A few minutes later Megan is pulling up among dozens of other boats that float not far from the island’s shore. She drops anchor just as Noah pulls a small inflatable lifeboat from somewhere and jerks a cord, causing the raft to burst to life, inflating in less than a minute. Before Megan can step down into it, though, Noah swings her off her feet.
“Allow me, my lady,” he says while easing her effortlessly over the side of the big boat and placing her gently into the raft. Megan laughs and hits him playfully on the arm.
“Noah!” She giggles. “Put me down, silly.”
I stand for a second, too stunned to speak. Then I look at Rosie. “Are they …”
Rosie shrugs. “Your guess is as good as mine,” she says, then jumps into the little boat beside Megan.
A second later, Noah and I follow.
When we finally reach the island, I pull off my shoes and wade through the waves, heading toward the beach. The Mediterranean is cool as it laps against my ankles, and the shoreline is rocky beneath my bare feet. Someone has built a bonfire, and its flames lap up at an inky sky that, here, so far from the city, seems impossibly full of stars. There is music playing, a pounding bass that’s keeping beat like the lapping waves. And all around me, there are people.
Beautiful people.
Awkward people.
People who are so engrossed with the person beside them that I highly doubt they even remember where they are.
People who want to be anywhere but here.
But as Noah and Megan and Rosie and I walk into their midst, no one notices, no one stares. At the beginning of the summer I was an anomaly, a mystery. A new girl. There are even more reasons for people to stare at me now, but no one here seems to know them. I vow to do whatever it takes to keep it that way.
“I wonder if Alexei made it home okay.” There’s a wistfulness to Rosie’s voice. “It would be weird, don’t you think? Going home. I mean … this is home. Isn’t it?”
I have no home, I think, and then she looks at me.
“Have you talked to him?” she asks.
Even though there are probably fifty people on the beach, no one hears. We are anonymous, hidden by the island’s shadows and our peers’ complete lack of interest.
“No. Why?”
Rosie shakes her head. I think I see some meaning in her eyes, but I can’t decipher it. The beach is too dark, and I’m too bad at this — at having friends. So I just keep walking, following in Noah’s footsteps.
From a distance, the party looks the same. There’s a bonfire raging in the center of the beach. Big pieces of driftwood circle around it and a few people gather in clusters, sitting on the wood or scattered across blankets and a few boulders. The beach stretches from the water to the big trees and dense forest that no doubt dominates the center of the island, growing untamed and untouched by man.
It feels like Megan has brought us to the far side of the earth, some uncharted territory or unknown land — like maybe we are our own civilization, if only for tonight.
We curve around the beach and, for a moment, the mainland is blocked by rocks and trees, and it feels like we’ve gone back in time. There are no roads, no lights, no signs of the twenty-first century. We’ve come to a place where even teenagers look different. Our phones won’t work here. There is nothing but the music and the fire and the night.
“Come on,” Noah says, looking back to make sure Rosie and I are still following.
A low stone wall stretches across part of the beach, crumbling and overgrown by vines and weeds, and I know we aren’t the first people to set foot here. We are just the first in a very long time.
“Don’t wander off, okay?” he says. A moment later, he looks right at me and repeats, “Okay?”
“Yeah. Right. I’m not going anywhere,” I tell him.
He doesn’t look convinced.
As we walk closer to the fire, I feel the heat of it, pulsing toward me like the music. Through the lapping flames I see Noah’s sister chatting with some English girls known as the three Cs: Chloe, Chelsea, and Charmaine. From this distance, Noah and Lila look alike, almost like the twins that they are. But when Lila spies us, she glares, and I remember that that is where the similarities end.
“What are you doing here?” Lila snaps, coming forward.
If I thought that our newfound sisterhood was going to bond us, I was obviously mistaken.
“I wanted to be close to you.” Noah tries to swallow her in a hug. “Just like in the womb.”
Lila rolls her eyes, then, for a second, lets her gaze drift onto me. Is she thinking about Ms. Chancellor and the Society? Or maybe about how Dominic followed us through the streets this afternoon and how I ran away? I’ll never know.
“Just stay away from me,” she snaps at Noah, and I feel like I should say something, but all my witty banter has abandoned me, so instead I stand perfectly still for a long time, staring at the fire.
It’s a mistake, and I know it. I can feel the flickering glow washing over me. But even if I turned away, I’d still see the way the light flits and moves across the trees, how the shadows dance in the sand. The whole party is bathed in the orange-red aura of the flames. Then the wind shifts. I smell smoke … and that’s when I start shaking.
Noah and Megan have moved up ahead, talking to someone I don’t know. Rosie is no longer by my side. I am alone in the middle of the party, surrounded by the music and the flames.
“Grace, no!” my mother screams.