I have a flash of a memory, of Rose talking with Gigi in C hall last year. They were laughing about something, I can’t seem to recall what exactly. It doesn’t matter. But it reminds me that they were friends once, in grade school, and perhaps Rose is more upset by what’s happened because it’s happening to Gigi. Someone who she was once so close with. And if it can happen to Gigi, it can happen to her, or to me, even.
The boathouse door opens again and several people spill out, all chatting in low voices. Lola walks out by herself, staring down at her cell phone, probably sending out more text messages about Gigi’s current incarceration inside the boathouse.
“I want to get out of here,” Rose murmurs, and Heath twines his fingers through hers and starts leading her back up the road.
“You’re really okay just leaving that girl gagged and tied to a chair in there?” Bo asks me.
“We don’t have a choice right now.”
“It’s kidnapping and wrongful imprisonment. We could call the cops.”
“But what if they’re right?” I pose. “What if she’s a Swan sister and just killed those two boys?”
“Then the cops will arrest her.”
From the corner of my eye, I see Olivia Greene finally exit the boathouse, her onyx hair shimmering in the light, her skin papery and transparent so that I can see the inhuman thing resting inside. A watery, grayish-white image that flickers and shifts, similar to an old black-and-white film. Never solidifying or taking shape, always liquid—drifting elegantly but cruelly beneath the features of Olivia’s face. The dark, inky eyes of Marguerite flicker out from behind Olivia’s skull and settle on me.
“Let’s go,” I say to Bo, touching his forearm to urge him to follow me. We start back up the road, Rose and Heath a good distance ahead of us, already pushing through the bramble and overgrown brush.
“What’s wrong?” Bo asks, sensing my unease.
But before I can answer, I hear Olivia’s voice cut through the crashing waves and the cawing of seagulls circling over the tide pools on the rocky shore. “Penny Talbot!” she calls.
I try to keep walking, but Bo stops and turns around.
Olivia has already broken away from the group gathered outside the boathouse and is walking toward us.
“Don’t stop,” I hiss to Bo, but he looks at me like I’m not making any sense. He doesn’t realize he’s in danger just by being close to her.
“Leaving already?” Olivia asks, coming to a stop in front of us with a hand planted smugly on her hip, nails still painted a shiny, morbid black. Marguerite has fully embraced this body. It suits her, fits her already vain, indignant personality.
“We’ve seen enough,” I answer, willing Bo not to speak, not to make eye contact with Olivia or allow her to touch him.
“But I haven’t met your new friend,” she says with a vampish grin, her pale blue eyes sliding over Bo like she could devour him. “I’m Olivia Greene,” she lies, holding out her hand. She smells like black licorice.
Bo lifts his arm to shake her hand, but I grab onto his wrist just before they touch and pull it back down. He frowns at me, but I ignore it. “We really have to go,” I say, more to him than to Olivia. And I take a couple steps up the road, hoping he’ll follow.
“Oh, Penny,” Olivia says blithely, moving forward so she’s only a few inches from Bo, her eyes pouring through him. “You can’t keep him all to yourself on that island.” Before I can stop her, she slides her fingers up to his collarbone, holding his gaze steady on hers. And I know he has no choice, he can’t look away. He’s captured in her stare. She leans in close so her face is next to his, her lips hovering against his ear. I can’t make out what she’s saying, but she’s whispering something to him, serpentine words that can’t be undone. Promises and vows, her voice twining around his heart, drawing it forth from his chest, making him want her—crave her. A need that will be planted deep inside him, that won’t be satiated until he sees her again, can feel her skin against his. Her fingertips trail up his neck to his cheekbone, and a fury of emotions spark straight down into my gut. Not just fear but something else: jealousy.
“Bo,” I say sharply, grabbing his arm again, and Olivia releases him from her snare. He blinks, still watching her like she were a goddess formed of silks and sunsets and gold. Like he has never seen anything so perfect or mesmerizing in his entire life. “Bo,” I say again, still holding on to him and trying to snap him from his reverie.
“When you get bored on that island,” Olivia says, winking at him, “when you get bored with her . . . come find me.” Then she spins around, sauntering back to the group.
She touched him. She wove words together against his ear, enticing him. She wants to make him hers for eternity, pull him into the sea and drown him. She is collecting boys, and now she’s dug her delicate, bewitching claws into Bo.
TEN
I start a fire in Bo’s cottage.
I know I shouldn’t trust this feeling, this unraveling in my heart. It will only end up in a tangled heap. But I need to protect him. Watching Olivia run her fingers up his throat, touching the hard line of his jaw, a sickening lump of dread wretched up from my stomach. Don’t let yourself care, I recite in my mind. Boys die all too often in this town. But maybe Marguerite’s words didn’t work, didn’t stick. Maybe he resisted. I just need to keep him safe until the summer solstice, keep him from wandering out into the sea in search of her, and then he will leave the island and this town, and we’ll never see each other again. Simple. Uncomplicated.
I stand up once the flames have ignited over the logs, sending sparks in a cyclone up the chimney. Bo is sitting on the couch, elbows on his knees, forehead pressed into his palms.
“What did Olivia whisper to you?” I ask, sitting down beside him.
He drops his hands, forehead lined with confusion. “I don’t know.”
“Do you remember anything?”
His thumb taps against the side of his knee. “I remember her.” His eyes lift, staring into the fire. I don’t think I want to hear what he remembers about her, but he tells me anyway. “She was so close, it was like her voice was inside my head. And she was . . . beautiful.” He swallows immediately after he says it, like he can’t believe his own words.
I push up from the couch and cross my arms beside the fire.
“I can’t stop thinking about her,” he adds, shaking his head, squinting like he could squeeze her from his mind. But it’s not that easy.
“That’s how it works,” I say, bending down to put another log on the growing flames.
He stares up at me. “You think she’s one of them?”
“I know you don’t believe any of this, but how can you explain that you can’t remember what she said to you? And that you can’t stop thinking about her; that you’re suddenly so captivated by her?”