There is a pause, a delayed moment while everyone processes what’s happening, their brains chugging forward at half speed. And then a girl shouts, “She has Davis and Lon!”
As if choreographed, several guys standing around the bonfire drop their beers into the flames then break into a sprint after Gigi. They know what she is—at least they think they do. And seeing her leading Davis and Lon down toward the water, on the last night of the summer solstice, after she’s been missing for weeks, is proof enough that they’ve been right all along.
Gigi waits a half beat; her gaze sweeps over the crowd then back to me as she registers what’s happening, and then her hands release their hold on Davis and Lon. She won’t be able to take them with her. She has to run now. And she does.
Her blond hair shivers against the moonlight as she veers down the path to the dock. The boys shout after her, darting past Davis and Lon, both numbed to the commotion. And when the small mob reaches the dock, there is more shouting, and what sounds like people clamoring into boats and engines rumbling to life. Gigi must have dove straight into the water. It was her only escape.
She will have to swim; she will have to hide. Or maybe she will dip safely beneath the surface of the harbor, quickly relinquishing the body she’s stolen to spend another winter in the cold and dark.
By morning, the real Gigi will wake as if from a hangover, floating in the harbor perhaps, forced to swim ashore and pull herself onto land. Only foggy images will surface in her mind from the last few weeks, when she was no longer Gigi Kline but was Aurora Swan. But we will all know the truth.
And that’s assuming the crowd chasing after her doesn’t catch her first.
Rose shakes her head in disbelief, staring down the path where Gigi has fled, where the rest of the party has descended to climb into boats and assist in the search for Aurora Swan.
I feel a wave of sympathy for Rose. She thought she was doing the right thing by rescuing Gigi. She thought she could see what was right in front of her—the truth—but she can’t. She’s blind, just like everyone else in this town.
She doesn’t even know what I am.
Her best friend has been turned into something else. And for a sliver of a split second, I consider telling her the truth. Getting it over with. One night to shatter her entire world—to tear apart her reality.
But then I remember Bo.
He wasn’t with Gigi in the cottage. He didn’t go to kill her after all.
And then I realize . . . Olivia is nowhere in the crowd. She wasn’t even here when Gigi appeared.
They’re both missing.
*
“Where are you going?” Rose asks. She and Heath and I are the last remaining people standing beside the bonfire. Everyone else has gone in pursuit of Gigi.
“To find Bo,” I tell her. “You guys should go back to town.”
A slight rain has begun to fall, and a wall of bruise-black clouds pushes beneath the stars and blocks out the moon.
I walk to Rose. I hope this isn’t the last time I’ll see her, but just in case, I say, “You did the right thing helping Gigi. You didn’t know what she really was.” I want her to understand that even though she was wrong about Gigi, she shouldn’t doubt herself. She wanted to protect Gigi, keep her safe, and I admire her for it.
“But I should have known,” she says, her eyes turning glassy with tears, her cheeks flushed. And in this instant, I know I can’t tell her what I really am. It will destroy her. And after tonight, if I’m still Penny Talbot, I will continue pretending to be her best friend. I will let her believe I am the same person she grew up with. Even if the real Penny Talbot will be gone—lost in the trenches of a body and mind that I have stolen.
“Please,” I say to her and Heath. “Go back to town. There’s nothing more you can do tonight. Gigi’s gone.”
Heath reaches forward and touches Rose’s hand. He knows it’s time to go.
“Call me tomorrow?” she asks. I hug her, smelling the sweet cinnamon-and-nutmeg scent that lingers in her wavy hair from her mother’s shop.
“Of course.” No matter what, if I’m still Penny tomorrow, I’ll call her. If I’m not, I’m certain the real Penny will call her anyway. And Rose will hopefully never know the difference.
Heath pulls her away, back to the dock, and my chest aches watching them leave.
A deluge of rain begins falling from the dark, funeral-black sky, making the bonfire pop and sizzle.
I pick my way through the sharp beach grass and large boulders, the rain blowing steadily now. I will check Bo’s cottage first and then the orchard. But I don’t even make it that far when I notice something atop the lighthouse. Two silhouettes block the beam of light as it sweeps clockwise around the lantern room.
Bo and Olivia. It has to be them. They’re in the lighthouse.
*
The metal door into the lighthouse has been left open by whoever was the last to enter, and it taps lightly against the wall behind it, the gusting wind blowing rain onto the stone floor.
Otis and Olga are standing just inside, mewing softly up at me, eyes watery and wide. What are they doing out here? I pause beside the stairwell, listening for voices. But the storm beating against the outer walls is louder than anything else. Bo must be inside. Otis and Olga have been attached to him since he arrived, following him around the island, sleeping in his cottage most nights. I think they’ve known I’m not really Penny since the start; they sensed the moment I took up residence inside her body. And they prefer Bo over me.
“Go back to the house,” I urge them, but the two orange tabbies blink away from me, staring out into the gloomy night, uninterested in leaving the lighthouse.
I take the stairs two at a time, my breathing ragged. I use the railing to propel myself up the interior of the lighthouse. My legs are on fire. Sweat ripples down my temples. But I keep going. My heart feels like it’s burning a hole through my chest. But I reach the top in record speed, pulling myself up over the last step and sucking in deep, quick breaths.
I inch along the stone wall, trying to steady my crazed heartbeat, then peek around the corner into the lantern room. Bo and Olivia are no longer inside. But I can see them through the glass. They are standing outside on the narrow walkway that encircles the lighthouse. Bo has something in his hand. It glints as he moves closer to Olivia.
It’s a knife.
TWENTY-ONE
The small door that leads out to the walkway bangs open when I turn the knob, sucked out by the wind. Both Bo and Olivia jerk around to face me.
“You shouldn’t be out here, Penny,” Bo yells over the storm, his gaze quickly whipping back around to Olivia. Like he’s afraid she might vanish into the air if he doesn’t keep an eye on her.
The walkway hasn’t been used in decades; the metal is rotted and rusted, and it creaks as I shuffle out onto it. “You don’t have to do this,” I say. The wind is blinding, rain stinging my face and eyes.