The newly discovered cousins were three years older than Pippin and Grey, but slighter in stature. Pippin and Grey took after their father who stood six feet two inches tall. Cassie had been five foot five. Her height kept Pippin smaller, but Grey was already shooting up. “You’re going to be as tall as your daddy,” Grandmother Faye once said. When Grey had asked a question about their father, Grandmother Faye clamped her lips together. It had been one of the rare times she mentioned her son, and once the words left her lips, she looked like she wished she could pull them back. She couldn’t forgive her son from walking away from his family. Pippin had heard her grandparents talking about it when they didn’t know she was listening. “He’ll come back. I know he will. He wouldn’t have left his children, not after their mother died,” Grandmother Faye said, but Grandpa Randal had shaken his head and grunted with dismay. “There are witnesses,” he said. “People who saw him leave his boat, but he never went home. He walked away, Faye. There’s no other explanation.”
That was the closest Pippin and Grey had come to knowing anything about their parents. Until they met Cora and Lily. The cousins knew everything about the Lanes. Everything that was lost when their mother died and then when their father disappeared.
One evening during that visit, when Cora and Lily were twelve and Pippin and Grey were nine, the four of them had sat on a mound of rocks on the beach staring out at the roiling Pacific Ocean. “There’s Lane family lore, you know,” Cora said just as the sun dipped below the horizon, sounding like she was repeating something she’d overheard or been told.
Pippin had looked up at Cora, eyes wide. She used grownup words and seemed so mature. Pippin wished she lived closer to these two mysterious girls who were her only family aside from her brother and her grandparents. She’d only known them for five minutes, and she already hung on every word they said with bated breath. “What does that mean?”
“Our family’s story,” Cora explained.
“What story?” Grey said at the same time she asked the same thing. Being twins meant they often finished each other’s sentences and had the same thoughts at the very same moment. Pippin often felt that Grey was an extension of herself. Did Lily and Cora feel that way, too? Was the connection even stronger for them because they were both girls?
The sky grew darker as Cora’s voice dropped to a low pitch. She held the flashlight she’d brought to the beach under her chin, the beam of light illuminating her face with an eeriness that sent a shiver down Pippin’s spine. “We know the story of our great-great-grandfather.”
Pippin and Grey shot a look at each other in the dark. They didn’t know anything about their great-great-grandfather. They didn’t even know they had a great-great-grandfather.
Cora’s voice dropped even lower. Lily, Pippin, and Grey had to scoot closer to hear her. She began, sounding like a radio announcer. “Artemis Lane was a fisherman—” She looked suddenly at Pippin and Grey— “Just like your dad.”
Pippin sucked in a breath and reached for Grey’s hand, fighting the tears. She couldn’t think about her dad. “What about our great-great-grandmother?” she asked, turning the conversation.
“Siobhan,” Lily said. “She died on the crossing from Europe. Artemis was left to raise his children, Trevor and Ruth, on his own. Like his father before him—”
“Or so we were told—” Lily said.
“—Trevor also became a fisherman.”
“Right here in Laurel Point.”
Just like Pippin and Grey, Cora and Lily interrupted each other and tagged onto each other’s thoughts. Cora continued, “Trevor fought in World War II—”
“He shouldn’t have,” Lily said. “He was only seventeen. He lied about his age to enlist, but he came back. And when he did, he got married. Had two children—”
“—Edgar and Rose,” Cora said.
Lily looked up to the starless sky before continuing. “In 1946, Trevor set off to captain his own ship on his first solo trip.”
The flashlight flickered under Cora’s chin as she grimaced. “Ruth warned Artemis. Trevor should not go, she said. Something bad is going to happen.”
Lily moved closer to her sister until she and Cora were hip to hip, thigh to thigh. Cora moved the flashlight so it shone on both their faces. “Ruth warned her father and brother,” Lily said, her voice ominous, “but they didn’t listen.”
Grey cleared his throat to interrupt. “Why didn’t they listen?”
Cora fluttered her hand in front of her face, as if she were batting away the words. “Artemis was a man of science. He never believed in magic or mysticism. He figured that if Trevor survived the war, he’d survive a fishing trip.”
“But he was wrong,” Lily said slowly.
Pippin and Grey leaned closer, hanging on every word. Pippin’s voice was scarcely a whisper. “Trevor died?”
Lily and Cora nodded slowly. Synchronized. “Ruth spent every day on the beach waiting for her brother to return. She kept his favorite book with her like a talisman. She felt close to him when she held the book.”
“What book?” Grey asked.
Cora and Lily looked at each other, then spoke at the same time. “Moby Dick.”
“Legend has it,” Lily said, “that the book foretold her brother’s fate.”
Once again, Lily picked up the narrative. “The pages told the story of the whale returning to Captain Ahab, who stabs him again. But the harpoon line tangles and drags Ahab into the ocean. Ahab realizes that his ship has become a funeral car as the whale draws him away to his death.”
Pippin’s breath caught in her throat. She closed her eyes against a memory that bubbled up inside her. She and her mother crossing the street between the bookstore and the library. An old woman. A dropped book. Her mother wailing.
“A storm came,” Lily said.
The light shining on the cousins’ faces flickered as Cora said, “Trevor’s boat was lost at sea.”
Pippin gasped. Her hand flew to her mouth. “Ruth was right?”
The sisters nodded solemnly. Lily continued. “Artemis built the lighthouse and called it Cape Misery. For Trevor.”
Grey’s hand squeezed Pippin’s. “That lighthouse?” he asked, pointing with his other hand to the cliff above them.
Pippin’s heart slid up to her throat. These people were her family. Her ancestors. “What happened to Ruth?” Her voice caught. “And Trevor’s kids?”
Cora spoke. “Ruth never married. She died here at the lighthouse. There’s a family burial plot down the wooded lane. She’s buried there next to Artemis and Siobhan. There’s a memorial for Trevor, too.”
“Edgar’s our grandfather,” Cora said. “He married Annabel—”
Pippin’s eyes burned. “Our grandmother.”
Cora swung the flashlight to the lighthouse on the cliff. “They took it over, Edgar and Annabel. They’re the ones who turned it into a bookstore. And they had two daughters.”
Grey moved beside her. “Cassie and Lacy.”
Lily nodded. “Our mothers.”
Pippin’s whole face burned now. Her cousins’ voices sounded far away. Her skin felt like it was being pricked with a million pins from the inside out. “What happened to our grandparents?”