Page 199 of Secrets Along the Shore

CHAPTER

SEVEN

The weightin my chest pressed heavy and suffocating as I sat on the edge of Scanlon’s bed, the old yearbook still open in my lap. My eyes were glued to the photograph of a little girl with wide, laughing eyes and a hand poised mid-sign. Livvie. She’d been a kindergarten student. But more, she was a Deaf student. And yet, the Livvie I remembered—the one I played with across the lake—had been hearing. I was sure of it.

Except she could sign better than Becca.

Had she once been Deaf and regained her hearing?

If Livvie had once been Deaf and then wasn’t…then the unthinkable had happened.

Scanlon’s experiments had worked. At least once.

And after that—after her—he must’ve wanted to replicate it. To push his theory, his methods, his obsession further. I thought of the other students. All hearing at birth. All orphaned with the school taking guardianship over them. Now, all dead.

My stomach lurched.

I was the only one left…left to tell.

But my mind drew a blank.

Why couldn’t I remember what he did to me? All the things listed in those files. Why couldn’t I remember anything beyond playing with the girls during those summers?

But I remember my birthday cake—something nice Scanlon did for me. It was like my mind only remembered the joyful things and blocked the trauma.

Could he have…hypnotized me? Drugged me? Buried the trauma so deep it no longer belonged to me?

I pushed the book closed and rose to my feet. My hands trembled as I smoothed down my pajama pants and crossed to the window.

The lake was calm, unmoved by the storm churning inside me. But as I stared at the Bishop house across the water, I knew the answers might live there—in whatever memories Becca kept hidden and refused to share. If Livvie had been chosen, too—perhaps the first of many of us to come—then she had been part of whatever happened in this house. She may have been the beginning of all of Scanlon’s Dr. Jekyll madness. His attempt to make the Deaf hear only showed his twisted sense of morality. What had led him to even try?

The Bishops.

The answer came swiftly. Livvie’s parents were Scanlon’s neighbors, separated by a body of water. If their child had suddenly become Deaf, would they have turned her over to Scanlon willingly out of desperation?

I needed to speak with Becca. But would she speak to me? Would she even open the door?

There was only one way to find out.

I quickly changed into jeans and a sweatshirt, grabbed my flashlight and jacket, and stepped out onto the back deck. The early morning sky was the color of bruised steel, clouds rolling fast and low like a warning. I hesitated at the edge of the dock, my gaze flicking once to the knife and note in the post. I ripped the blade from the wood and scrunched up the threatening paper, tossing it into the wind. I kept the blade at my side.

Facing the Bishop house in the distance, I took in the faint white shutters and pale walls, almost glowing in the thickening gloom.

But this was the precipice, wasn’t it? I needed to cross this water, even without our signal blinking. Even without the welcome to come over. The answer was on the other side.

Maybe the real truth had nothing to do with what happened in the water but everything to do with what happened on the shores.

Scanlon’s and the Bishops’.

I untied the rope from the cleat and eased into the rowboat. It tipped sideways beneath me, the old wood moving under my weight and against the current the growing wind caused. I pushed off. My oars dipped into the water with the familiar rhythm, each pull steady, mechanical from memory more than thought. The muscles in my arms remembered even while my mind tried to forget.

Midway across, the sky cracked with a distant rumble. The wind picked up more, brushing cool across my cheeks. I paused, looking up. The storm hadn’t broken yet, but it was coming. Thick clouds gathered above like a threat. Should I turn back?

No. Not now.

I pulled the oars harder, faster. They cut through the water like scissors in fabric. The lodge grew smaller behind me, swallowed in rolling fog, while the Bishop house drew near.

Closer than it had felt in years.