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“And you’ve been inside it?” Priya said. “Or are we just trusting the map?”
“I’ve been inside.” I kept my voice level. “It’s dark and it stinks and there’s nothing in it but rocks and dead crabs. It’s the only place we won’t be seen.”
“Is this Damian’s idea?” Jess said, and the way she said it made me want to look at her twice.
“He knows that coast better than anyone,” I said. “He’s pulled people out of that cave. He’ll be between us and the camp the whole night.”
Priya was quiet, turning her glass. Then she said, “Two nights ago I drove across town in my pajamas.” She looked around the table, one woman at a time. “So I don’t care if it’s a cave. I don’t care if it’s a storm drain. I want the Bridegroom dead.”
Nobody argued with that. Even Jess looked at her wine.
Priya ran us through her questions in typical Priya style: the distance, the walk in, what we carried, what would happen if there was a delay. I answered what I could, and for a moment it almost felt like four women planning an ordinary trip to the beach.
“And the women from the party,” Callie said. “Have they actually signed up? Do we even know if the trade’s—”
“Not yet.” I turned my glass by its stem. “Octavia will call him when it’s done. Vivienne’s already packing for the retreat in her head. But officially, we know nothing.”
“So we’re planning all this without knowing if we’re even safe,” Priya said. “What if she lies? What if they take the women and come after us anyway?”
“Then nothing changes,” I said. “We’re destroying their monster either way. The severing is what buys us out. And the trade buys us peace afterward.”
Priya looked at me, and I watched her decide to accept it.
Jess raised her glass. “To low tide,” she said.
We drank to it. Under the table, I pressed my thumbnail into the pad of my finger, because on Saturday I was going to have to walk back into the dark that had unmade me, holding all of us together, and I wasn’t going to tell any of the women in this room how much that scared me.
Damian knew. The cave knew. Everyone else got the version where I talked about tide tables.
Then it was Friday, and right as I was dumping withered seven-hundred-dollar floral arrangements in the trash at Vivienne’s house, Damian texted, asking me to meet him at the surf shop in Arcata, where Kai worked.
we need to discuss tomorrow night.
I rummaged for my keys and grabbed a box of Net-a-Porter kaftan returns on my way out the door.
As I crossed the bay, broad stretches of marshland spread out on either side of the road, stitched together by winding channels that reflected the leaded sky. Great egrets stood motionless in the shallows, white against the dark reeds, while low fog hovered just above the grasses as though the tide had breathed it into existence.
Then Arcata’s bright murals appeared, and students coasted through intersections on battered bicycles. Independent bookstores sat beside coffee shops and climbing gyms, and almost every other vehicle had a surfboard or kayak strapped to the roof.
Kai’s shop occupied the corner of an old timber warehouse a few blocks from the plaza. The cedar building was seasoned by years of rain and salt air, and a weatherbeaten longboard hung above the entrance.
The bell above the door gave a dull clang as I stepped inside.
The shop smelled of surf wax, neoprene, weed, and sawdust. Surfboards stood upright in handmade cedar racks, their rails scarred from years of use. Wetsuits hung from galvanized pipes overhead, and shelves overflowed with leash cords, wax, repair kits, insulated mugs, and tide charts. Sand had settled permanently into the cracks between the old wooden floorboards despite repeated attempts to sweep it away.
Kai sat astride a padded shaping stand, one hand steadying a battered longboard while the other feathered resin into a spiderweb crack with clean, slow strokes. A respirator hung loose around his neck, and fine white sanding dust coated his faded T-shirt. He glanced up as the bell rang.
“Give me thirty seconds,” he said, without stopping. “If I stop it now, I’ll have to do the whole thing again.”
Damian leaned against the workbench with a paper coffee cup, like he’d been there a while. He slipped an arm around me when I reached him.
Through the window, I saw Callie seated at the coffee shop next door by a tall window, headphones on, her head buried in her laptop. It was so ordinary and sweet, the daily rhythm she’d built with Kai, that it made the thought of tomorrow even worse, and the idea that four mortal women would actually do it even less likely.
She waved back, stood and closed her laptop, then appeared in the doorway with her latte in her hand a minute later.
Kai finished sanding and kissed Callie long enough to make me blush. Then he raked a hand through his hair and leaned against the counter.
“Okay, so tomorrow,” he said, swiping a bar of surf wax aside like it disrupted his train of thought. “Vehicles. Walk them through it,” he said to Damian.
