The Wicked Deep

by Shea Ernshaw

  I fall asleep on his couch. A blanket tucked over my shoulders. And each time I open my eyes, he’s still awake, staring into the fire like he’s looking for something, or waiting for someone.

  “What happened to me?” I ask as dawn inches through the windows.

  He turns around, sorrow scribed into the features of his face. The coolness of morning slips through the cracks in the doorway, making me shiver even with the fire roaring behind him.

  He squints at me, like it pains him just to look at me. A deep, wretched heartache. But I’m not sure why. “You’ve been asleep for a while,” he tells me. “Now you’re awake.”

  I look down at my hands, curled together in front of me. On my left index finger is a pink scar, nearly healed. At least a week or two old. But I don’t recall how I got it. I can’t seem to find the memory in the trenches of my mind. So I tuck my hands back inside the blanket and push the thought away.

  I know there is more meaning in his answer than what he’s willing to reveal. But my head still feels foggy, my body wanting to drag me back into my dreams. So I ask one more question before I drift off. “What happened to you?”

  “I lost someone I loved.”

  THE HARBOR

  Some places are bound in by magic. Ensnared by it.

  The town of Sparrow may have possessed slivers of magic long before the Swan sisters arrived in 1822. Or maybe the three sisters brought it with them across the Pacific. No one would ever know for sure. Their beauty and unluckiness may have been its own kind of spell, spun together in a rugged place like Sparrow, Oregon, where gold washed down from the mountains and the sea pulled ships under when the moon was full and the tide vengeful.

  Magic is a tricky thing. Not easily measured or metered or weighed.

  Even though the Swan sisters will never again return to torment the small town, their enchantment still resides in the sodden streets and the angry winter winds.

  The morning after the summer solstice, a local fisherman steered his boat out into the harbor in search of crabs rolling along the seafloor. The tourists had begun their exodus from the bed-and-breakfasts, loading into cars and boarding buses. Returning home.

  The Swan season had ended. But what the tourists and locals didn’t yet know was that there would never again be another drowning in the town of Sparrow.

  Olivia Greene would wake the following morning atop the lighthouse on Lumiere Island. She would recall only fragments of the party the night before and assume she drank too much and passed out on the cold stone floor, her friends having abandoned her.

  Gigi Kline, who had been missing for several weeks but reappeared unexpectedly at the summer solstice party, would wake up on the rocky shore of Lumiere Island, her feet halfway submerged in the water and three toes swollen and frostbitten, unable to be saved. After having fled into the harbor the night before, Aurora circled back around to the shore, easily evading capture from the mob of mostly drunk Sparrow High students. She was watching the boats drift farther away, her arms hugging her chest, soaking wet, about to slip back into the water and relinquish the body she had stolen, when she collapsed right there on the rocks.

  Neither Aurora nor Marguerite Swan ever made it back into the water. Because at eleven fifty-four, their sister Hazel Swan dove into the sea and drowned herself, severing the two-centuries-long curse in a single act of sacrifice.

  Aurora and Marguerite vanished from their stolen bodies like a wisp of sea air, a rivulet of smoke finally extinguished for good.

  But still, unknowingly, the following morning a local fisherman navigated his boat among the wreckage of sunken ships, drifting over the very spot where the three Swan sisters had been drowned two hundred years ago. And in that place, bubbles rose up to the surface. Usually caused by crabs knotted together, moving among the silty bottom. But not this time, not on this morning.

  What he saw was something else.

  Three bodies, dressed in gossamer-white gowns that clung to their ashen skin, drifted together with the current. He pulled them aboard his boat, unaware of what he had just discovered. They were not skeletons, not chewed apart by fish and salt water; it was as if they had been drowned that very morning.

  The Swan sisters’ bodies had finally been recovered.

  And when they were carried ashore and laid on the dock in Sparrow, people gasped. Children cried and women cut off locks of the sisters’ hair for good luck. They were beautiful. More stunning than anyone had ever imagined. More angelic than any portrait or story had ever described.

  The curse of the Swan sisters had been broken.

  It took several days for the locals to decide what should be done with the perfectly preserved bodies. But eventually they were buried in Sparrow Cemetery atop Alder Hill, overlooking the bay. It was only fitting.

  People still come to take pictures beside their gravestones, even though the Swan season has never returned. No songs whispered from the deep waters of the harbor. No bodies stolen for a brief few weeks in June.

  But there is one who comes to the cemetery every week, a boy who lost a brother, who fell in love and then let her slip into the sea. Bo Carter kneels down beside the grave of Hazel Swan, he brings flowers, he tells her stories about the island and the tide and the life they never had. He waits for the sun to set before he stands and walks back down Ocean Avenue to the docks.

  He still lives in the cottage on Lumiere Island. He is the keeper of the lighthouse. In the summer, he harvests apples and pears, bringing crates into town to sell. And during a storm, he takes the sailboat out alone past the cape to the open sea, battling the wind and the waves until the morning sunlight breaks over the horizon.

  But he is not alone on the island. Penny Talbot wanders the orchard rows with him, her memories slowly returned in the days after the summer solstice—memories that were plucked just for her, only the good ones. On calm, sunny days, Bo teaches her how to sail. She eats forgetful cakes in the afternoons—gooseberry and cinnamon spice—brought to the island by Rose, who worries about her more than Penny can understand.

  Her mom bakes apple pies and fresh pear tarts; she hums while she works; she makes cups of tea and invites locals out to the island to foretell their futures. She watches her daughter—who is herself once again—and she knows she’s lost many things, but she didn’t lose Penny. Her mind settles; her grief eases. She stacks smooth rocks beside the cliff overlooking the sea. A marker, a grave for the husband she lost. He belongs to the Pacific now—like so many others.

  In the evenings, Penny reads tea leaves at the kitchen table, blinking down at her future and her past, recalling something she once saw in their smudged remains: a boy blowing in from the sea. And she thinks that maybe her life has been predestined from the start.

  But even when they kiss between the apple trees, Bo seems caught in a memory, carried away to another time she can’t see. And late at night when he folds her in his arms beside the crackling fire and kisses the space just behind her ear, she knows he’s falling in love with her. And maybe he’s loved her long before this, long before he pulled her from the water on the night of the summer solstice—the night that is a blur in her memory. But she doesn’t ask. She doesn’t want to know about the before.

  Because she loves him now, with the wind seeping through the cracks in the cottage windows, Otis and Olga curled up at their feet, the world stretched out before them.

  They have eternity. Or even if it’s just one life, one long, singular life—that’s enough.

  LAND AND SEA

  Graveyard of the Pacific: That’s what locals call the waters off the coast of Sparrow. Not only because of the hundred or so shipwrecks dotting the seafloor, but because of all the lost souls drowned in the ocean over the last two centuries.

  Some days the sea is calm, lapping gently against the shores of Sparrow, seagulls diving among the rocks and tide pools in search of trapped fish. On these days it’s easy to forget the history of what happened here.

  But on stormy
days, when the wind whips violently against the town and the tide rises over the seawalls, you can almost hear the song of the sisters blowing in from the deep—an echo of years past, the ocean unwilling to forget.

  When the sky is gray and mournful and the fishermen push out beyond the cape through the fog, they will look up to the island and say a prayer—for good winds and full nets. They say a prayer to her, the girl they often see standing on the cliff’s edge, the girl who was drowned long ago but returned again and again, white gown catching in the wind.

  And during harvest in early spring, when the island smells sweet and bursting with sunlight, a figure can be seen wandering the rows, examining the trees. She is still there. An apparition caught in time, the ghost of a girl who lived longer than she ever should have, who dared to fall in love. Who lingers still.

  Not because of revenge. Not because she’s looking for atonement in the seams and shadows of the town.

  But because this is where she belongs, rooted where she first came ashore two centuries ago. This land is hers. Damp and moss green and salt winds. She is made of these things. And they are made of her—the same sinew and string. Death cannot strip her of this place.

  She belongs where the land meets the sea.

  She belongs with him.

  In those quiet moments when she stirs the new spring leaves on the apple trees, when she watches Bo moving down the rows, his eyes bent away from the afternoon sun, his hands rough with the soil, she leans in close—so close she can recall the warmth of his skin, his hands against her flesh—and she whispers against his ear, I love you still.

  And when he feels the wind flutter against his neck, the scent of rosewater and myrrh in the air, a hush sailing over him like a memory he can’t shake . . .

  He knows. And he smiles.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Magic resides in many things, and most certainly in humans. Without the following magical people, this book would still just be a few scribbles on tea-stained paper.

  For her tireless work, encouragement, and badassery, I thank the inimitable Jess Regel. You have been my ally, my agent, and now you are a friend.

  To my extraordinary editor, Nicole Ellul—you see hidden meaning in the margins, spells in the spaces between words, and I adore you for it. I couldn’t have asked for anyone more skilled or clever or magnificent to shepherd this book into the world.

  Thank you Jane Griffiths at Simon & Schuster UK for your enthusiasm and belief in the book. And for seeing exactly where the forgetful cakes belonged.

  Everyone at Simon Pulse, you have given this book a home and championed it in so many ways. Mara Anastas, Mary Marotta, Liesa Abrams, Jennifer Ung, Sarah McCabe, Elizabeth Mims, Katherine Devendorf—how you ladies juggle it all, astounds and impresses me! Jessica Handelman for designing a perfectly spooky cover and Lisa Perrin for the bewitching artwork. Jessi Smith—thank you for reading the book numerous times! To the crusaders who stand on apple boxes and shout about all the books that need to be read: Catherine Hayden, Matt Pantoliano, Janine Perez, Lauren Hoffman, and Jodie Hockensmith. You all deserve daily cake and tea.

  To my inspiring, fearless, unbelievably talented writer friends—you know who you are—who have been on the other end of my phone calls when my characters wouldn’t behave or I wanted to burn it all. I thank you for being rocks and also warm blankets.

  To Sky, I think I’ll keep you forever. Your support and belief in me are more than I deserve. Someday we’ll write the Lightkeeper’s Apprentice story. I heart you.

  My parents, you filled our home with books, and you let me believe I could write them someday too. I thank you for it all. More than I can measure.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Author photograph by Sky Pinnick

  Shea Ernshaw lives and writes in a small mountain town in Oregon, where she shares her home with her husband, a tiny dog named Diesel, and two furry felines. She is happiest when lost in a good book, lost in the woods, or writing her next novel. You can connect with her online at www.sheaernshaw.com.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  SIMON PULSE

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  First Simon Pulse hardcover edition March 2018

  Text copyright © 2018 by Shea Ernshaw

  Jacket illustration copyright © 2018 by Lisa Perrin

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

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  Jacket designed by Jessica Handelman

  Interior designed by Heather Palisi-Reyes

  The text of this book was set in Adobe Garamond Pro.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Ernshaw, Shea, author.

  Title: The wicked deep / by Shea Ernshaw.

  Description: First Simon Pulse hardcover edition. | New York : Simon Pulse, 2018. |

  Summary: Three sisters, drowned as witches in Sparrow, Oregon, in the 1800s, return each summer for revenge but Penny, seventeen, is determined to stop them to save the boy she loves.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017023239 | ISBN 9781481497343 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781481497367 (eBook)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Love—Fiction. | Revenge—Fiction. | Supernatural—Fiction. | Witches—Fiction. | Sisters—Fiction. | Coasts—Fiction. | Oregon—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.E755 Wic 2018 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017023239