Chapter Five

I wasn’t expecting to see the boy.

I had been walking along the beach for longer than I’d intended, trying to make sense of my interaction with T.J. and the image of Mom talking to Mr. Illingworth. The kids building sand castles and the couples frolicking in the water barely registered. I only noticed the shards of seashells and the cawing seagulls, and before long, that was all there was to see. As the water grew rougher and slammed into jagged rocks, the beach grew less populated, and I realize that The Crabby Hook and the boardwalk itself were quite a way behind me.

Which was why I started was startled by the sight of a tall, tanned guy with dark blond hair striding toward me from the opposite end of the beach. He was carrying a bundle of rope and a fishing rod, the muscles in his arms visible under his faded red T-shirt. He wore ragged carpenter pants that had been hacked off at the knee, and his sun-browned legs were as muscled as his arms. I guessed him to be around my age, but he did not look like someone the kids at the Heirs party would know.

For some reason, I stopped walking, my flats sinking into the sand. Behind the boy, the beach seemed to disappear into a well of fog, and I realized how alone I was. I felt a quick twist of fear and considered turning and racing back to the boardwalk. Then I chided myself; why was I getting so irrationally spooked lately?

“You lost?” the boy called, waving one arm at me.

“Not at all,” I replied defensively, squaring my shoulders. “I was just exploring.”

The boy came closer. “It’s not a great idea to go exploring by yourself on Siren Beach,” he said. His voice was deep but a little raspy, and his Southern accent was different from CeeCee’s and the others; in a way I couldn’t quite define.

“Why?” I demanded, suddenly annoyed that this boy had appeared out of nowhere to break into my thoughts. I could feel my patience running low, like an uncharged battery. “Because of the ‘sea serpents’?” I asked, making air quotes.

“You know about the sea serpents?” He was standing before me now, a smile tugging at his full lips. His eyes were a clear, brilliant green, unmuddied by traces of brown or gray.

“I know they’re nonsense,” I replied, crossing my arms over my chest.

The boy swept his gaze over my face, and my heart flip-flopped. What was he thinking? First T.J., now him. Trying to figure out the inner working of boy-heads was a daunting task; two boys in one hour felt impossible for a novice like me.

But, back on the boardwalk, T.J. hadn’t studied me as intently as this boy was studying me now. Almost against my will, I remembered the funny looks Greg—shaggy-haired, bespectacled, chess-team-captain Greg—used to sneak me back in February, when I was no more than his physics tutor. Then, one night, as I’d been explaining the principles of electromagnetism, he’d kissed me, and I’d understood what those glances had meant. And it had seriously freaked me out.

“It’s your first time on Selkie, right?” the boy asked, his tone slightly teasing. For some embarrassing reason, the phrase first time made my skin catch fire.

“Is it that obvious?” I asked, giving a nervous laugh.

“Well, I would have recognized you,” the boy replied, his smile widening.

“Miranda! Miranda, what are you doing?”

Relieved and disappointed, I turned toward the sound of my mother’s voice. She was jogging across the sand, holding her sandals in one hand and the bottom of her dress with the other. Her face was flushed, as it had been at the party.

“Like The Tempest,” the boy said behind me, so softly that I almost didn’t hear him over the crashing waves.

“Excuse me?” I asked, glancing back at him.

“Miranda is a character in The Tempest. The Shakespeare play,” he explained with a slow smile. He had a dimple in each cheek.

“I try to ignore Shakespeare as much as possible,” I replied, surprised that a boy who looked so rough-hewn would know anything about fusty literature.

“That’s a mistake,” he said as Mom came to a stop at my side, out of breath.

“Miranda, what’s gotten into you?” she snapped, sounding frantic and unlike her usual even-keeled self. Her eyes were very big. “Why did you disappear like that? You had me so worried. One of the boys with CeeCee told me he saw you start off this way.”

T.J.? I wondered.

“Sorry,” I said, unable to look at my mother full-on. I knew it was so irrational, but she suddenly seemed like a stranger to me, a stranger who laughed with handsome men. “I wanted to take a walk.”

“A walk?” Mom repeated, arching one eyebrow at the boy standing next to me. Suspicion darkened her gaze. “Were you planning to tell me?”

“You don’t tell me everything,” I muttered, wishing we weren’t having this conversation in front of this boy.

Mom seemed to feel the same way. “Pardon us,” she told him, her tone brisk, and she tugged on my arm, pulling me in the direction of the boardwalk. I looked back to see the boy hoisting some of the rope onto his shoulder and watching us, his expression unreadable. Then I faced forward again.

“This isn’t like you,” Mom declared, her feet kicking up sand as she all but dragged me along the shore. She didn’t bother to push her windswept hair out of her eyes. “Wandering off, talking to some strange boy on the beach, catching an attitude with me.”

“We weren’t talking,” I protested, my blush coming back for a second. “We exchanged, like, two words.”

“You were fine when we got to the party,” Mom went on as the first sunbathers came into view ahead of us. “What happened?”

I sidestepped a strand of seaweed, wanting to ask Mom about T.J.’s father. Buy my bubbling resentment stilled my tongue. How could Mom accuse me of acting oddly when she wasn’t being herself, either?

Instead of speaking, I glanced over my shoulder again, but the boy was gone. I couldn’t see him walking inland toward the dunes, nor could I spot him wading into the water. Had he disappeared into the fog? Jumped into a speeding fishing boat? Or had I—in a truly un-Miranda-like fashion—imagined him entirely? But no, Mom had seen him, too. I shook my head, dismissing him from my thoughts.