“You won’t be able to live with yourselfliterallyif youdrown,” I’d replied. My tone was aiming for playful, trying to recapture whatever banter we’d had before, but he only looked at me with serious, dark eyes and said, “I didn’t do all this not to take a few risks, Geneva.”
All this?I’d thought, mentally rolling my eyes.What have you done except come to a beach hotel and work on a laptop sixteen hours a day?
But there was something about the gravity with which he’d said it that bothered me, even hours later, something I felt like I was missing. I kept remembering how terrible he’d looked when he came into the office with that picture of Camile Fitzroy on his phone, how…consumedhe seemed by the fact that Landon could very well have been my father. I chalked it up to writers being writers—obsessive, consumed by the story they’re weaving. Or maybe the falling air pressure alongside the almost unbearable tension that seemed to be rising inside the inn was making August as crazy as it was me.
I thought Lo might leave even if August wanted to stay, but when I’d asked, she’d given me that sweet-as-pie smile and said, “Baby, I’m one of the Witches of St. Medard’s Bay, remember? I can’t abandon it in its hour of need!”
And we were back to the witches.
I can’t help but notice that she’s writing, too.
Lo.
As I go about the inn, trying to find things to do, smallprojects to keep me from spiraling into panic and madness, I see her perched on the sofa in the lobby or sitting in one of the rocking chairs on the porch, a yellow legal pad in hand, her pen scrawling so fast I wonder if later she’ll even be able to read anything she’s written.
It adds to the unreality of all of it, the idea of Lo and August in their separate corners, telling different versions of the same story. A story that might involve me far, far more than I ever could have guessed.
THAT NIGHT,I get two calls.
One is from the hospital, where Edie is still in critical condition. They brought her out of the induced coma, and while she’s far from out of the woods, the prognosis is, as her doctor put it, “tentatively hopeful.” Tonight, the call is to let me know that patients will not be evacuated unless they lose power, which would mean that all of their backup generators had gone out. The doctor assures me it isn’t likely—St. Medard’s Memorial is prepared for storms. “We’ve never lost power, not even during Marie, and that was adoozy,” he tells me, chuckling, and I fight the urge to scream and laugh all at the same time.
Yup, sure was a fucking doozy, Doc.
The second call is from Hope House. Theyareevacuating a handful of patients, the ones who, like Mom, don’t require intensive medical care. “She’ll be at Magnolia Manor in Montgomery,” Opal tells me. “Saythatthree times fast. I’ll keep a close eye on her.”
“I know you will,” I say, but my voice is thin and tired.
We tell each other to stay safe, and I hang up, resting my phone against my chest as I study the ceiling over my bed. It’slate, almost midnight, and from the little TV on my kitchen counter, I hear newscasters say things like “Landfall within the next thirty-six hours” and “Check generators and batteries” and “Not since Marie in eighty-four…”
Marie in ’84.
Landon.
Lo.
My mom.
And now, more than forty years later, there’s another hurricane, and instead of Mom, there’s me.
Instead of Landon, there’s August.
But in both cases, there’s Lo, right back in the center of things—the eye of the storm itself.
The past feels like a wave, retreating for a while only to rush back in.
Which of us will be left standing when it slides back out to sea?
I lie there in the dark, my thoughts churning, my heart pounding, and then suddenly I’m on my feet and headed to the door.
The wind has started, and while it’s not nearly as strong as it’s going to get, it’s enough to wrench the trailer door out of my hand as I open it. I can’t see the ocean over the rise of the beach, but I can hear the surf pounding. The air itself feels heavy with moisture, and my lips are salty when I lick them.
I make my way to the inn, squinting against the wind and the fine bits of sand swirling in the air. With every step, I tell myself the same thing, the thought I had while I was lying there in my bed.
I’ll make them leave. I can do that. I don’t care that it’s the middle of the night, I don’t care that I’ll be alone when that fucking bitch Lizzie slams into the Rosalie, I’m not doing this, I’m not reenacting this fucked-up story, I’m not offering up mylife, mymom’slife for fuckingcontent,I’m making them leave, I’m making them leave, I’m making them leave.
I go to August’s room, knock hard, and he answers almost immediately.
“Is it here?”
