A crash. Shattering glass. Then silence. Then footsteps.
Harmony stayed in the shadows, notebook pressed to her chest, then wrote one line.
Love sounds like violence when it’s told in whispers.
By the next morning, Mary had started carrying a knife. She showed it to Harmony without ceremony, pulling the blade from her bag in the middle of breakfast at The Pancake Cottage.
“For protection,” she said.
“From who?”
“Whoever the island decides to use next.”
Harmony watched her slice through a piece of toast with surgical calm. “You think it’s not over?”
Mary laughed softly, bitterly. “It’s never over. The island doesn’t bury its sins. It simply recycles them.”
Harmony took the chair across from her. “And the knife helps?”
“It helps me feel like I still get a say.”
Wind rattled the shutters. For a moment, the whole cottage seemed to hold its breath.
“Have you ever killed anyone, Harmony?” Mary asked suddenly.
Harmony met her gaze without flinching. “Not on purpose.”
Mary’s lips curved into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “When you do, you’ll understand why I carry it.”
Thunder broke the moment apart. Harmony stood, brushing rain from her sleeves. “You should lock your doors at night.”
Mary looked back at the knife. “Maybe I should leave them open and invite them in. When a person has nothing left to lose,they’rethe one you should fear.”
Harmony glanced toward the café window. A figure passed by, blurred by rain, then turned their head just enough that she knew they’d been looking in. By the time she focused, the sidewalk was empty. Catalina loved an audience—it never announced when one arrived.
Over the next few days, paranoia spread like a fever. Torie stopped sleeping. Candy stopped singing. Tosh started drinking in the mornings. Zach stayed in the shadows. Janie was brittle. Even Cass’s smile stopped reaching her eyes.
Harmony kept writing.
Torie’s hidden marriage.
Candy’s bruises.
Mary’s blade.
Zach’s midnight visits to the cliffs.
Tosh’s secrets.
Cass’s innocence.
Were any of these things real, or were they all facades? Was every story written twice—once as a confession and once as fiction?
That night, as the storm thickened, Harmony walked the edge of the harbor. The lights along Crescent Avenue flickered in and out like unreliable memories. Footsteps echoed behind her, then stopped when she turned.
She shook it off.
She passed Tosh’s house and heard raised voices inside—one sharp and defensive, one slurred and desperate. She passedMary’s place and saw shadows dancing behind the curtains. For a second, she thought she saw a splash of red on the glass. She passed Torie’s house, which was dark. She passed Zach’s and saw someone step back into deeper shadow. She passed Janie’s and glimpsed more than one body moving inside.
