The water churns above me as Kat and Henry scuffle, and when I think I can’t take the pain any longer, suddenly, the weight is gone, and I see the bright sun lighting up the water over my face. I crawl to standing and suck air into my ragged lungs, shaking off the water and regaining my bearing. Henry shoves Kat to the sand by the shore and takes off, running back toward the Shaw estate, Wainscott Hollow.
“Kat, you okay?” I shout as I make my way to her. She’s on all fours in the sand, and her dress is soaked.
“I hate him!” she cries when I reach her.
I help her up and give her a hug, trying not to look at her tears or notice how her nose runs into my shoulder.
From the moment we arrived, I could tell Henry was going to be a problem. He’s got a mean streak as wide as this beach and seems hell-bent on proving himself to everyone who crosses him. At first, I guessed he was angry because his mom died until Kat told me that Henry’s always been mean and didn’t even get along with his mom. A bad seed maybe, one of those never had an ounce of good inside him, like some of the pushers in my old neighborhood my mother warned me to steer clear of.
Kat reaches out and touches my temple, and I wince in pain. When she pulls away her hand, it’s got blood on it from where Henry smashed my face into the shells and sand.
“You’re bleeding.”
“No biggie,” I say. I shrug to show her I can handle the pain.
“Let’s go home. I can put some stuff on it,” Kat tells me.
We hold hands and walk in the surf until we get to the path through the dunes. I look back over my shoulder and squint at the sea before we begin the climb back to Wainscott Hollows. In every sense, this life of mine is an improvement over what we had before. I’ve traded fire escapes for real balconies overlooking the sea, crowded train platforms for wide open beaches, and noisy city kids for the bravest explorer in Katelyn Shaw.
Better in all ways, except for her wicked brother, who seems to hate us all.
Chapter One
Heath
From one day to the next, my mom is gone.
I can’t cry. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I’m not sad. On the contrary, the sadness is so deep, I’ll never reach the bottom of it. What gets me now, what courses through my brain and won’t stop, is the idea that this place is haunted. Maybe not haunted, maybe cursed is the word. Wainscott Hollow destroys women. It swallows them whole. First, Mrs. Shaw, and now my mother. Mom wasn’t sick in the Bronx. She had a cough, sure, but she was as strong as an ox, working two jobs and showing up every day to pick me up from school.
It happened while we were at school. Fairmont. A school my mother could never have afforded in a million years if it weren’t for Mr. Shaw. The school counselor came to get me out of chemistry class, and I thought maybe it was regarding my grades, but apparently, mom had a fall. A fall?
I wipe the warm tears from my face, even though I didn’t know they were falling.
Kat squeezes my hand and reminds me that I’m human.
“Not only a good housekeeper, but a good mother, and a good person,” the priest says. He looks directly at me when he says the word “mother.”
This priest doesn’t know mom. This wasn’t her church. She went to Our Sister of Mercy back in Mott Haven, whereas this congregation is made up of rich Long Islanders who didn’t even know her. They’re here for Mr. Shaw, to look good, and to gossip about me. But I’m sure I’ll be on a Jitney back to the city before the weekend. Shaw will ship me off to some distant relatives I’ve never even met. I’ll lose my best friend. I’ll lose the ocean. I’ll lose my entire future. But maybe it’s for the best. I belong to the streets and the train, not these dunes and these waves.
Mr. Shaw signals me to exit the pew and grab onto the casket. He asked me this morning if I felt strong enough to be a pallbearer. I couldn’t say no, despite not feeling very strong. Mom carried me for nine months. The least I can do is carry her to the cemetery.
“Come on, son. I’m right behind you,” Mr. Shaw says, putting his big hand on my shoulder.
I walk down the aisle to the closed coffin covered in white flowers. I asked for it to be closed because I didn’t think I could handle seeing her.