Page 189 of Secrets Along the Shore

Pull.

Push.

The boat rocked harder with my urgency, slicing through the lake as my breath came quicker. I didn’t dare look back again at Becca’s house. At her window. At the water. All of it felt threatening now. As if I’d trespassed somewhere sacred. Somewhere I didn’t belong.

Where her sister drowned.

By the time the hull scraped the shoreline, I was shaking. The moment I stepped out and tied the boat back onto the cleat, I felt the knot in my chest loosening.

Still, I didn’t look back at the lake. At the house.

Instead, I grabbed my shoes and trudged up the trail toward the lodge, squinting into the rising sun. Evan stood on the front porch when I arrived, arms crossed, gaze fixed on the lake.

“You went out?” he asked, eyebrows raised.

I nodded, brushing past him toward the door. “I needed to remember something.”

He hesitated, then touched my arm to make me face him. “And did you?”

I paused at the threshold, glancing back toward the water.

“I remembered why I stopped coming here. I was no longer welcomed. Though I still don’t know why.”

Evan followedbehind me as I stepped back into the lodge, his eyes scanning every surface like a contractor walking through a ruin. He said nothing for a while, but I saw the way his mouth pulled tightas he looked at the curling wallpaper, the cracked molding, the way the floorboards gave a little under our weight.

“You want me to be honest?” he asked, pausing near the entryway.

I turned, eyebrows raised. “Please don’t start sugarcoating now.”

He let out a scant breath of a laugh. “Okay, well…this place needs more than just a fresh coat of paint. Foundation’s probably fine, but you’ve got water damage near the back wall, definitely some dry rot in the beams by the sunroom. And I can already smell the mildew.”

I nodded, glancing down at my shoes I carried. “I know. It’s also…bigger than I remembered.”

“It’s a lodge. Not exactly a starter home.”

He moved into the living room, flicking on a light that buzzed and cast a flickering glow over the worn furniture. He walked over to a cabinet beneath the long windows and opened it, peering inside. Empty, except for a few old photographs, the corners curled with time.

I stood near the center of the room, slowly spinning as I took it all in. The wallpaper was still the same hideous shade of maroon with golden ivy patterns that shimmered in the wrong light. The chandelier above the dining area swayed gently like it was responding to our movement even though there wasn’t a draft.

I felt…disoriented. Like I was walking through the home of a stranger who looked exactly like someone I used to know.

Evan opened a drawer on the sideboard. It stuck, then jerked open. “Empty,” he said and then, “You plan to clean this place out yourself?”

I nodded. “I can manage.”

He raised a brow. “You sure?”

I didn’t answer. I wasn’t.

We moved through the house together. Evan inspected every room like he was cataloging its flaws, but I didn’t mind. Someone needed to face the project head on, someone besides me.

I stopped in the hallway just outside the room at the end.

The door was closed.

Headmaster Scanlon’s bedroom.

I had never stepped foot in there. Not once. Not when I was ten, not when I was fifteen. The door had always been shut tight, the kind of shut that meantdo not disturb ever. I’d never dared knock. Evenwhen he brought me here for summer breaks and told me I could treat the place like home, that room had been off limits.