Tides Read online

  The salt was dry on her skin now, and the sky was almost dark. Mara told herself it was time to go. She wanted a swim before she went home, and her brother would be cross if she didn’t return soon to help him with the younglings.

  She crept to Miss Underhill’s Chair, the rocky outcropping on the northeast side of Star. She watched a fishing boat come around the side of the island, trailing a large net. As it crossed in front of her, the man at the wheel met her eyes. She waited for him to pass.

  Once she made sure she was alone, she climbed down the steep rocks, into the shadows.

  She tucked her shirt, sandals, and belt into the crevice she found there, the one she always used. She wished she had something better to wear, but there hadn’t been much left behind at the end of last summer, and Mara hated to steal outright. She’d just have to hope someone would leave behind a pair of shorts or a sundress when the hotel closed in the autumn.

  Autumn. Mara wrinkled her nose. The islands were safer when summer ended, when most people were gone, but they were boring.

  She sat on a rock and shrugged her body down into the water. It felt light and sweet against her skin, like kisses, or what she thought kisses must feel like. There wasn’t much opportunity for kissing when she couldn’t talk to people outside her family.

  Mara slipped the rest of the way under, letting the cold water stop her thoughts.

  She pushed off from the rocks and swam away.

  three

  SECRETS

  LO woke up early.

  Her phone whined at her from the dresser across the room, where she’d put it so she couldn’t just turn it off and keep sleeping. She sighed into her pillow.

  She heard Noah groan from behind the folding screen that divided the guest room. Guilt got her up then—she didn’t want to wake him up at this ungodly hour just because she had work to do. Let him sleep a little longer.

  She pulled herself out of bed, shuffled over to her dresser, and picked up the phone. It took a few moments to find the right button, her eyes still bleary with sleep. When the electric bleating finally stopped, the silence filled the room.

  Then Noah let out a great rattling snore. Lo smiled. She didn’t need to worry about waking him up—he’d once slept through the smoke detector alarm when they were kids.

  Lo pulled a shirt out of the second drawer and laid it, still folded, on her bed. She repeated the process with every other item of clothing she needed until she had a neat pile of fabric stacked on the blankets, a Cubist version of her outfit for the day. She closed her eyes when she put on her clothes, tugging them up her legs or over her head and trying not to think about it. She could feel the rough edge against her neck where she’d cut the size tag off her shirt. She wiggled her shoulders to get rid of the itch, but it didn’t help.

  Lo really meant to walk downstairs right then, but there was a mirror hanging on the door, and her reflection caught her as she tried to leave. She saw a glimpse of double chin and round cheeks before she tore herself away. She started to slam the door shut, then remembered her still-sleeping brother and grandmother. She could hear the mirror laughing at her as she gently closed the door.

  The sunrise glow coming in downstairs made her feel a little better. She looked out the north window, and her breath caught.

  From here the isles seemed set in a circle, like a crown. The air was so clear that everything—the buildings, the grass, the rocks—looked closer and farther away at the same time. The rising sun turned it all golden or shadow blue. Only the water was solid, impenetrable, and it sparkled like metal under the sky.

  Lo opened the window, and the kitchen breathed in air and light. She smiled.

  She thought about eating breakfast, then told herself she wasn’t that hungry. She put a kettle on the stove for tea instead.

  Her real reason for waking up early waited for her by the door. She dug through her backpack, the one bag she hadn’t bothered to bring upstairs when they’d arrived yesterday. Two of Noah’s bags still lay slumped against the wall, half open, his socks and shirts spilling out. She sighed and poked his clothes back into place.

  She took out her sketchbook and a few thick sheets of watercolor paper, stacking them neatly on the table. Her pencil set came next, and a small box of paints.

  Lo’s fingers lingered over the different pencils, and she chose one of the lightest for her first sketches. She looked around the kitchen, searching for a good subject.

  The kettle whistled. She got up to take it off the heat—and Maebh appeared at the top of the stairs, coming out of Gemm’s bedroom.

  Lo jumped, and the empty mug in her hands clattered to the floor.

  Maebh stepped back, and a worried line deepened between her eyebrows. With one hand, she pulled her green bathrobe tighter around her chest. Lo knew that robe—her mother had sent it to Gemm for Christmas a few years ago. Maebh’s other hand stayed behind her back.

  Silence flooded the room.

  Maebh cleared her throat. “You’re up early, dear.”

  Lo looked down. “You, too.” She wasn’t sure what else to say. Inside, she was remembering things, working things out.

  Ever since she could remember, her mother had called Gemm unfeeling, irresponsible, and selfish. Lo figured out a long time ago that that was mostly because Gemm and Gramps got divorced when Mom was in college, and Mom had sided with Gramps. Lo still didn’t know the reasons behind the divorce, and she’d never felt a pressing need to find out.

  But now Maebh stood in front of her, wrapped in Gemm’s bathrobe, on the threshold of Gemm’s bedroom. The casual expression Lo was trying to maintain slipped off.

  She grinned at Maebh as if the woman were a winning lottery ticket. Finally, she understood. Lo tried to wipe the smile off her face. She couldn’t.

  Maebh still trembled in the doorway. Lo thought she saw a chagrined sparkle in her eyes, but it quickly faded.

  “Well.” Maebh let out a long breath. “You look to have figured everything out right quickly, Lo.” She tilted her head to one side, a look of pleading on her face. “Dolores was hoping to tell you. She didn’t want to keep secrets. She just thought she would test the waters first, if you will.”

  Lo knew Maebh was trying to ask her for something, but she didn’t know what. Her blessing? Forgiveness? She thought for a moment before speaking again. “I thought she must be very lonely, out here by herself. I’m glad she has you.” She offered Maebh a gentle smile and received one in return.

  “She is a bit lonely sometimes. I have a family to look after, myself.”

  Lo remembered how silently Maebh had appeared. She realized she had been trying to slip out. “Please don’t let me keep you,” she said. Fascinating as this had been, Lo was eager to open her sketchbook and get back to work. It was easier to ignore her hunger when she was drawing.

  Maebh walked down the stairs. She paused for a moment at the bottom of the steps, then crossed the rest of the space between them. Lo noticed for the first time how small Maebh was. The top of her head barely came up to Lo’s ears.

  “She loves you very much, you know,” said Maebh. “She’s missed you both.” She put a light, soft hand on Lo’s cheek. For a moment, under Maebh’s gaze, Lo felt as if she could do no wrong. It was a strange feeling.

  Maebh nodded, as if Lo had passed some test. She turned, silent—still wearing Gemm’s robe—and walked out the door.

  Strange, Lo thought, to wear a bathrobe outside—but maybe Maebh was going swimming. Anyway, it certainly wasn’t the strangest thing about that morning. She sat once more and opened her sketchbook—and realized the teakettle was still whistling. She got up and was just filling an infuser with Earl Grey when she heard another creak on the stairs.

  It was Noah, still in his pajamas, his sandy hair sticking out in every direction. He hated mornings even more than Lo did. She doubted he even noticed her standing there as he slunk toward the cottage’s one bathroom, towel and shampoo in hand.

  Lo heard the cli
ck and swish of the shower turning on. The white noise wanted to lull her back to sleep, but she returned to the table and picked up her pencil again.

  She was still looking for the right thing to draw when Noah reappeared. He was fully dressed now, with his unruly hair tamed, at least for the time being. He had always been tall and lanky, his arms and legs too long for his frame, but it was starting to suit him. Lo was glad her friends wouldn’t see him this summer. They tended to moon over him a little too much.

  In his MARINE SCIENCE RESEARCH CENTER STAFF shirt and new khakis, Noah really did look like a scientist. He kept putting his hands in his pockets, taking them out, and putting them back in again. He looked at Lo; he looked out the window; he looked at the door. He exhaled.

  Lo groaned. “Hey, big brother,” she said, “you’ll do great.”

  Noah looked startled for a second, then smiled back at her. He could never manage to smile evenly—the right side of his face always dimpled. It was the only thing that could make him look mischievous.

  Lo walked over to him, stood on her tiptoes, and scruffed up his hair. “There,” she said. “You’re good to go.”

  Noah nodded grimly, a slightly geeky soldier off to battle. He grabbed an apple from a bowl on the kitchen table, and with a last, panicked glance at his watch, he ran out the door.

  Lo considered the two very different encounters she’d already had that morning. She shook her head. This was not starting out to be the private day of sketching she’d imagined.

  She sat down and once again cast around for a subject. There were three apples left in the large wooden bowl on the table. They were all at least a little bruised, with dry leaves still attached to their stems. Lo thought about plucking off the leaves but decided they mostly looked fine the way they were. She turned the biggest one around to hide its bruises.

  She put pencil to paper, letting her mind wander as her eyes and hands focused in on her drawing. She thought of Maebh, framed in the doorway to her grandmother’s room. She wanted to tell Noah about it, but she’d talk to Gemm first. Lo held her new secret close, tucked deep in a locked chest of secrets inside her.

  four

  SUMMER

  NOAH rushed through the hall to catch Professor Foster before he disappeared into his office again.

  “Professor—” he called. “Professor Foster, wait!”

  The older man turned around, a smile placed carefully among the tired lines of his face.

  “Hello there, Mr. Gallagher.” He sighed, not quite letting the smile slip. “What can I do for you?”

  “I, well . . .” He’d been so sure Professor Foster would want to talk to him, but it was obvious all he wanted was to be left alone in his office. Noah hadn’t quite thought that being an intern would feel so . . . insignificant. He’d beat out dozens of other kids—college students, even—for this job, and he’d thought it meant he was special, or at least that Professor Foster thought he was. He couldn’t quite believe filing checks and tax exemptions was really all he was meant for this summer.

  Blood flamed over his cheeks and forehead. “I just wanted to know if there was anything else I could help you with, sir.” He glanced back as a trio of researchers moved through the hallway, murmuring seriously to one another. His stomach ached with jealousy. “Or if there was anyone else I could help.”

  Professor Foster raised his hand to his temple for a moment, an overloaded key chain hanging from his thumb. “I’ve got you where you’re most needed right now, Mr. Gallagher. I’m sorry.” Another fraction of his tired smile vanished.

  “Oh.” Don’t sulk, he told himself. It won’t help anything. “Well, let me know if you need anything else. I’m just—I just want you to know I’m really excited to be here.”

  Professor Foster sighed. “I know. We’re excited to have you. Just—” He glanced back into his office. “Just keep at it in the filing room for now, and maybe I’ll find something else for you later in the season.” He looked back toward Noah, his blue eyes glinting through his wire-rimmed glasses. “You seem like a smart kid, Mr. Gallagher. Just show me you can do what I need you to do, and well . . . then we’ll see what else I can find for you.” He nodded, and his smile ticked for a moment into something more genuine. “You see what I’m saying?”

  “Yes, sir.” Noah smiled back and almost meant it.

  Professor Foster closed his office door behind him, and Noah walked back into the main lab. He wound his way through it, trying not to stop and stare at every single project going on around him. He turned down a small hallway lit with overly bright but flickering fluorescent bulbs and walked all the way to the door at its end. He turned the doorknob, but he had to push his shoulder against the humidity-swollen plywood before the filing room opened for him.

  It was dark and it was dank and it smelled like old paper. It smelled like his father’s office, like the guidance counselor’s room at his high school, like every cramped indoor place in the world. The light was flat and dismal, the carpet brown. There was a window on the far side of the narrow room, but it was covered by stacks of boxes, and it would be for at least another few weeks.

  Noah decided that would be his first goal. He’d get through enough boxes to clear the window, and then maybe, just possibly, he could actually see the ocean.

  That was why he’d come here, really. That was all he wanted. To see the ocean, every day. Every minute.

  To learn from Professor Foster too, if he could get half a chance. He’d managed to audit the professor’s Intro to Marine Science course at UNH last fall. It was one of the most popular classes on campus, and it filled up quickly every semester, so he’d had to beg for his registration, just for permission to sit in the back of the crowded lecture hall and listen, and in the end his biology teacher had had to call in a favor to Professor Foster himself.

  And just like every college freshman in the room on the first day of class, he’d seen in an instant how brilliant Professor Foster was. The man glowed with energy and love for his subject with every word he spoke. He’d had tenure at UNH for quite a while, but he acted and looked like a much younger man than he was. His obvious passion had hooked into something inside Noah, something that had been there since the first time his father took him fishing. That something spread tingling all through Noah’s body, and he knew, he was completely sure, that all he wanted out of college was to go to UNH and study marine science and be Professor Foster’s student.

  And thanks to that same high school biology teacher, he’d gotten a glowing recommendation that had landed him an interview for this internship even though all the other applicants were college students already.

  Noah had walked into the interview with sweaty palms and a tie that felt too tight around his neck, especially when he swallowed. Professor Foster’s office door—his office at UNH—was closed, and he’d had to knock.

  “Come in,” the professor had called, his voice a touch deeper and slower than Noah remembered from class.

  Noah had stepped carefully through the door, his back as straight as he could make it. He’d looked Professor Foster in the eye the way his dad had told him to.

  “Hi, Professor Foster. I’m Noah Gallagher. I’m here for the interview. I know you probably don’t recognize me, but—”

  “Back of the classroom.” Professor Foster nodded. “Taking notes like a madman. More than most of the actual students. I certainly remember.” He extended a callused, strong-looking hand. “Gary Foster.”

  Noah took his hand and shook it, hoping his grip was right. “Noah. Gallagher.” He grinned, he hoped not too foolishly. “I’m really excited I might get to work with you this summer, sir.”

  He’d sat down as Professor Foster settled back in his desk chair.

  “So, Mr. Gallagher, what’s your interest in marine science?”

  And Noah had found himself spilling over with stories: the first time he’d gone fishing with his father, the other classes he’d practically abandoned for more hours in the scien
ce labs, the academic articles he’d started reading in his freshman year of high school, all the weekends he’d spent studying alone in his parents’ house or the UNH library, or out on the beach or on the water—alone then, too. Alone except for the thing he loved.

  Eventually he’d felt a dry catch in the back of his mouth and stopped to clear his throat. A slow-rising blush had crept up his face as he thought about the rant he’d just delivered.

  Professor Foster stood and extended his hand again.

  Noah took it, thanked Professor Foster for the interview, and walked away, convinced he’d utterly failed. But a week later, his biology teacher had greeted him with a “Congratulations!” and a beaming smile.

  “You’ll start in June, as soon as school’s out,” he’d said, shifting from foot to foot in squirming excitement.

  For a moment, Noah had wanted to ask where, but of course he knew—he’d known right away.

  He’d spent the latter half of his senior year paying even less attention to his other classes than before. After he’d gotten into UNH—on a cross-country scholarship—he’d done nothing but run and get ready for this internship. He knew it was supposed to go to a college student, and he wanted to be more than prepared.

  And now he was stuck in a tiny, airless backroom, filing. For the whole summer. He might as well have stayed on the mainland and worked in his dad’s office as his parents had wanted.

  Noah let himself kick one of the crumbling boxes. Just one. Hard.

  Then he sat down and got to work.

  five

  DAUGHTER

  LO sat on the crest of White Island, squinting at the waves, sketchpad in hand. She wanted to try to draw the inbetween, the not-quite ocean not-quite land, the thing that soaked through her memory of Gemm’s story.

  She saw darkness under the water, and she saw the solid white glint of light on its surface. As hard as she tried, though, she couldn’t see into the space between the two—at least not enough to draw it.