She looks up and catches me noticing her, which was inevitable, since I wasn’t really hiding it. Her eyes gleam under thick dark brows as her lips pinch to a point. They’re freshly glossed, and I can smell black-cherry sweetness.
“I . . . um. Do you know what flavor you want?”
Rush smiles at me, way too sudden. “The one that’s good enough that every time I say the word muffin I taste it again.”
Lelia snorts. She might not be watching, but she’s definitely paying attention.
My fingers shake as I reach for the basket. It’s nothing, just a baked good that I didn’t even make. But I don’t want to get this wrong. I don’t want to get anything wrong with the Grays.
This is about the Grays.
This isn’t about you and Rush.
There is no you and Rush.
My fingers run over saran-wrapped muffins, closing on an espresso chocolate chip. I think up and reject ten flirty comments. I’ve never held myself back like this before. Never slipped a leash on my feelings and tugged every time I wanted to get closer. When I unwrap the muffin, it releases the smell of butter and coffee, crumbs flying everywhere. I put it on a thin paper napkin and hand it to Rush.
She snatches a piece of the sugared top, opens her lips, and slides it onto her tongue. She chews for a second. With her eyes closed. Her long hair swishes as her mouth works over the bite. “Yep. That’s the one.”
Rush can’t be flirting with me, so my mind opens every drawer and flings them upside down, looking for another explanation. Maybe Rush is desperate to feel every little thing, since Imogen can’t feel anything.
Rush wraps the rest of her muffin in the napkin and sticks it in her jacket pocket, hands me cash. Then she and Lelia straddle the motorcycles, bringing them to life, throaty and restless. Rush hums, the high notes layering over the roar. She curves out of the parking lot, leaving music like a choppy wake.
I’ve heard those notes before: Rush sang them in the grove last night.
“Hey,” I call after her. “What’s that song?”
But Rush is too far away to hear me. I think about chasing her — slapping pavement with my Keds, running down the highway after a motorcycle. My impulse around Rush is to be reckless. But the last time I left the place I was supposed to be and ran toward the road, it didn’t go well. Courtney frantically asks if I’ve started on the orders for drive-up customers. I blink and notice a line of five cars that has somehow built up. I ask Courtney to repeat the orders. I make a smoothie and watch my hands on the shivering blender like they might turn into birds and fly away.
Rush thought about going back for Danny at the end of her shift, but there’s something she has to try first. She waits for dark and then walks through the woods, keeping her eyes down on the silver laces that spike her old hiking boots. She pushes her hair back with each step. It’s always trying to spill forward, to have its way. When she’s playing her cello, it leans over the scrollwork as if it wants to tangle in the strings, to wind itself around her bow, nestle in the hollow spaces inside the instrument.
She wishes she could play tonight. Not the way her parents want and expect her to play. Not even the way her sister used to play. Her own Rush way, finding the notes and then setting them free, one by one. Listening as they turn faint and soft and disappear on the horizon.
But tonight is for singing.
There is Imogen’s window in the distance. Outlined in a white frame, scribbled in with darkness.
Rush wants Imogen to see her, standing there in a white camisole that Imogen liked because of the way it breathed loose, gapping around Rush’s curves, what Imogen called her lavish girl glory.
What was she wearing, the last time they . . . ?
Rush can’t remember.
It feels like a tiny betrayal.
She thinks of Danny, with her quicksilver smile and her obvious staring, leaning over the counter at Coffee Gods.
Rush stays safe within the border of the woods. The Lillys would not like a visit from her now, or ever. They hate all of the Grays, but they hate her with a special force that parents reserve for secret relationships. Rush pictures Imogen’s bedroom, and a small avalanche of memories and feelings come with it.
Imogen has to be in there, doesn’t she? If she’s blank, where else would she be?
Rush’s mouth opens and sound leaves her, traveling over the yard. She doesn’t add words, because the flavors can get muddled and bitter; they can bleed together in your mouth until you want to spit them out. Purely formed vowels leave only a linger of sweetness in the back of your throat.
This is a song Rush made herself. She’s tried singing at school; she’s tried at the mother tree, in all of Imogen’s favorite places. Maybe home will be stronger. Maybe the bed where they —
Rush cuts herself off.
At first she wanted to keep the feeling of Imogen preserved. But that means pretending they were perfect together, that every kiss was as good as the first one. Now when she feels a sliver of the past it lodges under her skin.
Rush’s voice wavers, and she tells herself to keep steady, to stay focused on the future.
Bring Imogen back.
Then they can sort things.
Then they can find perfect.
Notes climb from her body. They build a ladder to Imogen’s window. They let themselves in.
Imogen stirs. She hasn’t woken like this in weeks, and she feels sick with a combination of headache and prickly muscles. Something is dragging her away from her body, back where she came from. Something else is tugging her toward the window.
Her feet graze the floor, and the sense of home floods her. She’s never liked this place, but it’s worn its way into her body, her mind. Imogen knows every line of the dresser under her fingers. She can feel out the knots in the hardwood floor with her toes. When she gets to the window, she knows where the moon will drape shadows. There’s a faraway shape in the woods, right past where the yard ends.
Rush sees Imogen at the window, and her breath catches. Then she sings even harder than before.
Maybe having Danny here is helping her, bringing Imogen closer somehow, and Rush’s song can do the rest.
Lights go on downstairs.
Rush swears into the darkness. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” That word tastes like biting her own tongue.
More lights flick on, and a figure appears like a paper cutout in the back-porch light, long arms wrapped around a toothpick body. It could be Mrs. Lilly or Haven. Imogen said that the day Haven turned thirteen, she made a list of everything in the pantry and crossed off items, one by one, until she only allowed herself to eat rice and plain chicken and steamed vegetables. Mrs. Lilly poured approval over Haven’s dinner plate every night, like it was something she could fill up on.
Rush hated that story. It reminded her of her own mother telling her that she needed to “watch herself” if she wanted to be picked for orchestra spots. Her father, grabbing cookies away from his daughter and then stacking them up three at a time because it “didn’t matter” if he ate them.
“Is someone out there?” The voice is young, freshly cracked open.
Rush wishes she had a song for Imogen’s sister, something to help her right now. At least Rush has the Grays.
Haven is completely alone.
Rush remembers what that feels like. Before Imogen found her in the cemetery, Rush’s closest friend was a cello.
Rush takes a step forward, into the pale wash of the moon. She lets Haven see that it’s her. Which is not very smart, considering how much Mr. and Mrs. Lilly hate her.
Haven stares at Rush like she’s a bad thought come to life. “You’re not supposed to come here anymore,” she says, as weak as a shove from spindly arms. “Nobody wants you here.”
Haven’s words scratch Rush’s heart, or maybe they open a scratch that was already there. Rush steps back into the protection of the woods. Imogen’s window is empty, and Haven locks the back door.
Which means Dan
ny is the only hope Rush has left.
I’ve made it through another shift at Coffee Gods. Almost. I keep looking at the time on the register, glowing at me like a promise. 4:15. I’m going to restock the fridge and then wipe down the espresso machine while Courtney takes the rest of the orders. She makes smoothies with precision, her fingers sharp on the buttons. I push carton after carton into the back of the fridge. I check the clock again. 4:17. There can only be so many minutes until this ends and I’m far away from almond milk.
Back home. Or at least in the cottage.
Safe.
No cutting class. No skipping out of work. No disappearing from the places I’m supposed to be. No flirting with girls I’m not supposed to like. When I make it through a day, I tell Mom, and she smiles like I should get a gold star for not ruining my own life.
The sound of the blender falls away, and Courtney’s back turns to stone.
“Could you please stop?” she asks. “Or at least learn a song that has more than three notes?”
I didn’t realize I was humming. But there they are, warm on my lips, the notes that Rush sang in the woods on Monday night. And then again, as she rode away from me.
Have I been humming all day? Through classes, passing periods? While I was pulling every shirt out of my suitcase this morning, trying to decide which one was good enough for the inevitable moment when I saw the Grays?
I try to push the notes down, but they don’t want to stay put. They keep working their way out of me, rising and rushing past my defenses. I am all soft breath and slippery notes. I can’t stop.
“Sorry,” I mutter to Courtney.
But I’m not really. I just know that’s what I’m supposed to say.
That’s how it worked back in Michigan. I told my parents I was sorry a thousand times, but I was sorry for making them worry about me. Not for what I was actually doing.
“Aaaaand your friends are back,” Courtney says.
Crouched in front of the refrigerator, I drop a container of lemonade. I have to wipe the sticky spill before I can make it to the window. I hope for Rush in a motorcycle jacket. I hope for all of the Grays, arm in arm, storming the shack and breaking me out.
I don’t get either of those fantasies.
The Grays are gathered in the corner of the parking lot, a closed circle, their backs to the world.
“Hey,” I call out, but they don’t look my way.
“Burn,” Courtney says, punching the pulse button on the blender.
“Why don’t you finish up here, and I’ll see you tomorrow?” I hate the pleading in my voice. I want to leap over the half-door and never look back. But I need this job. I need Mom to know that I’m trying.
Courtney eyes the Grays. They’ve broken out of their circle and they’re laughing at something. June spins, arms tilting wildly. “Tell them to stay away from me, okay?” Courtney says. “I heard what that one girl did for Ana Viramontes, and I don’t want them doing any of their . . . you know.”
“Magic?” I ask, and watch her flinch.
My smile comes out, strong as black coffee.
As I leave, I look back at blondish Courtney with her endless supply of identical yoga pants and her T-shirts that probably cost fifty dollars each, plus the makeup that’s supposed to make her look ten years older. The whole effect is one of intense blending in. High-school camouflage. I wonder what happened to make her that way.
But I don’t wonder for too long, because the Grays are waiting.
“Let’s go,” Lelia cries across the parking lot. When I get closer, she threads her arm through mine, drawing me into the circle. “I have something I want to show you.”
“Can I get there and home in an hour?” I ask.
I can see the Grays wanting to push back against my pre-sunset curfew. I can feel their nervy, collective need.
They want Imogen back. My mom’s rules are not a priority.
“I get it,” June offers. “My parents are protective.”
“So is Ora,” Hawthorn declares, as she toes the parking lot gravel. “She’s protecting me from being a boring, non-magical girl who can’t take care of herself.”
“My parents used to be hard on me,” Rush says, her arms tight around her middle. She looks tired, her eyes underlined in old makeup.
“Used to be?” I ask as we start walking, Lelia at the head of the party. “Past tense? Is there a spell I can use on Mom so she trusts me again?” Even though I maybe don’t deserve it, I add in my head.
A stray ray of sun blinds me as we pass between the shadows of the buildings. I’ve agreed to this field trip without actually saying it. We walk behind the line of shops, revealing the backside of Tempest. There are dumpsters and shady-looking back doors and rust-laden staircases.
“Magic isn’t an emotional Band-Aid,” Hawthorn says. “Anything you do comes back to you threefold.”
“So if I mess with someone’s trust, I’ll end up with three untrustworthy assholes in my life?” I ask.
Hawthorn’s hand dives into the pocket of her patchwork dress, and she comes up with a piece of citrine. “That’s a little simplistic, but yeah.”
Lelia shouts back, “Believe me, no matter how intense your mom is, she can’t be as harsh as the Lillys.”
I’ve never really thought about Imogen’s family before.
In my head, the Grays are her family.
We round the corner of the mechanic’s shop and emerge next to a mural dedicated to the glory of Northern California, mostly surfers and redwoods and grape farming. It’s cheesy, but the colors are perfectly chosen, soft yellows and shadow green and the slap of Pacific blue. In front of the mural is a small group of the largest birds I’ve ever seen.
Ravens.
They’re something I’ve heard about but never actually seen. I am staring right at them, and I don’t believe they exist. I’d always assumed they would be larger versions of crows. But it’s more than that. They are deeply, darkly black, weighty and huge, their glossy sides overstuffed, as if they’ve been swallowing shadows. Or secrets.
Lelia crouches down to their level. The ravens’ eyes fix on us, and I almost run. “They’ve been vocal lately,” Lelia says. “I figured as long as they keep showing up, they might as well help us with your dowsing rod.”
“Wow,” I say, because I’ve got nothing else. Just air that needs to come out of my lungs. Wonder that needs to spill out of my mouth.
“Pretty amazing, right?” Lelia asks, clearly liking my reaction. She stands and sets an arm around my shoulders. We’ve never stood this close before, and I get a whiff of nutty suntan lotion and aggressively minty mints.
Rush watches the birds in a way that makes it clear she’s got us at the edge of her vision.
“Ravens are the best finders in these woods,” Lelia says, pounding my shoulder. “They’ve been bringing me stuff since I was eleven. Having one of their feathers will add serious power to a dowsing rod.”
“You’re not actually going to . . . pluck one of those birds, are you?” I ask.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Lelia runs at the ravens screeching, but it’s a joyful sound. She truly doesn’t care what anyone — at least any human — thinks of her. I do wonder if she’s trying to impress the ravens, though. They take off, shredding the air with sound.
When I look back at the ground, they’ve left a dark snowfall of feathers. Lelia swoops to pick one up, kisses it three times, and twirls it as she hands it to me. “What do you think?” she asks.
The raven feather is as long as my forearm. I run a finger along the soft edge, as downy as the endlessly kissable spot at the back of a girl’s neck. I poke one finger with the slanted tip of the feather, almost expecting it to draw blood.
I look up. The ravens are part of the sky again. And I’m part of whatever is happening down here. The feather is mine because the ravens gave it to me, because Lelia thought I should have it, because there is magic inside of me, waiting to be used.
It feels like a part of myself that I tried to put in a box is tumbling over and pouring out. Now that the need for a dowsing rod is awake in my heart, I won’t be able to rest until I have the whole thing.
I kiss Lelia three times, swiftly, the way she kissed the feather. Thank you, thank you, thank you. My lips land on her cheek the first two times, and then she turns her face to me and I catch her tart pink lips.
At the beginning of junior year, a day came when I woke up feeling — not wrong, but raw. Like all of the colors in the world had been sharpened to a painful brightness, and the air had the convincing weight of a hand, tugging on my skin.
During fourth-period study hall, I sneaked into the control booth for lights and sound in the auditorium to make out with Hallie Carpenter. She was supposed to be wearing drunk goggles in health class, and instead I was spinning her endlessly in one of those chairs that plummets when you find the lever.
She laughed when I told her I wanted to hang out.
“Not like a date,” I said, which we both knew was impossible. Even if our town wasn’t drenched in homophobia, Hallie had a boyfriend. She talked about him exactly once per make-out session, but I felt a complete blank where my jealousy was supposed to be. “Some night when you’re not busy with Jason or homework or track or whatever, we should just . . . go somewhere.” I was trying so hard to sound calm about this while the nerves screamed inside my skin.
“We are somewhere,” Hallie said in a kiss-roughened voice. “Besides, where do you even want to go? The movie theater is a complete mess. They don’t have cup holders. One night Jason and I were so bored, we went through the Wendy’s drive-through for fries three times.”
She kept talking about Jason and fast food, and I couldn’t waste any more time, so I started kissing her, pressing with my whole weight like I was a blanket, like I was ten blankets, like I was enough to hold us both down.
Three periods later, the end of the day was in sight but impossible to touch. I was taking a test in reading comprehension, filling in endless little ovals, and I got up and walked out. The teacher was busy at her desk and she probably thought I would come right back. Maybe I mumbled something about needing the bathroom. If I said anything, I didn’t remember it two seconds later. Another set of double doors, and then I was out of the building, headed over the front lawn and the insincerely green soccer field, to the crest of the highway. I stood at the edge of the road, not sticking out my thumb. I just stared at the pavement like it owed me something. A car stumbled to a stop.
The Lost Coast Page 7