Bree sat on the edge of Heath’s bed and put a palm to his brow. He was sticky. “Heath?” He stirred, shivered. “Heath, I brought you medicine.”
His eyelids fluttered open. The pain registered on his face almost immediately.
“Try to sit up. You have to drink it all.”
She helped him upright in the bed, the boy coughing and heaving all the while. He was paler than Bree had ever seen him, and he looked almost half his ten years. She placed the bowl in his hands and, with hers cupping them, helped lift it to his lips.
“Drink?”
He sipped cautiously, and instantly gagged.
“It’s bad, I know. But you have to keep drinking.”
Heath muttered and whimpered and some of the rust-red liquid ran down his neck as Bree urged him on. It felt like an entire afternoon had passed by the time the bowl was drained.
“Better? Good?”
He stared at her, looking half dead, then slumped forward in a heap.
“Heath?”
Bree rolled him over. He was out, but breathing—drained by the effort of drinking, or perhaps the medicine was already working through his system.
By tomorrow, the fever should break.
There was nothing to do but wait and hope.
NINE
LOCK’S LAST FULL NIGHT UNFOLDED with clear skies and an eerie stillness that spread over the island like the heat wave that refused to break. The loons did not cry as dusk fell. Not even the leaves whispered from their branches; there was no breeze to move them. An exhale could be heard, Bree thought, for the ocean herself seemed quieter tonight.
Heath was recovering. Or maybe just sleeping. Maybe slowly dying. Bree didn’t want to think about it. Lock still didn’t know about the heron blood, and Bree intended to keep it that way. Let him wake on his final morning to find his brother well. Let his last hours be ones of relief and gratitude to learn that Heath would carry on and that Bree had made it possible.
Lock walked through the doorway then, silent as a heron, and sat on the edge of Heath’s bed. Still pretending to be asleep, Bree listened.
“Hey, little man,” Lock said, and Bree imagined him putting a hand to his brother’s shoulder. “Once you get better—and you will get better—I need you to take care of Ma and Bree, okay?”
A pause.
“I’m sorry I’m going to miss it alclass="underline" you getting well, turning thirteen in a few years, becoming a man. Not a little man anymore but a big one. I hope you’ll be better at it than me. It shouldn’t be hard. I’m not much of anything but a liar and a coward, and you already smile twice as much as I do, even with how much unfairness life shook on your plate.”
Bree heard the mattress crinkle as Lock repositioned himself, or maybe stood. Heath’s breathing was a wheeze as he slept.
“I love you, kid. And I hate that I have to leave.”
He still had another morning, though, another full day to say all this in person. Why now, in the quiet of night? Did he think Heath wouldn’t make it through the evening? Were his words about getting well just another lie?
“Bree? Are you awake?” She flinched when his hand met her shoulder.
“I am now,” she said.
“Will you walk with me? I can’t sleep.”
You actually have to lie down and try first, Bree thought. Bedside confessions to your brother after rolling around in the weeds with someone doesn’t count. But she fished her sandals from the floor in silence, and crept after Lock.
He said nothing as he led the way across town and down the sloping rock to the shore. The tide was out, making the climb onto the jetty easy and dry beneath the light of the moon. They sat, Bree keeping a good distance between their shoulders.
“So you couldn’t sleep?” she asked when she could no longer stand the silence.
“Been sitting out here on the jetty, hoping to get tired.”
No girls tonight, then. Bree stared at Lock’s profile, trying to guess what he was thinking. There was a bump on his nose that hadn’t healed properly from a break, and a heaviness to his chin she hadn’t noticed before. Like it weighed too much for him to lift away from his chest.
“Is it Heath, or your birthday?” she asked.
“Both.”
“It’s going to be okay.”
He twisted to face her. “Don’t lie to me, Bree. I can handle everyone else doing it, but not you.”
“It might be okay,” she said.
The corner of his lips twitched. “See why it’s better to not say anything?” Lock planted his left hand on the rock behind Bree’s hip and pivoted toward her. The space between them seemed instantly minuscule. He was looking at her lips the way he had the other day at the lake. There were minnows in Bree’s stomach again, but also a hook in her ribs, urging her to lean away. Lock had all but closed the space between them when Bree dropped her chin.
He frowned. “I thought you wanted this. You said you did yesterday, and now . . . ?” He looked so truly confused Bree didn’t know whether she should feel sorry for him or drown him in the shallows. “I’m scared, Bree. For tomorrow night. For what’s waiting for me.”
He leaned toward her again, and Bree shoved him off.
“I don’t care if you’re scared! I don’t even care if you’re sorry. I wanted you, Lock.”
“You had me.”
“And I wanted you to want me back.”
He squinted at her. “I do want you back. Why else would I be trying to kiss you?”
“And Ness? Last night? What am I supposed to think about that?”
“It was just Ness.”
“Just Ness! Just . . .” Words bottlenecked in Bree’s throat. “I wanted it to be just me. I wanted to be your only girl.”
“It was always you, Bree. You’re the one I cared about, and so I never tried to show it. And I certainly didn’t act on it—not until yesterday—because I always knew it would get messed up. I’d ruin it. Saltwater would. That’s just how things are. What guy do you know who lays with only one person?”
“That’s not the point, Lock.”
“Tell me I’m wrong. Give me a name. What guy doesn’t have his girls?”
Bree bit the inside of her cheek. She couldn’t think of a single example. It was likely that even her father had drifted.
“Just because everyone else does things one way doesn’t mean you have to,” Bree said. “There’s no rule. You could tell them no. Keeva didn’t order you to go roll around with Ness, did she?”
Lock looked away, and Bree honestly considered shoving him off the jetty.
“I’m an idiot, and clearly you’re an even bigger one. It’s a good thing your birthday’s coming, because you’re right, Lock. You did ruin it. You ruined everything, and the thought of you sticking around, of having to share a roof with you for the rest of my life—it’s enough to make me wish I was guaranteed a Snatching, too.”
“You don’t mean that,” he said.
She didn’t. She hated what he’d done, but she didn’t hate him. She might even still love him, and she hated that most of all. How could she love him after everything?
We don’t choose who we love, her mother had once said. Love sweeps you off your feet like a riptide, and leaves you blind by the time you find your footing on the shore.
“I’m thinking of chasing the horizon,” Lock said, aiming his words at the waves.
“You can’t be serious.”
When he didn’t respond, Bree noticed his gaze drifting in the direction of his boat. She’d helped him carve it from a trunk several years back, sanding the contours of the hull, perfecting the form and float. He’d won a few friendly races in that boat over the years. It cut through currents like a spear.