She caught her hair and held it down. Aunt Wren’s bit of shoreline was like a lopsided smile, quirking on the one end, a short bluff with a bent pine, and drooping into a marshland on the other. Maggie looked beyond the cattails. In that westward direction, the land formed a narrow peninsula, craggy with giant rocks and lush with maples, oaks, and locusts. The muck, tall grass, and vines made the place unapproachable. But even if she wanted to tackle the swamp to reach it, she shouldn’t. It didn’t belong to the aunt. Wren had said so herself. Isolated, severe, wild, it didn’t seem like the kind of place anyone could own.

Maggie lowered her gaze to the sand and started walking.

The lake was inventive. Each lapping break delivered something new. Along the water-laced sheen where waves and land met, she looked for beach glass. Mixed with wet stones, the remnants of old bottles glinted. Frosted white, pale green, warm amber, deep blue, smooth and rounded—small treasures. Once she started, she couldn’t stop. The search—the mindlessness of it—was addictive. As the morning wore on, beachcombing became brain-combing, a soothing repetition of walk, pause, bend, collect, white, green, amber, blue. Thoughts turned blunted like the glass, as if the waves had plucked the sharp things from her head, carried them to the lake on a retreating swell, and then tumbled them over and over, ground them into something bearable, before sweeping them back to her. Here. They can’t hurt you now.

Nothing to wonder but the simplest question—pebble or glass? Nothing to feel but the lake circling her ankles and the sun threading warmth through her hair. Nothing to look out for but harmless things, half-buried in shifting sand, a coin among broken shells, a glimmer by a silver feather, a bright wink under sodden wood.

The simplicity of the exercise pleased her. After a couple of hours, it struck her as funny. Who needed college? What would she have done with an English degree anyway? Maybe she wouldn’t bother reading those crazy-long Victorian novels she’d bought yesterday. Maybe she would give up words entirely. She’d just pick up glass from now on, day in and day out, this way and that, walk, pause, bend, collect, white, green, amber, blue. The pockets of her rolled-up pants sagged damply with chips of glass. Her feet were numb from the cold water; her nose, sunburned. She didn’t care. She was going to tell her parents not to worry. They could stop freaking out about the scholarships, put away their fears for her health and happiness. They didn’t need to stress about her lost year, this year, the leave of absence Carlton had readily granted. Just to get her the hell out of the way, Maggie suspected. Put an end to the ugly press. Shoo, shoo. And take your bad business with you.