“That’s why I asked,” Brooks said. “Because I do not want to know.”
She didn’t want to tell Brooks about Ander—and not just because of the hostility between them. Eureka’s secrecy had to do with her, with how intensely Ander made her feel. Brooks was one of her best friends, but he didn’t know this side of her. She didn’t know this side of her. It wouldn’t go away.
“Eureka.” Brooks tapped a thumb on her lower lip. “What’s up?”
She touched the center of her chest, where her mother’s triangular lapis locket rested. In two days she’d gotten used to its weight around her neck. Brooks reached out and met her fingers on the locket’s face. He held the locket up and thumbed the clasp.
“It doesn’t open.” She tugged it free, not wanting him to break it.
“Sorry.” He flinched, then rolled away onto his back. Eureka eyed the line of muscles on his stomach.
“No, I’m sorry.” She licked her lips. They tasted salty. “It’s just delicate.”
“You still haven’t told me how it went at the lawyer’s,” Brooks said. But he wasn’t looking at her. He was staring up at the sky, where a gray cloud filtered the sun.
“You want to know if I’m a billionaire?” Eureka asked. Her inheritance had left her bewildered and sad, but it was an easier subject than Ander. “Honestly, I’m not quite sure what Diana left me.”
Brooks tugged at some beach grass poking up through the sand. “What do you mean? It looks like a broken locket.”
“She also left me a book in a language no one can read. She left me something called a thunderstone—some ball of archaeological gauze I’m not supposed to unwrap. She wrote a letter that says these things matter. But I’m not an archaeologist; I’m just her daughter. I have no idea what to do with them, and it makes me feel stupid.”
Brooks pivoted on the blanket so that his knees brushed Eureka’s side. “We’re talking about Diana. She loved you. If the heirlooms have a purpose, it’s certainly not to make you feel bad.”
William and Claire had visited the tarp down the shore and found a couple of kids to splash around with. Eureka was grateful for a few moments alone with Brooks. She hadn’t realized how burdened her inheritance had made her feel, how much of a relief it would be to share the burden. She looked out at the bay and pictured her heirlooms flying away like pelicans, not needing her anymore.
“I wish she’d told me about these things while she was alive,” she said. “I didn’t think we had secrets.”
“Your mom was one of the smartest people who ever lived. If she left you a ball of gauze, maybe it’s worth investigating. Think of it as an adventure. That’s what she would do.” He tossed his drained soda can into the picnic basket and took off his straw fedora. “I’m gonna take a dip.”
“Brooks?” She sat up and reached for his hand. When he turned to face her, his hair flopped down over his eyes. She reached to brush it aside. The wound on his forehead was healing; there was just a thin, round scab above his eyes. “Thanks.”
He smiled and stood up, straightening his blue bathing suit, which looked good against his tan skin. “No sweat, Cuttlefish.”
As Brooks walked to the water, Eureka eyed the twins and their new friends. “I’ll wave at you from the breakers,” she called to Brooks, like she always did.
There was a legend about a bayou boy who’d drowned in Vermilion Bay on a late summer afternoon, just before sunset. One minute, he was racing with his brothers, sloshing in the shallow far reaches of the bay; the next—maybe on a dare—he swam past the breakers and was swept out to sea. Accordingly, Eureka had never dared to swim near the red-and-white-buoyed breakers as a kid. Now she knew the story was a lie told by parents to keep their kids scared and safe. Vermilion Bay waves barely qualified as waves. Marsh Island fought the real ones off, like a superhero guarding his home metropolis.