Beyond the Rising Tide Read Free Page B

me back to the memories I just ran from. A familiar emptiness spreads through me, a sort of hunger that can’t be satiated with food. I hug my knees to my chest and bury my head in my arms, wishing I could go back to last winter, wishing I hadn’t been so careless, wishing that boy hadn’t jumped in the ocean to save me. Not that I wish I’d died, but if I had, maybe he would still be alive.
    If only I knew his name. Or at the very least, remembered what he looked like. If there’s one thing I can do to pay respect to the boy who saved my life, it’s to remember his face. But I can’t even recall the color of his hair.
    A light wind ruffles my hair, tickles my arms and neck. It carries with it a soft sound. Not one I hear with my ears, but one that touches me somewhere deeper. Like a breath, or a whisper.
    It’s the sound of my name.
    “Avery.”

know what a person looks like when they’re broken. Their eyes are vacant, the way my mom’s were after being married to my dad for thirteen years. They look fragile, like a thin and hollow reed that will blow over in the slightest breeze. The way my two little sisters looked after living under my dad’s unpredictable hand their whole lives.
    The way Avery Ambrose looks now, curled up on a boulder and staring at the black sea. She’s not the same girl I first saw in the ocean the day I drowned. That girl had her feet planted firmly on her surfboard as she fearlessly sliced up monster waves. She held the reins, and the ocean was her domain.
    I may have saved her life that day, but I also stole it and replaced it with a counterfeit. The life she has now is broken. Because I wasn’t strong enough to swim back to shore.
    Over the past few months, I’ve watched in frustration as others have tried to help her. All in their own way, with an array of tactics. And I’m not even sure that mine would produce a different result. What I do know is that Avery’s happiness has become more important to me than anything else. Because you can’t spend six months as someone’s silent companion without growing to care for them. And I care for Avery. So much that I would pay any price to repair what my death has broken.
    I close my eyes and picture my mentor, Charles, and then quicken away to find him. Seconds later, I open my eyes to someplace new—somewhere dark with branches and leaves overhead.
    “Haven’t seen you in a while.”
    I whip around at the sound of Charles’s voice, and then see him behind me sitting on a log. He’s wearing mortal clothes—overalls and a flannel shirt that remind me of how he used to dress when we were both alive and working together in his vineyard. Beneath his baseball cap, his hair is white instead of his usual gray, which is how I can tell he’s materialized. The ring on his right hand confirms it.
    “On assignment?” I ask, forcing my eyes away from the ring. I peer into the darkened mountainside to guess who he might be helping. It’s raining again, and other than leaves shuddering under falling raindrops, I see no other sign of life.
    “Waiting for a couple of straggling hikers to point them in the right direction.”
    “Why? The trail is pretty clear.”
    “Look behind you.”
    I twist around to see that the rain has washed a section of the trail away, leaving a forty-foot drop to jagged rocks. If I weren’t already dead, I’d be scrambling from the edge. I turn back to the trail, squinting through the rain. “What are they doing hiking in the rain, in the dark?”
    “They must have lost track of time. They should be here any minute now.”
    I’m restless, and I try not to fidget. I haven’t felt this nervous since I stole a package of chicken from the Food Mart when I was ten. I recall how cold it felt against my stomach when I slipped it under my Pistons sweatshirt, how the juices ran down my leg as I ducked out of the store and booked it all the way home.
    My eyes flick to Charles’s ring again. I didn’t expect him to be