Her lurid gaze settles on me, not Olivia’s—Olivia is gone—but Marguerite’s, and then she smiles faintly at me as they stride past.
I feel briefly paralyzed. My upper lip twitches. They continue down the pier, Lola chatting about something that my ears can’t seem to focus on, oblivious that her best friend is no longer her best friend. Just before they reach the Chowder, I glance over my shoulder at them. Olivia’s hair swings effortlessly over her shoulders and down her back. “You all right?” Bo asks, turning to look at Olivia and Lola.
“We need to get back to the island,” I say, spinning back around. “It’s not safe here.”
Marguerite has found a host in the body of Olivia Greene. And Marguerite is always the first to make a kill. Gregory Dunn was hers. The drowning season has started.
PERFUMERY
The Swan sisters might have dabbled in witchcraft in the years before they arrived in Sparrow—an occasional hex or potion to detour jealous wives or bad spirits—but they certainly wouldn’t call themselves witches, as the people of Sparrow had accused.
They were businesswomen, shop owners, and when they arrived in Sparrow two centuries ago, they brought with them an array of exotic scents to be crafted into delicate perfumes and fragrant balms. At first the women in town gathered together inside the Swan Perfumery, swooning over scents that reminded them of the civilized world. They purchased small glass bottles of rose water and honey, lemongrass and gardenia. All perfectly blended, subtle and intricate.
It wasn’t until Marguerite, the oldest of the sisters at nineteen, was caught in bed with a ship’s captain, that everything began to crumble. The sisters couldn’t be blamed. It wasn’t witchcraft that seduced the men of Sparrow—it was something much simpler. The Swan sisters had a charm that was born into their blood, like their mother: Men could not resist the softness of their skin or the gleam of their aquamarine eyes.
Love came easily and often for them. While Marguerite liked older men with money and power, Aurora fell for boys who others said couldn’t be seduced—she liked a challenge, typically falling for more than one boy at a time. Hazel was more particular. Precise. She didn’t delight in the affection of numerous men, like her sisters, yet they adored her anyway, a trail of heartbroken boys often left in her wake.
The sisters brought about their fate like someone stumbling into a poison ivy bush in the dark, unaware of the consequences that would befall them by morning.
SEVEN
For three awful weeks, tourists and locals will accuse nearly every girl of being a Swan sister. Any offense, any deviation in behavior—a sudden interest in boys they used to despise, spending too many nights out late, a twitch or flick of an eye that seems out of place—will make you a suspect.
But I know who the sisters really are.
Heath gives us a ride across the harbor, and when we reach the island, we all say a swift good-bye, and then Heath chugs back to town.
Bo and I don’t speak as we walk up the path, until we reach the place where the walkway splits. A mound of old buoys and crab pots that have washed ashore over the years sit just to the left of the walkway. A decomposing heap. A reminder that this place has more death than life.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “We never should have gone out there.” I’m used to the gruesome shock of death, but Bo isn’t. And I’m sure he’s starting to consider leaving this place as soon as possible. And I wouldn’t blame him if he did.
“It wasn’t your fault.” His eyelashes lower, and he kicks a pebble from the walkway. It lands in a patch of yellow grass and vanishes.
“You should get some sleep.” We’ve both been awake all night, and the delirium of exhaustion is starting to feel like a freight train clamoring back and forth between my ears.
He nods, removes his hands from his coat pockets, and heads up the path to Anchor Cottage. He doesn’t even say good-bye.
I won’t be surprised if he starts packing as soon as he gets back to the cottage.
Mom is already awake and listening to the radio in the kitchen when I walk through the back door. It’s a local station that announces storm warnings and tide reports, and today the host, Buddy Kogens, is talking about the body that authorities pulled from the water early this morning.
“This town is black with death,” she says morosely, facing the kitchen sink, her hands gripping the white tile edge. “It’s saturated with it.” I don’t answer her. I’m too tired. So I slip out into the hall and upstairs to my bedroom. From the window, I see Bo moving up the path, almost to Anchor Cottage near the center of the island. His gait is slow and deliberate. He looks back once, as if he feels me watching him, and I duck back from the window.
Something nags at me. I just can’t put my finger on it.
*
The afternoon sky shatters apart, revealing a swath of milky blue.
Last night we found Gregory Dunn’s body in the harbor.
This morning we watched the sunrise from the pier as his body was brought ashore.
Day one of the Swan season: one boy dead.
I slip from bed, rubbing my eyes, still groggy even though the sun has been up for hours, and dress in an old pair of faded jeans and a navy-blue sweater. I take my time. I stand at the dresser, not meeting my own gaze in the mirror on the wall, running my fingers over a meager collection of things. A bottle of old perfume—Mom’s—which I bring to my nose. The vanilla scent has turned sharp and musty, taken on the tinge of alcohol. There’s a silver dish filled with pebbles gathered from the shore: aqua and coral and emerald green. Two candles sit at one corner of the dresser, the wicks hardly burned down. And hanging by a length of yellow ribbon from the top of the mirror is a triangle piece of glass with flowers pressed between it. I can’t dredge up the memory of where it came from. A birthday gift, maybe? Something Rose gave me? I stare at it, the small pink flowers flattened and dried, preserved for eternity.
I turn and lean against the dresser, taking stock of the room. Sparse and tidy. White walls. White everything. Clean. No bright colors anywhere. My room says little about me. Or maybe it says it all. A room easily abandoned. Left behind with hardly a hint that a girl ever lived here at all.
Mom is not in the house. The floorboards groan as I walk down the stairs into the kitchen. A plate of freshly baked orange muffins sits on the table. That’s two mornings in a row she’s made breakfast. The two mornings that Bo’s been on the island. She can’t help herself, she won’t let a stranger starve, even though she’d easily let herself or me go hungry. Old habits. The social decorum of a small town—feed anyone who comes to visit.
I grab two muffins then head out onto the front porch.