“Is that a question?” He asks, turning to look at me.
“No. It’s a request.”
He grins, another gleaming smile. “Consider it granted.”
I’m not sure where Sienna disappeared to, but I can’t bring myself to care as he leads me through the crowd. We weave between stands and strollers and other kids from school too absorbed in their own conversation to notice us, until we’re in the area they’ve set up for the band. The dance area is surrounded by straw bales and is packed with people—couples young and old.
The band seems to have gone from country to swing, and everyone is going crazy, spinning and swinging, laughing and smiling.
“Uh, do you know how to swing dance?” I ask, grimacing.
“Yes.”
I spin around and look at him, wondering if he’s joking. “Seriously?”
“Yep. You?”
“We covered it in PE last year, but I wasn’t very good,” I say, giving him an apologetic look. “Prepare to have your toes smashed.”
“We’ll see about that.”
He pulls me into the crowd, then spins me around so fast I can hardly breathe. He takes my hands in his, our fingers interlaced and palms together. “Just put your trust in me, and everything will be fine. Can you do that?”
I nod, but I’m hardly ready when suddenly he pulls me toward him. Just as I think I’m going to crash right into his chest, stumble over his feet, he pushes me away. I nearly lose my balance, but my arm twists above my head, and I’m spinning in a circle. For a millisecond, my back is up against his chest, but then he spins me the opposite direction. Finally, he takes my spare hand, and I end up back where I started.
I burst into laughter, because I have no idea how he just did that, but I don’t stop dancing. Instead, I pick up on his rhythm. I forfeit all control to Erik, allowing my body to go where he leads it. I let myself lose my balance here and there and hope he’ll catch me.
And he does. We’re flying all over, spinning, dipping, twisting, and I can’t seem to stop grinning like a fool as I shuffle my feet this way and that, wherever he leads me. The song bleeds into the next and then the next, until I’m not even sure it’s swing music anymore. But still we don’t stop.
We dance for so long that I lose track of time, which seems an unbelievable feat when my hunger for the ocean grows with each tick of the clock. I wouldn’t be able to do this with anyone but Erik. Knowing he won’t let me walk away from him, won’t let me out of sight, somehow makes it possible to relax and enjoy myself.
Finally, the beat drifts away, and a slow melody picks up. A love song, clear as day, echoes from the speakers. And only then do I let my feet slow.
Erik releases my left hand so that he can put his arm around my lower waist. He pulls me against his body, warmer than the night.
Chapter Twenty-Six
A week after the festival, Sienna’s blue coupe follows Nikki’s dark Mitsubishi sedan up a particularly winding part of Route 101. The sky above us is black with storm clouds. It’s a particularly dangerous part of the highway. The cliffs hug the road to our left; the ocean licks at the rocks below to our right, at least fifty feet down. There won’t be a real shoulder for at least another half mile.
It’s unbelievably dark, and yet the sun won’t set for another hour.
Erik and I are crammed in the backseat of Sienna’s coupe as we follow the two cars ahead, their headlights illuminating the pavement in front of our caravan. Hip-hop blares from Sienna’s speakers as Erik’s hand rests on my knees. It’s too loud to talk to Erik, but we smile at each other in the darkness, trusting our lives to Sienna’s marginal driving skills.
Up ahead, a red blinker flashes, and taillights flare brighter. Sienna slows, turning off the road and driving through a rusted open old gate, barely hanging on by one hinge. Dilapidated wire fencing sags between old iron T posts, mostly obscured by the overgrown reedy grass that grows this close to the ocean.
Our caravan glides quietly up the gravel, winding back and forth on a few lazy switchbacks. The headlights illuminate secluded spots of the sparse grassy hillside until a wide, empty gravel lot opens up. The two cars in front of us pull up next to each other, and then Sienna does the same. “We’re here,” she says, glancing back at us as she turns off the radio. Patrick throws his door open and yanks his seat forward to allow us to climb out.
Outside the car, I watch as six of my classmates—Nikki included—pile out of the other cars. I am inordinately happy that Cole isn’t here tonight. I haven’t figured out yet if something is going on between him and Nikki. And frankly, if it is, I don’t want to know.
One of the guys lets loose with a ridiculous coyote screech, his hands above his head in a rock-on kind of signal.
Erik and I follow the others to this evening’s destination.
The lighthouse.
But this lighthouse isn’t exactly serving its original function. It juts into the dark sky, completely black, devoid of ... anything. It’s engulfed in total blackness, has been for at least a decade.
Patrick, Brian, and Danny all switch flashlights on.
Erik leans in, whispers into my ear, “Sorry. I didn’t get the memo about the flashlights.”
I grin up at him in the gray of the evening light. “It’s okay. I forgive you.”
We manage to find each other’s hands in the darkness and to interlace our fingers. Ahead, the storm clouds seem to have closed in on the lighthouse. It’s as if it has disappeared right into the clouds.
We walk in silence, and soon my sneakers hit pavement. The last two hundred feet before the backdoor is a crooked, cracked old sidewalk.
“Are you guys sure this place is still unlocked?” someone asks. Nikki mutters something I can’t quite make out. To my left, Kristi giggles.
I haven’t been in a group like this in a while. At Sienna’s, it’s easy to detach from everyone, find a quiet room. But today, we’re all together, all on the same mission. And in the darkness, no one separates from the pack.
Right on time, the ground rumbles with thunder. “Told you,” Sienna says, throwing a look over her shoulder.
Excited whispers mount as we reach the only door to the lighthouse. Nikki stops, her hand on the knob, and glances back at all of us. Then she purses her lips and turns back to the door, twisting at the knob.
It swings open.
“Yes!” Sienna jumps up and hugs Patrick. I let out the air I’d been holding.
We file one by one through the entry, and by the time I get inside, a whole line of people are already climbing the old steel-grate steps. The stairs wind around and around in a lazy spiral, all the way to the top.
I wait in silence for a second. Then I grab the rusted wrought iron and follow my friends up, the steps groaning and creaking under our collective weight.
It must take ten minutes for our whole group to make it to the top. Beams of flashlights bounce around inside the cylindrical area as we wind around and around the spiral staircase.
And then Nikki finds another door to push, and we emerge onto the platform. It’s just as dark here as it was below. The electrical system is totally shot—not only do the spotlights not work, but neither do the overhead lights.
We fan out around the windows, stare out at the ocean raging against the rocky cliffs below us. The wind has been picking up, and the sea is frothing white.
Lightning streaks across the horizon. Nikki shrieks and jerks back, away from the window. Someone laughs.
We used to come up here all the time, the whole group of us. Whenever the weather people predicted a storm, we’d all pile in a car and come up to the old abandoned lighthouse on the bluffs. Most of the time, the “storm” turned out to be nothing, a boring false alarm. But after we saw real lightning for the first time, we were all hooked. The dark magic of Mother Nature was enough to keep us coming back, over and over.
