Page 63 of Echoes of the Tide

And there, in the center of the garden, was her sister.

Beautiful, beautiful Laura. The best of both their parents. She was lean, like their father, with glorious dark hair that spilled over her shoulders in a cloud of waves just like their mother. She wasn’t the kind of pretty most people noticed. Sometimes she faded into the background along with Ace, but there was something delicate about her. Maybe not in her body or form, but in the soft way she saw right through a person to the soul underneath that they hid from everyone else.

Maura and Laura. Her parents had thought it was hilarious at the time, only to realize how frustrating it was to try to scold Maura when Laura was also in the room.

Tears in her eyes, she walked toward her sister and tried to tell herself that this was just a dream. She shouldn’t get too attached. She shouldn’t feel like the world was ending just because her mind had conjured up an image of the sister she missed so much.

Laura was wearing the same brown smock she always wore, dirt smudged across the front and her hands. There was dirt under her nails, and a smear of yellow pollen across her cheek. When she looked up, her soft brown eyes lit up with happiness.

“Maura!” she said, wiping her hands off on her thighs. “I didn’t know you were coming today!”

It was the same thing she’d said the last time Ace had seen her. The same moment, too. This was where she was supposed to tell her sister that they were taking her away to Gamma, and thatthey’d never see each other again. But she’d keep Laura safe. She always did.

Instead, Ace took a step closer to her sister, then another. Then yanked Laura into her arms and hugged her hard.

They stayed like that for a while. Just the two of them. Breathing each other in because that was all she wanted to do.

“Maura?” her sister said quietly. “Is everything okay?”

“No,” she whispered. “It’s just that I miss you so much.”

“But I’m right here.”

“You won’t be. Soon enough, I won’t remember what color your eyes are, or where your ticklish spots really were. All I’ll remember is the need to keep moving forward. To slog through life so that I can make sure you’re safe.”

“Maura, you’re scaring me.” Her sister leaned back, staring into her eyes with a frown on her face. “Everything’s going to be fine. The garden has plenty of food this year, and everyone has been working together wonderfully. I don’t think we should worry about much.”

“I’m going to...” Ace choked on the words. For a moment, she was thrown right back into this moment. The moment when she had known she was going to disappoint the only person who mattered in her life. “They’re taking me away, Laura. For a long time.”

“What did you do?”

And there it was. The end of this memory that was still seared into her entire being. As Laura reeled away from her, bumping into a table full of tomatoes as the red fruit fell from their stems and plummeted to the floor. A few of them burst on impact, red seeping into the drainage grates on the floor.

“I didn’t do anything, it’s just?—”

“Maura! I thought we had talked about this. I thought you were giving all that up because you know how dangerous it is?You’re my only family. We are each other’s only family and for you to risk that...” Laura turned, gripping the table hard.

What her sister hadn’t known then, and likely still didn’t know, was that Ace had seen her reflection. She’d seen the terror in her sister’s eyes as she realized she would now be alone. They’d been together their entire lives. Maura and Laura, the sisters who were inseparable even in grade school. And now? Now they had to walk their own paths, even though it scared them both.

“Listen to me,” Ace said, placing her hand on her sister’s back. “I put the money aside for you. It’s in a bank vault. I already wrote down the numbers and slid the paper into your pillow. They can’t find that money, and they never will. Spend it wisely, and they won’t know what you’re spending is the money I stole.”

“I don’t want the money, Maura!” Her sister spat the words, but then spun and held Ace tightly in her arms. “I just want you.”

Even as she hugged her sister back, she knew it wasn’t the truth. They needed the money more than they needed each other. That was why she’d done it.

Sure, part of that had been because she’d wanted to see if she could do it. There was a level of thrill that came with fooling all those rich people. But another part of her wanted to make sure her sister was safe.

Even after she was gone.

“I need you to know that I love you,” she whispered into Laura’s hair. “I love you more than the morning rays of the sun that filter into our room. I love you more than the shadows of rays on the floor or the songs of the whales in the distance. And I will love you for as long as there is a drop of seawater on this planet.”

“Ace—” Her sister had never called her by that name. “Don’t do this to us.”

She had to. Because she didn’t have another choice.

“I have to go,” she whispered. “They won’t give me another chance.”

But it was more than that. It wasn’t that anyone was giving up on her, it was that unfortunately, she’d given up on herself. And she remembered it now. She remembered feeling so lost and knowing that nothing she did would ever make her feel like herself again. This place, these people, they saw her as an animal.

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