I run to see who’s there. To get a closer look. Because I refuse to be afraid. Not of ghosts and shadows. But it’s too late. There’s nothing but an ocean of white.

I turn and head back to the front porch, and an overpowering scent hangs heavy in the thick, wet air. It mingles with the salt. Seeps into the dark.

There on the railing, beneath the weak shine of the porch light, I find a little bundle of fresh purple flowers. Lavender. It’s tied with simple brown string. And I know it wasn’t there before.

I stare for a long few seconds, but I can’t bring myself to touch it. Because I don’t want to know if it’s real.

I push open the door and creep into the cabin. The overhead lights are off, and the girls who are still awake turn to look in my direction, but then they go back to their phones. Or the scripts they’re studying by flashlight. Their whispered conversations.

I glance toward Val’s bunk, but she’s already passed out, so I sit cross-legged on the green rug with my mother’s old notebook. I’m afraid to open it up. I can’t stop thinking about what Glory said. About how everyone has secrets.

What if I don’t find any answers in her notebook?

Or what if I do?

I use my phone for light, thumbing through the pages, running my fingers over the handwritten notes. My mother’s very own thoughts in curling, loopy script. It hurts me that I don’t even recognize her handwriting. It’s nothing like mine.

Each page is dated, starting at the front of the notebook with the very beginning of that last summer. Most of the pages seem to be full of rehearsal notes and character work. But there are also little scrawled reminders to herself. Phone numbers and email addresses. A recipe for lemon pie. A Chinese takeout order. Meeting times. Doodles of sunflowers and spirals.

Nothing really stands out to me until I come across a page in the middle of the notebook. It’s mostly blank, just a few words scrawled in the center. They’re written in purple ink, and my mother has circled them over and over, pressing hard with the tip of the pen. So many circles that she’s almost torn right through the paper.

I close the notebook and slip it back into my backpack, then I crawl into my bunk and shiver beneath the thin, scratchy blanket.

I whisper the circled words into my pillow.

We know who we are, but not who we may be.

ACT II: SCENE 5