Page 64 of Summer of Salt

But I couldn’t deny, either, the newly formed smudge of doubt that had been born within me. A worm of evil that questioned my sister’s story and her motives and her innocence. A worm that slithered its way through my body, slowly eating me from the inside out. That was what happened when you stopped trusting your sister, your twin: you were eaten alive in a gale, shivering and soaking and miserable.

And Mary had been acting soweird.

I had to get back to her.

Whatever she was doing in that tree, I had to make her tell me the truth.

And since it didn’t seem likely that I’d be able to get to heralone, I’d take the compromise of me plus four others.

As it turned out, Prue wasn’t quite done being sick.

She sat on the floor of the boat, her back pressed up against the aft side, her knees bent and a bucket between them. She was a pale green, the color of new grass. I left Harrison to navigate at the bow of the boat, and I went to sit next to her.

“I’m so sorry,” I said.

“It’s the back and forth,” she said, illustrating with her hand. “It’s the rocky-rocky. It’s the—”

She paused to vomit.

When she was done, I helpfully tossed the contents overboard and handed the bucket back to her.

“Thanks,” she said. She gripped it like a security blanket. “You must be really attracted to me right now.”

“Surprisingly enough, I am.”

“You don’t believe him, do you?”

I paused just a moment too long, just a half a second, but it was enough time for Prue to see the worm inside me.

“The eggs,” I whispered. “The feathers.”

“Georgina, she’s yoursister,” Prue said.

“But the whole island... Everybody’s so sure...”

“Well,I’mnot so sure. I’m not so sure at all,” Pruereplied, and to punctuate this point, she vomited again.

The fierce loyalty of Prue made the worm shut up for a few seconds. I emptied the bucket again and then hugged her, kissing her wet hair and the side of her face.

“Georgina!” Vira called then, and I gave Prue back her bucket and joined the captain at her post. “Tree ho!” she said, and pointed. Then she turned back and saw how confused I looked. “It’s like ‘land ho,’ but it’s a tree. Tree ho. Get it? Because there’s no more land; it’s all water. Anyway, we’re here.”

My sister’s tree. The water now reached halfway up its trunk; the tire swing was floating useless on the waves. Peter looked nervous; he stood up and did his best to pace with what limited deck space he had.

I climbed the tree again.

My sister was still a girl, sitting right where I’d left her. She was making a tiny nest in her lap with strips she’d torn from her dress and feathers she’d pulled from her hair and twigs she’d pilfered from the tree.

“Did you find them?” she asked.

The eggs.

“Yes, Mary.”

“Are they safe?”

“They’re safe. Mom made them a nest.”

“Why did you bring him here?”