had a flashlight, but I didn’t need it as I walked along the skinny boardwalk between two of the front-row houses to reach our old cottage. The bottom step used to sit on the sand, but now it was up to my waist. I moved the cinder block from behind one of the pilings into place below the steps, stood on top of it, then boosted myself onto the bottom step and climbed up to the deck. A long board nailed across the front door read Condemned, and I could just manage to squeeze my key beneath it into the lock. Mom was a pack rat, and I found the key in her desk drawer two years earlier, when I first decided to go to the cottage. I ducked below the sign and walked into the living room, my sandals grinding on the gritty floor.
I knew the inside of the cottage as well as I knew our house on Stump Sound. I walked through the dark living room to the kitchen, dodging some of our old furniture, which had been too ratty and disgusting to save even ten years ago. I turned on my flashlight and put it on the counter so the light hit the cabinet above the stove. I opened the cabinet, which was empty except for a plastic bag of marijuana, a few rolled joints and some boxes of matches. My hands shook as I lit one of the joints, breathing the smoke deep into my lungs. I held my breath until the top of my head tingled. I craved that out-of-body feeling tonight.
Opening the back door, I was slammed by the roar of the waves. My hair was long and way too wavy and it sucked moisture from the air like a sponge. It blew all over the place and I tucked it beneath the collar of my jacket as I stepped onto the narrow deck. I used to take a shower when I got home from the cottage, the way some kids showered to wash away the scent of cigarettes. I thought Mom would take one sniff and know where I’d been. I deserved to feel guilty, because it wasn’t just the hope of being with Daddy that drew me to the cottage. I wasn’t all that innocent.
I sat on the edge of the deck, my legs dangling in the air, and stared out at the long sliver of moonlight on the water. I rested my elbows on the lower rung of the railing. Saltwater mist wet my cheeks, and when I licked my lips, I tasted my childhood.
I took another hit from the joint and tried to still my mind.
When I was fifteen, I got my level-one driver’s license and was allowed to drive with an adult in the car. One night I had this crazy urge to go to the cottage. I couldn’t say why, but one minute, I was studying for a history exam, and the next I was sneaking out the front door while Mom and Andy slept. There was no moon at all that night and I was scared shitless. It was December and dark and I barely knew how to steer, much less use the gas and the brake, but I made it the seven miles to the cottage. I sat on the deck, shivering with the cold. That was the first time I felt Daddy. He was right next to me, rising up from the sea in a cloud of mist, wrapping his arms around me so tightly that I felt warm enough to take off my sweater. I cried from the joy of having him close. I wasn’t crazy. I didn’t believe in ghosts or premonitions or even in heaven and hell. But I believed Daddy was there in a way I can’t explain. I just knew it was true.
I felt like Daddy was with me a couple more times since then, but tonight I had trouble stilling my mind enough to let him in. I read on the Internet about making contact with people who’d died. Every Web site had different advice, but they all said that stilling your mind was the first thing you needed to do. My mind was racing, though, the weed not mellowing me the way it usually did.
“Daddy,” I whispered into the wind, “I really need you tonight.” Squeezing my eyes more tightly closed, I tried to picture his wavy dark hair. The smile he always wore when he looked at me.
Then I started thinking about telling Mom I wouldn’t be valedictorian when I graduated in a couple of months, like she expected. What would she say? I was an honors student all through school until this semester. I hoped she’d say it was no big thing, since I was already accepted at UNC in Wilmington. Which started me thinking about leaving home. How was Mom going to handle Andy without me?
As a mother, Mom was borderline okay. She was smart and she could be cool sometimes, but she loved Andy so much that she suffocated him, and she didn’t have a clue. My brother was my biggest worry. Probably ninety-five percent of my time, I thought about him. Even when I thought about other things, he was still in a little corner of my mind, the same way I knew that it was spring or that we lived in North Carolina or that I was female.
I talked Mom into letting Andy go to the lock-in tonight. He was fifteen; she had to let go a little and besides, Emily’s mother was one of the chaperones. I hoped he was having a good time and acting normal. His grip on social etiquette was pretty lame. Would they have dancing at the lock-in? It cracked me up to imagine Andy and Emily dancing together.
My cell phone vibrated in my jeans pocket and I pulled it out to look at the display. Mom. I slipped it back in my jeans, hoping she didn’t try to reach me at Amber’s and discover I wasn’t there.
The phone rang again. That was our signal—the call-twice-in-a-row signal that meant This is serious. Answer now. So I jumped up and walked into the house. I pulled the door closed to block out the sound of the ocean before hitting the talk button.
“Hi, Mom,” I said.
“Oh my God, Maggie!” Mom sounded breathless, as though she’d run up the stairs. “The church is on fire!”
“What church?” I froze.
“Drury Memorial. They just cut into the TV to announce it. They showed a picture.” She choked on a sob. “It’s completely engulfed in flames. People are still inside!”
“No way!” The weed suddenly hit me. I was dizzy, and I leaned over the sink in case I got sick. Andy. He wouldn’t know what to do.
“I’m going over there now,” Mom said. Her car door squeaked open, then slammed shut. “Are you at Amber’s?”
“I’m…” I glanced out the door at the dark ocean. “Yes.” She was so easy to lie to. Her focus was always on Andy, hardly ever on me. I stubbed out the joint in the sink. “I’ll meet you there,” I added. “At the church.”
“Hurry!” she said. I pictured her pinching the phone between her chin and shoulder as she started the car.
“Stay calm,” I said. “Drive carefully.”
“You, too. But hurry!”
I was already heading toward the front door. Forgetting about the Condemned sign, I ran right into it, yelping as it knocked the air from my lungs. I ducked beneath it, jumped to the sand and ran down the boardwalk to my Jetta. I was miles from the church in Surf City. Miles from my baby brother. I felt so sick. I began crying as I turned the key in the ignition. It was my fault if something happened to him. I started to pray, something I only did when I was desperate. Dear God, I thought, as I sped down New River Inlet Road, don’t let anything happen to Andy. Please. Let it happen to me instead. I’m the liar. I’m the bad kid.
I drove all the way to Surf City, saying that prayer over and over in my mind until I saw the smoke in the sky. Then I started saying it out loud.
Chapter Three
Laurel
THERE IS ONLY ONE STOPLIGHT ON THE twenty-six miles of Topsail Island. It sits two short blocks from the beach in the heart of Surf City, and it glowed red when my car approached it and was still red when I left it behind. If there’d been a dozen red lights, they wouldn’t have stopped me. People always told me I was a determined woman and I was never more so than the night of the fire.
Miles
