Surfacing - Book One in the Swans Landing Series

Chapter 22

Chapter Twenty-Two

My instincts led me to the sign in the little parking lot without my realizing where I was going. The trees at Pirate’s Cove shivered in the cold wind and somewhere deep within I heard the call of a few birds. The forest didn’t look quite as creepy as it had Sunday night, when I had nearly gotten lost inside. When Josh had kissed me.

Leaving my bike behind, I sucked in a deep breath and plunged into the forest. I stuck to the trail, trying not to search the shadows for any sign of my mom. What exactly had happened that night? It couldn’t have been my actual mother. She was dead and buried back in Tennessee. Besides, it wasn’t the mom that I’d known in recent months, but the mom that I used to know, before the cancer took over. Tears blurred my vision as I remembered the sight of her darting through the trees, looking healthy and happy.

I stopped for a second to scrub at my eyes, then continued on. It was a nice place to be forgotten, here in the forest on a mostly isolated island. Maybe that was what Josh was doing in the forest that night, trying to be forgotten.

Just as I started to feel suffocated by the trees, I broke through to the small sliver of beach on the other side. The bright blue sky stretched on for miles into the distance, meeting with a green and shimmering ocean. I searched the horizon for a long time, but there were no signs of finfolk leaping out of the waves, only seagulls drifting on the wind.

I found a place halfway between the trees and the water and sat down.

Dylan and Lake had both mentioned finfolk leaving the island and disappearing into the sea. Where had they gone? Maybe they had returned home, to the place in Scotland where finfolk once lived. Or maybe they spent their lives searching for a place to belong, but never really finding the right fit.

Lake was right about one thing. I would never fully belong on land or sea.

I never heard footsteps or any sound that gave away his approach. Yet suddenly, I felt him there, only a few feet behind me. Something like a whisper stirred inside me, picking up on his presence.

“Shouldn’t you be in school?” I asked, not turning around.

He walked the last few feet between us and sat down next to me, propping his arms up on his knees as he looked out at the water. “Probably,” he said.

I studied him, memorizing the shape of his profile so that I could remember it during my long swim. “So?”

“So I didn’t feel like going,” Josh answered.

“Couldn’t stand a day in school knowing I wasn’t there?” I asked, the laugh getting stuck in my throat on the way out.

Josh was silent for a few seconds before he said, “You do have a way of livening up an otherwise mind-numbing place.”

“If you’re so interested in my presence, maybe you should have done something other than stand there yesterday while your girlfriend ran her mouth. Maybe then I wouldn’t have punched her.”

Josh shrugged, but I detected the faint hint of a smile at the corner of his lips. “Maybe she’s not my girlfriend. And maybe I thought she could use a fat lip too.”

I couldn’t help laughing. Warmth spread through me, despite the cold wind that blew over the water at us. We watched a few birds flying low over the ocean, swooping to scoop up fish along the surface.

“So what was that the other night?” I finally asked.

“What?”

I looked at him, raising my eyebrows. “That humming we heard. And the fact that I saw...” I swallowed hard. “I saw my dead mom.”