by Kate Brian
Perfect. Everything, at this moment, was perfect. I decided to relish it. Relish the sun on my face, the clean air whooshing in and out of my lungs, that lovely floral scent all around me. I wasn’t going to think about the weird gray house or the scrap of fabric or the whispers, the laughing, or the humming. I wasn’t even going to ponder the fact that Darcy had refused to take me seriously last night, or that my dad hadn’t come out of his room this morning. I was just going to stand here and breathe.
Just beneath me on the hill was a small outcropping with a pretty white gazebo at its center, and farther below I could see the roof of our house on Magnolia Street. Beyond that, the ocean went on forever. I reached my arms over my head and stretched.
My mother would have loved this place. She lived for the beach, for quaint little shopping towns. The gardens here would have had her falling over with envy, and I could just imagine her peppering the locals with questions about how they got their tulips to bloom so late in the season and whether her roses needed more or less pruning. I felt a pang of sadness, wishing she were here in this place that seemed tailor-made for her, and did my best to brush it aside. Those pangs were part of my life now—they would be forever—and while I sometimes let myself wallow in them, this was not one of those times. Not when I was trying to appreciate the perfect.
To my left, a thin, paved walkway cut into the grass, which eventually broke off in two directions. One led right to the big blue house Darcy had noticed yesterday, the other toward the street where it turned into a wide sidewalk. I walked over to a bench situated right at the fork in the path and set myself up behind it for a calf stretch while I waited for Olive. As soon as I turned my back to the house, I felt a chill as if someone was watching me and glanced over my shoulder. The hanging plants swung in the breeze, and the weathervane atop the roof held a position of due south. Otherwise, the place was still.
“God, you weren’t kidding when you said you were a runner!” Olive said between gasps when she finally joined me a good five minutes later. She dropped down onto the bench and put her head between her knees. Her long-sleeved gray-and-black striped T-shirt was saturated with sweat. “You’re wicked fast.”
“Eh, I’m a solid third-placer,” I said, lifting one shoulder.
Her eyes went wide. “Third place? Do the people who come in first have wings on their feet?”
I laughed and reached back to grab my ankle to stretch my quads. “So I guess you’ve decided running’s not your thing?”
“Not even a little bit,” Olive said, holding her hand to her heart as she tried to regulate her breathing.
I gave her a wry smile. “Well, thanks, anyway, for getting me to come out with you. This was exactly what I needed. For the last half hour, I didn’t have one serious thought.”
“No problem,” Olive replied. She tugged her headband out of her hair. “Do you usually have a lot of serious thoughts?”
My heart thumped at all the thoughts darkening my mind—thoughts that I couldn’t share. I walked around and sat next to her, resting my forearms across my knees.
“Things have just been really…tough for my family lately,” I hedged.
Olive pursed her lips. “I hear you.” She stuffed her headband into the pocket of her shorts, bulky cargo things that were not made for running, and leaned back, crooking her arms behind her head. “Of course, I’m the one who made things tough, so…”
She trailed off, pulling her feet up onto the bench and looking past my shoulder to the west. In that direction were the docks of the boatyard and about half a dozen boats bobbing peacefully on the bay. Looming in the distance to the north was the bridge, surrounded, as always, by thick fog. There was something mesmerizing about all that slowly swirling gray mist. From a distance, it wasn’t as terrifying.
“How so?” I asked.
She looked me in the eye, and the depth of the sadness and regret I saw there made something flip inside me.
“I mean, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” I backtracked.
“Nah, it’s just…for the last few years I wasn’t exactly the best daughter. And then one day I up and left,” Olive said, lifting her shoulders. “I’m better now…I mean, I got myself better, but I know I really hurt my mom. I did things…” She sighed ruefully and shook her head. “Well, anyway, I have to apologize to her, to find a way to make it up to her, I just…don’t know how.”
“I’m so sorry,” I told her, not knowing what else to say.
I was no good at this kind of thing. I’d never really had any close friendships, unless Darcy counted, and even that felt like a million years ago. Olive looked around and up at the sky, and I saw that there were tears in her eyes. I swallowed hard, hating how stupid and useless I felt.
“What about you?” she asked. “Do you want to talk about what’s going on with your family?”
I felt breathless and hot, wishing I could tell her, wishing I could just blurt out the whole insane story. I had a feeling it would make us both feel better, her knowing she wasn’t the only one with a depressing past, me because venting it all would be so freeing. But I couldn’t. I had to keep it all bottled up inside. Maybe that was why I was having nightmares. Because I had no one to talk to about things. No release.
That was just one more thing Steven Nell had taken from me.
“I can’t,” I said finally. “It’s too…complicated.”
“I get it,” Olive said. “No one knows all the gory details of my life, either. Well, except Tristan.” She blushed and looked down at her feet. So Olive liked Tristan. Of course she did. I thought back to that first night on the beach when they’d been so wrapped up in conversation. The familiar way they’d talked with each other at the bar and how she’d kept glancing up at him when he wasn’t looking. I felt a flash of jealousy before I remembered that I didn’t want Tristan. I wanted Christopher. I just wished he wasn’t hundreds of miles away. And my sister’s ex.
“But if you ever do want to talk, I’m a fantastic listener,” Olive added, nudging me with her shoulder.
I nudged her back. “I believe that.” I stood up. “Want to head back to town?”
“Sure. But we’re walking, FYI, because I think my legs might revolt if I try for anything faster.”
“No problem,” I replied with a laugh.
Before we headed toward the street, I turned around to look at the blue house once more. There was something almost foreboding about it, even in its cheerful beauty. It sat up there like some kind of fortress or castle, lording its immense presence over the rest of the quaint town.
“Gorgeous, isn’t it?” Olive said, glancing over her shoulder as we strolled downhill. “You should see the inside.”
“You’ve been inside?” I said. “Who lives there?”
Her eyebrows came together, and she looked at me as if I’d just asked her how to spell the. “That’s Tristan and Krista’s house. Their mom’s the mayor.”
I stopped in my tracks and stared at her, feeling like someone had just yanked the asphalt out from under me.
“Wait. Tristan lives there? I thought he lived in the house across the street from me,” I said.
“Um, no,” she said. “The prince of Juniper Landing lives up here in the castle with the princess and the queen, just as it should be,” she said, lifting her nose in the air comically. “Not that they act like a prince and princess. They’re just sort of treated that way.”
“I would have thought that Joaquin was the prince of this place,” I said vaguely.
“Really? I see him as more of a rogue knight,” Olive replied.
I supposed everything was perception, and if she liked Tristan, maybe she perceived him as the leader of the pack. But I had yet to see him order anyone around like Joaquin had with Fisher. Tristan seemed more refined. More modest. More comfortable in the shadows.
More like me.
“Interesting,” I said, mostly to say something.
I turned and narrowed my eyes
at the house, and my heart caught in my throat. Someone was standing on the porch, shaded by the wide overhang, staring down at me.
“Oh my god,” I said, angling myself away from the lurker and talking through clenched teeth. I grabbed Olive’s arm. “Someone up there is watching us.”
Olive followed my gaze. “Where?” she said, her brows furrowing in confusion.
“Right there.” Emboldened by her blatant move, I turned back around as well, but then froze. The porch was deserted. Whoever had been there, watching us, had vanished.
My feet pounded against the pavement as I sprinted downhill toward town. If Tristan lived all the way up here, why the hell was he lurking in the house across the street from mine? Was he there just to watch me? Was he some kind of bizarre stalker keeping an eye on the new girl? And who the hell had been watching me from his actual house? I wanted answers, and I wanted them now.
I crossed through town, zipping past our favorite local musician in the park, who was jamming on his guitar with his eyes closed and a smile on. Near the far corner, I caught a couple of disturbed stares from an older couple chilling on a bench. Not that I was surprised. I must have looked like a crazed lunatic, sprinting for all I was worth and completely ignoring the sidewalk. I just hoped Olive hadn’t thought I was nuts when I’d blurted that I had to go and taken off, leaving her behind to stare after me.
I ran down the diagonal cut-through street, purposely averting my eyes from the rundown park, and took the corner onto our block, skidding so hard I almost hit the dirt. I was about to beeline it for the gray house, when I saw something hanging off the gate in front of our place across the way.
I stopped short and gasped for breath. It was a gray canvas messenger bag with a frayed strap. Exactly the same bag Steven Nell carried to school every day.
The air was cold and the ground wet against my back. Pine needles pierced my arms. The clouds parted overhead. A perfect half moon and Steven Nell’s sadistic smile, his watery eyes, his thin, dry, lips.
A bell trilled and sucked me back into the now. The warm sun tickled my flesh. I blinked as the middle-aged man with his surfboard rode by me with a smile. Aside from him, the street was deserted, but that bag was still there. This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t be real.
Part of me wanted to turn around and run straight to the police, but what was I going to tell them? That someone had left a bag on our gate? I was just going to have to deal with this myself. Maybe it was nothing.
Defiantly, I stormed across the road and over to the bag. The flap hung open, practically daring me to look inside. But what was I going to find if I did? A threatening note? A severed hand? What?
Holding my breath, I yanked the bag open. I blinked, surprised. It was filled to the brim with model lighthouses of various sizes. The smallest one was about two inches high, carved of stone and meticulously painted. The largest was about six inches tall, made of crappy plastic and topped by a tiny light that illuminated with the press of a button. There were dozens of them, each with a Juniper Landing swan stamped on its walls.
“Hey.”
I whirled around, dropping the bag back where it hung, letting it slam against the fence. Tristan stood right in front of me, looking perfect in a white T-shirt and tan cargo shorts, his blond hair falling forward on his cheeks.
“What the hell?” I shouted, shoving him with both hands as hard as I could. He didn’t move an inch, but he did look down at me, surprised. “You scared the crap out of me!”
“I’m sorry,” he said, his expression sincere.
Over his shoulder, I saw the door of the gray house swinging slowly closed. Suddenly, I remembered why I’d sprinted home.
“Why are you always here?” I demanded, crossing my arms over my chest. My face was on fire, and I felt my throat trying to close—my body’s way of rejecting confrontation—but I pressed on. “Olive told me you live up on the bluff, so why are you spending so much time in that house?” I said, gesturing across the street. “Why are you always watching me?”
Tristan glanced over his shoulder. “I just…I know the person who lives there,” he said. Then he shoved his hands under his arms and looked at me squarely, as if that explained everything.
“Oh, yeah? Who? Who lives there?” I demanded.
He frowned slightly. “My nanna,” he said. “My grandmother. On my father’s side. She’s confined to a wheelchair so I…we…me and Krista try to come visit her whenever we can.”
“Oh.” Color me guilt-ridden. Here I was, jumping all over his case, and all he was doing was being the perfect grandson.
“She likes to sit and look out the window a lot, so if you see the curtains moving or whatever, it’s probably her,” he added with a shrug.
“So that was her I saw watching me that first morning?” I asked.
“Probably,” he replied. “Actually, I remember her mentioning it. The pretty blond girl moving in across the street.”
He stopped and cleared his throat, looking away. Like maybe he’d said too much. Like maybe he agreed with Nanna.
“Oh,” I said again, blushing. “Well, that’s nice of her.”
“Yeah.”
Tristan knocked his hands together, and I saw his Adam’s apple bob as he pressed his lips into a line. For a long moment, we just stood there, until just standing there felt completely awkward. I was about to make an excuse to go inside when Joaquin came around the corner and strode purposefully over to me, a line creased into his forehead.
“Rory. There you are,” he said, his breath slightly ragged. He walked right over to me and enveloped me in a big, warm hug, forcing Tristan to sidestep away from me.
I squirmed and ducked out of the circle of his arms, almost losing my balance. Tristan reached out and quickly steadied me. “Um, what was that for?”
“I just saw Olive in town. Are you okay?” Joaquin asked, holding my wrist. “She said you guys were hanging out when you all of a sudden bolted like you’d seen a ghost.”
I glanced at Tristan and blushed. “Oh, that. I’m fine,” I said, pulling my arm out of his grip. “I told her I had to get home. Is she mad?”
“Not at all,” Joaquin said. “Just worried.”
“Well, I’m fine,” I repeated, looking from Tristan to Joaquin and back again. Two pieces of perfection—physically, anyway—and all I could think about was getting away from them. The cross-country girls back home would probably have me checked for brain damage. “Anyway, I’d better—”
“So did you invite her yet?” Joaquin asked Tristan.
“I was just about to,” Tristan replied.
“Invite me to what?” I asked.
“Tristan and Krista are having a party tomorrow night,” Joaquin said, crossing his arms over his chest. “I think you should come.”
I felt my blush deepen. “You think I should come,” I repeated. I glanced at Tristan. “What do you think?”
He blinked, startled. “What? Oh, sure. Yes. You should definitely come. If you want to.”
Wow. So one of them expected me to come just because he thought I should and the other clearly couldn’t care less whether I showed or not.
“That’s some invitation, you guys. Thanks,” I said sarcastically. “I’ll be sure to give it a nice, long consideration.”
“Rory,” Joaquin said in a condescending tone as I turned to go.
But I didn’t stop. I jogged up the steps to the house, slamming the door behind me and leaning back against it. What was with these guys? Why couldn’t they stalk Darcy instead of me? She would have loved every minute of it.
I glanced out the window and saw Joaquin say a few words to Tristan before sauntering off. Once he was gone, Tristan looked down at the gray bag, and I felt my heart skip a beat. I’d momentarily forgotten it was there. He lifted the flap and peeked inside, his brows creasing in confusion. At least I wasn’t the only one who thought a bag full of lighthouses was odd. He looked up at my house, and I ducked back behind the wall again
.
When I glanced back out the window again, I half expected Tristan to still be standing there, but he was gone. The gray bag, however, remained hanging from the gate, taunting me. I double-checked that the door was locked and then retreated to my room. I hoped whoever had left it there would come back for it soon, but I also didn’t want to be here when they did.
The moment was nearing. The moment when he would finally have what was rightfully his. He had been so close so many times, but now, nothing would stand in his way. Once the last step in his plan was complete, there was no way she would say no to him. There was no way she would resist.
Yes. She would come to him, willingly. And perhaps, perhaps, perhaps…
Perhaps that would be the most satisfying end to this pursuit. Knowing that he had broken her, finally. That she wouldn’t fight. That her surrender would be complete.
Wednesday morning I sat at the Formica table in the kitchen, eating cornflakes out of a chipped bowl, watching the old-school phone that hung on the far wall. We’d been in Juniper Landing for four days. It hadn’t rung once.
“Okay, what is your deal?” Darcy demanded, striding into the room in her black silk pajamas and pulling out a chair diagonal from mine. She had her hair back in a sleek ponytail and had already washed her face. “Did you cast a spell on this island or something?”
“What’re you talking about?” I asked, picking up my bowl to drink the last of the milk.
Darcy watched me with a look of utter disgust and waited for me to put the bowl down again.
“Last night, Joaquin finally asked me out to some party at Tristan’s house tonight, and I was all excited until he basically hinted that I had to bring you or I couldn’t come,” she said, slouching back in her chair with her arms crossed over her spaghetti-strap top.
“Oh, that,” I said.
“You know about it already?” Darcy asked, her eyes incredulous.
“They invited me yesterday, too,” I told her.
