“Don’t you want something from me?” he asked.
Barely down the steps, I stumbled, then righted myself. His voice was a whisper. It slipped into my ear, twisting through my head. All good days, no bad weather, I thought. I pressed my lips together to keep that wish from getting out. To answer him, I shook my head.
He didn’t follow. He didn’t even reach for me. The dark smudges of his eyes were wells of sadness, an uncontained grief spilling over. That made his smile, faint as it was, frightening. “Go if you must.”
The path through the trees opened as I bolted for them. I didn’t know what I was running from. The island or myself; a bad dream. A bad trip. But not him, because somehow, my skin and bones both knew he wouldn’t follow. As I tripped and stumbled my way through the brush, I clapped a hand over my mouth.
I was afraid I would talk out loud. Ask for magic. Beg for that good season, and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to stop myself. If he was real, he would hear.
The panic in my head howled, screaming rules for superstition at me. Genies took your wishes the worst kind of literal. Faeries were monsters; I needed a piece of iron. I needed to get myself together.
When the tree line opened to the shore, I skidded on the stones. My tennis shoes were slick, and I hit the ground hard. Lungs clamping down, I lay there, hurting, not breathing. The ground was so cold, the stones sharp. When I pushed onto hands and knees, a warm ribbon of blood flowed down my arm. Shivering, I raised my head.
There, in the parted mist, was the boat. Waiting for me. No mistake about it. My name flickered on the stern, kissed by cold October seas. I stood and looked back. The fog had filled in behind me. It was a wall, grey and impenetrable. If he was watching me, I’d never know.
Except I did know. I felt it. I felt him, a nagging sensation, like a stone in my shoe. Squeezing my eyes closed, I stepped into the boat and prayed all the way home.
My phone was burning up. As soon as I set foot on the mainland, it chirped for about a minute straight.
Texts popped up one after the other, and a missed call. Where are you? Are you there? Hey! Are you ignoring me? Those were from Bailey, and then two from Seth that both said, Are you there? Missed call, missed call, then my mom all in caps: COME HOME RIGHT NOW.
The fog had burned off enough that I could. Haze hung like banners between the houses, but the streets were clear again. My phone said it was almost six, but that didn’t seem possible. I wasn’t gone that long. I wasn’t even gone long enough for a cup of cocoa.
Shadows stretched long and crept around corners, and as I hiked it toward home, lights went on all down the street.
They glowed in the mist, some sherbet orange, others sick green. Had to do with the insides of the bulbs, Mom said, the gas they pumped into them. But to me, it looked like a swaying string of faery lights.
My front porch glowed silver, a white light pure and diffuse. I didn’t dig for my key. Nobody in Broken Tooth locked their doors. Pushing the door open slowly, I hoped for an empty living room. Maybe they went to dinner. To the police station. To the movies.
No such luck. My mother shot off the couch, all but dragging me inside. “Oh, look at this. You just stroll in like how-you-do! Where have you been, Willa?”
“Milbridge,” I said. The lie came out easy. “There’s a boat for sale . . .”
“And you couldn’t call us?”
“No signal.”
Mom’s eyes widened. She stepped back, raking me with a look. Dark circles ringed her eyes, and her mouth was pale and tight. “Is that blood?”
Automatically, I clapped a hand over the cut on my arm. “I fell. It’s nothing.”
“Where were you really, Willa?”
Ducking my head, I tried to push past her. “I told you, Milbridge.”
When Mom grabbed my elbow, her hands were cold and rough. They could be gentle; she was about the best in the world when you were sick. Knew when to pet you and when to leave you alone. Most people don’t get that balance down.
Right then, though, she was mad. Hauling me into the kitchen, she let go when her feet hit linoleum. Snatching an envelope from the counter, she turned and shoved it at me. When I opened it, a fan of papers unfurled. They smelled like a stranger’s cologne.
“That’s your summons,” Mom said, reaching for the phone on the wall. “They’re going to serve you at school tomorrow, and you’d better be there.”
My fingers trembled as I unfolded the papers. I didn’t understand the way it was written out. There were TOs and FROMs and REGARDINGs, but the title made it pretty clear. I had a court date so they could take my fishing license. Even though I’d known it was coming, it felt like a blow.
Slumping against the wall, I flipped through the pages. The gist was all there. I was accused of cutting off Terry Coyne’s gear, and I had to appear. My date was before his. I had to go to court before he did.
That’s how it was, huh? Everything moved real fast for cut-off lobster gear. But if you walked out of shadows and fog and shot somebody, you got to lollygag around town, turned out on bail. For months. Maybe forever. I hated him so much.
“Your father’s been out looking for you in this. And now he’s not answering his phone.”
“Sorry,” I said.
Mom pulled a hand through her hair, then twisted it tight. It smoothed the lines from her forehead but opened her eyes too wide. The whites ringed the irises. She was a deviled version of my mother, brittle and frightening. Swollen with a held breath, she exhaled in a rush. “This family is falling apart.”
I stood there, stuffing the summons into its envelope again. She wasn’t wrong, and I didn’t know how to fix it. If it even could be fixed. Time wasn’t going to go backwards. Levi wasn’t going to come home. Everything broke at that seam.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and I was.
“You don’t want to hear it,” Mom said, turning away from me. She watched my reflection in the window, meeting my eyes exactly in the glass. “Your dad doesn’t either. But I think you ought to own up to the judge.”
I managed a wounded sound, but Mom talked over me.
“The fine’s not that much, and three years isn’t that long.” Bracing her hands on the counter, she stretched between them. “You heard that prosecutor. Bringing up a gear war like she knows something. I can’t have her talking crazy in front of a jury. They won’t do their job.”
Cold realization wormed through me. I folded the summons and pressed it flat against my chest. “Ma . . .”
She turned. “If you don’t fight it, if they know you already did the right thing . . .”
“How is it even gonna come up?”
“If this gets to trial, you don’t just sit up there and answer the prosecutor. That man’s lawyer gets a bite, too. He gets to ask you whatever he wants—no, shut up. You just listen this time, Willa.”
Closing my mouth, I steeled myself. Mom pushed herself off the counter and caught my chin between her fingers. We were the same height, so when she studied me, I saw every light and angle in her eyes. She turned surgical, talking to me like a police dispatcher instead of a mother. It wasn’t cold, it was precise.
“When you get up there, you need to be broken. They’ve got to see you doing penance. I don’t want one mainlander on that jury thinking, Well, what Terry Coyne did was a crime, but what she did was a sin.”
It could happen. It had happened on Matinicus, just a couple of years ago. If I went to court and fought the citation, I might keep my license. They knew I worked the Jenn-a-Lo with my dad; they knew we couldn’t afford to lose the rest of the crew.