Chapter 2

On a sunshine-soakedCalifornia morning one week later, dark-clothed mourners congregate around the graveside near the cemetery's entrance like feeding crows. My mother pleaded with me not to come—she was worried about the media swarming the funeral, since the accident had gotten so much attention—but I'd begged Sonny, our bodyguard and valet, to drive me, and he'd given in. Once we arrive, he joins the flocks of mourners, waiting a respectful distance from where I stand.

Nausea swirls in my empty stomach as I stare at the open hole. Tyler doesn't belong in the ground with the worms. With the plants.

Like Dad.

This can't be happening.

I never had the chance to tell him how I felt about him. He'll never have the chance to change the world. And I can't rid myself of the feeling it's all my fault.

He must've felt like he had to make a big deal about inviting me to go to that island with him. Why else would he have delivered his big confession on his uncle's boat, in the middle of the night? He told me he needed me, for God's sake, and what did I do? Made a stupid joke about ocean acidification.

His last memories are of me refusing to support him when he went back to the place where he was born—the place where his parents died.He won't be going home to what's left of his real family. He won't be the returning hero, come to protect his island from environmental ruin. Because of me.

I have to get out of here.

As the tears come, I back away to the edge of the crowd, then spring into a hobbled run in my dressy shoes. Sycamores line a familiar narrow path that bends off the main gravel roadway and cuts across a manicured grass field dotted by older graves. I head straight for them.

My heels stick between the moss-covered cobblestones, so I yank them off and tread the hot stones in my stockinged feet. A breeze ruffles the grass, pointing me forward. Blue scrub jays settle onto the sycamores' skeletal branches, their shrill chirps raising hackles on my skin.

I stumble into a shaded rest area, sit on one of the benches, and sob until I have no more tears. I didn't even cry this much for Dad. But now I'm crying for two.

The breeze kicks up, blowing dry leaves and pink flower petals. The ground whispers, urging me to follow it, and I do. Only when I spot the small cluster of red coral trees do I realize where I am.

I haven't been back here since I was thirteen.

It was just a few of us: Mom, some business associates, and Dad's literary agent. There was no coffin. My mother wouldn't tell me why, but Google did: After the sex-and-drug scandal broke, Dad's career collapsed. The university suspended him, and then he set fire to the barn behind his Maine cabin and hung himself. No goodbyes, no apologies for abandoning me forever.

There wasn't much left to bury besides charred bone. Efficient as always, my mother sold the cabin and its acreage, put the money in my college trust, had the already-burned remains cremated and placed in an urn, then interred them here beneath the coral trees, his favorite.

Blossoms blot the landscape in bloody crimson. I lower myself onto the grass and press my face to the ground beside the grave marker, wondering if Dad's ashes will speak to me the way the earth does in my garden.

"Dad," I say. "I wish I could undo the night I lost him. Tyler wanted to be—he wanted to be…like you. To finish what you started."

The only response is the distant call of the fleeing scrub jays.

A shadow spills over the grave marker, blocking the sun. I jump to my feet, embarrassed to be caught lying on my stomach talking to the dirt.

A tall man in a jean jacket, thick sandy hair flecked with gray, smiles down at me, and my heart stops. For a split second the intruder's tall form resembles Tyler's.

Of course, it's not him. This man is much older, a well-preserved forty-something. "Hope I didn't startle you," he says, laughing softly.

"Just a bit," I say, wary. All I have with me is my clutch, and there's nothing in it but lipstick and my phone. No pepper spray. Not even a set of keys. And I've given Sonny the slip. My mother would give me hell if she knew.

It would be my luck to be murdered by a psycho at my best friend's funeral—right on top of my father's grave.

The man's smile warms, his eyes as blue as the Pacific. "I did startle you. My apologies," he says. "I'm Tyler's Uncle Randy. Randy Lambert."

Relief floods me, followed by a chaser of shame. "Oh," I say, scrambling to my feet. "I'm so sorry for your loss." The words are inadequate, but they're all I have.

The man steps into a ray of light. His smile is sympathetic, and in his sparkling eyes I recognize something of Tyler's easy grace. He seems oddly familiar, yet I'm certain I've never met him. Maybe it's just his resemblance to Tyler. "I haven't seen Tyler much since I moved back east," he says. "I was very much looking forward to his visit to the island this summer. He was quite impassioned about the state of our marine life, you know?"

The air has gone completely still. Tyler's uncle has followed me here, most likely to pin the blame for the loss of his nephew and his boat. My neck muscles tense, guilt rising like a wall of flame. There's no way out of this confrontation.

"Yes—I uh—he talked about it a lot. I, I—uh—I guess his aunt wasn't able to attend?" I bumble, wishing for someone—anyone—to interrupt this awful moment…even if it's a moment I deserve.

"His aunt?" he says, sounding confused.

"Tyler's Aunt Millie," I say. "He said she, uh, looked after him before he moved to Bayport?"

Randy Lambert tosses back his head and laughs. "She's Aunt Millicent to the whole island. She looks after all the lost souls. Poor boy was an orphan. There really was no good place for him back then. If you ask me, his obsession with our climate problems was mainly an excuse to convince himself how much the island needed him. But I can assure you, we're fine. We just wanted the poor kid home."

Before I can ask any other questions, Randy reaches into his jacket pocket and hands me a white envelope. "No one's seen Millie for years. She's kind of a recluse. But the extended family still wants you to come."

Frozen, I stare at the plain white envelope in his hand. This makes no sense. Why would the rest of his family want me to come to their weird tiny island, when I'm the reason Tyler is dead?

Maybe they don't know. Don't understand that if it wasn't for me, Tyler would still be here.

"Take it," he urges, pushing the envelope into my hand. "Tyler always told me how much you meant to him. How you shared his values."

He did?The charm feels warm against my chest. I know I should give it to Randy. That I have no right to it. It belongs to his family. But I can't let go of it. Not yet.

Hands trembling, I accept the envelope, tracing my name with a fingertip. Then I glance up. "Why would you want me to come if he—" My words catch in my throat. I peer into the shadows.

Tyler's uncle is gone.

I didn't hear him sneak up on me and I didn't hear him leave. Shaking my head, I rip open the envelope. I'm not surprised when, tucked inside a folded sheet of plain copy paper, I find round-trip tickets from LAX to Bangor International Airport and back. The departure date is exactly when I'm scheduled to leave for Cambridge. Along with these is another ticket for the Barrier Islands Ferry and Shuttle.

The air stirs. I can hear Tyler whisper in my ear. For once, Rose, do what you want instead of what your mother tells you. Make a difference.

But his uncle said the island is fine. Maybe that was an excuse Tyler used on me as well, to win me over. Scrubbing my face to hide my tears, I shove the envelope in my bag and race back down the path to rejoin the crowd of mourners.

* * *

Six weeksafter Tyler's death, I finally get the courage to post a video on my VerbenaX TikTok account, announcing his tragic death and calling on all climate activists to rise up in his honor. Of course, I haven't revealed who I really am; leaning on my father's reputation has always felt like the worst kind of shortcut, and I'm not about to start now. Who would believe me at this point, anyway?

I cross-post the video to the subreddit and then delete my TikTok. I don't have the heart for it anymore, or the subreddit, either. True, I've kept up my PMs with the other two members of the little squad I started with Tyler, who went by OceanDeep. Even though we'd never met Quotidian5 and Waverider, we spoke about them like we hung out regularly IRL. We'd all been excited about the possibility of meeting up at next winter's Youth Climate Justice Summit in Copenhagen.

I can't even think about that, but I need their friendship right now. I need to connect with people who understand the depth of Tyler's dedication to the cause. Who will nurture my own slipping commitment. And understand what the loss of him truly means to us all.

Today, the same as most days since Tyler died, I'm nailed to my desk chair pretending to study, like nothing ever happened. Like my world didn't come crashing to an end. Any minute now, my mother will breeze into my room to check in on me as she does on the hour. I know she's worried about my precarious mental state, not to mention my future, but the hovering is beginning to grate.

Tomorrow is the battery of exit exams that will determine my placement in our graduating class. But no matter how much she insists, prompts, or distracts me, it's still impossible to think past those last images of Tyler…his mop of sandy curls, lean athletic frame, those sea-green eyes that once brimmed with mischief and purpose, staring blank and lifeless at the night sky. Impossible to think past what I've lost. What the world has lost. And how damn unfair it all is.

An empty glass globe sits on my desk. Beside it are five objects: Tyler's charm, a magnet he gave me when I won the statewide science competition in tenth grade, a torn fragment of the t-shirt I wore the night he died, and a printout of the climate op-ed he wrote to our local paper, which I suspect helped him get that scholarship from UMaine. These mementos will join the ones I've strung on Dad's coral tree, a frozen tableau of our last night together. I know he'd expect me to do more. To keep the faith for him.

I'm still trying to figure out how.

Sunk deep into my pain, I barely hear Mom's soft tread across the carpet in time to hide the items beneath a pile of papers.

She won't understand. I don't want to explain.

Still in her trademark pencil skirt, Mom sidles cautiously into my room as if she's a zookeeper cleaning the lion cage. She stops a safe distance away. "Making progress?"

"Yeah." I glance at her, then turn back to my papers.

She edges closer. "I know how tough this has been on you, honey. But your placement at Cambridge and Lausanne is determined by your scores. You don't want to lose your spot. Tyler wouldn't want that."

For once, outrage overrides my fear of her disapproval. I swivel to look at her. "How can you know what he wanted? You never spent a moment getting to know him."

"Come now, Rosalie. Tyler's guardians always appeared to be a bit uncomfortable with our—er—differences in lifestyle. You can't blame me for that. I did try."

"Sure you did."

"Oh, Rosalie. Focus on what matters." Black eyes blazing with their usual keen focus, she steps toward me, brings my hand to her lips, and kisses it. "You can't slow down when you're this close."

"I've got everything under control," I lie. "Don't you trust me?"

My mother hesitates. "I do. It's everyone else I don't trust."

I fiddle with the edge of my t-shirt. "What happened was a freak accident. It's not like lightning can strike twice…"

In the harsh light of my desk lamp, shadows bisect her face. "Sadly, honey, sometimes it does."

"But you can't predict these things. You can't shield me from everything, Mom!"

The lines in my mother's face deepen. "I'm only trying to help you achieve your dreams. Don't you want to go to Cambridge? Their astrophysics program is the best there is."

I sigh. Maybe when I get there, I can smooth-talk my way into their botany program—if they even have one—but there's no point in aggravating her. Not wanting to make things worse, I do what I always do: concede.

"Of course, I want to go." I rest my hands on her thin shoulders, the bones fragile as twigs beneath the silk of her blouse. Even in the dim light, my darker complexion contrasts with her milk-pale neck.

Her shoulders heave as she draws a deep breath. "Rosalie, I'm doing the best I can to protect us," she whispers. "You know my work at the Bouchard Institute is top secret. There are people who want to steal our research—people who…"

It's more than she's ever confided in me before, and I sit up straight, eager to learn more. "People who…what?"

But she snaps her mouth shut, as if she's let her words run ahead of her. "I'm going to bed," she says, her voice clipped. "Since you can't concentrate, maybe it's time you do, too."

She leans in to place a quick kiss on my cheek and pads out of my room, closing the door behind her.

Alone again in our sealed fortress, I turn off the lights and throw open the window in opposition to Mom's rules. Tyler's words drift to me on the night's perfume, settling around my shoulders like a cloak.

What is your heart telling you to do, Rose?

The air outside bristles with restless energy, drawing me forward. Sonny has long since gone to bed in his basement quarters. Mom's television still warbles in her room down the hall. I wait for the timer to shut it off.

When all is silent, I place the pendant, fabric fragment, and the other items inside the glass globe, fasten the top, tie a ribbon on it, tuck it in my pack, and head out into the night.

On the canyon trail, three small owls watch my approach from their perch on the vein-like branches of the coral tree, their unblinking stares trained on me. Moths circle above in a whirl of white, like fallen stars.

I take out the orb that holds Tyler's lost possibilities—and those final moments of passion and terror. An ugly end to the most beautiful person I've ever known.

How can I make this right? Tyler's short life should mean something.

The globe feels heavy in my palm, the absence of him a weight. It feels like a responsibility. A mantle to be carried.

Sliding down the smooth trunk, I settle onto the tree's roots and sink the fingers of my free hand into the sandy soil. My fingers tingle. The ground answers me, but its words are indecipherable.

Above me, the sky is a glittering expanse of stars and their unknowable depths. Yes, they intrigue me. Yes, I'd love to know more. But Tyler is right. The earth is calling to me. It's not just his need to save the oceans, or even my father's climate activism.

It's in my bones. My heart. My blood.

That's what Tyler was trying to tell me. It's too bad it took his death for me to finally listen to him.

This orb doesn't belong on the tree of perpetual sorrows.

It belongs in the place he comes from. The island.

And I'm going to take it there.