“This is a second chance,” he tells me, and I nod. “For both of us.”

I let Cole take my hand and lead me back toward my cabin. The fog is suddenly everywhere, when it was nowhere just moments ago. It has a solidness to it. A heaviness that makes it hard to move. It’s like walking through deep water. That swirling mist reaches for me with damp fingers, but Cole’s hand keeps me anchored.

We don’t get lost.

He touches my face again before he says good night. And then he slips into the dark, and I climb the wooden steps. I’m suddenly disappointed, because I realize I still haven’t felt his lips against mine.

“Avril.”

I turn back toward Cole and smile. Because maybe this is when he kisses me.

Finally.

Except there’s nobody there.

Nobody at all.

But then I hear my name again. “Avril.”

“Lex?”

I put my hand on the wooden railing and feel my way down the stairs.

One step.

Two steps.

Three steps.

Then four, five, six.

There shouldn’t be that many. Should there?

Then the crunch of gravel. More whispering. I’m still hanging on to the handrail.

“Who’s there?” I ask.

I let go and take one step into the fog. Just one. And I’m immediately swallowed up. Lost. There’s nothing. I can’t even feel the ground under my feet anymore. It’s like trying to touch bottom in a pool that’s deeper than you think.

The smell of lavender fills my nose.

“Avril!” My name again. But different this time. It’s shouted. Not whispered. “Av, where are you?”

“Lex?” I’m certain that’s who it is this time. That Tennessee drawl gives him away.

I see the beam of a flashlight slicing through the thick fog.

“Av?”

“I’m here,” I say, and I reach for the handrail. I was just holding it a second ago. But now it’s not there, so I start to tumble.

Lex grabs me by the arm. “Holy shit,” he says. “You’re a block of ice.” He’s waiting for me to say something. But I can’t. “Av? What are you doing back here?”

“I . . .” My voice isn’t working any better than my brain.

“What’s that in your hand?” Lex asks me. And I look down at the little bundle of lavender clutched in my fist. I drop it fast. Like the flowers are on fire. “Where am I?”

Lex turns the light away from me then. It bounces off a white wall just a few feet in front of us.

My mother’s name. Bright red. On the back of the scene shop. The date she died.

What the sea wants, the sea will have.

My head spins and I sway on my feet. Lex’s arm is suddenly tight around my waist.