“I’m not sure I can handle any more amazement today.”
“Trust me.” She took my hand and pulled me up. She eased my shirt over my head and let it drop to the sand, and then she moved closer, her hands cupping my breasts. She circled my nipple with her tongue, and I thought I might spark into a million filaments of light too. I kissed her and put my hands under her shirt. Her skin was warm and soft, and I could hardly breathe as I tugged the shirt over her head. Without a word, the two of us stripped off the rest of our clothes until we were standing naked in the slim moonlight at the edge of the water.
“Ten things we can see from here,” she said. “The trees and the water.”
“The highway way up there,” I said. “Headlights passing. The train tracks.”
“That island. A boat. The pier.” She smiled. “You.”
I lifted her hand and kissed it. “You.”
“That’s ten. Come on.” Salix led me in. The cold lapped my feet and I gasped, my body still hot from Salix’s touch. “Look down.” The water around our ankles glowed. “Watch.” She took a few steps deeper, leaving a sparkling wake behind her, and then she dove in.
She was swimming in tendrils of light. I dove in too, and swam out to her, and it never occurred to me—not once—that I’d always been too afraid to swim in the ocean before. I swished my arms and kicked, churning eddies of light all around me. Salix came up behind me and grabbed me and held me, her body pressed against mine. And then I took her hand and we slipped under the water together. I opened my eyes and saw a sea of sparkling stars, and Salix, nearly glowing. The salt stung my eyes, but I kept them open. I didn’t want to look away from all the glimmer against the black.
I wanted to lift the threads of light out of the cold, dark water. I wanted to lock them into a tiny bottle and hold it in the palm of my hand forever. But I couldn’t, and so I held the day instead. This one day. This one shimmering day when everything changed, and everything stayed the same.
Thank you to Christianne’s Lyceum, where my teenage beta readers critiqued an early draft with their usual thoroughness, sharp criticism, and brilliant observations. Those smarty-pants are Aliya Samad, Seemi Ghazi, Henry Richardson, Lynda Prince, Johanna Killas, Marie-France LeRoi, Jamie Fannin, Pippa Rowcliffe, Koshi Hayward, Wendy Sage-Hayward, Katianne Hayward, Brooklyn Higgs, and Darlene Higgs. A special thank-you to the leader of all smarty-pants (even if she only wears dresses), Christianne Hayward, who continues to bring up future authors and writers and thinkers at her Lyceum programs while at the same time supporting all the grown-up artists and writers and thinkers. She is the creative mother to a legion of us. Check out her magic at christiannehayward.com.
Thank you to all the hands that passed me and my manuscript gently around until it landed with Emily Brown at Foundry, who sold the rights in such a spectacular way that a rainbow danced above my head for weeks. Thank you to the delightful Jess Regel at Foundry for all that she does for me and for the larger world of bibliophiles and the writers who enable them. I am thrilled that you are my agent, Jess. Truly.
Thank you to Kelly Delaney at Knopf, who loved Maeve and her story so much that she wanted to bring it out into the world. And with a splash! Kelly is an ace editor who knows exactly what’s going on in the literary universe. I trust her implicitly, which is such a relief.
Thank you to my children, Esmé and Hawk, who don’t mind me wearing earplugs while they wrestle, or jump from the top bunk, or howl at each other while I write.
Never, ever lastly, an infinity of gratitude for my partner, Jack. Simply put, and because she doesn’t like a long ramble, she holds the world together for me and keeps me on it.