Chapter 6

When I open my eyes,dim purple light paints the floorboards of my room and a cool salt breeze rustles the lace curtains. I peer outside. The sky is an indigo dome of stars, rimmed scarlet along the horizon. I've slept the day away.

The house is empty. Dad's left a note on the kitchen table explaining that he didn't have the heart to wake me to go to the dinner party. He's left me a chicken sandwich and fruit platter in the fridge.

Still groggy, I take my meal to the balcony and eat to the distant sound of lapping waves on the beach below. The party lights of the mansion blaze, a beacon in the night. I try to imagine my father among the guests and wonder what lies he's been telling them, what secrets they've been asked to keep.

My solitude feels suddenly pointless. Scrolling through my photos is like skipping through a minefield: shot after shot of flowers and plants interrupted by a sporadic heart-melter—Tyler, mugging for me or doing something ridiculous like when he managed to shimmy three-quarters up a palm tree. I have no access to Reddit, so DMing Q and Wave about my observations here will have to wait.

But I didn't flee Mom and Cambridge to shut myself off from humanity. I throw on a silk tunic and, silver sandals in hand, hurry barefoot through the sawgrass yard and into the moonlit thicket beyond. It's a reenactment of my nights sneaking around on the canyon trails.

Pale light flickers through the lace canopy of leaves overhead. My bare feet pick up the hum I'd felt when first arriving. It intensifies to a deep buzz, but cuts in and out, like a lost radio signal.

There's no clear path connecting the two houses. I hurry on, but quickly lose my bearings. I'm engulfed in thick vegetation, the shadows racing around me with a life of their own. Trying to make my way to the beach to reorient myself, I follow the sloping ground downward to the shoreline and stumble half-blind through the growth, branches scratching my arms. When the moon dips behind the clouds, I'm plunged into near-total darkness.

The hum dissipates, like it was never there at all. It's as though it lured me down here only to abandon me. Just when I'm starting to really freak out, the clouds part. Silver light floods the narrow tract of sand that meanders through the brush. It's breathtaking, and I stop to stare. The hum returns.

This way, the foliage murmurs.

Not the foliage. A person.

"Who's there?" I manage, the words a terrified squeak.

"It's only me," says a deep voice, like something out of a horror movie.

Branches rustle behind me. My heart thuds, and I turn in time to see a thin boy in white slip from the slivers of light into gulfs of shadow.

"That way to the beach," my mystery guide whispers from the darkness. "Watch your step."

Great. Who needs dinner parties when you can encounter the resident psycho thirty yards from your front door? "Who are you?" I ask, my voice stronger this time.

He doesn't answer. All I can make out is a glimpse of baggy white pants and bare feet, treading downhill.

Curiosity supersedes suspicion, and I follow my guide along the sloping path through the dunes that overlook the beachfront. There's less vegetation here, and I should be able to see him clearly—but he's vanished. I'd be totally creeped out, except he's delivered me safely to my destination.

A footpath zigzags between protruding boulders down to the sandy beach. Beyond that, a broad expanse of ocean gleams in the clear light of the full moon. Even with my feet in the sand, nowhere near the water, I feel a strong force calling me toward it—which is weird, because after the accident, I didn't think I'd want to go anywhere near the ocean again.

I'm distracted from my thoughts of Tyler and his nightmarish death as a figure appears between the dunes, then clambers out onto the rock ledge where the breakers explode with violent force. At first, I think it's my mystery guide again, but this guy is wearing black pants.

When I get a closer look, my heart speeds up. It's the dark-haired guy I saw when I first got here—Tyler's reverse look-alike. He's bare-chested, his build and loping stride so much like Tyler's, it's yet a sharper knife in the gut.

White shirt tied around his hips with the sleeves dangling to mid-calf, the body-double lifts his head to the sky, dark hair fluttering behind him. He turns suddenly toward me, as if he's sensed my presence…and now I know I'm losing my mind.

"Rosalie Gatell? That is you, isn't it?" the boy calls over the wind. Hopping down from the rocks, he bounds toward me and stops a few yards away.

I've never felt so exposed, so observed as I have since setting foot on this island. I shiver in the salty wind. "How do you know who I am?"

The boy steps closer, smiling, pale eyes penetrating in their intensity above his disarming grin. Up this close, he's all languid angles with eyes like liquid silver, and I can't look away.

"Salttain's a friendly place, is all. Everyone heard you were coming and we're glad to have you," he says, extending a hand. "Liam O'Donnell. I've worked at the Sea House every summer since I turned fourteen. We contract out for special events. Just finished my shift at the Bailey party and all the guests can talk about is your arrival. We waiters hear everything, you know."

He smiles, the skin around his eyes crinkling the same way Tyler's did. They have to be related. The resemblance turns me cold, gooseflesh rising on my skin. "Nice to meet you. Um, so, can you show me how to get up to the party from here?"

Liam glances toward the edge of the undergrowth. A low rumble announces the arrival of a dark-haired girl, also in waiter's garb, riding a three-wheeled motorbike. It's the same girl he was with earlier at the docks. "I, uh, would if I didn't have to get going. It's easy enough to find. Follow that trail over there. They've got little solar lights to mark the path. It'll lead you right up to the veranda stairs."

He steps backward, still smiling, then turns and runs off in the direction of the girl on the bike. From within the thicket that banks the beach's edge, I hear the motor rev, then growl away into silence, taking Liam with it. So much for island hospitality.

My throat thick with the memory of Tyler and his bike, I watch the waves lick the sand then retreat, leaving behind a trail of glittering shell fragments.

I look closer. The shell particles are actually tiny pearl-white flowers, their diamond-bright centers poking up from under the sand. When the waves pull back, the blooms sink beneath the slick surface and vanish.

Staring at the glistening sand, the amateur botanist in me gropes for understanding. I wonder if the Field Guide has anything to say about this. Or if Tyler realized exactly how weird the island vegetation is. Maybe this is another reason why he wanted me with him here—to help him make sense of it. I'm definitely not reporting this to my forum buddies. They'll think I've gone off the deep end.

My chest clenches, grief cramping my stomach. I fall to my knees and dig in the sand, but the tiny flowers don't reappear, just like either of my mystery guides.

* * *

As the not-very-helpfulLiam O'Donnell promised, the path to the mansion is well lit and easy to follow. I pass a few laughing couples on their way down to the beach. They direct me to the staircase that leads up the majestic terrace.

When I reach the top of the stairs, it's evident the party has ended. The torches still burn, but other than the staff picking through the mess, the huge veranda is empty.

For a moment I'm afraid I've missed Dad, that he's returned to the cottage to find me gone. Then I spot him sipping a glass of wine at the opposite end. I squirm as I walk over to him, uncomfortable. From everything Mom's told me, Dad and alcohol have never mixed well.

"You missed a hell of a party," he says, looking over the stone railing toward the water. "I explained to Mrs. Bailey that you were tired from traveling." He glances up at me, his gaze sharpening. "But you shouldn't have ventured out alone."

I shrug. "I felt bad for not coming. It was easy enough to find my way here from the beach. I'm eighteen, not eight."

Dad heaves a weary sigh. "It's not advisable to go exploring after sundown when you don't know your way around."

"You sound like Mom," I say. "I met a really dangerous character, a waiter from the party who directed me here. Apparently, he didn't fear for my safety enough to escort me up."

Dad says nothing.

"The waiter boy looked kind of familiar," I press. "Is he one of Tyler's relatives? When are you going to introduce me to Tyler's family?"

Dad swallows, pauses, and still doesn't meet my gaze. "That boy, and everyone on this island, is most likely related to Tyler. Probably everyone you'll meet is his distant cousin."

A whole island of people related to Tyler—and yet he spent most of his life in Bayport, living with family friends who wanted to kick him out as soon as he turned eighteen? Something doesn't add up. "What about Aunt Millie? She sent me that package, so she knows I'm here. I need to tell her what happened to Tyler, if she doesn't already know." And to give her the charm back, even though it's the last thing I want to do. "It'll be horrible, but I have to."

Dad shifts his weight, looking uneasy. "I wish I could help you there, honey. But I'm sorry. I told you before, I don't know anything about her."

He polishes off the rest of his wine, and I can't help it—my eyes are drawn to his glass. "Should you be drinking?"

He flashes me a scowl, then chuckles. "You're just like your mother. Running off in the dark in a strange place, then looking out for everyone around you before you've even had a chance to get your bearings. I'm perfectly able to hold my liquor."

"Give me a break. You've been gone too long. We're nothing alike."

My father throws his head back and laughs. "She wasn't always the way she is now. As hard as it may be to believe, your mother used to be an impulsive girl."

Leaning on the stone rail, I let the waves' steady rhythm soothe the hammering pulse in my temples. "And here I thought she was born wearing a tiny skirt suit. But I'm far from what you'd call impulsive." Unlike some people, who drink themselves into oblivion, fake their own suicide, and then flee to a hunk of rock in the middle of the Atlantic rather than deal with their issues…

Dad leans on the rail beside me. When he speaks, it's as if he's reading my mind. "I don't know what your mother may have told you about me, Rosie, but alcohol wasn't my real problem."

My father's eyes are moist and sincere. For a split second, I feel sorry for him. Almost forgive him for the charade he and my mother put me through. The key word in that scenario being almost. "Whatever, Dad," I mutter.

"I need you to trust me, Rosie."

I swallow past the tightness in my throat. "Sure. Why not? You've always been direct and truthful before."

The arrow finds its mark. After a long beat, he says, "I didn't expect you to jump into my lap like Daddy's little girl. This is going to take time for both of us?—"

"Time," I say before I can help myself. "Like the five years we'll never get back? Or the three before that when I saw you less than I can count on my two hands, while you met with my best friend behind my back?"

He doesn't reply. I think about the Field Guide waiting for me on the bedside table and the trail of tiny diamond flowers. Maybe plants really are better companions than people.

* * *

Back at the cottage,after trying to open Aunt Millie's locked box again with no success, I almost toss it across my room. If this is a prank, I'm going to throttle whoever is perpetrating it. I try to immerse myself in the Field Guide, but instead of drawings of plants, all I can picture is Liam O'Donnell and his windswept black hair. Signaled by a sudden wrench in my gut, the image dissolves into Tyler's lazy smile and sandy curls. Like before, my fingers start to twitch and tingle, as though this island's telling me to put them into the soil.

To distract myself, I pull out a blank notebook from my duffel and jot down my observations about the tiny diamond-like blossoms on the beach and the purple flowering vine that twirled around my ankle this morning. I really need to find a way to get online. I feel so cut off from the world. I think I'm starting to have internet withdrawal symptoms.

I'm struck by another incoming wave of longing and regret. After all of Mom's efforts to protect me, I've cut and run. Sooner rather than later, I'm going to have to tell her where I am. And I'll have to decide how long I want to stay.

The room feels suddenly too small, like the walls are closing in. I throw on a robe and escape to the balcony, where the rising moon has turned the ocean to quicksilver. The main house is dark except for the light that spills from a lone window on the top floor.

A tall figure, silhouetted against a backlit doorway, stands on the terrace. I wonder if I'm also visible from where they stand, because the moment I spot them, the figure slips back inside.

A strange pressure fills my head and makes my forehead tingle just as the light snaps off, the house a hulking mass against the starry sky.

And a soft voice says, Come find me.