I broke from my paralyzed stance and ran after Adora as the sand tore in my wake.
“Adora!” I screamed, not hearing it but feeling the scream claw my throat.
But it was too late.
Ivy Sullivan took her last breath, then collapsed upon the rocks.
Adora fell to her knees at her side, her cries piercing through us all.
I halted, my hands flying to the top of my head, my mind numb.
“Someone help me!” Adora cried out on her knees in an agonizing scream, fisting Ivy’s coat, her face wet under the moonlight. “Stone! Help me!”
Suddenly, Circe appeared in the shallows. She looked just as I remembered from the dream, long, wet hair clinging around her shoulders, water raining from her sopping wet dress.
At last, Alec had broken free from his death echo and was standing at her side, looking down at her. Then he took her hand. I watched, frozen, unable to tear my eyes away, hearing Adora’s cries as though she and I were in the background behind Alec & Circe’s love story.
From where Ivy lay, a small girl emerged and joined them.
“Hedera,” I whispered just as Alec turned toward me.
Across the waterline between us, the lighthouse beam reflected off something that had washed up on shore.
I walked closer and picked it up from the sand.
It was the cigar tin that held the envelope Ambrose had given me all those years ago. I looked back at Alec with the tin in my fist. His gaze moved, peering up at the lighthouse beam. And the three vanished into the night just as the lighthouse beam stopped rotating, and the light flickered off.
Dawn spread across the Atlantic, and at last, the sun came out.
“Good morning,Weeping Hollow. It’s Monday, February 1st, the start of a new month, with some breaking news. The Shadows have been defeated, and my sources say a mysterious group of heroes sailed back early this morning at sunrise from Bone Island, where, for the first time in over a century, the lighthouse beam finally went out. That’s all we know for now, but I think this one calls for Wake Me Up by Avicii. This is Freddy in the Mournin’ with your Hollow Headlines. Remember, no one is safe after 3am.Owwweeeeee.”
CHAPTER 60
ADORA
Endings are inescapable.
As if they were a curse, no one talks about them, and we’re afraid to face them and unwilling to accept them each time they come. All we love, and the simple pleasures we find comfort in, will never last forever.
Not the hug of a big sister, bringing you home each time her arms wrap around you. Not the moments in a dusty lighthouse with the boy you love, collecting gazes, whispers, and moans. Not the hope in your heart as you care for your sick mother.
Coffee has a last sip. A song has a final note. A great story has a last page. Nothing can stop it. The sun sets, people die, you read the final chapter, you say goodbye. You move on. But, if loud enough, if felt deeply enough, if this moment or person was so significant and changed your life, they became a part of you. You feel them floating on a melody, sewn into a breeze, laced in a scent, or brought to life by words on a page. No one needs magic to remember them or feel them. They’ve already imprinted themselves. The nostalgic stamps that keep us grounded. Our lighthouse beams to keep us moving forward.
Love is eternal, after all.
Stone carriedmy sister’s body to the Finneuma, and I remembered it being quiet the entire way back to Weeping Hollow as I’d brought her home. All I’d heard were the waves and my own cries as I stared out at the cliffs with my sister lying peacefully at the bow of the boat.
I would never understand for certain why she’d done it. Ivy was selfless, yes, but only when it came to Fable and me.
How could I go on with the possibility that she’d sacrificed herself for a man she didn’t even know, all because I couldn’t live without him?
That same morning, while we were on Bone Island, Mom took her last breath. No one could have prepared me for the death of a sister and a mother on the same day. I was no longer angry or consumed by rage. All of my hate had left me on the shores of Bone Island that morning. And I’d come to realize this hate was never my own. It was Circe’s. So, at times, I missed the rage dearly because it was so much easier to be angry than filled with grief.
Two weeks had passed since Ivy and Mom were laid to rest.
The snow had melted, the sun shone, life returned, a golden, fiery autumn.
I spent these weeks with Fable and Dad.
