Make Me Better

by Sarah Gailey

Genres: Psychological Thrillers; LGBT & Pride; Horror

Synopsis

You were pure once. You can be made pure again.

Celia is so tired of being alone. All she wants is to have a family—to belong to someone. That's why she's going to Kindred Cove for the annual Salt Festival held by the secluded community that lives there. They promise that healing is possible. They promise that transformation is inevitable. There is no grief at Kindred Cove, because there is no suffering. Nothing is ever lost.

Celia knows that, at that mysterious island surrounded by that impossible, ever-growing reef -- she will find herself.

She’s ready to be healed. She’s ready to be transformed.

She's ready to believe.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Release date: May 12, 2026

Publisher: Tor Publishing Group

Print pages: 432

Sample

SALT FESTIVAL

 

day one|afternoon

Celia tried as hard as she could to see nothing but Kindred Cove. The little boat beneath her felt like a tin can cut in half. Her fellow passengers blurred in her peripheral vision. Her hands trembled at the sight of the crowd amassing on the shore of the island.

The people seeped out through the trees and sluiced down toward the waterline. There were two hundred of them up there, maybe two hundred and fifty. Some of the children of the island hoisted tall branches with bright scraps of fluttery cloth tied to the ends. Unsmiling adults touched the children on the shoulders without looking down at them. Behind the gathering crowd, near the trees, a high banner read Welcome Salt Festival Visitors in uneven letters.

Celia chewed the already-raw inside of her cheek. She was nearly there.

As the water taxi approached the land, a man stepped out of the crowd on the shore. His skin had a leathery quality that spoke to frequent sun. His bright, penetrating eyes were pinned to Celia. She felt like a spider in the shadow of a housecat. But then his gaze shifted to the woman next to her, and Celia found herself able to draw breath again.

“Welcome to Kindred Cove.” The man sounded neither hostile nor friendly, as though they were expected but not invited. He doesn’t want us here, Celia thought. Then she checked herself: That was negative thinking, toxic thinking, making assumptions and ascribing intent. She reminded herself not to let her anxiety control her. She fixed her eyes on the banner and made herself focus on the first word: welcome.

“Where should I tie up now the dock’s gone?” The stringy kid who had piloted the water taxi across the lake was chewing his gum at a volume that could not be accidental. He wore a sweat-stained white polo shirt with Vetiver Tours embroidered over the breast pocket. A small goiter on his neck moved in time with the rhythmic working of his jaw.

He couldn’t have been older than fourteen. Celia couldn’t remember if that was too young for a goiter. She couldn’t even remember what caused them—something that was supposed to be in tap water, she thought, or in table salt. Too much of it, or not enough. She wondered what the kid wasn’t getting in his diet, and immediately felt overwhelmed by the idea of trying to find a way to fix it.

She looked away from him, and the feeling of overwhelm faded. She was embarrassed at her own relief.

“You can tie up in a minute,” the man on the shore said. He wasn’t looking at the kid either. “Before we welcome all of you onto our shore, I want to be sure everyone’s in the right place.”

“I made ’em check in, just like you said,” the kid replied. “They all—”

“I want to make sure,” the man continued, louder now, more theatrical, “that everyone here is ready to step into an experience that will change their lives. The next four days will transform you forever. The Salt Festival is about connection, purification, cleansing, and community. It’s about releasing yourself from the anchors that hold you back from the life you could be living. But more than any of that—it’s about celebration.”

His face opened into a wide, warm smile. Celia wanted to learn how to smile like that.

“It’s about celebration,” he repeated. “Are you ready to celebrate with us?”

A lukewarm shout rose up from the group on the boat. There were twenty of them, packed onto the tiny water taxi too tightly for anyone to yell without it landing in someone else’s ear. Celia worried that the man on the shore would do one of those you can do better than that routines, trying to get them to shout louder. She hated those—hated the faux-chastising tone, hated knowing that it didn’t matter how loud the first yell was because whoever was running things was always going to ask for a second one anyway. She hated the hard seed inside of her that choked off her ability to perform bright wet excitement on demand.

But he didn’t try to extract another display of enthusiasm from the visitors. Instead, he strode forward into the water, his movements quick and efficient, his response so immediate that Celia tipped backward. The tall, tobacco-smelling guy standing just behind her caught her by the shoulders with a murmured whoa there.

Even though the sun-worn man was moving farther into the lake, coming at her fast, he didn’t sink any deeper than his knees. He raised an arm and yelled the name Caleb, and a second man jogged out of the crowd to join him. Caleb had short brown hair, deep brown skin, and wide wet eyes fringed with thick dark lashes. He didn’t look at the water taxi at all. Just kept his eyes on the water, picking his steps carefully.

Celia realized they were both walking on some kind of structure just below the surface. It was a structure that led straight to the water taxi.

“Want me to swim down to one of the cleats, William?” Caleb’s voice came out in a soft baritone.

Celia repeated the name William to herself, as the man who seemed to be some kind of leader here made his way to the water taxi. “No,” he said decisively, not looking back at Caleb. “We’ll anchor to the black gum there.” He made a gesture at the teenager who had piloted the boat across the lake. “Toss me your painter. That rope right there.”

The kid looked back through the tight cluster of people on the water taxi. He let out a heavy sigh. “Okay. Can y’all try to make room for me to get through, or.” There didn’t seem to be anything lined up to come after the or.

Celia followed the path of the kid’s gaze and realized it led to her. Her heart stuttered in her chest. She looked down and saw a coil of rope hanging off a cleat on the edge of the boat, right where she was standing. She pointed at the rope, looked from the kid to William and back again. “Is it this?”

“That’s the one I need,” he answered.

“I’ve got it.” She wasn’t sure who she was telling. Celia grabbed the coil. It was heavier than she’d expected, the wet rope scratchy in her palms. She tossed it clumsily to William, who caught it with ease. He gave an experimental tug and then pointed again. “There should be another one on the other side.” Someone she couldn’t see got that one too, and then William and Caleb were pulling the water taxi toward the shore, a rope over each of their shoulders, their torsos canted forward as they sloshed through the water.

Celia was uncannily reminded of pulling her car forward onto the track of a carwash, then putting it into neutral—drifting into the hellish pummeling of the mitter curtains with no control over her own movement. Still, she liked the way it had felt to throw William the rope. The practicality of it, the way she’d gotten to be helpful.

Things were moving forward because of her. That had to be good.

The boat was heavy, and their progress was slow enough for her to scan the crowd on the shore a few more times. Everyone watched the boat. She would have expected the people waiting for them to get bored, split into smaller groups, talk amongst themselves. The few children she could see should have been restless by now. A crowd of that size, in Celia’s experience, couldn’t be silent—they necessarily rustled, coughed, breathed, fidgeted. But all she could hear was the splash of the men’s legs in the water, the restless shifting of the people on the boat with her, and her own heartbeat.

“Cleansing,” the woman next to Celia muttered under her breath. “I’m so fucking sure.”

Celia glanced down at her. “What did you say?”

“Hm?” The woman blinked up at her placidly. Her face was seamed with creases, her eyes enormous behind thick-lensed glasses. She spoke in a high, querulous voice that sounded nothing like the voice she’d used when she was muttering to herself. “What’s that, dear?”

“Nothing. Nevermind.” Celia pressed her lips together and looked away. Wasn’t her business. She just needed to get to the island. She just needed this week to work.

This place would fix her. It would pull that hard seed out of her and seal the hole that would be left behind. It had to.

William was moving parallel to the shore, growing clumsy as he waded toward a slim black gum tree a couple of feet above the waterline. There was another boat—threadbare compared to the water taxi—in the shadow of the trees. Once they got close to it, he started to tie a series of knots in the rope she’d thrown him. She watched the deft movements of his hands as though she might learn to tie knots the way he tied them. As though she’d ever be the one doing it.

This would, she decided, be the beginning. She would take everything in while she was here. Everything. She would do the work.

She would get better.

“You’re going to have to get a little wet,” William said, stepping away from his knots, nearly losing his footing in the slippery silt. He sloshed his way closer to the water taxi, grabbed the low side of it. The water slapped against the side of the boat like a hundred tiny hands trying to find their way in. “You’ll have an easier time wading from here than trying to feel your way along the dock. It’s been tricky to navigate since it got submerged, and I don’t want any of you falling off the side.”

“Is it safe to touch the water?” That was the older woman next to Celia again. She asked the question in that same trembling voice, the one that made her sound ancient and fragile.

William looked down at his own feet, then back up at the group on the water taxi. “You’re asking now?”

“I just thought—with the mine collapse, and all that—”

“Of course it’s safe,” Celia said. She tried to keep her voice light. “We’ve come this far. Might as well go the rest of the way, right?”

She reached down and rolled up her yoga pants—the lightning motif ones from last December, which she hadn’t been able to sell and ended up buying from herself to keep her numbers up—then slipped off her shoes. She felt more than saw the shuffle of the other visitors as they copied her, taking off their shoes and preparing to enter the water.

“You can bring your shoes to shore with you,” William said, reaching up to unlatch the gate in the rail on the side of the boat. “You’ll see where to drop them.” He offered his hand to each passenger that stepped off the boat, half-lifted the old woman down into the water. When it was Celia’s turn, he kept her hand for a few seconds, holding her in place. She couldn’t step down into the water unless he either bent his arm or let go of her, and he wasn’t doing either. He just studied her face. “I’m glad you came,” he said at last.

She pulled her hand back sharply. “What?”

“I’m glad you came,” he repeated. “I can tell just by looking at you—you need it. You’ll benefit so much from what we do here.”

“Oh. Well.” She felt a flush rising up over her neck. How had he seen inside her? Was it that obvious to everyone? “Yes, I do. Need it, I mean. I need to be here. Thank you.”

She took his hand and legged her way carefully over the side of the boat. The water, when she stepped down into it, was colder than she expected it to be. It sank immediately into her flesh and yanked the warmth out of her.

Normally, such a shock of cold would make her recoil—but now, she was gripped by a powerful urge to dive in. To follow the path of her own body heat and find out where it had gone. Celia shivered, shaking off the sudden impulse. Reminded herself of what was in the lake, and how little she wanted to encounter it.

William saw her shiver. He winked. “The water’s only cold compared to how hot you were from the trip here. I promise it’s warmer when you’re walking in from the land side of things.”

She followed William, and the rest of the visitor group followed her. The silt was spongy beneath her feet, the saltwater of Lake Vetiver splashing with every step she took. Caleb worked at the knots on the rope that tethered the water taxi to the island. By the time they were on dry land, Celia’s rolled-up yoga pants were soaked to the knee, and the boat was ready to depart.

The water taxi engine stuttered to life. It was loud and then it was gone.

“No way back,” someone whispered, eliciting a giggle from whoever heard them. “Do you think we’ll get to see the miracle tide?”

Celia didn’t turn to see who’d spoken. She didn’t want a way back. She only wanted a way forward.

The visitors stopped in front of the crowd of people on the shoreline. There were two tarps laid out, one with a pair of shoes in the middle and one that was held down by a duffel bag. A man in wire-rimmed glasses dropped his shoes and backpack next to the ones on the tarps. Celia followed suit. She stayed near the back of her group, watching the other visitors. A few couples, a few people older than her, a knot of very young women wearing matching crystal necklaces, a lost-looking pair of men with identical noses who she guessed were brothers. The old woman who’d been next to her on the boat.

Celia wondered why the others were here. She wondered if all of them were broken, too—if all of them had the same ache in their chests as she did. It felt as though someone had used a corkscrew to drill a slow hole in her breastbone. The hole never went away. The temptation to jam her finger into it and touch her own beating heart was with her every second of every day.

This will work, she reminded herself. This will fix it. This will fix me.

William clapped his hands once, sharply, looking over the visitors with an appraising eye. “So,” he said. “You’re here as our guests. What you might not realize is that you’re the only new faces we’ll see for the entire year. This festival—the Salt Festival,” he added with a gesture toward the drooping banner, “is the one time each year that we welcome visitors. The other eleven months, nobody comes or goes without special permission.”

Celia took a deep breath in through her nose, let it out through her mouth. She focused on gratitude for the opportunity this festival represented.

“While you’re here,” he continued, “you’ll be living by the guidelines of our intentional community.” One of the women in the crystal necklaces raised her hand. He ignored her. “I know you don’t know the rules yet, don’t worry about that. We’ll help you. Each of you will be assigned a buddy to help you learn the ropes. Your buddy will also answer any questions you might have.”

With this, he aimed a pointed look at the woman who had her arm in the air, staring her down until she lowered it.

Then he held a hand out, and a woman from the island stepped forward to give him a clipboard. She was half a head taller than William. A threadbare linen shirt, unbuttoned to the middle of her sternum, hung loose across her tentpole frame. She was pale, as if she didn’t spend much time in the sun, but her nose and chest bore a stark scattering of dark freckles. Soft, bruiselike shadows drifted under her eyes and kissed the tops of her cheekbones. As Celia watched, the woman pushed her wild thicket of dark hair away from her face with one sweep of her long, slender fingers. She scanned the crowd and she must have seen something that amused her, because her wide, full mouth twitched like she was holding in a laugh.

William was still talking. Celia tore her eyes away from the woman, who she figured must be some kind of assistant to him. She told herself that she wouldn’t get distracted while she was here. She reminded herself that she needed to focus.

“These assignments are not negotiable. You and your buddy will stick together at all times. Is that understood?”

The visitors nodded their agreement. Celia curled her toes in the dust. She had expected something of a charm offensive, but William was charmless, bordering on rude. It was nice, in a way—he wasn’t meeting her pain with too much enthusiasm, too much kindness.

He started reading names aloud from the clipboard. Celia wondered if he’d split the couples or let them stay together, but she didn’t get a chance to see, because while he was still assigning the crystal girls to their chaperones, a hand landed on her shoulder. She turned to see the tall woman who had handed William his clipboard.

“Hey,” she whispered. “Sorry to distract you from this part, I know it’s sooo interesting. I just need to grab a couple of things from you real quick.”

Celia glanced down into the fraying basket in the woman’s hands. It had several cell phones and wallets in it. She spotted a few wedding rings, too, and an expensive-looking compact with a faded monogram on the lid. There were several purses slung over the woman’s shoulder, too. “Um. That’s okay,” she said. “I’ll hang on to mine.”

“Nah, you don’t want to do that,” the woman said agreeably. Up close, Celia could see that the freckles extended onto her arms, too. “It’s no big deal, we’ll just keep your stuff in the office during the festival. William has a safe in there. It’s all normal, just your phone, wallet, keys, and any mirrors or photographs you might’ve brought with you.” She gave the basket a little shake. “You can also just give me your whole bag if it’s easier.”

“What if I say no?”

The woman gestured to the scuffed-up boat in the shadowy patch where the treeline crept down close to the water. “You can go back if you want. It’ll be a pain in the ass, but I’ll take you. But I don’t think you want that, do you? There’s something … here,” she said, lifting a hand and reaching out to touch Celia lightly on the temple. “Right around your eyes. I can see it. You belong here.”

Something inside Celia surged forward at those words. Yes, it cried from inside her, yes, you can see it, please take it away. She shoved the feeling aside. “Fine,” she said, “but if I don’t get my things back at the end of the festival, I’ll—”

“Oh, you should sue us,” the woman finished for Celia, easing the purse strap off her shoulder. “For every penny we’re worth.”

“Celia?” William called. She looked up and realized she was the only person without a partner. William glanced at the woman with the basket and gave a nod. “I see you’ve already met your buddy for the week. You’ll be spending your days with Easy.”

“Nice to meet you, buddy,” Easy said with a wink. “Want to come with me to drop this stuff off at the office?”

“Don’t I need to stay and hear the rest of the orientation?”

“What orientation? Here.” Easy handed Celia the basket. “Let’s make like eggs and scramble.”

Celia was on the verge of objecting until she realized that the other visitors were dispersing, following their assigned chaperones into the narrow gap in the treeline under the banner. The rest of the crowd dissolved like a spoonful of sugar in water, gone before she could think to look more closely at them. She hadn’t seen any faces she recognized. “Wait, where is everyone going?”

“They’re going where they go,” Easy said.

William strode up to them. “Waiting for something? I doubt you two have time to spend standing here staring at each other. We’ve got an hour or so of daylight left. I suggest you use it well.”

“Of course,” Easy said. “I was just about to take her to the office to drop some things off.”

“The office is off-limits to visitors.” William looked Celia up and down. “Do you really think that’s a good idea?”

“What a question.” The temperature of Easy’s voice dropped by a few degrees.

“I’m just asking,” William replied. He raised his hands in a conciliatory gesture, and Celia wondered if she’d misunderstood who was in charge here at Kindred Cove.

Easy flashed William a grin. “Ah, William. You’re such a worrywart. She gave me her word that she won’t tell anyone else what she sees in there. Isn’t that right, Celia?”

Celia looked at Easy, startled, only to catch a fleeting wink. “Um. Yes,” she said. “Yes, you have my word.”

Easy dropped a hand onto William’s shoulder. “You see? I’ve got a good feeling about this one. We can trust her.”

Celia glanced at William before she could catch herself. She wanted to see if he had a good feeling about her too. If he had any feeling about her at all.

When she looked at him, she felt panic flip inside her stomach. It was the same panic she’d felt back when her pregnancy-loss support group read The Lonely City together. During the second to last meeting she attended—the meeting where she said goodbye to Adelaide—they’d discussed a passage:

I felt like I was in danger of vanishing, though at the same time the feelings I had were so raw and overwhelming that I often wished I could find a way of losing myself altogether, perhaps for a few months, until the intensity diminished. If I could have put what I was feeling into words, the words would have been an infant’s wail: I don’t want to be alone. I want someone to want me. I’m lonely. I’m scared. I need to be loved, to be touched, to be held.

Celia had read those final words to herself over and over again.

I’m lonely. I’m scared. I need to be loved, to be touched, to be held.

She’d felt rising terror at the words, but she’d been unable to look away from them.

Unable to look away, because for as long as she could remember, Celia had felt there was a voice inside her screaming help me, and that her duty to the world was to hold her hand hard over the small screaming mouth so no one would ever have to hear it. And rising terror, because reading that passage made her feel certain that she’d failed to smother the scream tightly enough.

The knowing tilt of William’s head made it seem as if he could hear it. It also made Celia think William might know how to silence that scream for good.

“You can trust me,” Celia said. William nodded. Celia took the nod and tucked it into the hole in her breastbone. The scream was still there, but it was muffled just a little.

She could already feel herself getting better.

 

Celia followed Easy into the shadow of the trees that covered the tiny island of Kindred Cove. She could feel William’s eyes on the small of her back as they walked. It took all her willpower to keep from looking over her shoulder.

“What about our bags? Do we go back for those?”

“You won’t need them, we have everything ready for you. But they’ll get delivered just in case.”

“Delivered? To where?”

Easy didn’t answer. She was already well ahead on the path. She moved with a slow, loping grace, her long legs devouring the road, and Celia couldn’t keep up without jogging. Easy didn’t look back to see if Celia was following her; she kept striding up the curving dirt road, her arms swinging loose at her sides, the collection of purses slapping rhythmically against her hip.

“Hey, can you wait a second?” Celia called, walking as fast as she could without breaking into a jog. “I need to—ow, fuck.” She grimaced as the ball of her foot landed on a small sharp stone. “I need to go back and grab my shoes.”

“Nope,” Easy answered, not slowing down. “We don’t do that here.”

“Don’t do what?” Celia slowed once they were side by side, although not by much.

“Shoes.” She reached out a steadying hand as Celia stumbled over another rock.

Celia glanced down at Easy’s feet. No shoes. She thought back to the crowd, trying to remember if any of the residents of the island had been wearing shoes—but she’d mostly been staring at their faces, trying to spot Adelaide. She remembered William and Caleb walking confidently into the water, not pausing, not slipping off sandals or sneakers.

“Wearing those things separates you from the ground beneath you,” Easy continued. “They’re an artificial means of preventing yourself from having a real experience. How many times have you really let your skin come into contact with the earth?”

“Lots of times,” Celia answered immediately. “I garden. I touch dirt all the time.”

Easy’s laugh was surprisingly loud. A few birds startled out of a nearby hickory at the sudden sound. “That doesn’t count. You control your garden, right? You’re the one who put all the dirt there, all the plants.” She snapped a stalk off a tall fennel plant by the side of the road, stuck it between her molars, and talked around it like she was chewing on a cigar. “I bet you have a little stone path that cuts through it. I bet you treat your garden like a big potted plant that just happens to go outside. Look out,” she added suddenly, pointing into the shadows of the trees ahead. “Tom is going to try to get your ankles. He’s just playing, but his claws don’t always know that.”

Celia gave the patch of shadows a wide berth. A pair of wide yellow eyes glinted out at her as she passed. “Where are all the kids?” she asked, squinting to try to see more of what she hoped was just a cat. The sun was shining low through the trees, sending a cascade of dappled golden light across the path, and squinting didn’t do her much good.

“What?”

“The children. I saw them down at the shore, but then they just—”

“Right.” Easy sounded somewhere between confused and annoyed. “We don’t invite them to spend a lot of time with visitors. It would disrupt their routine. Structure is important for a child’s growth and development. Don’t you agree? Well—I suppose you might not understand that,” she added lightly, “since you’re not a parent.”

Celia told herself that Easy couldn’t know how much her thoughtless words hurt. She couldn’t know about the wound she’d just poked a questing finger into. It’s not her fault, Celia chastised herself. It’s no one’s fault but your own. “Of course. Structure, routine. You grew up here, right? You’re not one of the Salt Festival visitors that stayed?”

“What do you mean? Salt Festival visitors don’t stay.”

Celia paused. “I heard that sometimes the visitors end up deciding to live here.”

“Maybe you heard wrong.”

Easy’s tone was cool enough to make Celia drop it. “Well, anyway. You grew up here, so you must have experienced the same structure the kids get now. Continuity is—”

“It was different back then. We’ve developed a stronger rhythm for the children in the past few years.”

Celia could feel Easy closing off. It made her feel a hot flash of panic. “Were you here when the mines collapsed?”

“Course I was here. Worst day of my life,” Easy said.

“Oh? Did anyone—I mean, did you lose someone?” Celia bit her lip. She could hear the hunger in her own voice. She wanted Easy to talk about death. To talk about how much she still ached, how open and weeping the old wound might be. Then maybe she could introduce her pain to Easy’s pain, like forcing two snappish dogs to socialize, and Easy would feel understood, and then she’d stay open and welcoming. It was wrong to want someone else’s pain this much. Celia knew it was wrong, but that didn’t mean she could stop herself.

“Oh, Celia. You have so much to learn here,” Easy said, her voice loose with disappointment. “No one is ever lost.”

Then, without warning, she turned off the road and walked into the trees. Celia pulled up short. She wondered if she’d offended Easy so much that she’d—what? Wandered into the wilderness to escape the conversation? The moment she realized the absurdity of her thinking, Celia saw the narrow footpath through the undergrowth. Easy had stepped onto it, and now that she knew where to look, Celia could see where they were headed: a squat single-wide trailer with a couple of wooden steps leading up to the door and a faded sign hanging out front.

As she jogged to catch up, dry grass prickling the soles of her feet, she caught the word administration. “That’s the office?”

Easy opened the door and held it ajar with her foot while she waited for Celia to catch up. “Come on, we have to drop this stuff off and then get you settled before dinner.”

The inside of William’s office was as bland a place as Celia could have imagined. There was a desk, a couple bookshelves lined with binders, a stack of bins against one wall. The only unusual thing in the office was a tall wooden barrel in one corner, the slats held together by rusted wooden rings.

Easy dropped the purses onto the desk and motioned for Celia to do the same with the basket. Celia hesitated. “I thought you said these were going to go into a safe?”

“I said they’d be safe,” Easy replied patiently. “Don’t worry, I’ll lock the door after us. Nobody here steals, anyway. We trust each other.”

Celia frowned. “I’m pretty sure you said William had a safe—”

“Can I ask you something?” Easy gently took the basket from Celia’s hands, her eyes wide with concern. “I don’t mean to be rude. I’m just wondering if maybe … do you come from a bad area?”

“What?”

She set the basket on the desk, then stepped forward until Celia couldn’t see the basket anymore. All she could see was Easy’s worried face. “I won’t tell anyone. It’s just that, I don’t know. It seems like you actually think someone would just take something that belongs to you. Is it just the place you came from? Or is the whole world like that, out there?”

Celia hadn’t thought about it that way before. Her neighborhood in Belleville was comfortable. She’d lived there her whole life, had inherited her parents’ three-story townhouse when they’d died in the Poplar Street Bridge collapse. There were parts of St. Louis she wouldn’t go to—the city itself always scared her a little—but her suburb was different. She was sure she was safe there.

“I guess the whole world is like that,” she said. “It’s just. You know. People take things.”

Easy let out a low whistle and shook her head. “Not here. We have what we need and we share the rest. But I’ll tell you what—William’s got a locking drawer in his desk. I’ll ask him to put the basket in there. He’s the only one with the key, so your things will be safe and sound. Good compromise?”

“That works,” Celia replied.

She felt the slightest glow of satisfaction. I am braver than I think was a mantra she’d picked up in the fitness club she’d joined a few years back, the one where they called the gym a hang and everyone did the same workout together every morning. She’d had to leave after a year, when she couldn’t afford to purchase the Platinum Membership Package, but she’d kept the mantras. She repeated this one to herself now. It felt true. She and Easy had worked together to solve the problem. She’d spoken up for everyone’s things, and now they’d all be safe because she hadn’t let the issue drop. She was braver than she thought.

Soon the two of them were walking away from the office, empty-handed, up the same road that led to the dock. Easy pointed into the trees again, this time in the opposite direction from the office. “That’s the canteen. I’ll bring you back down to it after I show you your house.”

Celia had already spotted this building. It was on the larger side, with a steeply pitched roof and flaking red paint, exposed beams underneath a wide overhang, low benches against the exterior walls. Something about it rang familiar, but Celia couldn’t put her finger on why. She noted with gratitude that garden lanterns like the ones she had in her own backyard were staked into the dirt on either side of the path leading to it. She was willing to bet that, like her own, they had tiny solar panels on top and would flicker out after a few hours of darkness. She wouldn’t end up in the dark down here, then, trying to feel her way through the trees. She’d be able to find her way.

Just when she was about to turn her attention away from the canteen, a flicker of movement caught her eye—a ribbon of strawberry blond hair, vanishing into the shadowy doorway. “Wait,” she said, stopping. “Who was that?”

“Hm?” Easy was already ahead, her brisk stride carrying her quickly up the road.

Celia took a few halting steps toward the canteen and cupped a hand around her mouth, calling out. “Adelaide?”

Easy froze. “What did you say?”

Celia didn’t answer. She stared hard at the building, willing a familiar face to emerge.

“Hey. Hey!” Easy was right next to her now, her hand on Celia’s upper arm. “Did you just say—”

“Nothing,” Celia replied quickly, tearing her eyes away from the building. “I just—I thought I saw someone I knew. An old friend from back home.”

Easy searched Celia’s face, her expression guarded. “Well, you didn’t. Nobody who lives here is from St. Louis, and you’re the only one in your visitor group who’s from there. I’d know,” she added, lifting her eyebrows. “I was in charge of vetting folks for this year’s Salt Festival.”

“I’m actually from Belleville. It’s outside St. Louis.” Celia didn’t let herself glance back at the canteen. “You really picked everyone?”

“I made sure there wasn’t overlap,” she said, gently tugging Celia back toward the road. “No neighbors.”

“But those girls with the crystals—”

“Aren’t from Belleville. Come on, I want to show you where you’ll be sleeping before it’s time to come back down for dinner.”

The incline of the road increased as they walked. Easy didn’t say much more, except to point out what she called houses. To Celia’s eye they looked more like sheds. The little buildings were raised on cinderblocks, each with a set of two wooden steps leading up to the entrance. Some of them had windows; most didn’t seem to. Each roof was canted in one direction, a single steep slant that went from one broad side to the other, overhanging the front door. All of the sheds were coffin-small, no bigger than the nursery Celia had painted shell pink back home. They sat at odd angles to the road, scattered like handfuls of seed.

Each one was painted a different color. Yellow, orange, blue—shades that looked like they’d been vibrant once, but were now faded and peeling. There were signs hanging in front of each one, too, the letters burned into the wood just like the sign that hung outside the main office. The labels identified the colors of the houses. Yellow House. Orange House. Blue House.

Celia was out of breath by the time they made it to Grey House. Easy flung the door open with proprietary pride. “Here we are. You and I will be staying here for the week.”

Celia poked her head into the cabin. It was unfinished inside—the thick, treated wood of the walls seemed to be the full extent of the material that stood between her and the outside world. There was a bunk bed shoved against one wall, a small writing desk opposite. A braided rug in shades of gray sat in the middle of the floor. On the back wall, a set of shelves were affixed to the inside of the wood. A single empty walnut shell rested in the middle of one shelf.

There was no toilet, no chair, no window. The room was dustless and immaculate.

“Do you normally live in here?” Celia asked, her eyes falling on the soft-looking quilt that was laid over the thin mattress on the bottom bunk. She could make out letters on some of the patches; after a moment she realized that they were scraps of old slogan tees.

“No, I’m usually in the Old House at the top of the island. But this week, I get to be your buddy, so we’ll be hanging out in here. Nice, right? Oh, your bag is under the bed, by the way.”

“Under—how?”

“I told you, they got delivered. This was fast, though, I didn’t think that would happen until after dinner. Anyway, it’s underneath because we don’t put them on top of the covers in case of bedbugs.”

“I don’t have bedbugs,” Celia said, reaching under the bed to fish her bag out. Whoever put it there had shoved it all the way back into a corner.

“Oh, sure. But the person whose bag was next to yours on the water taxi might. It’s just a precaution. Here, let me.” Easy knelt beside her and reached one long arm under the bed to retrieve the duffel. The faded pink denim didn’t look as out of place in the cabin as Celia would have imagined.

Her eyes fell on the zipper. She always put the tabs to one far side, so they tucked under the lip of fabric on the corner of the bag and would be less likely to accidentally come undone. Now, the tabs were squarely centered, a finger-width gap between them.

She didn’t want to ask Easy if someone had gone through her things. Not after what had happened at the canteen. But she wanted to know if there was still a sonogram tucked into the bottom of her bag. She should have given it up when Easy had first approached her with the basket, but that hard emptiness in her chest hadn’t let her do it.

She realized that if someone had gone through her bag—if someone had rummaged through her underwear and toothbrush and now-useless socks—she wanted them to have found the sonogram. She wanted them to have taken it from her. She couldn’t give it up on her own, but maybe if someone here made her give it up, she’d finally be able to get better.

She didn’t ask Easy about it. She just shoved the duffel back under her bed with her foot, pushing it in as far as it would go. As it vanished, a thought struck her, and she twisted to look over her shoulder. “You said you were in charge of vetting everyone? All the visitors?”

“Yep.” Easy was slouched against the doorframe, inspecting her fingernails.

“Including me?”

Easy glanced up at Celia then, one brow lifting lightly. “Dunno. Are you part of everyone?”

Celia turned slowly to face Easy. “Did you read my letter?”

A slow nod, a faint pinch of pity around the corners of her mouth.

That nod dropped a stone into Celia’s stomach. Because that meant Easy already knew what was wrong with Celia. When she brought up the fact that Celia wasn’t a parent—she’d known exactly what she was saying. She’d known about the pain that lived in Celia’s chest, she’d known about the scream inside Celia’s soul, and she’d known about the relentless grief that had come to define Celia to herself.

Celia cleared her throat, trying to dislodge the lump that had stuck itself there. “I think I can find my own way back to the canteen, you don’t have to show me. There’s just one road, right?”

With three long strides, Easy crossed from the doorway to the bed, until she was standing nearly on top of Celia. “You’re scared that you’re going to be all alone here,” she said softly.

“I’m—”

“You are. Don’t pretend you’re not.” She gazed down into Celia’s face, the pity gone, something bright and inviting entering her eyes. “You never have to be all alone again, Celia. I’ve got you. I’ll show you everything.”

“Everything?” Celia repeated, and the word felt new in her mouth.

Easy straightened and gave a brisk nod. “C’mon. Let’s go. Before it gets dark. The first dinner for visitors is always amazing. You’ll see.”

Celia followed. She felt sun-dazzled. She hurried to keep up with Easy’s quick pace. The road felt softer beneath her feet than it had before.

As they made their way back down the hill, Celia stared at the cabins, wondering if they were all like Grey House inside. They looked so strange, and so familiar—small and sturdy, the texture of the wood aggressively rustic, the woodburned signs amateurish in a way that filled her with strange affection. It wasn’t until they reached the canteen—where she saw the desiccated old corkboard next to the open double doors, and heard the familiar sound of many voices gathered inside for dinner—that it clicked.

“Easy,” she asked tentatively. “Did this used to be some kind of … camp?”

Easy paused. “What?”

“This place. It looks so much like the summer camp I went to as a kid.” Celia nodded to herself, her certainty growing. It had been a friend’s sleepaway Bible camp. She wasn’t religious as a child, but she’d wanted to go with her friend for the summer, and so the church that ran the camp had given her a Seeker Scholarship, hoping to convert her. Celia’s father had used those summers to pick up double shifts at the package-processing warehouse. Before dropping her off at the start of June each year, he’d warned her not to let anyone make her feel embarrassed about her scholarship. But he shouldn’t have worried. Everyone had gone out of their way to become her friend, to explain things to her, to sit by her. They’d wanted her to become part of their world. She didn’t have the scream in her soul yet, not then.

Maybe it could be the same way here.

Easy’s response was distant, bordering on irritated. “This place has always been Kindred Cove, even if people used it for something else before. Come on, I think we’re the last ones.”

Easy placed a hand at the small of Celia’s back—gentle pressure, encouraging her to cross the threshold of the canteen. Celia leaned back into her palm.

I need to be touched. She lingered for just a moment, looking at the corkboard, imagining the sign-up sheets and bulletins and notices that used to hang there. I need to be held. She could feel the ghosts of a thousand dinner lines snaking out these same double doors. Easy’s hand was warm at the base of her spine. The voices of a hundred people carried on the warm evening air. I don’t want to be alone. Celia felt the tips of her toes hanging out over that unappeasable abyss. The pain behind her sternum was overwhelming, ribcage-buckling, smothering.

I’m lonely.

For years, she had been unable to imagine being loved and touched and seen enough to mend the broken thing inside of her that created such pain.

I’m scared.

Even now, as she remembered the long-past time of her life when her parents had still been alive enough to send her off to camp, emptiness yawned open all around her.

Help me.

Celia leaned back into the pressure of Easy’s palm for just one more heartbeat, and then she stepped forward into the canteen.

 

Sixteen Years Ago

Edith walks from house to house as the sky grows dark overhead. There’s nowhere on the island where she can’t hear the roar of the lake.

She saw it happen early that afternoon. The huge machine toppling and sinking, the open dark hole in the lakebed, the sudden strange churn of the water. For all that she’s seen in her life—all the pain and hunger and uncertainty—she’s never seen anything like what she saw today. Now, she knocks on doors, one by one, gathering her people to her.

She is the one who calls the hundred residents of Kindred Cove up to the chapel for a headcount.

She is the one who makes sure they are safe.

Everyone has questions. Everyone is upset, afraid. The community at Kindred Cove has never discussed the end of the world before. They’ve talked about war and starvation, climate collapse and religious oppression. They know to fear catastrophic storms and government raids and doubt. But none of them ever knew to fear this.

Many of them share what it was like to see the water in the lake vanish. Many of them share what it was like to see it come flooding back. None of them share what Edith is hoping to hear. None of them seem to have seen what happened to him.

None of them know where Dad is.

William and Leona are the last to arrive at the chapel. Both of them are disheveled, sweat stained and wild-eyed. “We looked everywhere,” William says. “We’ve been looking for hours. We can’t find him.”

It is nearly full dark by now. If he’s not at the chapel, he’s not coming to the chapel. Everyone knows this, but Edith insists that they wait. She sends Leona to gather up the beeswax candles she’s been making, and she puts everyone else to work tidying the chapel, collecting quilts and laying them on the floor and front steps, readying the place for a night in which all of them will stay here, together.

There’s a tug on her elbow. It’s Adelaide, eleven years old and officious, always prepared to remind whoever might be listening that there are rules and the rules should be followed. She doesn’t look so self-assured now, though. Her eyes are enormous, her lips pale. Edith looks down at her hopelessly. “I’m sorry, kiddo,” she says, too overwhelmed to catch herself before using the nickname Adelaide has recently begun to hate. “I don’t know where he is.”

“It’s not him,” Adelaide says. “It’s Easy. She’s at the cliff. She won’t come away from it.”

Edith runs outside, down the steps and up the road. Easy is standing at the cliff, just like Adelaide said. She’s staring down into the white foam of the current below. The wildflowers that grow on the cliff face have been mostly torn away, and there’s just bare dirt crumbling into the water a few meters down.

Edith pulls Easy back. “Come away from there,” she says urgently. “You’ll fall. There could be a landslide. It’s not safe.”

“But—”

Edith turns and looks over her shoulder and sees Leona hurrying up the road, her skirt acting as a hammock for all the candles she could find. “Come to the chapel, now. We’re going to light candles so Dad can find us if he doesn’t know where we are.”

Easy looks up, her small face streaked with tears, her eyes wide with fear. For as much as she acts like eleven years old is as good as grown, Edith thinks, this one is still just a baby. “Are we going to die?”

Edith crouches down and looks into those panicked eyes. “Take a deep breath in,” she says. When Easy obeys, Edith claps a hand over her nose and mouth. “That breath inside you? That’s got the world in it, doesn’t it?” She nods. Edith can feel the twitch of Easy’s nostrils, pressed flat under her palm. “You’re transforming the world just by taking it into yourself. Now breathe out.” She pulls her hand away and Easy exhales in a rush, bending forward a little with the suddenness of it. “You just put yourself into the world. That breath was part of you, and now it’s not. Isn’t that so?”

She nods slowly.

“We’re all changing all the time,” Edith says. “If we all change today, so be it. Now come on, you’re holding things up. Everyone’s waiting.”

As she pulls the child toward the chapel, she can see the flicker of the first candle being lit.

Copyright © 2026 by Sarah Gailey