I push open the door and slip inside. It’s quiet. Glowing phone screens shine from a half dozen or so bunks. I tiptoe toward my bed and sink onto the thin mattress. I lie on my back and close my eyes. I try to think—to make sense of an impossible memory that’s never made sense before—but my nose is suddenly filled with the scent of lavender.

Goose bumps pop up along my arms.

I open my eyes to see a little bundle of purple flowers tied with fraying twine. It’s lying on top of the crooked dresser, beside my hairbrush and Val’s paperback romance novel.

I recoil. Push myself up and away.

“Val.” My voice is coarse. The scratch of sandpaper on metal. “Hey. Val.” She rolls over to face me and opens one eye. “Do you know where these came from? The flowers?”

“No clue,” she whispers. Her eye is already closed again. “They were there when I came back from dinner.”

I take the little bundle of lavender and shove it under my bed. I don’t want to think about it.

I don’t want to think about anything. I only want to sleep.

But I know, as soon as I do, that old nightmare will find me.

And it does.

I’m standing in the dark. Looking up as those streaks of glowing light fall out of the sky and into the sea.

And there’s that voice, only this time I know who it belongs to. I recognize it. Because I’ve heard it close and low in my ear. Felt it against my skin.

Look at the stars.

Cole’s voice. The piece of the puzzle that’s always been missing.

Then, suddenly, I’m blind. Blinking. The light is too much. I can’t see.

There’s the whisper of wind chimes. My skin starts to crawl. I’m afraid.

Then I’m not watching the stars anymore.

I’ve become one.

And I’m falling.

•   •   •

I sit upright in bed. Breathing hard. The smell of lavender is overpowering, and I need some fresh air. I creep to the door and open it up. Just a crack. So the fog can’t come inside. But there’s Cole. Slumped and asleep. Leaning against the railing.

I guess he followed me after all.

I step out onto the porch. Cole’s arms are wrapped tight around his chest, and I know he must be cold. I reach out to touch his hair. It’s damp. Glistening in the porch light. It makes my chest hurt to look at him.

I hear the foghorn. Feel the vibration of it in my bones. And under that lonesome sound, there’s something else.

The whispering starts off so quiet that I almost can’t hear it. It sounds like nothing. The dance of dune grass in the wind, maybe.