It was only the third day of the beach getaway, and Lily wanted to do just that: get away.
Leave it to her dad to pick the worst beach ever for a two-week vacation. Of all the yellow-and-blue summery beaches he could’ve chosen, he just had to get them a cottage on the grayest, coldest beach ever in Middle-of-Nowhere, Maine. She had nothing against Maine in general, or cold weather, but after spending the last few weeks of school daydreaming about clear salty waves, hot lifeguards, and sunset walks on the beach, this was a major disappointment.
Lily knew it was bad when the only person she could turn to for social interaction was her older sister, who was decidedly anti-swimming and, frankly, anti-fun. She didn’t even know why Amelia had come, if she planned to draw in her room all day anyway. Lily stared down into her breakfast of soggy cereal—even the milk looked depressing here—and thought about what she could do today. “Amelia, want to come to the boardwalk with me? I saw some cute shops yesterday.”
Amelia shook her head and glanced across the table. “Actually, I wanted to paint the cliffs with Dad.”
Their father, who had just stuffed a spoonful of cereal into his face, started choking and coughing. Amelia and Lily glanced at each other, wide-eyed, before Amelia reached over and patted him on the back. With tears streaming down his face, he gasped, “Sorry, Amelia. I changed my mind. I’m going fishing today.”
“What?” Lily blurted. Amelia looked crestfallen, but Lily was mostly confused. “I thought you hated fishing.”
“Well, my horoscope said to be more open-minded,” their dad mumbled while dabbing at the corners of his clear blue eyes. He crumpled up the tissue, rose from the table, and dropped his cereal bowl in the sink. “I’ll be back for dinner! Gotta get a move on if I want to catch some fish today. Have a good day, girls.”
After he’d breezed out the door with a slam that shook the faded pastel floorboards, Amelia turned to Lily. “That’s weird. Dad never looks at his horoscope.”
Lily didn’t answer. She’d noticed something else just now, something that made the hairs on her neck stand on end.
Their dad didn’t have blue eyes.
Amelia stood up from the table, her chair scraping against the floor, and settled on the saggy couch. Lily cleaned up the dishes after her, carefully stacking them in the dusty cupboards. She needed to get more sleep. That was the only explanation there could possibly be. Now that school had ended, she had no excuse not to have a normal sleep schedule. She looked around the gray cottage, with its saggy furniture and flickering lights, and suddenly felt cramped and claustrophobic. Pulling on a sweatshirt, she carefully made her way down to the beach.
It was too cold to go swimming—last night, the wind had lashed and howled against the cottage’s faded pastel walls, and it’d been so cold she’d had to sleep in woolen socks—but Lily couldn’t stand going on a beach vacation and not spending some time at the beach. She wrapped her arms around herself and took deep, slow breaths of salty air. She fixed her gaze on the gray horizon and, listening to the wet sand crunching under her plastic flip-flops and the crash of the restless waves, walked until the events of the morning seemed like a distant memory.
Lily felt so calm and at peace with the world that she didn’t even notice when the little cottage had become nothing but a speck in the distance. Surrounded by an endless expanse of gray sky, yellow-gray sand, and blue-gray water, the only way was forward, and Lily kept walking until she found herself blocked by a black cliff. Black rocks, jutting out of the water, looked like stepping stones around it.
With her flip-flops in one hand and the other stretched out for balance, Lily tottered across the water on the slimy, cold rocks. She should have been scared or at least nervous, but her mind was oddly blank. It was as if she was watching herself from far away. All she could think about was getting to the other side, because there was surely something amazing waiting for her there.
The beach didn’t continue on the other side. Instead, there was a deep cave carved into the black rock. The hopeless romantic inside Lily longed to go inside and find buried treasure, while the practical, mature side of her reminded her of all the news articles about hapless tourists who got into accidents after going into places they weren’t supposed to. Either way, Lily was curious about what was in that cave—maybe a little too curious, unnaturally so. She squinted into the welcoming darkness of the cave, leaning as far as she could without falling off her perch. Come in, it seemed to whisper.
“Come in.”
Lily jumped. Her foot slipped and she toppled into the cold, gushing water. Gasping from the cold and shock of it all, she dragged herself onto the beach. She couldn’t believe she’d scared herself silly with her own voice. That was it—she’d been so entranced by the stupid cave that she wasn’t even aware she’d spoken out loud.
She resolved to ask Amelia to come here with her the next day and began the long trek back to the cottage. Whereas the journey away from the cottage had seemed to go by in a flash, the way back was agonizingly slow, even though Lily was sure she wasn’t walking any slower, even though she was freezing and soaking wet. She wasn’t sure why she felt this way, but she was certain that she didn’t want to go back to Amelia and her dad. Or, more accurately, she didn’t want to leave the cave.
It was evening by the time she was walking up the rotting wooden steps to the cottage, and the saltwater on her skin had dried into an uncomfortable crusty feeling. The comforting smell of grilled food drifted out of the kitchen window, and Lily walked in to find Amelia and their father sitting down to a dinner of what looked like grilled fish.
“Ah, there you are!” her dad called. “I caught these fish today! Let me grab another plate for you.”
“Thanks.” Lily shuffled to the kitchen sink and splashed some wonderfully non-salty water on her face. She grabbed the electric water kettle, filled it with sink water, and carefully made her way across the room to find an outlet. This was what she had to do to get a nice cup of tea these days—this house didn’t even have a microwave. Her dad had loaded up a plate with coleslaw and the charred mess he called grilled fish.
“It doesn’t look too bad, does it?” her dad said proudly. “I think my cooking is getting better—” He let out a yelp as Lily stumbled on an uneven floorboard and half the water in the kettle sloshed out onto the two of them.
It wasn’t even that much water—she was just going to have to make do with a little less tea—but their dad started jumping up and down and shrieking. Lily barely caught the plate of grilled fish before it hit the floor. “Watch where you’re going! That’s burning hot! I can feel it dissolving my skin!”
“Dad, calm down!” Amelia put a hand on his shoulder, but he shoved her off. As he turned, Lily saw a flash of blue.
Her skin broke out in goosebumps. She leaned closer and made eye contact with him.
His eyes were the same warm brown they’d always been, even if their pupils were dilated and frantic. He ran his hands through his brown curls as if he was going to yank them out.
The two sisters stared at their father as he waved his arms wildly, still yelling, then clattered up the stairs, presumably to his bedroom. “The water wasn’t even hot…,” Lily mumbled.
“He’s acting so weirdly today,” Amelia agreed, glaring at the fish on her plate. “I bet he’s just annoyed that his cooking still hasn’t improved. Can you try this and tell me if I’m crazy or if it’s insanely salty.”
Lily sat down with a huff. This vacation was going absolutely terribly. It was more stressful than being back in school. She eyed the fish—there was a white crust on it that looked suspiciously like sea salt. She shoved a chunk of it into her mouth, chewed, and promptly spat it into a napkin. Eyes watering, she took a swig of lemonade before gasping, “Why is it so salty? How much salt did he put on it?”
“That’s what I said! Dad looked at me like I was crazy.” Amelia poked at the questionable white crust and shuddered.
Lily tried a bit of coleslaw, which thankfully tasted normal. “Anyway, do you want to come exploring with me tomorrow? I found a really cool cave, but I was too nervous to take a closer look myself.”
“Hmm. Sure,” Amelia said offhandedly. “Or you could go with Dad. I’m pretty sure he mentioned something about a cave.”
“Are you kidding? With how he’s acting lately, I don’t really want to spend an entire day with him.”
“Okay, but since I’m going to this cave with you, you have to do the chores tomorrow morning.”
This was how, the next morning, Lily found herself making the bed in her father’s room. She sighed and lifted a corner of the blanket to fold it when she noticed a thick layer of dust covering it. When she reached out a hand to brush off the dust, she realized that it wasn’t actually dust, but sand.
Her suspicion grew when she lifted the pillow and there was a pile of wet sand underneath it. Grumbling, Lily shook out all of the blankets, sheets, and pillowcases on her dad’s bed onto the floor, and by the end, there was a pile of sand that reached her ankles. What a mess. She really didn’t want to get the broom from downstairs, and besides, it was almost midday and she and Amelia hadn’t even begun the long walk to the cave. How did so much sand get into her dad’s bed, anyway? Had he been making sand snow angels yesterday while waiting for the fish to bite? He definitely hadn’t gone swimming—it had been far too cold for that—but even swimming couldn’t have tracked that much sand inside.
Pondering her dad’s strange behavior was so time-consuming that she still hadn’t reached a plausible conclusion by the time she and Amelia reached the black cliff and jagged rocks that led to the cave. As she led Amelia across the rocks that were like stepping stones, the same sensation as she had felt the first time she’d come returned to her, as if she were a faraway bystander watching a spectacle. The two sisters stood in front of the menacing cave that was also welcoming at the same time.
Lily glanced behind her. Amelia was staring into the darkness of the cave, glassy-eyed, until Lily waved a hand in front of her face. “Isn’t it cool?” she demanded.
“Yeah, it’s…,” Amelia murmured, trailing off.
“I really want to see what’s inside it,” Lily continued. “Watch my back, okay? Let’s call to each other every few seconds. If you don’t hear from me for more than thirty seconds, call Dad, but be careful.”
That snapped Amelia out of her daydreams. She fidgeted with the edge of her shirt. “If it’s that dangerous, why are we doing this again?” she said, reverting back to her usual snarky self.
“Come on, I know you feel it too. Doesn’t it make you feel like you just have to see what’s inside? Maybe there’s a mermaid castle or something.” The moment those words came out of Lily’s mouth, she felt embarrassed, but Amelia nodded, as if she understood completely what Lily was saying.
A wave of something akin to gratefulness washed over Lily. This was the first time she felt happy Amelia was her sister. The warm feeling stayed with her as she scrambled across the slippery rocks and inched slowly into the cave.
The deeper in she went, the darker everything around her became. Except for the sounds of the distant waves crashing and Amelia’s periodic check-ins, there was nothing to keep her grounded. She kept one hand on the wall of the cave and the other outstretched in front of her, holding her phone flashlight like a beacon. It got darker and darker around her, until it didn’t. There was a source of light in front of her, and she was moving closer to it.
Lily’s steps quickened. Amelia’s voice was getting fainter but still discernible. There was something here, she could feel it. And she was almost there.
At once, the cave walls opened up like they were yawning, and she found herself in a huge open cavern. There was sand everywhere, covering the walls and the ground and trickling in with the sunlight through an opening in the rocks above her head. There were even sand-covered rock formations in the center of the cavern, some taller than Lily’s head. It shouldn’t have been possible, especially this deep in a cave, but Lily supposed this was one of those magical hidden places that you can only discover by yourself. She stepped onto the soft sand and made her way to the rock formations.
“Lily? Are you there?” She heard Amelia’s voice, but couldn’t bring herself to answer. This place was so soft, so light, so welcoming.
“Lily! Are you okay? Why aren’t you answering?” Amelia’s voice was frantic.
“Yeah yeah, it’s all good,” Lily said impatiently. She had reached the base of one of those pretty rock formations. She reached out a hand to touch it, but immediately as her fingertips brushed it, she recoiled.
It wasn’t rock at all. It was soft and slightly warm under her hands.
It felt like flesh.
Lily stumbled back and almost tripped. What she’d thought was a natural rock formation was decidedly unnatural. Peering closer, she could make out a face, neck, shoulders, arms, and legs, all molded in sand. The face was contorted into a grimace of fear and pain. There was even hair, a messy flop of curls sculpted into sand.
She knew those curls. She knew that face. She knew those wide eyes, although she’d never seen them so fearful.
“Dad?” Lily croaked.
There was a squelching noise under her feet. Lily looked down and saw the sand around her ankles rising, quicker and quicker, until it was at her knees, and then her waist.
She tried to move. Her legs were stuck, buried under the sand. It was rising too fast. Why was it rising this fast? How was there this much sand in here? She opened her mouth to call out to Amelia and sand flooded into her mouth.
She heard her sister’s voice echoing through the caverns, distant but impossibly close.
She shut her eyes.
Amelia tapped her foot. “Lily?” she yelled again. She was getting worried. “Lily! Answer me! If you don’t answer, I’m coming in!”
No response.
Amelia bit her lip. Her heart pounded as a million scenarios of what could have happened raced through her mind. Lily, drowning in a sinkhole. Lily, impaled by a fallen stalactite. Lily, lost and stumbling in the dark after her phone ran out of battery—
“God, you’re such a worrywart!”
Just as she was about to start making her way over, Lily’s clear voice cut through the air. Amelia glanced up and saw her sister slowly climbing over the rocks until they were standing side-by-side on the shore.
“What happened?” Amelia demanded. “Why didn’t you respond when I called you?”
Lily wouldn’t meet her eyes. “It was just super cool in there.”
“Well? What was in there that was so cool you ignored me for an entire minute? You scared me half to death!”
“I’ll tell you on the way back!” Lily whirled around and started marching determinedly towards the cottage.
Amelia blinked. For a moment, she could have sworn that Lily’s eyes were blue.