And that was fine with me.
With Aggie and Harrison’s help, I loaded my three steamer trunks and one picnic basket into the bed of my mother’s pickup. Harrison and Prue added their luggage, and I remembered, so vividly, the moment they’d gotten out of Seymore Stanners’s taxi in the driveway of the inn, two months and an entire lifetime ago.
There’s one for both of us, my sister had said.
But I’d promised myself I wouldn’t cry (mostly because I really didn’t want it to rain on all my stuff), and so I pushed that memory down somewhere to save until later.
“Are you okay?” Prue asked me.
“I’m okay,” I said, and kissed her.
We lay down in the truck’s bed as my mother drove us to the docks, watching the whitest, puffiest clouds crash against each other in the sky over what had been my entire world, what would be my entire world, at least for the next thirty minutes.
I closed my eyes and let the roar of the wind rush over me, drowning out as much as I could.
Everything would be okay.
The birdheads would come back.
The inn would stay open.
My sister was alive, and Peter was in jail.
The sun was shining.
And Prue was holding my hand.
You couldn’t ask for much more than that.
I’d seen the ferry before, of course, many times, but somehow, today, it looked smaller.
“Are you sure this thing is seaworthy?” I whispered to my mother.
“I vomited twenty-seven times on the way over,” Prue said, overhearing me, dragging her suitcase out of the back of the truck. “But I survived.”
“You’re going on a great adventure,” my mother said.
“Oh no. Are you going to cry?”
“Fernwehs don’t cry,” she said quickly, wiping at her cheeks.
Without warning, she threw her arms around me and hugged me so tightly I couldn’t breathe.
When she let go, she was not crying, but her eyes were wet and red.
“I’ll write to you every day,” she said. “I’ll even use a telephone. You know how much I hate the phone.”
“And email?”
“And smoke signals, and carrier pigeons,” she added. She kissed the tips of her fingers and then pressed them against my cheek.
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
She got back in the truck but didn’t drive away. I saw her shoulders shaking, her hands covering her face.
“Georgina? Are you ready?” Harrison asked.
I hadn’t thanked him for everything he’d done, for showing up at Peter’s trial and speaking out for my sister and for believing me without so much as a moment’s hesitation.
“Harrison,” I began.
He held his hand up. “It doesn’t need to be said.”
“But you did so much.”
“Not any more than any decent birdhead should have done.”
“Then I guess you’re the only decent birdhead.”
“Nah, cut ’em some slack. They’re old. And mass hysteria is a dangerous drug. Let’s not forget Salem.” Then, darkening, “That probably wasn’t the best parallel I could have made.”
“An apt one, though. A literal you-know-what hunt.”
“I’ll never let them burn you at the stake,” he said, and bowed to me, and I added person who bows to other people to my growing list of things I knew about Harrison Lowry.
Harrison and Prue started up the gangway from the dock to the boat. I followed afterward, but only made it halfway up before I heard my name being shrieked at a deafening pitch from behind me.
I turned.
Vira, of course, leaping off a bright-yellow bicycle and running toward me with her arms out and wide. She flung herself into me so hard we fell backward on the gangway.
“Did you think I wouldn’t come and see you off, you ass?” she shrieked, hugging me tighter and tighter. “I’m going to miss you so much. You’re like my favorite person in the entire world. Okay? Okay, Georgina?”
“Okay, okay! I love you too, Vira.”
Vira climbed backward off me and kneeled there, her eyes so wide and her face so beautiful that I wanted to put her on pause, pull out a canvas and easel, and paint her picture right there in bright and beautiful oil paint, the last memory I’d have of her on By-the-Sea for who knew how long.
“You can’t love Hattie M. Hipperson more than me,” she whispered.
“Elvira, don’t be ridiculous,” I said.
“Call me as soon as you get there.”
“Of course I will.”
“I’ll be sitting by the phone.”
“Even before my mother.”
“Okay,” she said, breathing deep, trying not to cry. “Don’t shoot anybody else with lightning bolts unless they really deserve it.”
“I promise.”
“Oh! I brought this for you,” she said. She fished around in the folds of her coat and withdrew a small black journal, pressing it into my hands urgently. “Don’t forget me. Don’t forget anything. Write it all down.”
“Do you really think I’m going to forget you, Vira?”
She didn’t answer, but she squeezed my hands so hard they turned white. And then she kissed my cheek and helped me up and she ran down the gangway and I knew she wouldn’t look back, I knew she’d jump on her bike and peddle away as fast as she could.
And she did.
Prue was waiting for me at the top of the gangway. She was smiling so wide and—honestly, was everybody on the verge of tears?
“I wish I had a friend like that,” she said.
“You have me.”
“You’re lucky, Georgina. This whole world is yours.” And she pointed out across the island just as the gangway was lowered back onto the pier and the boat sounded two enormous horns and we pulled away from the dock.
My mother waved violently from the window of the pickup.
I waved back—
Until I couldn’t see her anymore.
And then I saw them.
Three little birds, flying recklessly over the strong ocean wind, flying right toward the boat.
Three Annabellas.
One a little bigger.
Two little babies, just testing out their wings.
Learning how to fly.
And I waved to my sister too—
Until I couldn’t see her either.
And then I sat down at a table inside the ferry’s open cabin. And while Prue and Harrison ordered lunch from a little old lady who worked the concession stand, I opened the journal Vira had given me.
I found a pen in my bag.
And before I could forget—because it was even now fading from my senses, it was even now too far away to properly identify—I wrote:
On the island of By-the-Sea
you could always smell
two things:
salt and magic.
Acknowledgments
Every ninety-eight seconds, an American is sexually assaulted.
One in six women has been the victim of a rape or an attempted rape.
One in thirty-three men has been the victim of a rape or an attempted rape.
Transgender, genderqueer, and nonconforming individuals are at a much greater risk of sexual assault.*
This book is first and foremost for every single person who has been the victim of sexual violence.
For sound advice, solid wisdom, and a great partnership that gives me confidence every single day, thank you to my agent, Wendy Schmalz.
To my family for their persistent support of everything I do and for having faith in me even when I fail to find that same faith in myself. And especially to Elliot, Alma, and Harper, who continue to be just the best-ever spots of light in my life.
To the real-life Georgina and the real-life Mary, thank you for lending your names to this book, but more importantly, thank you for always being two of the first readers of anything I write, and for always being honest and forthcoming in your feedback. And thanks for being two of the dearest friends I have—I am lucky to know you.
For the brilliant lending of many puns for this book (Skull & Cone, Fowl Fair, some others that got cut from the book but not from my heart) and for willing to stress text with me whenever I feel certain I’m going to abandon writing and become a long-distance trucker, I owe heaps of debt to Aaron Karo.
To my team at HarperTeen for standing behind me for FOUR books (!!), and especially to my editor, Jocelyn Davies, for fielding all my questions and ideas and comments and concerns with only grace and care.
To the readers who have been with me since the very first book and put endless energy into promoting, sharing, blogging, tweeting, photographing, Instagramming, smoke signaling, yodeling, etc., etc. just to get the word out about my writing. Especially to Molly, Crini, Sana, Catherine, and Alice, who have been among the loudest and loveliest.
To Sandra Bullock’s and Nicole Kidman’s hair in Practical Magic. This book would frankly not have been written without it.
And to Shane, for everything and for always.
About the Author
Photo credit Jaimee Dormer
KATRINA LENO is the author of Everything All at Once, The Lost & Found, and The Half Life of Molly Pierce. In real life, she lives in Los Angeles. But in her head, she lives on an imaginary island off the coast of New England where it sometimes rains a lot. Visit her online at www.katrinaleno.com.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
Books by Katrina Leno
The Half Life of Molly Pierce
The Lost & Found
Everything All at Once
Summer of Salt
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Copyright
HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
SUMMER OF SALT. Copyright © 2018 by Katrina Leno. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Cover art by Jessica Singh
Cover design by Michelle Taormina
* * *
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018933351
Digital Edition JUNE 2018 ISBN: 978-0-06-249364-4
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-249362-0
* * *
1819202122PC/LSCH10987654321
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* Statistics were provided by www.rainn.org. To reach the free, confidential, and 24-7 National Sexual Assault Hotline, call 1-800-656-HOPE.