I smile. “Two.”
“Three,” we say together, diving into the water and swimming away from the shore. When we surface, Landon is breathing heavily.
“You weren’t kidding about the cold.”
“You’ll get used to it.” I swim next to him and take both his hands in mine. “Ready for the best part?”
“Ready.”
We both take large breaths, then descend below the surface of the water. I watch Landon as he opens his eyes, squinting at first, then getting more comfortable with the salt.
And then I see it—the exact moment he understands what I told him, the way he feels the quiet as if it’s a living thing.
His eyes widen, and he looks around with an awed expression on his face. His short brown hair sways on top of his head, and bubbles rise from his mouth as air escapes from his lungs.
We look at each other for as long as we can stand it, suspended in the perfect silence, hair and limbs spread out around us.
When my chest is aching, I let go of Landon’s hands and swim to the surface. I gasp for air when I pop out of the water, drinking it down like my mother drinks her wine.
Landon surfaces moments after me, and we tread water next to each other as our breathing slows.
Then we do it again, but something catches my attention as we move into deeper water. Seaweed rolls around, violently spinning until it’s pulled away, out into the middle of the Passage. The sand on the seafloor is stirring.
We have to get out of here.
I catch Landon’s gaze and point up, and we both swim to the surface.
“We need to swim back,” I say, already moving toward the shore.
Landon follows, and it isn’t until we’re safely on land that I meet his gaze.
“What was that about?” he asks, looking out over the water.
I catch myself before telling him about the currents. I don’t know if the mainlanders are aware of the damage we’ve caused to the sea, and I don’t know how my mother would react if I made them aware.
“Nothing,” I say, trying to sound casual. “I just don’t want the governor’s son to catch a cold.” I say it playfully, but Landon is watching me. He knows that there’s something I’m not saying, something I’m not being honest about. But it isn’t in my control.
We head back to our blankets and wrap ourselves up, shivering and wet and cold. Wolfe’s angry words enter my mind, accusing my coven and me of destroying the island we’re supposed to be stewards of, and I hate that he’s right. I hate that there’s nothing we can do about it.
What good is magic if we can’t use it to protect our home, the very thing it’s meant for?
As soon as I think it, I try to shove away the thought, forget it, wipe it from my mind. But it takes root, weaving through the paths and alleyways of who I am, burrowing in. It finds a home in me, and against my better judgment and every impulse inside me screaming that danger lies ahead, I let it.
fourteen
News of my date with Landon spreads through the Witchery like kudzu vines, fast and invasive. The perfumery sees an influx of customers, and my mother acts like my bodyguard and personal assistant, all rolled into one unfathomably put-together woman. She coyly steps around the questions she doesn’t want to answer and demurely responds the ones she does.
I haven’t been to the shop for several days, but I can’t avoid it forever.
I take a detour on my way to the perfumery, visiting the western shore and the field where I met Wolfe. I take my time gathering grasses and blades of kelp, then cut through the woods in the center of the island and make my way to Main Street. It’s so quiet on this side of the island, overgrown and untouched. It’s a shame we only use it for the rush. Then again, if we used it more, it would lose the qualities I love most about it.
I turn onto Main Street and am almost to the perfumery when Mr. Kline stops me. His white hair is blowing in the sea breeze, and his weathered skin crinkles around his eyes. He takes off his wool cap and holds it in his hands.
“Hi, Mr. Kline,” I say, hugging my basket close to my body. “How are you?”
“I’m well, Miss Tana, thank you.”
“Glad to hear it,” I say. I’m about to start walking when Mr. Kline says my name again. He’s rolling his cap in his hands, and he looks at the cobbles as if he’s nervous. When he raises his eyes to mine, they’re wet.
“I wish my parents were alive to see this. They always believed it would happen one day. ‘Just stay the course,’ they used to say to me.”