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And so at the end of June, when the moon was nothing but a thin shard in the overcast sky, stones were tied to the sisters’ ankles, and they were dropped into the ocean just beyond the cape, where they sank to the bottom and drowned. Just like the ship they arrived on.
I imagine the three sisters floating like delicate ghosts in the dark shadows beneath the water’s surface, mercurial and preserved just like the sideshow mermaid.
I’ve glimpsed my own future in those leaves many times: a boy blowing in from across the sea, shipwrecked on the island. His heart beating wildly in his chest, his skin made of sand and wind. And my heart unable to resist. It’s the same future I’ve seen in every cup of tea since I was five, when my mom first taught me to decipher leaves. Your fate lies at the bottom of a teacup, she had often whispered to me before shooing me off to bed. And the idea of this future stirs inside me whenever I think about leaving Sparrow—like the island is drawing me back, my fate rooted here.
She will float away like a brightly colored bird living in the wrong part of the world, and I will stay behind, gray-feathered and sodden and wingless.
the freckles across her nose and upper cheeks catching the sunlight like constellations of golden sand.
“I like you, Penny. I always have,” he mumbles. “Is that right?” “Yup. You’re my kind of girl.” “I doubt that. You didn’t even know my name two seconds ago.”
“Most guys aren’t so chivalrous around here.” I rub my palms together, trying to warm them, my fingers cold to the bone. “The town might be required to give you a parade.” He smiles full and big for the first time, a softness in his eyes. “The hero requirements in this town must be pretty low.” “We just really like parades.”
A place of ghosts and mossy hollows, where long-dead sailors surely haunt the reeds and wind-scoured trees. But it’s not the island you should fear—it’s the waters surrounding it.
We wait for death. We hold our breath. We know it’s coming, and still we flinch when it claws at our throats and pulls us under.
The Swan season has begun. And this little town tucked along the shore will not come out unharmed.
His eyes hold mine, and something familiar stirs inside me—something I want to pretend isn’t there. A flicker that illuminates the darkest part of my insides. And I absorb it like sunlight.
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.
Love came easily and often for them.
I have a memory of my dad walking across the island, kneeling down occasionally to pull up a gathering of dandelions or clover or moss, then rubbing them between his worn hands. He liked the way the world felt. Loam and green. The earth giving up things we often ignored.
I try to see into his eyes, into his thoughts, but he is carved by stone and brick. Solid as the rocks bordering the island.
And then the ocean drew him under and never let go.
“Fate has abandoned me,”
their hearts are cold, just like that ocean.”
Love is an enchantress—devious and wild. It sneaks up behind you, soft and gentle and quiet, just before it slits your throat.
“Apparently, love is the worst kind of madness.”
“I’m not leaving here without you. Even if it means I have to wait. I’ll wait. I’ll wait in this miserable place for as long as it takes. And if you want me to stay, then I’ll stay. I’ll fucking stay here forever if you ask me to.”
Those in the room that day would later say it was as if Hazel Swan was conjuring a spell before their eyes, the way she peered at Owen, forcing his lips to remain silent. But others, the few who had known real love, saw something else: the look of two people whose love was about to destroy them. It was not witchcraft in Hazel’s eyes; it was her heart splitting in half.
