I walked down to the landing. The afternoon light turned the sand to gold. My face and fingertips burned. Clint had his bagpipe on the dock, and it sang and sang. I heard the lines from the poem as my own heart beat in rhythm. I imagined the tomb by the sounding sea but I didn’t shiver. I felt a warm rebellion deep in my gut.

This wasn’t me. I didn’t lie still while a thief took all that was mine. I was someone who fought back. I was slowly filling up with something, a large, warm sensation. It was courage, coursing through my veins. I planted my feet in the sand and lifted my arms above my head, lifted them to the golden sun sagging in the west. Things were going to change, because I was different now. I felt the change like a turning tide. I was scared of Cole, yes, and I was sad about the past, but I was also brave. All this time I’d been waiting for someone to throw me a life buoy, but I didn’t need the buoy. I was a strong swimmer, a fierce swimmer, and I knew how to fight against a current.

Chapter 20

20

I made three changes when I returned home from the Inn, and I implemented them like they were my job.

First, I installed a lock on my door, a sliding lock I could secure from the inside, and I stashed a bottle of spray cleaner under my bed, which I could use to blind him, I thought, if I needed to. Even so, I had a hard time sleeping, and when I did my dreams woke me up.

Often I heard knocking, but when I went to the door no one was there.

Often I saw twin creatures running across the lawn, raccoons, or foxes, or stray dogs.

I dreamed Cole was telling me secrets.

“It’s the same every time,” he said. “It’s you and me in a dark place—together. I’m inside you. Over and over.”

“What are we talking about?”

“The dream. The most perfect dream I’ve ever had.”

He touched me with one finger, letting it run along my throat, my collarbone, my breasts, first one, then the other, his fingernail as light as wind, on my rib cage, my stomach, my hip. I felt myself sinking, submerged.

“Can I ask you something?” I said. “What’s your real name?”

He laughed. “Colin,” he said.

“Is this a dream?” I asked, just to be sure.

The palm of his hand on the outside, then the inside, of my thigh. I was out of breath. I was slipping underwater.

The second change: I made an appointment with Dr. Brent, a psychologist whose office was at the small medical center inland, to talk about my panic attacks and how to manage them.