Breakfast is strangely silent. Everyone should have been so excited this morning. The cafeteria should be vibrating with pure preshow adrenaline. But now there’s this cloud hanging over everything.

Somehow, though, I feel strangely at peace. Because I know my mother in a way I never would have if I hadn’t come to Whisper Cove. I feel her with me now, almost all the time. And that’s something I think I’ll take home with me. That feeling of connection to a part of myself I thought was lost at sea. So all I can do is let go of the things I still don’t know and hope that, one way or the other, Glory will pay for what she did.

And there’s a kind of freedom in that.

Somehow we all make it through the rest of that last day, and almost before I can blink, I’m standing in the dressing room at the back of the barn, slipping on a simple white dress. Val helps me tie it in the back, and then she stands and stares at me in the mirror. She covers her open mouth with her hands.

“What’s wrong?” I ask her, but she shakes her head.

“Nothing’s wrong. You’re just—her.” Then she throws her arms around my neck. “Break a leg tonight,” she tells me. “I love you.”

And I hug her back so hard. “I love you, too,” I say.

I finish my makeup. Pull my hair back.

Then I stand backstage holding hands with Lex.

“You’re beautiful,” he tells me. “Just fucking stunning.”

“So are you,” I say. And I mean that so much. I’ve never met anyone like Lex before. He’s absolutely on fire with love and truth and curiosity, and I’ve been so grateful for his friendship and his light this last month.

I catch sight of Cole then. He’s hidden in the shadows. Waiting. So I go to him. We’re standing side by side.

The preshow music fades down, and Willa steps out on the stage to thunderous applause. She bows. Raises her face to the night sky. She’s the most gracious host, welcoming the audience and saying that tonight’s show is dedicated to someone very special. A much-loved member of the Whisper Cove family who is very much on our minds tonight. I’m blown away by her grace. Her poise. The steely strength of her.

If I could become anything, that’s what I would choose for myself.

“Someone painted the memorial back,” Cole whispers. “The one on the back wall of the scene shop.”

My mother’s name. And those blood-red words. What the sea wants, the sea will have.

“Why?” I ask. “I don’t—”

“They think it was the curse. What happened to Glory. The whispering. Another tragedy at Whisper Cove.”

“It wasn’t,” I tell him. “Nobody called Glory into the sea. That isn’t—”