“Common misconception,” he said. “I mean, sure, some of them drop out of high school and enter the workforce sooner. But is that growing up? Hardly. It’s a chemical problem. The pregnancy hormones and adolescent hormones. They clash. It has all kinds of side effects in the brain. Really, Miriam. Sometimes it may feel like I’m hard on you but it’s a miracle that you’re doing as well as you are.”

My mother seemed hopeful then. He put his arm around her and she turned her face to his chest. I saw her finding comfort in it. I was cold and confused and I wanted to be the one she was breathing in. I wanted her to hold me all night like she had when I was little.

“You two,” Blake said. “You’re lucky to be here with me. I’ll look out for you. And this is a special property. A special place. You know, a long time ago, it was oceanfront property. Hell, with global warming going the way it is, it’s bound to be oceanfront property again one day.”

My mother didn’t say anything. Her head was still nestled in his chest. Oceanfront? I thought. It didn’t seem possible. We were several towns in from the bay, let alone the ocean. I saw him looking at me. I didn’t say anything.

___

A few days later, I stepped on something sharp. It cut through the thin sole of my shoe, into my foot.

A shell, right there, in the dirt.

Blake smiled.

“Don’t doubt me, Mila,” he said.

My body pulsed with energy as I left the schoolhouse. I could see clearly in the dark even without a lantern to guide me. When I inhaled, I tasted air and ocean and grass. I felt the softness of my sweater against my skin, the coldness of the night, the thump of my feet against the ground. My heartbeat was its own music.

Ghosts glowed in the distance but I didn’t mind them. I moved steadily forward, strides long and purposeful, past the main house to the garden and through it until I reached the rows of strawberries. The sky was clear, the moonlight bright enough that I could spot the berries hidden among the waxy leaves. Twist of stem, berry in my palm.

They tasted like sugar and the soil they came from. Soft between my teeth, and sweet. I held one in my mouth, lay on my back between the rows, let my body melt into the cold ground.

Tiny bright stars studded the black sky, more of them and brighter than I’d ever seen.

Boom, boom, boom beat my heart.

I was not afraid of anything.