EverHeart

LUCY The morning I found Marco, the sea was impossibly blue. Not beautiful. That would have been easier to forgive. The kind of blue that made the horizon look painted on, with sunlight scattered across the water in hard white sparks. Moira had been showing off since I arrived twenty-three days ago: green hills dropping into clear coves, white houses beneath palms, bougainvillea growing wherever it pleased. It was difficult to brood properly in a place like that. I had tried. That morning, I’d given up in favor of breakfast. Mrs. Reyes at the bakery had wrapped two coconut pastries in brown paper and told me, with great seriousness, that the second was for later. A cooling charm stamped in blue wax kept them fresh despite Moira’s heat. We both knew the second pastry wouldn’t last that long. I was carrying them home along the path above Cala Verde, sandals hooked over two fingers, when something dark rolled in the surf below. I walked past it. Three steps. Then I went back. A wave spread thin across the white sand and turned the shape with it. An arm emerged. “Oh, come on. This is my vacation.” A gull lifted from the cliff. The body offered no sympathy either. I tucked my breakfast into the crook of a sea-grape tree, above gull height, and started down. The path to Cala Verde was an ongoing disagreement between roots, loose stone and gravity. Cool rock pressed against my bare feet, though the morning already promised heat. Cicadas rasped in the green. Beyond the headland, a fishing boat coughed awake. I resented the body for ruining a perfectly good morning. Then I reached the sand and saw the blood. He lay facedown where the water thinned around him, one arm trapped beneath his chest. His clothes were dark with seawater and something darker still. I ran the last few meters and pressed two fingers beneath his jaw. For one heartbeat, nothing. Then a weak, slow pulse. “All right.” Another wave came in. I caught his shoulder before it could turn his face into the sea. His skin was warm beneath my hand. The water around my calves was cold enough to raise gooseflesh; he should have been cold too. Instead, a steady heat lingered beneath his soaked clothes. I rolled him onto his back. Wet blond hair fell away from his face. That was inconvenient too. He was handsome beneath the blood and sand, though a cut disappeared into his hairline, his lip was split and a bruise darkened one cheekbone. His jacket had been sliced open along the ribs. One cuff was blackened; when I rubbed its edge, the fabric crumbled. Beneath the salt, I caught the faint smell of smoke. “Where did you come from?” The sea hissed around us. I lifted the torn fabric at his side. There was enough blood to make my stomach tighten, but only a narrow red line crossed his ribs. As I watched, it contracted. Red softened to pink. Then there was smooth skin beneath my fingertips. I held still. A gull screamed overhead; the stranger remained unconscious. “That’s not concerning at all.” The cut at his temple had stopped bleeding. The bruise near his collarbone was already yellow at the edges. Then I reached his wrists. Two dark bands circled them, too straight and even to be rope marks. Several punctures marked the inside of one elbow. The quiet part of my mind that had spent three weeks occupied with novels, naps and bakery schedules packed its belongings and left. Burned clothing. Blood. Restraints. Needle marks. Wounds that refused to remain wounds. I looked across the cove. Nothing but blue water between the black volcanic headlands. No wreckage, no boat, no second body. The tide reached for him again, and I caught his shoulder. Leaving him here while I fetched my phone seemed unwise. I looked at the hill, then at him. “You couldn’t have been five-foot-eight? I would have accepted five-ten.” Dragging him above the tide line took longer than I cared to admit. By the time I lowered him beneath the palms, sand coated my knees and my hair had escaped its knot, black strands sticking to the sweat at my neck. “You’re welcome.” He coughed. I dropped beside him as his whole body convulsed and rolled him onto his side. Water spilled from his mouth, followed by a ragged breath. Then his hand closed around my wrist. Hard. My thumb folded into my palm. Don’t pull. Turn toward the— I stopped. His eyes had opened. Blue. For a second, neither of us moved. My body had already prepared for a movement I hadn’t needed in years. His gaze darted past me: trees, cliff, sea, path. Then back to me. “Where—” His voice broke. He swallowed. “Where am I?” “Moira.” No recognition. His grip tightened once before he looked down and opened his fingers. “Sorry.” He stared at the pale crescents on my skin. “I hurt you.” “You startled me.” “It isn’t the same thing.” “Do you know where Moira is?” He looked toward the sea. “No.” “What’s the last thing you remember?” “Water.” “What else?” “Noise. People.” His fingers curled into the sand and his breathing shortened. “Don’t force it.” “Fire.” He glanced at his burned cuff. “Does that mean anything?” “No.” The answer came too quickly. Not false, exactly. Crooked, the way words sometimes sounded when someone tried to make fear pass for certainty. He dragged a hand through his hair. “Why can’t I remember?” “I don’t know.” His jaw tightened. “Who are you?” “Lucy Hart.” Lucy was mine. Hart wasn’t. “What about you?” His mouth opened, but nothing came. The color drained from his face. “I don’t know.” I let the silence sit. The palms moved above us. Seawater slid from his hair to his jaw while he stared at the sand. Then his eyes sharpened. “Marco.” “What?” “My name. Marco.” He said it again, quieter, testing the sound. I repeated it, and something steadied in his face. Only a little. “Last name?” He shook his head. “Home? Family?” His eyes closed. “All right.” “That’s not all right.” “No.” “Then why say it like that?” “Because panicking on an empty beach won’t make your surname fall from the sky.” I brushed sand from my knee. “You have a name. We start there.” His stomach growled. Loudly. We both looked down as it did it again. Marco cleared his throat. “Apparently I also have that.” Despite myself, I smiled. “My breakfast survived you.” I retrieved the paper bag. Coconut and butter scented the air when I opened it. Marco looked at the pastry, then very deliberately at the ocean. His stomach betrayed him again. I held one out. “Small bites.” “That’s yours.” “It was.” “I’ll be fine.” Crooked. I raised an eyebrow. “Are you hungry?” he asked. “No.” His stomach answered for him. I held the pastry closer. “Traitor,” he muttered at it. “Your stomach and I have formed an alliance.” He took it and ate half in one bite. I stared. He froze, cheeks full, and I laughed. Marco chewed with wounded dignity. “You said small.” “I misunderstood the scale.” While he ate, his thumb drifted toward the bloodstained tear at his ribs. He lifted the fabric. Smooth skin waited underneath. His fingers searched the place once, then again. “You said I was hurt.” “You were.” “How badly?” I looked at the blood covering his clothes. “Barely alive.” His hand fell away. The sea breathed in and out below us. After a while he asked, so quietly I almost missed it, “Is this normal?” “I met you twenty minutes ago.” “Right.” He looked toward the hill. “Your phone?” “At the cottage.” “Can we call someone?” “If we can figure out who.” He nodded and tried to stand. For two impressive seconds, he succeeded. Then his face went white. I was already moving when his knees folded, catching his arm over my shoulders and putting mine around his waist. Heat soaked through his wet shirt. “Still confident?” He breathed through his nose. “No.” “Excellent. Personal growth.” A weak laugh moved through his chest. Together, we turned toward the path. Halfway to the first rise, Marco looked back. The tide had reached the place where I’d found him. Each wave lifted blood from the sand in pale ribbons before carrying it away. His fingers tightened on my shoulder. “White.” I stopped. “What?” “Something white. Gold.” His free hand flew to his wrist. “Someone was—” His face twisted. Whatever he’d reached for was gone. “I lost it.” “Leave it.” “But—” “Leave it.” I softened my voice. “Memories don’t respond well to strangulation.” His thumb left the fading restraint mark. We climbed until the cottage roof appeared between the palms. “Why aren’t you afraid of me?” he asked. I stopped. He looked down at his bloodied clothes, the burned cuff, the skin that had healed before our eyes. I looked at the hand resting over my shoulder. The one that had grabbed me and let go the instant he realized. “Should I be?” His eyes met mine. “I don’t know.” The answer settled cleanly. True. “Then we’ll figure it out.” I turned toward the cottage. Behind us, Cala Verde glittered beneath the sun. When I looked back once, the tide was already smoothing our footprints away. Whatever had brought Marco to Moira had left blood, burned cloth and questions behind. For the moment, the sea kept the rest.