hard, each toy she added knocked another down.
“And?” I asked, scooping up the fallen toys.
“And that doesn’t leave us much time to decorate.” She made a beeline toward a mountain of boxes.
I followed slowly, unsure what to say. “Mom… you haven’t decorated the house for Halloween since I was in junior high.”
She stood up, hugging a glittery Christmas tree star to her chest. “That’s because I was busy with work. Now I’m not. And don’t worry—the talking witch is as scary as it gets. Everything else will be happy jack-o’-lanterns, scarecrows, and black cats.” She pointed to a wide filing cabinet on the other side of the room. “Will you please peek in there? That
should
just hold your father’s old papers, but you never know with him.”
My pulse quickened. Because I’d never spent any length of time in the basement, I’d never investigated what was stored there. But Mom and Dad had moved into this brownstone right after they were married, which meant there could be belongings that went back twenty years—well before Justine and I had entered the picture. And since they both knew how terrified I was of the dark and of small, cramped spaces, maybe they hadn’t been so careful to hide whatever they didn’t want found.
The first drawer squealed as I pulled it open. I held my breath and waited, but Mom continued to rummage, unfazed.
I removed the first folder, unsure of what I hoped to find. Old pictures? Love letters? Motel receipts? According to Raina’s scrapbook, Charlotte had died during childbirth, which was why Dad had had no choice but to take care of me. There couldn’t be much to discover besides details of their time together, clues as to how they’d first met… but maybe whatever I found would help me understand how it had happened.
Because Dad was crazy about Mom—or the woman whom, up until last summer, I’d thought was Mom. It was obvious in the way he gazed at her when she wasn’t looking, the way he made her laugh when she was in the middle of a stressed-out tirade, the way he absently reached for her hand when they read the
Sunday Times
together. And if Justine’s death had taught me anything, it was that there was one force sirens couldn’t mess with, one obstacle they couldn’t overcome, no matter how hard they tried.
Love.
It was how Caleb had resisted Zara. It was how Dad should have resisted Charlotte—but didn’t. And I wanted to know why.
Unfortunately, clues weren’t in the first folder I opened, or in any other folder in the top drawer. The other drawers were also dead ends, offering only yellowing English notes and course syllabi. By the time I closed the last drawer, Mom had moved on to another stack of boxes; I waited for her to turn her back to me, then ducked behind a steel utility shelf.
She obviously hadn’t made it to this corner of the basement yet because the shelves were still filled, their contents gray with dust. My eyes traveled over old books and vinyl records, searching for anything that might suggest a secret life outside this brownstone.
The light dimmed as I walked down the aisle and away from the overhead lamp. It was so dark when I reached the concrete wall I almost walked right into it. The sudden nearness surprised me and ignited familiar feelings I normally experienced as soon as I passed through the basement door. Heart thudding and limbs tingling, I spun around and hurried back down the aisle.
I was halfway down when the toe of my left foot caught on a roller skate. I grabbed the shelf to keep from falling, and the force sent a cardboard box tumbling to the floor.
My eyes locked on the handwritten label.
JUSTINE, 0–2 YEARS
The top had opened in the fall, and as I turned the box right side up, tiny pink dresses and purple layettes spilled out. I immediately recognized some of the baby outfits from old pictures displayed throughout the house and pictured Justine smiling in her stroller and giggling in her high chair.
I picked up the fallen clothes, running my fingers along ivory lace edges and pearl buttons. Blinking back tears, I refolded them and placed them gently in the box. As I stood up and put the box back on its shelf, I noticed several more like it:
JUSTINE
, 3–5
YEARS
;
JUSTINE
, 5–7
YEARS
;
JUSTINE
, 8–10
YEARS
.
I stepped back and looked up. Because Mom wasn’t one to reuse what you could easily buy new, I’d never inherited Justine’s hand-me-downs. That meant I should have my own collection of boxes.
I found them on the highest shelf, their labels barely visible in the dim light. But while Justine’s clothes were divided into two-year batches starting at 0 years old, or when she was a newborn, my clothes were divided into two-year batches starting at
1 year old.
I reached up and inched out
VANESSA
, 1–3
YEARS
.
I recognized these clothes, too; I’d seen them all in countless pictures and photo albums over the years. But the smallest size was 12–18 months.
I suddenly recalled what my parents had always told me about the missing photos from my first year of life. While Justine’s first smiles and steps were chronicled in a thick embroidered album, my recorded memories didn’t start until I was a year old. Mom claimed that was because Dad had chosen those twelve months, of all the months ever, to play professional photographer, and that my first smiles and steps had been lost in a series of unfortunate darkroom experiments. They even had a box of blurred images to prove it.
But anything could be blurry if developed incorrectly, couldn’t it?
My palms sweat and my throat dried as I started down the aisle again, but the physical discomfort was nothing compared to what was going on inside my head.
“Look what I found.”
Mom glanced up from a plastic bin of ornaments.
“Baby clothes,” I said brightly.
She stood and brought both hands to her face. “Is your favorite yellow jumper in there? The one with the butterflies?”
I pulled out the jumper and held it up so she could see, then placed the box on a metal folding chair between us.
“Paige came home from the hospital in the middle of a blizzard,” I said as she rummaged. “Except it was May, so her mom, thinking the weather would be warm, only packed a sundress and light sweater for her.”
“That far north, it can flurry through July.”
“Right.” I watched her pick up a denim skirt and turquoise tights. “Anyway, the pictures are really cute. Paige wearing her sundress and wrapped in a blanket the hospital gave them, surrounded by swirling snowflakes.”
“I’m sure she was adorable.”
So far, so good. I’d never seen pictures of Paige coming home from the hospital; I didn’t even know if she had any. But Mom believed me, and that was what mattered.
“I forget what I wore home from the hospital.”
Her hand froze.
“I know you must’ve told me a million times… but I just can’t remember.” I stepped toward the box. “Is the outfit in here?”
Her mouth opened. “I gave it away,” she said several seconds later. “To a woman in my office. She had a baby a few months after you were born, and when we had a shower for her, she insisted on hand-me-downs only.”
I had to give her credit: she was good. A year ago, I might have believed her.
“What did it look like?” I asked.
“What did what look like?” she asked, already moved on.
“The outfit I wore from the hospital.”
She dropped the clothes she held into the box and faced me. Her lips were even, her forehead smooth. I thought she might actually come clean and braced myself for the truth… but then she smiled.
“Pink gingham. Ralph Lauren.” She held out one hand. “The nurses said they’d never seen a prettier baby.”
I put my hand in hers. She lifted and kissed it. Then she returned to the Christmas decorations.
“Will you grab a few garbage bags from upstairs? I might as well tidy up while I’m down here.” She opened a new box and pulled out a strand of glittery garland.
Pretty silver…magical silver…the silver of Christmas tinsel…
Which was how the waitress had described Zara’s eyes when Simon and I went to the Bad Moose Café to look for Caleb. The memory made me bolt across the room and upstairs.
In the living room, I hurdled boxes and darted between bags. My mouth and throat stung like I’d just downed a bottle of sand, but instead of sprinting to the kitchen to replenish, I headed in the opposite direction.
To Dad’s office.
It was three o’clock. He wouldn’t be home from his afternoon lecture for two hours.
Reaching the room, I threw open the door and charged inside—or at least I tried to charge. My body weakened more with each passing second, like I ran on a dying battery. As I crossed the small space, my legs quivered and my feet stumbled. Instead of stepping over the moat of papers surrounding the desk, I summoned any remaining energy and lunged for the chair. My legs hit the stacks and stayed there.
I grabbed the mouse and woke the computer. I watched the keyboard as I typed, not trusting my trembling fingers to find the right letters unsupervised. Once finished, I hit Enter and looked up at the screen.
I held my breath as the tiny hourglass turned once. Twice. Three times.
Invalid password.
I retyped the thirteen letters. When they were rejected, I tried again. And again. Until my fingertips numbed and I could no longer see the keys.
My body wasn’t totally out of water after all. When I finally sat back, exhausted and defeated, there was enough to fill my eyes and slide down my cheeks.
R
AINA’S SCRAPBOOK
was wrong. Charlotte Bleu didn’t die during childbirth. She had me, and for the first year of my life, she took care of me. I was as sure of this as I was of the fact that Dad had changed his computer password to keep me from finding things he didn’t want me to see.
What I didn’t know was why. Why did she give me up? Why after a year and not sooner—or later? What happened? Did she die around my first birthday? Did Raina just have the timing confused?
These were the questions I’d been silently asking since finding the boxes of baby clothes. And as Paige and I pulled up to the Winter Harbor Marina for Caleb’s birthday party almost a week later, I still didn’t have any answers.
“I don’t think I can do this.”
Instantly jolted out of my own thoughts, I glanced at Paige, who reached into the shopping bag at her feet and held up a CD.
“You can’t listen to old grunge rock?” I asked, parking the car.
“I can’t give it to Caleb.” She rolled down the window and tilted her head toward the party.
“Sounds like Pearl Jam.”
“It is Pearl Jam.” She waved the CD. “So is this.”
“And?”
“And they’re Caleb’s favorite band—I learned that in school last year, when you could hear the music coming from his earbuds a mile away. He must own every song they’ve ever recorded.”
“Which is why you bought the limited-edition live CD from when they played a tiny club in Boston ten years ago. The CD you can only
get
at the tiny club in Boston.”
I followed her gaze as she looked out the windshield. The party was already in full swing. Dozens of people filled the marina parking lot and docks—talking, laughing, and dancing. Beyond them, boats bobbed on the harbor.
“The water surrounding the marina is fairly shallow,” I said quietly, guessing that the real problem had nothing to do with Caleb’s gift. “That’s why the ice is beginning to thaw here. But Simon said the deeper parts are still frozen solid.”
She lifted her eyes to mine. “Like at the base of Chione Cliffs?”
My head throbbed once, then stopped. “Yes. Like at the base of Chione Cliffs.”
“Ahoy there, pretty ladies.”
We both jumped as Riley spoke near Paige’s open window.
“Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to startle. But I’ve been ordered to walk the plank and wanted to make sure I said hello before taking the plunge.”
“Right,” Simon said, coming up next to him. “Ordered, offered. Same difference.”
“You offered to walk the plank?” Paige asked.
“And challenged other guests to do the same. It’s kind of like musical chairs or pin the tail on the donkey, seaside-style.” He opened Paige’s door. “You look exquisite, by the way.”
I smiled as she blushed. Regardless of whether she wanted to like Riley, he clearly had a positive effect on her. She dropped the CD in its bag and climbed out of the car.
“I’d say the same about you,” Simon said, resting one arm on top of the open door and ducking his head to look into the car, “but ‘exquisite’ falls a bit short.”
My heart lifted. “Hi.”
“Hey.” He smiled. “Hungry?”
“For some of Winter Harbor’s finest gourmet fare?”
“Also known as some of my dad’s finest charred cheese-burgers?”
“Absolutely.”
He was on my side of the car before I’d unbuckled my seat belt. Opening the door, he held out his hand to help me out. Our fingers had barely touched when I jumped up and hugged him.
In between thoughts of Charlotte Bleu during the drive up, I’d decided to take the day off from trying to decide how to tell Simon the truth. It was a celebration, after all, and I didn’t want to ruin the day for him, Caleb, or anyone else.
Plus, like Paige, I wasn’t thrilled to be near the harbor as it melted. What I’d told her about the deeper water still being frozen was true, but not completely reassuring. Between that, what I’d just discovered about the first year of my life, and making sure I stayed hydrated so that I didn’t collapse in front of the whole town, my head was too overwhelmed to reason with my heart.
So when Simon put his arm around my shoulders, I put mine around his waist.
“You feel warm,” he said as he steered me toward the party. “Do you want me to carry your jacket?”
“I’m fine,” I said quickly. “But thanks.”
I’d had trouble getting dressed that morning. Lately, when I wasn’t wearing my school uniform and a baggy hooded sweat-shirt I was wearing jeans and a baggy hooded sweatshirt, but I’d wanted to look nice for Simon. And I hadn’t been sure how to do that without attracting the attention of every other guy who happened to glance my way. Eventually, I’d decided on jeans, a tan V-neck, and a brown corduroy jacket. I couldn’t hide in my clothes, but I hoped the neutral colors helped me blend into the crowd.
My outfit was a stark contrast to Paige’s. She’d taken advantage of the opportunity to dress up and wore a burnt-orange miniskirt, a denim jacket, and cowgirl boots. Her legs were bare, as was her neck, since she’d gathered her hair in a high ponytail.
Riley was right; she looked exquisite. And as they walked ahead of us, she should have turned the head of every boy she passed.
But she didn’t. A few looked at her and smiled, but then their gazes shifted behind her… to me.
“Don’t worry,” Simon said, noticing me noticing them. “The more they drink, the less they’ll pay attention to anyone but themselves. We should be practically invisible in another ten minutes.”
Simon had said on the phone last night that if things got too weird today, we could always duck out for a while, maybe go for a drive. He thought people might be surprised to see me back in town in the off-season—and us hanging out as more than friends. I didn’t necessarily agree, since along with Justine and Caleb, we were together so much we could’ve been mistaken for a couple long before last summer, but I kept this to myself. I’d rather Simon assume that was the reason people were looking at me.
“There she is!” a familiar voice exclaimed as we neared the cooking stations.
“Hi, Mrs. Carmichael,” I said with a smile.
She opened her arms, and I reluctantly let go of Simon to hug her.
“How are you, sweetie?” she said into my hair. “How are your parents?”
“We’re fine. Hanging in there.”
“You’ll give them our best? And tell them we’re taking good care of the house?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but then spotted Caleb coming toward us with a tray of hot dogs.
“Don’t tell me you’re reneging on your birthday promise already,” he said.
Mrs. Carmichael squeezed me once more, then let go. “Of course not,” she said with a sniff.
Caleb swapped the tray for a spatula on a nearby table. Joining us, he aimed the spatula like a flashlight at his mother’s watery eyes. “She’s been weepy for days because, as she puts it, her baby boy’s all grown up… but I told her she could keep the new car if she just curbed the hysterics tonight.”
“No one likes rain on a parade,” Mr. Carmichael called out from behind a grill.
“You got him a new car?” Simon asked.
Mrs. Carmichael brushed her eyes and laughed. “He could blow out a million candles and that wish still wouldn’t come true.”
“A guy can dream,” Caleb said, turning to me. “Can’t he?”
This time, I initiated the embrace. For several seconds I held him tightly, hoping he could somehow feel Justine’s arms in mine. He tensed at first, and I wondered if it was too much, if I should let him go, but then he relaxed and hugged me back.
“Happy birthday,” I whispered.
“Thanks for coming, Vanessa.”
It had been only a few weeks since we’d left Winter Harbor, but it felt like forever since I’d last seen Caleb. He’d laid low after the night the harbor froze, and throughout the rest of the summer I’d talked to him only when I was outside and happened to catch him leaving for or returning from work. I’d figured pulling back was just his way of healing and hadn’t pressed… but he almost sounded like his old self now. And that made me as happy as I knew it would’ve made Justine.
“Incoming!”
We pulled apart just as a red inner tube landed at our feet.
“I think I’m being summoned.” Caleb picked up the tube and tilted his chin toward the water, where a group of guys waved and yelled for him to join them.
“Have fun,” I said. “We’ll catch up later.”
As he headed for his friends and Mrs. Carmichael joined Mr. Carmichael at the grill, Simon reached for my hand. We found Paige and Riley, who were rounding up other plank-walking competitors, told them we were taking a walk, and then wandered around the marina. The music and noise softened as we followed the water’s edge to the property’s outskirts, where lines of boats sat waiting to be wrapped for the winter.
“It looks different,” I said.
“You’re usually not here now,” Simon said. “When leaves are falling and the harbor’s almost empty.”
“It’s not just that.” I stopped at a dock and looked toward the party’s glittering lights. “It’s the ice. The way it’s melting in some spots and not others. It’s like the whole town’s stuck in place, waiting to be freed.”
He stood behind me and slid his arms around my waist. “It’s getting there. We’re getting there.”
I leaned against him and slowly scanned the water’s surface. I didn’t know what I expected to see. Beams of light shooting up into the sky? Beautiful women dressed in flowing white dresses? Caleb’s friends walking toward them, eyes blank and smiles wide?
I knew one thing I didn’t expect to see: Justine’s and my boat, here on the harbor instead of at our lake house backyard.
“Simon.” I stepped forward, out of his arms. “Is that… ? Did Caleb… ?”
He hesitated, apparently trying to figure out what I was talking about since I couldn’t find the words. “The red rowboat?” he asked finally. “No way. If Caleb had wanted to borrow it, he would’ve asked.”
“But there’s a patch of green in the back, where the paint’s peeling. And the front’s rounded instead of sharp, just like—”
“The fronts of all rowboats get after years of use?”
I looked at him.
His face softened. “I’m sorry. It does resemble your boat… but we’re standing a hundred feet away. And it’s getting dark. It’d be hard to tell a rowboat from a canoe in these conditions.”
I turned back and walked to the end of the dock for a better look.
“It’s stuck in the ice,” Simon said gently, standing next to me. “It was in the water when the harbor froze.”
“Then why wasn’t it brought in? All of the other boats that were in the water that night were chopped out and hauled in.”
“Monty’s removal services aren’t cheap. Maybe it wasn’t that important to its owners. Maybe they didn’t mind waiting for the ice to melt.”
I knew he meant only to reassure me, and what he said made sense, but I wasn’t convinced.
“Can we make sure?” I asked.
“How?”
“By going out there.” I gave him a small smile. “It could be like walking the plank—another seaside party game.”
He looked out at the boat, then around the rest of the harbor, clearly calculating ice thickness and determining the potential safety issues of the area in question. I felt bad for putting him in this position; I knew he’d do everything possible to avoid saying no to me—but I also knew I wouldn’t relax until I was sure that wasn’t our boat.
“Farther north the ice hasn’t thawed at all,” he said. “It should hold my weight.”
“I’m lighter,” I said quickly.
“I’m stronger. If it gives, I can pull myself out.”
If the ice gave while I was on it, I could breathe under-water until rescued. But Simon didn’t know that. Before I could come up with another reason why I should go instead of him, he stepped toward me and brushed my cheek with his thumb.
“If it’s important to you, it’s more important to me,” he said. “I’ll be there and back in no time.”
“Wait—”
But he was already jogging down the dock. I watched him jump onto the pavement and then run through the brush along the water’s edge. He was slowing down, surveying the ice for the best spot, when an image flew through my mind like a bullet from a gun.
A parking lot. The dim light of a streetlamp. Simon, his face blank, his arms limp. Defenseless against the powerful force pulling him closer.
Zara.
I shook my head sharply and sprinted down the dock. “Simon!” I yelled. “Don’t!”
But he didn’t hear me. That, or I’d actually whispered the warning instead of shouting it—it was hard to tell over my pounding heart. I tried again, but he didn’t even glance my way before starting out onto the ice.
I ran faster, ignoring my drying throat and weakening legs. I rubbed my eyes when white spots popped before them, hating to lose sight of him for even a second. He moved easily, purposefully, like he was in complete control… .
But what if we were wrong after all?
Reaching the rowboat wasn’t worth the risk of finding out. I tried yelling once more, but the effort seemed to sever my shriveling vocal cords. Grabbing my throat against the pain, I veered right, out of the brush—and onto the ice.
The sudden chill beneath my feet stopped me short. The air above the water was colder than the air around it, and my quick breaths formed small, fleeting clouds. I wanted to look down, to see if anyone—or anything—looked up at me from beneath the ice, but I couldn’t. I was too terrified of what I might see.
Instead, I kept my eyes on Simon. He was halfway to the rowboat now, but racing diagonally from here, I could still catch up with him. In desperate need of fuel, I kept my head level and bent my knees until I crouched above the ice. I lowered both hands to the frozen surface; it softened under the heat of my skin, and the salt water shot into my palms like an electric charge.
It was enough to get my feet moving again. I started out slowly, but in seconds I was flying across the ice like my shoes were attached to thin metal blades.
The distance between Simon and me closed. Apparently hearing my approach as I neared, he stopped and turned toward me. I was so relieved that I’d reach him before anything could happen, when he raised his arms, I thought it was so I could run into them.