Page 29 of The Wild Beneath

“You have the same hair as her,” he says.

Annie tilts her head up to the sky, all the way back. They do have similar colouring. The same freckles over their noses and cheeks. The same small, strong bodies. Or they did. Past tense. Which is it?

“I love your hair,” he says.

A flush rises from Annie’s chest, up her neck to her cheeks. The sun feels suddenly hotter, a penetrating, sticky heat. She wants him to love her hair. This out-of-place person in front of her... who is he? Why does she want him to like everything about her?

“You must wish she was here,” he goes on.

“I miss everything about my parents.”

She misses her dad, his easy laugh. The tide pools with her mom, how she’d sit cross-legged and watch Annie for hours, losing time and finding everything else.

“Everyone said she was crazy,” Annie goes on. It feels impossible to capture her mother with words. “She never got off the boat. She hadn’t left in years.”

“She needed to stay there,” Walker says. It isn’t a question.

“My mom never explained much,” Annie says. A bigger wave rocks the boat. “It was so frustrating. Like she was living inside a story no one else knew about.”

“Once upon a time,” Walker says.

Annie meets his eyes. “Once upon a time, what?”

“So many stories on Ruth’s shelves start that way.”

“Only fairy tales do.”

“Once upon a time there was a girl named Annie, who wanted the sea,” Walker says. He still hasn’t put his rod together or cast his line.

Annie feels a tug on her rod, but reels in nothing. “And we see where that got her.”

“Maybe she’ll explain everything one day.”

“My mother?”

He nods. “And then it’ll make sense.”

“I can’t let myself hope too much.” She jiggles her line. “My heart isn’t that strong.”

“But we don’t know the end of the story yet.”

“This isn’t a fairy tale, Walker.” She holds her hand out to the shore. Everything has crumbled. Isn’t that what he sees? The world ending? Its bowling pins and stray bicycle seats, overturned milk crates, and broken light bulbs? “This feels like the end of the story.”

He shakes his head. “What if it’s still the beginning?”

She puts her palm to her forehead to stop the spinning feeling of these reassuring and nonsensical things he says. The idea that Mara might still be alive blooms up vibrant and dangerous and without her permission—­the thread of hope. Her instinct is to clamp down on it too, just like her memories ofAmphitrite. But Walker’s face is so bright and open and optimistic.

It’s almost too much to bear.

Annie takes his rod in her hands. “Let me show you how to assemble this thing already.”

The spot they pick teems with fish. They snap at anything. After practising a few flicks of the line, Walker catches three yellow-eyed rockfish in the span of an hour, marvelling at their distinctively black fin tips and the reddish-white stripes along their bellies. Henry was the one to teach her about ancient rockfish; the oldest ones can live a hundred years. Annie makes Walker throw two of them back, even though Ruth would smoke them for later. For some reason, it makes her feel better leaving the ancient fish be.

“Want to try to swim with me, Annie?” he asks, once they’ve rowed back and pulled the dinghy onto the beach.

She hesitates.

He doesn’t insist. He peels off his shirt and jumps in over a wave.