Page 197 of Secrets Along the Shore

Did they enter the house?My room?

I backed away from the door. From thetruththat now stood too close to ignore. Scanlon had left this place tome—a girl chosen notbecause she was special, but because she waspartof something. But what?

An experiment?

A cover-up?

A death?

No. I would never believe any of it. I would remember if any of it was true.

Wouldn’t I?

Sleep was gone.Any illusion of safety vanished with it. I crept back up the stairs, phone in hand, texting 911. But when no response came, I realized the text-to-911 service was not available this remotely.

I reached the landing, but I didn’t turn toward my room.

I turned toward his.

I pushed the door open slowly and turned to the bookshelf…but not to open the secret passage. This time, I wanted to look at the books on this side.

Most of the spines were cracked. Thick hardcovers, some medical. Some religious. A few about early language acquisition, linguistics, and developmental disorders. One was a full encyclopedia set dated 1987.

They had been left behind. Unwanted. Worthless in the eyes of his family, I imagined. But maybe they weren’t worthless at all. If his relatives hadn’t thought these books were trash, they would have looked more closely and would have found thestudybehind them.

I ran my hand along the spines slowly, letting my fingertips trace over the dust, the grooves. Then something caught my eye. Lower shelf. Large, wide bindings.

I bent down and pulled one out.

Yearbooks.

There were twenty-four. Leather bound with gold-stamped titles, the oldest dating back fifteen years.

I sank cross-legged onto the rug and flipped open the first.

There he was. Aaron Scanlon. Vice Principal at the time, accordingto the caption, a tall, lean man with dark hair going gray at the temples even then. The same piercing stare. He didn’t smile. His eyes didn’t need to. They commanded attention without it.

I flipped through the pages, finding names I didn’t recognize. Students with quiet smiles, fingers frozen mid-sign in candid pictures. My stomach turned as I flipped to the next yearbook—2004.

This was my first year.

I found my picture in the second grade, a little girl with long dark hair and wide, startled eyes. My name listed below.

Scarlett McBride.

I didn’t remember the picture being taken. But I remembered being that girl. The one who didn’t know how to sign yet. The one who stared at mouths moving like they might suddenly make sense.

I’d beenhearingbefore that.

I didn’t remember the fever I was told I had that left me Deaf. But I remembered my mother a little. I remembered her tears.

Then she was gone not long after.

Car accident, they told me.

The school became my guardian. Scanlon signed the papers himself, though I didn’t understand what that meant at the time. Just that my world had gotten smaller and quieter. Until he brought me to the lodge one summer and acted like he wanted to give me something more.

Like he cared.