Page 108 of The Narrow

“Is it really going back if I haven’t been there since I was eleven?” she asks. “But yeah. New York and then London, and then we’ll see. I haven’t gotten to go anywhere at all for years. I’d like to do some traveling. Finish school online, and then... then the whole rest of my life, I guess.”

“Are you angry with her?” I ask softly. “For keeping you trapped here all this time?”

That familiar small line appears between her eyebrows, her expression quizzical. “Grace? No, of course not. She saved me. I didn’t mean to—shedidn’t mean to possess me, or whatever you want to call that. There wasn’t anything evil or violent about it. I just...was. Or we were, or...”

“Right,” I say, and we both chuckle with forced humor.

“Oh. I brought you this,” Delphine says. She holds out the object that has been tucked under her arm.Grave Belles, I realize, neatly tied again.

“You can keep those,” I say, not reaching for them. “I have the scans. I’d like for you to have them. And I have more pages to send you. The ending. I’ve been working on it, finally.”

“Oh,” Delphine says. Then, hesitatingly, “The thing is, it’s not... it’s not really my thing. I loved it when I read it before, but now...”

“I see,” I say, feeling like I’ve been punched in the stomach. I blink back tears and reach out to take it. My finger bumps against hers. She flinches back, pulling her hands in against her body. I take a deep breath. I can’t let her go without knowing. “Delphine, you and I—”

“Please don’t,” she whispers. She looks me in the eye at last, her lower lip trembling. “I loved you. Completely. And now I don’t. I wish it weren’t true, because I remember what it felt like, and I care about you a lot. And I’m grateful. So, so grateful. But I’m not her anymore. Del. And I can’t—I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” I say, my voice a wreck. I hold the pages ofGrave Bellesflat against my chest, both arms folded over them. Like a shield between us. “It was Grace all along.”

Delphine shakes her head fiercely. “Ididlove you.Idid. And I feel like I’ve lost you, but I’m the one that...” A sob tears out of her. Her face crumples, and she jams her knuckles against her lips as tears stream down her cheeks. I reach out for her, desperate to comfort her, but she shakes her head, backing away.

She turns and strides back toward her mother, arms stiff at her sides. Madelyn gathers her up, casting me a pained look. There is sympathy in that expression, but a warning, too.

I force myself to turn away.

The girl I loved, whoever she was, is gone.

—

They say she haunts the Narrow’s shores. She is a slant of moonlight, a brush of wind, a whispered warning.

Every stone of Atwood holds a haunting. She is nothing remarkable, the lady of the shore, but she is new.

“Are you sure?” Veronica asks me as we make our way down toward the Narrow, snow crunching under our feet.

“I’m sure,” I tell her. “Wait here. I’ll be back soon.”

She is waiting on the rock where she died forty years ago. Where seven years ago, she saved the life of a young girl andbecame someone new. Where less than three months ago, she lifted me from the water. The moonlight shines over her skin. She wears a blue dress the color of the morning sky.

“Grace,” I say. She sees me, and a smile lights her features. Damp strands of hair cling to her cheeks. Her dress flutters, not in the breeze but in the tug of the current. When she touches my face, her hand is cold and wet. I cover it with my own, lean into her touch.

“You’re still here,” I say.

She looks behind her at the river. “I still belong to it. I have held on this long. I don’t think I can last much longer.”

“I should have come sooner,” I say. “I didn’t know.”

“Time doesn’t matter,” she says. “I was always going to be here when you came to find me. And when you’re gone, I will return to the Narrow.” She looks down at the water, her expression troubled. “She’s down there, somewhere. I can still feel her.”

“Maeve.”

“I loved her, you know.”

“I know. And she loved you.” I felt it. It’s easy to say that a love like that isn’t really love, but I know that’s wrong. It was a poisoned love of possession and jealousy. A love unworthy of the loved.

“I don’t know if that makes it better or worse,” Grace admits.

“Maeve thought that love was a storm. Violence and passion,” I say.

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