*
Today is the annual Swan Festival in town.
Balloons bounce and swerve across the skyline. Children squeal for shaved ice and saltwater taffy. A red-and-yellow banner stretches across Ocean Avenue announcing the festival, with cartoon cobwebs and full moons and owls printed at the corners.
It’s the busiest day of the year—when people drive in from neighboring towns up and down the coast or board buses that shuttle them into Sparrow early in the morning, then haul them back out in the evening. Each year attendance grows, and this year the town feels close to bursting.
Ocean Avenue has been closed off to traffic and is lined with booths and stands selling all manner of both witchy and unwitchy items: wind chimes and wind socks and local boysenberry jam. There is a beer garden selling old-style craft beers in large steins, a woman dressed as a Swan sister reading palms, and even a booth selling perfumes claiming to be some of the original fragrances the sisters once sold at their perfumery—although everyone in Sparrow knows they aren’t authentic. Much of the crowd is dressed for the period in high-waisted gowns with ruffles at the sleeves and low necklines. Later tonight, at the stage set up near the pier, there will be a reenactment of the day the sisters were found guilty and drowned—an event I avoid each year. I can’t bear to watch it. I can’t stand the spectacle it’s become.
I push through the crowds, winding my way up Ocean Avenue. I keep my head down. I don’t want to be seen by Davis or Lon—I don’t need an interrogation from them right now. I leave town and the bustle of the festival, reaching the road that winds through the brambles to the boathouse. There’s no way to access it except from this road; I don’t have a choice but to walk straight down it.
Seagulls turn and spiral overhead like vultures waiting for death, sensing it.
When the road widens and the ocean comes into view, flat and glittery, the boathouse seems small and plain, more sunken into the earth than it did yesterday. Lon is sitting on a stump against the right side of the boathouse. At first I think he’s staring up at the sky, soaking up the sun, but as I inch closer I realize he’s asleep, his head canted back against the outer wall. He’s probably been out here all night guarding Gigi, one leg stretched out in front of him, arms hanging limp at his sides, jaw hung slightly open. He’s wearing one of his stupid floral-print shirts, teal with purple flowers, and if it weren’t for the dreary backdrop he’d almost look like he was on a tropical beach somewhere, working on his nonexistent tan.
I move quietly, careful not to step on a twig or dried leaf that might give me away, and when I reach the boathouse, I pause to look down at Lon. For a brief moment, I think maybe he’s not breathing, but then I see his chest rise and his throat swallow.
The wood door isn’t locked, and I push it easily inward.
Gigi is still sitting in the white plastic chair, arms tied, chin to chest like she’s sleeping. But her eyes are open, and she slides them up to meet mine as soon as I step inside.
I walk toward her and pull the gag out of her mouth then take a swift step back.
“What are you doing here?” she asks, lifting her chin, her cropped blond hair falling back from her face. She stares at me through her lashes, and her tone is not sweet, but low, almost guttural. The waspy, flickering outline of Aurora shifts lazily beneath her skin. But her emerald-green eyes, the same inherited color of each Swan sister, blink serpent-like out at me.
“I’m not here to save you, if that’s what you think,” I tell her, keeping my distance back from the white chair that has become her cage.
“Then what do you want?”
“You killed those two boys they pulled from the harbor, didn’t you?” She eyes me like she’s trying to understand the real motivation behind my question. What purpose I have for asking it.
“Maybe.” Her lips tug at the edges. She’s holding back a smile—she finds this amusing.
“I doubt it was Marguerite.” At this her eyes broaden to perfect orbs. “Only you would drown two boys at once.”
She shifts her jawbone side to side then wriggles her fingers like she’s trying to stretch them, her wrists confined by zip ties. The lime-green polish on her fingernails is starting to chip, and her hands look waterlogged and pale. “You came here just to accuse me of killing those boys?” she asks.
I stare through her sheer exterior, beyond Gigi, finding the monster inside her—meeting Aurora’s gaze. And she knows it. Knows I’m looking at the real her.
Her expression changes. She grins, revealing Gigi’s bleached white and perfectly aligned teeth. “You want something,” she says pointedly.
I take a deep breath. What do I want? I want her to stop. Stop killing. Stop seeking revenge. Stop this vicious game she’s been playing for too long. I’m a fool to believe she would listen to me. Hear my words. But I try anyway. For Bo. For me. “Stop this,” I finally say.
“Stop?” Her tongue pushes against the inside of her cheek, and she examines me through lowered eyelashes.
“Stop drowning boys.”
“I can’t do much drowning tied up in here, can I?” She sucks in a long breath through her nostrils, and I’m surprised when she doesn’t grimace—the boathouse smells fouler than I remember. Her eyes narrow. “If you untie me, then perhaps we can discuss this little idea of yours.”
I examine the zip ties around her wrists and ankles. A quick yank, and I might be able to break them free. If I had a knife, I could easily slice through the plastic. But I won’t do that. I won’t set her loose on Sparrow again.
I shake my head. “I can’t.”
“You don’t trust me?” She doesn’t even try to hide the wicked curl of her upper lip or the playful arch of her left eyebrow. She knows I don’t trust her—why would I? “?‘Trust’ is an irrelevant word anyway,” she sneers when I don’t respond. “Merely a lie we tell each other. I’ve learned not to trust anyone—a symptom of two centuries of existence. You have the time to consider such things.” She tilts her head, looking at me from the side. “I wonder who you trust? Who you would trust with your life?”
I stare at the thing beneath Gigi’s skin, eyes milky white and watching me.
“Who would you trust with yours?” I counter.
This forces a laugh from deep within her gut, eyes watering. I take a step back. Then her laughter stops, blond hair sliding forward to cover part of her face. Her arms stiffen against her restraints and her real eyes cut through me. Her mouth twists into a snarl. “No one.”
The door behind me suddenly bangs open and Lon bursts into the room. “What the fuck are you doing in here?” His eyes are huge.
I glance from Gigi back to him. “Just asking her a couple questions.”
“No one’s allowed in here. She’ll trick you into letting her go.”