“It does, I’m afraid.” Now I see he’s fighting tears. He doesn’t want me to see him cry. He unhooks his boat from the dock and jumps onto the deck.
I venture out after him. The dock moves to and fro beneath me. “I look like someone you had feelings for. Who was she?”
“Let’s talk when I get back. I gotta sell some fish.” He points down to a cooler on the deck, then toward the steep wooden steps. “I live up there, but don’t take the steps like I did. Those stairs are rotting. Take the driveway.”
“When?” I say. “When should I visit you?”
“When I get back,” he says.
“When will that be?”
“Couple of days.”
The engine roars to life as he steers away from the shore.
“You’re always leaving!” I yell.
The boat takes off into the distance, bobbing on the waves. Only when he has disappeared around the curve of the bluff do I realize I’ve been making fists, my fingernails digging into the palms of my hands.
By the time I get back to the house, my feet are soaked, and my teeth are chattering. Jacob is reading on the couch, mug in hand.
“Did they have coffee at the mercantile?” I say.
“New shipment,” he says. “What took you so long?”
I peel off my wet boots and socks and stand with my back to the woodstove, absorbing the warmth of the fire. “I met a man on the beach, a couple of miles down.”
“What man?” He looks over his reading glasses at me.
“He said his name was Doug.”
“Don’t know him.”
“He was strange.”
“The island attracts recluses. Don’t walk down that far without me.”
“He mistook me for someone else.”
Jacob looks at me intently now, suddenly interested. “Did he say who it was? Who is this guy?”
“I have no idea. He took off in his boat. I saw him in town, too. Same deal.”
Jacob puts on his reading glasses again, turns the page in his book. “He’s probably bonkers. Quite a few like him around here. Who knows what he could do?”
I turn to warm my hands over the stove. The man’s words echo in my mind. You should leave him. Go, right now. But I don’t know him, and when he took a closer look, he claimed not to know me, either. Yet I can’t help but feel a connection to him, an echo as if we knew each other before. Perhaps we did, and neither of us remembers.
“I’m going to ride into town,” I say. If I hurry, I might catch Doug’s boat coming around to dock in the harbor. I’m not exactly sure why I want to catch up with him—whether it’s more about his mysterious history, or to find out if he’s connected to mine.
“I’ll drive you,” Jacob says.
“No, no, enjoy your book. I’ll take my bike again.”
All the way into town, the old man’s voice plays through my head. You should leave him. Go, right now. To whom did he think he was speaking? The landscape unrolls ahead of me, the air moist with salt and the sea. I pedal past the library, the post office, and the mercantile. At the dock, the mossy sign reads, Mystic Island Ferry, No Service Sunday and Monday. There’s a list of low-tide cancellations, and a note, subject to change based on weather conditions. I take off the helmet and walk my bike around the landing. Doug and his boat do not appear. But he was heading this way. He must’ve turned out to sea.
“Ferry’s late today,” a soft voice says behind me. The smell of cigarette smoke wafts through the air. I turn to see a young woman in a heavy white sweater, standing nearby in threadbare running shoes and jeans. She smokes, one hand across her waist, tucked beneath her right elbow. She holds the cigarette away from her to flick off the ash.
“How do you know?” I say.
She taps her cigarette, then crushes the ash into the dirt with the heel of her worn shoe. “Radio. I’m guessing low tide. Engine breakdown. Or somebody jumped.” She blows a plume of smoke behind her.
“I hope nobody jumped.”
“Happens more often than you would think.” She takes another puff. “People disappear around here. Might as well jump from somewhere. People jump from cliffs here sometimes, too.”
“Like the one out at Windy Reef Park?”
“But you don’t wanna jump or nothin’. You’re not, like, depressed?”
“Me? No. But I appreciate your concern.”
“Hey, I had to ask. ’Cause, like, you weren’t so happy before. You feeling better?”
“I’m feeling a lot better, yes.” My fingers tighten on the handlebars. “Do I know you?” I don’t recall anything about her. Her memory of me feels creepy, as if she has been watching me through one-way glass.
She gives me a curious look, her nose wrinkling. “Yeah, you know me. Rachel Spignola. And you’re Kyra Winthrop. But . . . Oh yeah!” She snaps her fingers. “You forget stuff. My mom told me what happened to you.”
“Word gets around fast.”
“I know, right? I moved away for a while, came back six months ago, and everyone knew in, like, two seconds. I’m staying with my mom. She owns the mercantile. I’m helping her out. Me and my boyfriend were living in Friday Harbor but we broke up.”