Audra caught her bottom lip between her teeth as people began to surface from behind red nylon. They reminded her of circus clowns piling out of a tiny car, one after the other, a seemingly endless stream. The second tent remained zipped against the cold.
Deacon introduced his family one by one. There was Noah, who had the biggest eyes Audra had ever seen, larger than a pair of blue Jupiters. The three girls who had previously made Shadow’s acquaintance were Lily, Robin, and Sunnie with an ie. Lily was tall, slender, and regal with her milk-white skin, which looked impossibly pale next to her blazing red hair. Robin was more of a girl-next-door, and Sunnie looked so young Audra pegged her to be fifteen at the absolute oldest. Her hair looked as though she’d chopped it short with a pair of dull kitchen shears. Kenzie was hyperkinetic, unable to stand still for more than a few seconds. And while Audra assumed it was just his personality, she couldn’t help but wonder if he had some sort of disorder. It was possible he was coming off a bad trip. They certainly struck her as hippies, a throwback to the love fest of the sixties, complete with tabs of acid and daisies woven through their hair.
But counting Deacon, that was only six who had come out of a single tent. That meant three people remained in the second, and it didn’t look as though they had any intention of introducing themselves anytime soon. Deacon noticed Audra counting heads and gave the second tent a nod.
“Gypsy and Clover keep to themselves,” he explained. “But you’ll meet them soon enough. And then there’s Jeff . . .” The entire group seemed to coo when Deacon uttered the name.
“The angel,” Lily murmured through wind-whipped hair.
“He’s our protector,” Sunnie said, her young face wistful, as though the mere thought of their absentee leader insulated her from the chill.
Audra pinched her eyebrows together and took a single step back. It was probably nothing, but she couldn’t help her rising discomfort just the same. The girls looked distant, as though their very thoughts were far away. Noah’s wide eyes gave her the creeps. He was staring at her, his expression vacant despite the smile on his face. Kenzie bounced from foot to foot, frenetic. For half a second she was sure he was going to make a break for her, his arms outstretched, his eyes wide and glazed over like something out of a George Romero flick. Looping her fingers beneath Shadow’s collar, she gave Deacon an apologetic shrug.
“So, um . . . I’ve got to go,” she told him. “It was nice meeting you all.”
“I’ll walk with you,” Deacon told her. She wanted to go alone, to leave them all behind if only to regain her bearings. But she couldn’t very well deny Deacon’s offer. There was something off about the others, something that made her skin crawl. Their talk of angels and protectors was off-putting. But Deacon still struck her as cool. He was, after all, the reason she had bundled up and battled the cold all on her own, and there was something to be said for that. He had managed to get Audra out of the house without even asking while, after two years of friendship, Maggie still had to beg.
They didn’t speak for a long while, walking shoulder to shoulder along the beach with Shadow ahead of them. But just when she was sure their walk would be a silent one, Deacon said:
“Do you live alone?”
She blinked at the question.
“Um . . .” Hesitation. She considered lying, if only to not appear as vulnerable as she truly was.
“It’s all right,” he said. “We all need to be alone at points in our lives. Silence leads to self-discovery. Are you spiritual, Audra?”
That was the last thing she had expected him to ask. “I don’t attend church,” she said, “if that’s what you mean.”
Deacon laughed and shook his head. “Let me guess: someone forced you to fill a pew when you were a kid?”
“Yeah, something like that.” It was true. All throughout her childhood, her mother had a thing for dragging her out of bed on Sunday mornings. And yet Audra didn’t think of her parents as religious people. The older she grew, the clearer it became: church was for keeping up appearances. Those frilly pink dresses she’d been stuffed into certainly hadn’t been for her benefit.
“Seems like that’s the case for almost everyone,” he said. “But church doesn’t equal faith, you know. The faithful don’t need to be herded beneath steeples to believe. Fire and brimstone is a motivator for those who stray from the path, like children who can’t stay in line. Priests and pastors slap hands out of cookie jars and threaten you with eternal damnation. If you need that to be faithful . . . then your faith is weak.”
“But you need to believe in something to have faith,” she said. “Right?”
“Is that to say you believe in nothing?” he asked. “Surely that can’t be true.”
Audra didn’t respond. Rather, she ducked her head against the cold and focused on the sand beneath her feet. She wasn’t sure she believed in anything but her own solitude, a belief she’d come to terms with before her fourteenth birthday. Two suicide attempts and a mother’s lack of sympathy had been enough to convince her that, one day, she’d die and would be alone when it happened. No purpose. No lasting impact. She’d be the girl nobody had heard from. It would be weeks before someone found her decomposing corpse. Sometimes she wondered who her discoverer would be, hoping it wouldn’t be Maggie with Eloise poised on her hip. Maybe it would be the mailman, fed up with her overstuffed mailbox. Or someone come from the electric company looking to collect. Maybe it would be her father, finally forced back to Pier Pointe after not hearing from her for half a year. Or maybe it would be a pair of Girl Scouts hoping to sell a few boxes of Thin Mints or Do-si-dos.