He's heavier than he looks.

 

That’s the first thing I think, which is probably awful. A person is half-drowned by the Pacific, and my brain offers up the same sort of useless observation it would make about luggage.

 

He is heavier than he looks.

 

“Dad’s coming,” I say, phone pressed hard to my ear even though the call has already ended. My fingers don’t seem to understand that part. “He said to call 911.”

 

Finn doesn’t answer.

 

He’s kneeling in the sand beside the man, one hand hovering near his shoulder like he wants to touch him but isn’t sure the rules allow it.

 

“Finn.”

 

He blinks.

 

“Finn.”

 

This time he looks up. “What?”

 

His voice is wrong.

 

“Dad said to call 911.”

 

“Right.” He swallows. “Right, yeah. Do that.”

 

I stare at him for one extra second, because Finn is never the one who needs directions. Finn is the person who reads evacuation maps in hotel rooms. Finn is the person who knows which mushrooms kill you and what to do if we have a flat tire and where Mom keeps the extra flashlight batteries.

 

But the stranger coughs, a wet, horrible sound, and everything else leaves my head.

 

I drop to my knees.

 

“Hey,” I say. “Hey, can you hear me?”

​

His eyelids don’t move.

 

His skin is cold when I touch his wrist. Too cold. His pulse flutters under my fingers, quick and light, like a moth trapped in a jar.

 

I call 911.

 

The dispatcher asks questions.

 

Where are you?

 

Price Funeral Home, north cove below the property.

 

Is he breathing?

 

Yes.

 

Is he conscious?

 

No.

 

Is he injured?

 

I look at the cut near his hairline, the bruising already darkening along one cheekbone, the torn edge of his shirt clinging to his ribs.

 

“Yes,” I say. “I think so.”

 

Finn takes off his jacket and lays it over the stranger. His hands are steady, but his face isn’t. He keeps glancing over his shoulder.

 

Toward the black, open water.

 

I almost ask him what he’s looking at.

 

Then the dispatcher tells me to keep the man warm and not move him unless we have to, and I forget how to be a sister because I am too busy being a person trying very hard not to panic.

 

By the time Dad reaches us, the wind has turned sharp.

 

He comes down the path with a flashlight in one hand and his medical bag in the other.

​

Most people forget that before he became a mortician, my father spent years as a medical examiner.

​

Tonight, for the first time in a long time, he looks like that man again. Focused, concerned, efficient.

 

Behind him, Mom is wrapped in a long cardigan, her red hair coming loose from its clip, her face pale in the beam of Finn’s flashlight.

 

“Oh,” she says when she sees the stranger.

 

Just that.

 

Oh.

 

But there is something in the way she says it that makes me look at her.

 

Mom has a way of seeing wounded things before anyone else does. A bird stunned against glass. A child pretending not to cry. And she always wants to help them. Her heart is ridiculously tender. 

 

Dad crouches beside the man.

 

“Pulse is fast,” I tell him.

 

He glances at me, and something softens around his eyes.

 

“Good job, Cal.”

​

It is ridiculous how badly I need those three words.

​

Finn stands.

 

I look up. “Are you okay?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

He answers too fast.

 

Dad shines his flashlight over the stranger’s face. “Do we know him?”

 

“No,” I say.

 

Finn says nothing.

 

“Finn?” Dad asks.

 

Finn startles. “No. I’ve never seen him.”

 

The words are normal. The pause before them is not.

 

Sirens cut through the trees a few minutes later.

 

Red light flashes against the rocks, against the wet sand, against the stranger’s face. For one second he looks less like a man and more like something the tide created.

 

The paramedics come down with a stretcher.

 

A police officer follows them, breathing hard by the time he reaches the cove. He is young, maybe thirty, and trying not to look annoyed that the cliff path exists.

 

The night becomes questions.

 

How long has he been here?

​

We don’t know.

 

Did we see anyone else?

 

No.

 

Any boat lights?

 

No.

 

Any belongings?

 

No.

 

Name?

 

We don’t know.

 

The paramedics cut open what’s left of his shirt and check his pupils, his ribs, the wound near his temple. One of them says “hypothermic.” Another says “possible concussion.” They load him onto the stretcher, and that is when the stranger’s eyes open.

 

Not all the way, just enough for me to see the color of his eyes. 

 

Gray, I think.

 

No.

 

Dark blue.

 

No.

 

I can’t tell in the shifting red light.

 

He grabs the paramedic’s wrist. Everyone freezes.

 

“Easy,” the paramedic says. “You’re safe. We’re taking you to the hospital.”

 

The stranger’s gaze moves from face to face.

 

Dad.

 

Mom.

 

The officer.

 

Finn.

 

Me.

For one half-second, his eyes stay on mine.

 

Then he says something I can’t understand.

 

His voice is ruined by saltwater.

 

“What’s your name?” the officer asks.

 

The stranger closes his eyes.

 

“Can you tell us your name?”

 

Nothing.

 

The paramedic tries again. “Do you know where you are?”

 

His lips part.

 

No sound comes out.

 

Finn makes a noise beside me.

 

Small. Sharp.

 

I turn.

 

His face has gone completely still.

 

“What?” I whisper.

 

He shakes his head once.

 

“Finn.”

 

“Did you hear that?” he asks me and I’ve never seen that expression on his face before.

 

“Hear what?” I ask, looking behind him. 

 

“Nothing, I guess,” he says.  “I’m fine.”

 

There are very few sentences in the world that mean the exact opposite of themselves.

 

I’m fine is one of them.

 

But I can’t focus on that yet because the stranger refuses the ambulance.

 

Not dramatically with yelling or thrashing. He simply keeps trying to sit up, eyes unfocused, body shivering so hard his teeth click together. The paramedics tell him he needs a hospital. Dad tells him the same thing in his calm funeral-director voice, which usually makes people listen.

 

The stranger does not listen.

 

The officer asks if he knows his name.

 

The stranger looks at the sea.

 

Mom wraps her arms around herself.

 

“He doesn’t know,” she says quietly.

 

The officer sighs.

 

I can see the machinery of the real world trying to decide what to do with him. No identification. No phone. No wallet. No apparent crime. No clear memory. Injured, yes, but awake enough to resist being taken.

 

People think emergencies are clean because television makes them clean.

 

They are not.

 

They are messy and cold and full of people making decisions they are not qualified to make.

 

Dad speaks with the officer for several minutes. The paramedics speak with the stranger again. Mom watches him with that look on her face, the one that means she has already adopted whatever catastrophe has been placed in front of her.

 

“Laura,” Dad says.

 

One word.

 

A warning.

 

Mom looks at him.

 

“He can’t stay out here.”

 

“There are procedures.”

 

“He can’t stay out here.”

 

The officer shifts his weight. “Ma’am, we can take him in for evaluation if he consents, but—”

 

“He doesn’t even know his name,” Mom says.

 

“That’s why the hospital is the best—”

 

“He is terrified.”

 

No one answers that.

 

Because he is.

 

Even under the emergency blanket, even surrounded by people trying to help him, the stranger looks like an animal that has chewed through its own leg to escape a trap.

 

Dad pinches the bridge of his nose.

 

I know that gesture.

 

It means he is about to lose an argument he already knows he should win.

 

“Not in the house,” he says finally.

 

Mom’s expression changes.

 

“No,” she agrees, relieved. “The carriage house.”

 

Dad looks at Finn and me. “You two will stay away from him tonight.”

 

I almost laugh.

 

“Calla,” Dad says.

 

“What?”

 

“I mean it.”

 

I hold up both hands. “I didn’t say anything.”

 

“You didn’t have to.”

 

Finn doesn’t smile.

 

He should. That is exactly where Finn should smile.

 

He doesn’t even seem to hear it.

 

The officer takes our statements. Dad gives him our number.

 

The paramedics leave instructions and enough warnings to wallpaper the carriage house. Wake him if he vomits. Watch for confusion. Watch his breathing. Hospital if anything changes. Hospital if he worsens. Hospital, hospital, hospital.

 

Then somehow, impossibly, the stranger comes with us.

 

Dad and one paramedic help him up the path. He is unsteady, wrapped in foil and Finn’s jacket, bare feet stumbling over wet stone. Mom walks beside him like she can keep him alive through sheer proximity.

 

Finn lingers behind.

 

I slow down until we are side by side.

 

“Hey,” I say.

 

He looks at me.

 

Finally, he really looks.

 

For a second, my brother is there. My Finn. The one who made shadow puppets on our bedroom ceiling during thunderstorms.

 

The one who once convinced me that swallowing watermelon seeds would grow one in my stomach, and that’s what happened to pregnant ladies.  Finn, who has always, always looked at me like I am something worth keeping safe.

 

But his gaze slips past me, over my shoulder.

 

I turn.

 

There is only the beach.

 

“What are you looking at?” I ask.

 

“Nothing.”

 

“You keep doing that.”

 

“Doing what?”

 

“Looking at the water.”

 

His mouth twitches, but it is not a smile.

 

“Well, it just washed ashore a man. I’m waiting to see if it has anything else planned. You know I love a good oddity.”

 

The words land strangely. I don’t know why.

 

“Finn.”

 

He closes his eyes for half a second. When he opens them, he

looks exhausted.

 

“I’m just tired, Cal.”

 

That is reasonable. That is true.

 

We almost died today.

 

Then we found a half-drowned stranger on the beach.

 

Tired is allowed.

 

So why don’t I believe him?

We reach the carriage house, the old building that used to belong to actual carriages, back when the Prices still transported bodies with black horses and black carriages.

 

Now it is a guest cottage in the loosest possible sense: one bedroom, a small sitting area, a bathroom, a kitchenette nobody uses, and stacks of things Mom refuses to throw away because someday she might need fourteen terracotta pots.

​

It's always creeped me out a bit, although I don't know why. 

 

Dad helps the stranger sit on the bed.

 

Mom brings towels, blankets, a sweatshirt of Dad’s, socks, a glass of water, then another blanket because apparently the first two have failed to satisfy her maternal instincts.

 

The stranger watches all of us like he is trying to solve a puzzle.

 

“What should we call you?” Mom asks softly.

 

Dad gives her a look.

 

“What?” she says. “We need to call him something.”

 

The stranger’s gaze drifts around the room.

 

The lamp.

 

The window.

 

The door.

 

Me.

 

A shiver goes through me that has nothing to do with the cold.

 

“We can wait,” Dad says.

 

Mom touches the stranger’s shoulder. “You’re safe here tonight.”

 

His eyes move to her hand.

 

He flinches too late, almost as if his body remembers danger slower than his mind does.

 

Mom pulls back immediately.

 

“I’m sorry,” she says.

 

He stares at her.

 

Then, very faintly, he says, “No.”

 

One word.

 

Rough.

​

British.

 

I blink.

 

Finn’s head snaps up.

 

Dad notices.

 

So do I.

 

Dad turns to the stranger. “Do you know where you’re from?”

 

The stranger’s brow furrows.

​

His mouth opens.

 

For a second I think he might answer.

 

Then pain crosses his face so sharply I almost step forward.

 

“I don’t…” he whispers.

 

He stops.

 

Mom’s expression crinkles.

 

“That’s all right,” she says. “Don’t force it. You should rest. Tomorrow will be better.”

 

Dad checks the bandage one more time. He leaves water by the bed. He tells the stranger that he will be checking on him every couple of hours, and that if he worsens, he is going to the hospital whether he likes it or not.

 

The stranger does not argue.

 

I’m not sure he understands enough to argue.

 

When we leave, Mom keeps the bedside lamp on.

 

Outside, the wind pushes at us all the way back to the house.

 

The funeral home waits on the cliff above the sea, windows glowing, porch lights hazy in the mist.

 

Inside, Mom makes hot cocoa for some reason, and dad calls the officer again because he can’t remember if he’d given him our number. 

 

Finn stands at the kitchen window, staring at his reflection in the glass.

 

Not out the window.

 

At himself.

 

“Finn,” I say.

 

He doesn’t move.

 

“You’re scaring me a little.”

 

That gets him.

 

His eyes cut to mine in the glass.

 

“I’m not trying to.”

 

“I know.”

 

“I’m just…” He stops.

 

“What?”

 

He presses his fingertips against the windowsill.

 

“I’m just unsettled, I guess. I don’t think I want to sleep

tonight.”

 

The kitchen seems too quiet around us.

 

Behind us, Mom is opening and closing cabinet doors. Dad is speaking in a low voice from the hall. Everything is normal enough to be dismissed.

 

“Because of the accident?” I ask.

 

He nods.

 

“Yes.”

 

Liar, I think.

 

Then immediately feel terrible.

 

He is allowed to be strange tonight. We all are.

 

I touch his arm. “I can sit up with you.”

 

“No.” Too fast. He softens it. “No, Cal. You should sleep.”

 

“You should too.”

 

He looks at the window.

 

At our reflections.

 

At the darkness behind them.

 

“Yeah,” he says. “I know.”

 

But he doesn’t move.

 

Later, after Mom has finally gone upstairs, after Dad has

checked the locks twice, after Finn has disappeared into his room with a book I don’t think he’ll read, I lie in my bed and stare at the ceiling.

 

The house settles around me. It’s so old, so permanent. So loud with all the creaks and moans and snaps from the wind. 

 

The ocean throws itself against the rocks below furiously, as though I’ve done something to offend it.

 

I close my eyes.

 

The stranger’s face appears behind them.

 

Not handsome, though he is.

 

Not mysterious, though obviously he is that too.

 

It is the expression that bothers me.

 

The way he looked at me on the beach.

 

I turn onto my side.

 

Then onto my back.

 

Then onto my other side.

 

My room is too familiar. The books on my shelf. The sweatshirt over my chair. The framed photo of Finn and me. My camera on the desk.

 

My camera.

 

I sit up.

 

“No,” I whisper to myself. “don’t do it.”

 

I get out of bed anyway.

 

I tell myself I am only going down to the beach to see if anything else, anything at all, washed ashore after him.

 

That’s all.

 

I'm not going to talk to him.

 

I'm not going to spy. 

 

I’m not. 

 

I pull on a sweatshirt and step into the hallway.

 

Finn’s door is closed.

 

A thin line of light shines beneath it.

 

I pause and knock softly. “Finn?”

 

Silence.

 

Then… “Yeah?”

 

“Are you okay?”

 

A beat.

 

“I’m fine.”

 

There it is again.

 

The opposite sentence.

 

I almost open the door.

 

Instead, I rest my palm against the wood.

 

“Try to sleep.”

 

He doesn’t answer.

 

Downstairs, the house is dark except for the lamp Mom left burning in the foyer.

 

I slip out the side door.

 

The night is silver and wet and dark and loud with nature's noise... with tree frogs and waves and wind and sea lions. 

 

The grass soaks through my socks almost immediately. The moon hangs over the water, enormous and indifferent. Mist moves low across the lawn, curling around the path.

 

I head for the old wooden steps to the beach.  They groan beneath my weight.

 

The wind grows colder as I descend, carrying the sharp scent of salt and kelp. By the time my feet touch the sand, the tide has begun its slow retreat, leaving the sand slick beneath the moonlight.

 

I stop at the bottom of the stairs and pull my camera from its bag.

 

The lens finds details my eyes are too impatient to notice.

 

I adjust the focus and lift it toward the shoreline.

 

Click.

 

The empty stretch of beach.

 

Click.

 

The waves folding over themselves beneath the moon.

 

Click.

 

The black mouth of the cave farther down the shore.

 

The shutter sounds impossibly loud against the quiet.

 

Everything is exactly where it should be.

 

The bonfire is nothing more than a circle of blackened

stones now.

 

The driftwood log where Finn insists on sitting every summer hasn't moved in years.

 

Click.

 

I lower the camera and sweep my flashlight across the beach.

 

A length of tangled seaweed.

 

An empty shell.

 

A crab freezes in the beam before disappearing sideways beneath a rock.

 

I walk farther.

 

If someone had washed ashore...

 

There should be something.

 

A backpack.

 

A wallet.

 

Something.

 

I climb over the rocks where we found him.

 

The places where we knelt have already been erased by the tide. 

 

No footprints.

 

No drag marks.

 

No torn fabric.

 

Nothing.

 

I kneel and photograph the rocks anyway.

 

Click.

 

Then the tide pool beside them.

 

Click.

 

The beam of my flashlight catches the ripples, scattering

the stars into pieces across the surface.

 

I straighten and slowly turn in a circle, raising the camera one last time.

 

The cliff above.

 

Click.

 

The path leading back toward the house.

 

Click.

 

The sea.

 

Click.

 

I tuck the camera back into its bag and switch off the flashlight.

 

The moon is bright enough now.

 

The windows of the funeral home glow faintly above the cliffs, but another light catches my eye.

 

The carriage house.

 

I hesitate.

 

If the ocean wasn't going to tell me who he was...

...maybe he would.

 

I start toward the path.

​

Halfway there, I stop.

 

This is stupid.

 

This is how women die in horror movies.

 

Except I am not in a horror movie.

 

I am on my family's property, creeping toward a carriage house where a concussed stranger is sleeping because my mother has the survival instincts of a saint and my father lost an argument.

 

Very different.

 

The carriage house window glows amber.

 

I step closer.

 

The curtains are not fully drawn.

 

I should turn around.

​

I do not turn around.

 

I climb the small stone step beneath the window and peer inside.

 

The room is still.

 

The lamp burns on the bedside table. Dad's sweatshirt hangs loose on the stranger's shoulders. His dark hair is damp and pushed back from his forehead, the bandage stark against his skin.

 

He is asleep.

 

Or he looks asleep.

 

My camera hangs against my hip.

 

I hesitate.

 

If he really doesn't know who he is...

 

Maybe someone else will.

 

I ease the camera into my hands and brace it against the windowsill.

 

No flash.

 

Just the soft click of the shutter.

 

Click.

 

His face.

 

Click.

 

A little closer.

 

Clear enough that maybe tomorrow I can run it through every reverse-image search on the internet and discover he's actually an accountant from Cleveland who made one spectacularly bad life decision.

 

Or maybe someone out there is looking for him.

 

Maybe someone is worried sick.

 

One hand rests on top of the blanket.

 

His fingers are long, scratched raw across the knuckles.

 

There is a ring on his middle finger.

 

Silver.

 

I zoom in.

 

Click.

 

I lower the camera and lean a little closer to the glass.

 

I am trying to see the ring.

 

That is what I tell myself.

 

Not his face.

 

Not the shape of his mouth.

 

Not the fact that even unconscious, he looks like someone

who has survived some kind of war.

 

The floorboard beneath my foot gives a soft, traitorous creak.

 

His eyes open.

 

Not slowly.

 

All at once.

 

Wide open. 

 

Directly on mine.

​

I freeze.

​

The camera is still in my hands.

 

The glass between us might as well be the width of the ocean.

 

For one second, neither of us moves.

 

His eyes are so dark they're nearly black.

 

I know that now.

 

I should step back.

 

I should run.

 

I should wave awkwardly and pretend this is a normal social encounter between a girl in wet socks and the amnesiac stranger she found washed ashore like cursed driftwood.

 

Instead, I lower the camera.

 

Neither of us moves.

 

His lips part.

 

I can't hear him through the window.

 

But I see the word.

 

One shape.

 

One breath.

 

One impossible accusation.

 

You.