He reaches into his pocket and pulls out something small, then presses whatever it is into my palm. He closes my fingers tight around it, and I feel the smooth coolness of his gift.

“Sea glass,” he tells me, and I open my fist to stare at the little blue chunk. It’s beautiful. Frosty and polished. Round like a pebble. “You find it all over the beach here. The waves and the sand wear it down.”

“What do I do with it?”

Cole laughs low in his throat. “Just keep it. It’s a good luck charm. I have a ton of it. All different colors.” It’s my turn to stare at him now. “It’s for protection.”

“I don’t believe in lucky charms,” I say. For a couple of years, I carried around a rabbit’s foot. It was dyed hot pink, and I won it at the Texas state fair. I threw it out, though, once I realized it obviously hadn’t been lucky for the rabbit. “And I don’t believe in ghosts.”

Even if I’ve spent my whole life looking for one.

“I don’t believe in ghosts, either.” Cole shrugs. “But there are lots of ways to be haunted.” He gives me a little smile. “Just take it.”

I never asked for a party favor from him, but I give up and slip his treasure into my pocket.

“Welcome to Whisper Cove,” he tells me, and something flickers behind those smoke-gray eyes again. I’m almost surprised when he doesn’t correct himself with Welcome back, I mean. But he doesn’t. Instead he just vanishes into the dark, and I stare after him for a second before I hurry to catch up with the others.

I’m grateful Jude knows where he’s going. The fog has me all confused. Turned around. And disoriented. I would have sworn we were headed the wrong direction.

ACT I: SCENE 3

We follow Jude through the fog to the first of the blue cabins that sit huddled together on the other side of a muddy field. One for the girls and one for the boys. He reminds us about the breakfast meeting with Willa Culver before he and Lex disappear into the mist, headed for the other cabin just a few yards away.

Val and I trudge up the front steps to our temporary home. She pushes open the door, and I close it tight behind us. I’m not really afraid of serial killers, but I don’t want that fog to follow us inside and fill up the room.

Swallow us whole.