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W ith three days until Bryn was supposed to arrive, I had nothing to do but the remaining repairs—which should have kept me occupied, but I spent most of my time pondering the reason for James inviting Bryn, beyond some ceremony.

I began cataloging what I’d seen in Bryn’s room, like the answer to James’s insistence on him returning would be found among the medical books or the sailing paraphernalia I’d noticed he collected during my second inspection.

Finally, over a brunch stomaching fried mushrooms, it hit me: not the mushrooms, though I hadn’t yet told James that funguses should be treated and never eaten, but the obvious answer. I’d ask our long-term guest, which was why I was currently pacing in the shadowy woods behind Naruka, hoping to catch Kazie after her morning hike.

“Roe?” she called, spotting me at last, lowering the hood of a jacket that could only be described as the color of an electrified pumpkin. Dew beaded on skin like purple velvet and clung to her round nose, pouty lips, and springy curls of hair. Her mouth curved into a wide smile.

I glanced over her shoulder. “Oh, I thought Tye was—”

Without missing a beat, she looped her elbow through mine, the gesture so familiar, so much like my sister, that I stumbled the first few steps. Then she was tugging me along, through the opening in the woods where the loch crept toward the stables.

“—with you,” I finished, our boots plop-plopping in the wet.

“He was. He took another way back. Were you waiting for him?”

I eyed the water, the rippling teardrops on its blue surface. Waiting for Tye would have made a lot more sense. “Yeah,” I lied. “I wanted to ask him if he needed anything done for the ceremony.”

“Ceremony?” she repeated around a mouthful of gum.

“The one Bryn’s conducting.”

“ Oh . I can’t wait to see him,” she said, a smile lighting her face. “You know, he was the one who brought me here from Malawi, like, three years ago? That’s in Africa,” she added matter-of-factly, which I appreciated because I had no clue where Malawi was. “He was working at this bike repair shop where I lived. I thought he was the freaking devil at first. Never saw anyone with blue eyes before.” Pop . Her gum burst on a blown bubble. “He’s, like, the nicest guy ever. So sweet. I just adore him.”

That didn’t seem to be Tye’s take.

“Thanks for fixing my birdcage, by the way,” Kazie added as she pulled me along beside the loch, “on behalf of my budgies.”

I kicked away the curling rosemary that huddled over the dirt trail. “No problem. It was an easy fix,” I said, keeping to her right, because I knew what it was to sink down into that mucky lake. Far enough that the putrid yellow shifted to a shadowy green, then to nothing at all—no light, no sound. Until, at eight years old, my sister had pulled me out—and promptly punched the boy who’d thrown me in.

“Do you know what happened between Bryn and James?” I asked. “That caused James to ask him to leave?”

Her face puckered. “James overreacted,” she said stiffly. “Bryn just made a teeny, tiny mistake.” She indicated the size by pinching her thumb and forefinger together.

Despite their seeming friendship, Kazie hadn’t left with Bryn; instead, she’d stayed here with James. Yet I’d never seen her work, never seen her do anything besides these morning walks. How could she afford a hotel for years? Had I missed something here?

“Kazie, you’re not…”

Her eyes slid to me, and suddenly, those whimsical mannerisms transformed into cunning. “Not what?”

“Uh— with James?”

She blinked, and just like that, the childlike amusement returned. “ With James?” She clapped her hands, dragging me to the left. “He’s married .”

Married? I looked around like his spouse would come strolling though the fields. “Where’s his wife?”

“In Ruhaven,” she said promptly.

Ruhaven? Did that mean she’d left him? Divorce wasn’t legal in Ireland, but Kazie hadn’t said separated .

Before I could ask, she Tinkerbell’d her way into the tack room, leaving me standing outside, my hands in my pockets, eyeing the hotel thoughtfully.

Something was just a little odd about Naruka—and not just the eavestrough hanging by a thread.

Then again, this was Ireland. Everything was a little odd, including the postman, who knew way too much about my family by this point. What did it matter that James kept some guy’s things if he had ten other rooms to spare? He was generous, which is probably why he’d let Kazie stay so long. She did help out with the cooking, cleaning, and sometimes—when I couldn’t stop her—the repairs.

Yet a churning feeling lingered in my gut, that same budding anticipation I’d felt when I first arrived. As if I were standing on the edge of a cliff with my hands in my pockets, tilting back on my heels as a frightening wind buffeted my shoulders.

I inhaled a gulp of Ireland’s wet air.

For a moment, I swore I could almost hear my sister playing the piano in Naruka’s music room, her fingers sprinting over the keys. The imagined notes hovered in the air, just a whispered, beckoning call of a song I once knew.

Then it was gone.

T his was a stupid idea.

And I mean really stupid.

Even moving to Ireland partly because some guy with good muscle tone had offered you a job was less stupid than this by a wide degree. But because I rarely got a chance to be alone with Tye, I’d jumped at his offer to take me up the mountain before realizing he meant on a horse.

“Here now,” Tye coaxed, holding the reins as James puttered around the stable. “Ya just step your foot over. She ain’t gonna bite.”

“Of course not,” I said quickly, eyeing the rotten teeth dripping with green juice. “She looks really nice…”

“Just don’t risk me favorite electrician,” James warned. He grasped the halter of my mare, patting her snout. “Yer going to be fine, love,” he said to either me or the horse. “The trails are well marked and should make for an easy enough ride.”

I eyed the violet mountains just visible under the barn’s overhang. Maybe the horse would find it easy, but staying on top of the Gypsy Cob would be an exercise in not embarrassing myself. I already had images of Tye watching me thrown from the saddle, landing face down and butt up in a pile of moss. But he’d gone to the effort of packing a lunch for the both of us, and I’d wanted to see the view up top before things got too busy with the ceremony.

To distract myself, I asked James, “When is Bryn due in?”

“The guy ain’t comin’ back,” Tye answered instead, “and we’re all better off for it.”

“He’s only a wee bit delayed,” James insisted, selecting a helmet off the stack.

Delayed? But James had been prepping the house for weeks for Bryn’s visit. “Can someone else lead the ceremony?”

James looked at Tye. “Aye, but by Bryn’s own rules, he’d have to come.” He strode around the horse, its tail flicking.

“ Old rules,” Tye corrected, “and I’d say he’s pretty damn happy in Norway right now.”

The words drew James’s mouth into a tight line—distracting him, so that he didn’t see the mare’s eyes pivot, its back leg lifting.

With a shout, I lunged for James. My fingers clutched the soft tweed of his sleeve, yanking him toward me just as a hoof whizzed past. I felt the air shift over my cheek, the stiff tail flick my hands. My pulse thumped so loud I didn’t hear James’s sputtering words.

Then he pulled away from me, lifted a stern finger to the back of the horse, and shouted, “If ye bloody try that again, I’ll be sending ye out with the cow, so I will!”

Even I shuddered at the threat—only Tye seemed to be able to coax that beast into milking. Twice, she’d nearly taken my knee out.

“James, how many times I gotta tell ya not to walk behind a horse?” Tye said, patting the mare’s neck sympathetically before motioning to the mounting block. “C’mon, kid, up ya go.”

It took me a second to realize he was talking to me.

After I made sure James hadn’t caught a stray hoof, Tye’s dimple gave me the shot of courage I needed to swing my leg over—too far—and he grabbed my calf with a warm, calloused hand.

“Ya got long legs,” Tye said, sliding my heel out so he could adjust the length of the stirrup. “Didn’t ya say ya used to ride?”

I squeezed the reins he handed me. “My sister used to, and she won a few competitions too.” Before she’d given it up for the piano.

“Twins, right? Probably transfers over or something.” Tye glanced at James, who blanked his face.

I wish. “Unfortunately not.”

Once we were in the open, wet fields, Tye ran us through a few different strides. The trot was the equivalent of trying to ride a jackhammer, and the canter almost dislodged me altogether. He looked a little disappointed that I was stuck with the walk, but after another round where cantering was firmly ruled out, we broke into a fast stride to the woods.

I glanced over my shoulder before the forest swallowed us up. James stood in the middle of the field, the drizzle dampening his black hair to a glistening blue, his hands in the pockets of his slacks, a strange look darkening his handsome face.

As the cold canopy blocked him out, I twisted in my saddle to face Tye. He didn’t use a crop as I’d seen my sister do, and didn’t wear a helmet like the one now itching the top of my head. The heels of his leather boots dug firmly into the horse’s sides, urging both our mounts up and up and up the forested trail. He was too far ahead to talk easily, so I settled into the rhythm, enjoying the hum of birds, the sound of our horses’ heavy breathing, and the impossibly green woods.

And the green crawled over everything .

Ivy dangled from branches, moss spread over rocks and fallen logs, and even the soil seemed alive with snails cracking under hooves. A viridian world filled to the brim, where everything the rain touched flourished. The air was heavier, too, weighed down with the thick mixture of peat and worms and the ever-present pitter-patter of rain from last night’s storm, the uneven sound like fistfuls of rice tossed from the sky.

“Roe, I gotta question for ya,” Tye said, as our horses drew even. He lit his cigarette and, lifting off the saddle, jammed the lighter in his back pocket. “Why’d ya take this job? Hm?” Smoke billowed between the pricked ears of his horse. “Ya didn’t have to. Ya could’ve stayed workin’ at your daddy’s shop.”

“Maybe I was desperate for a redhead,” I joked.

“Hun, ain’t no one that desperate,” he said with a short laugh. “But no, I’m bein’ serious now. When I said you could work for James for a while, told ya about the job, you were interested from the get-go. Might even say ya jumped at it, and not two days later, you were on the phone with James.” He sucked on the cigarette as the horses’ hooves splashed in the mucky trail. “Why’s that?”

Two days? No, I’d called James the next morning, listened to him explain in the accent I still found charming about a hotel he needed a live-in repairwoman for, that Tye would be working there, too, on the farm, so I’d have a friendly face. That evening, I’d spoken to my dad, and a part of me had hoped he’d be upset about the lack of help with the shop, but he’d been all too eager to see me go.

“Got nothin’?” Tye said when I remained silent. “Well, I guess I’ve just been thinkin’ recently, ’bout these moments my ma used to call ‘the before and after.’” He took a long drag of his cigarette that had the end shooting orange. “I ever told ya I had a brother?”

I shook my head, my thoughts still in the shop with my dad, then I clued in. “Had?”

“That’s right. Good kid, stayed in school, had some smarts on him, a lot more than me. But one weekend he’s with some boys up north, they’re out at night on snowmobiles on the frozen lake. Didn’t see the tree.” He sighed smoke out his nose. “They said his skull was split in two.”

“Tye, I—I’m sorry that—”

“Past is past. But that used to be mine—the before and after.” He dug his heels in. “C’mon, just up here now.”

I frowned at the back of his jacket, my horse following his when the dirt trail turned into stone steps, its sweat a musty scent under my nose. Had Tye ever spoken of his family before? His mom a little, his dad never—but what made him think of his brother now? He was too far away to ask, to do more than swallow the ache in my gut that was selfishly as much for my own loss as his.

When the ground leveled out again, Tye settled back in the saddle, tilting his head so mist gathered on the dorsal hump of his nose. The trees began to give way, the sky peeking through thinning leaves, and soon what was left of the brambles dissolved into a serene meadow.

I’d never seen real wildflowers before—well, maybe the odd buttercup, but not the pinks dotting the meadow, or the bluebells surrounding it, or the purple foxgloves that cozied up to the ancient oaks. Tall grass and spawning bulbs swayed in a wave, except for a spot in the middle, where the green had been flattened to dirt.

At the edge of the mountain, the sheer vastness of County Kerry looked like the postcard my parents hadn’t answered. Deep-purple hues where the clouds blocked the sun, then blazing green from the pockets of light that escaped, so the walled hills looked like a patchwork of bruises.

“Roe?”

I glanced down to where Tye waited, heavy-lidded eyes watching me, his warm hand bracing my thigh.

He said nothing as he helped me off the horse, as he went to tie them up and I removed the itchy helmet.

“It must be nice to be back at work after your months in L’Ardoise,” I pried. In a land my town could never compete with, not in a million years, just like my sister had always said.

“It ain’t work if ya love it, hun.”

Maybe that was why I’d felt every second of every minute working in my dad’s shop, heard the pen dent the page with each receipt drawn. Felt the sting of fresh-cut pine in my nostrils.

And all that was bullshit. At any point I could have saved my money and gone back to college, could have worked somewhere else, could have left with my sister like she’d wanted to.

I kicked at the long stalks of the pretty wildflowers she’d have loved to see. “It was a knock.”

Tye turned from the horses. The sun beat down on his face, the shadow of his deep brow hiding his eyes. “A knock?”

“The before and after, like you were saying.” I threaded my fingers into my pockets. “I didn’t know when Willow died.” Hadn’t felt the aneurysm that killed her. Hadn’t felt anything . My twin, my sister—what did that make me ? “They said it was sometime around three in the morning, on her way home after celebrating her last recital, but I didn’t know until a cop knocked at the door. Didn’t know what it meant for him to be there, but my mom did. She started crying before he’d said anything.”

Three years ago, and I could still smell the lemon wood cleaner she’d used that morning in the hallway, could still feel the way she’d looked at me.

Like the cop had gotten the wrong twin.

“So, is this the picnic spot?” I asked, jerking my head toward the knapsack Tye had laid on the flattened grass.

Sun at his back, shadows at his feet, he looked at me, gentle green crinkling under thick eyelashes. “Yeah, this is the spot.”

I blew out a breath as I settled on the cool grass, the stems tickling my ankles. My spine molded to all the little lumps of the forest, the hard acorns buried under soft dirt, the dried leaves from last fall that brushed the pads of my fingertips.

I puffed away a strand of hair that caught my lips, listening to the sound of Tye unpacking the metal canister James had filled, the crinkle of paper around the sandwiches. A cold shadow tickled my legs before Tye settled quietly beside me.

“Ya deserve to be here, ya know,” he said, his arm brushing my side. “To see this, even if Willow couldn’t.”

No, I didn’t. But I was what was left, and I was here, and that had to be enough.

His fingers threaded through mine, squeezed. Warm, rough, solid, and my pulse sped up before I could rein in my surprise.

Tye smiled when I glanced over, not enough to bring out the dimple. Sad, almost. Like the one I’d seen my mom give before she told the cashier my sister had died.

“Ya know, I woulda asked ya out before now, but James wouldn’t have been too happy ’bout it.”

My mouth went dry. I hadn’t thought that working here meant we couldn’t be together, and maybe I should have. Maybe that was my mistake.

My eyes flicked to our joined hands. “But things are different now?”

Tye pushed back a strand of my hair that caught my lips. “That’ll depend,” he murmured, but when I started to sit up, he tugged me back down.

“Tye?”

“Let’s just lay here a while, alright?”

After a moment, I relaxed again, but he didn’t take his hand away. As he spoke—some story about a horse—I tried not to hyper-focus on the fact that he was still holding my hand. Or think about how the skin under the collar of his shirt had looked so mouth-wateringly bronze, I could almost feel the heat from the sun that’d tanned it. Maybe that’s why I’d liked him from the beginning—not just because of his looks, but the comfort of him. Kind of like apple pie, or a dusty baseball game in summer, the smell of a new leather glove, the leftover smoke of a campfire on a plaid shirt. I drifted on the thought, my body melting into the earth.

But when I tried to rouse myself, something soft and warm brushed my jaw.

“Eyes closed,” Tye murmured when I struggled to open them. But I couldn’t, because suddenly everything inside me felt heavy and faintly numb, like I’d fallen asleep without realizing it.

Then he shifted, and I felt his lips brush my cheek, his hand tangling in my hair, whispering words I couldn’t make out. His mouth was like summer’s dappled heat, trailing back and forth along my ear as I sank a little further.

This was Tye. Tye . I wanted to commit him to perfect memory, to remember how each touch felt, but I was still floating.

His breath whispered over my skin, my fingers curling into the grass, the cold shadows of leaves dancing over my face. He wasn’t like the guys in L’Ardoise—not quick, groping hands in the back of a pickup, then on to the next woman, or the next thing.

My thoughts grew heavier and heavier, a sack of flour with a hole in it, seeping into dirt. I was sinking and floating at the same time. Rising and falling. Was he still kissing my neck? Holding my hand? Did he say something…maybe. A hot whisper in my ear, a silky promise, but it was lost in the sinking nothingness. Gone was the salty taste of the Atlantic, the breeze that had fluttered my eyelashes.

It felt like I was slipping on clothes I hadn’t worn in years. A little tight, loose in unexpected areas, but comfortably broken in and invariably mine all the same.

And then…

Then I wasn’t me.

I was a cork bobbing in the waves. Lost, floating, drifting. A million miles from shore. Somewhere there were no stars, no lighthouses, no…anything.

Just me, lost in an endless night.

Was I asleep? No, couldn’t be. But I struggled to rouse myself, my limbs slow and dense as thick molasses.

My mouth might have opened, then clamped shut. Had I done that? It opened again, my tongue flicking out of its own volition to swallow the taste of something foreign—smoked honey, and…amber?

New sounds began to fill my ears.

The calls of birds and distant waves were replaced by a heavy grinding, louder than the automated machines in the factory lines I used to work at—picking up one part, swiveling, and dropping it with a clatter on the conveyer belt.

What the hell was…

I tried to squint, to lift a hand and block the blinding indigo light, but my muscles didn’t obey. So I lay there, unblinking, unmoving, as my vision cleared and each minuscule detail magnified itself tenfold.

And I saw…

Clocks?

No, no—not clocks, gears .

Thousands of gears spinning in an indigo sky, grinding in my very bones . The sound was some terrible kind of music. Notes that didn’t exist in any octave, for any ears, with any instrument, in any world.

A dream.

The cogs continued to turn around the vines growing between their centers, suspending the gears from a floating mechanical forest.

My chest hurt. My brain was ripping itself apart at the seams . Everything in me revolted, denied, begged.

“Let me out!” I begged, screamed, but only in my mind. Let me out, let me out, let me out…