Undertow
Ten years after her younger sister drowned in a death the town ruled an accident, Mira returns to the coastal town of Merrow for the truth. But the deeper she digs, the colder and more ruthless she becomes — until the trail circles back to the one night she has spent a decade trying to forget.
Tap any sentence for Thai
The tide was going out when I came back to Merrow, dragging the sea away from the rocks like a secret it did not want me to see. Ten years had passed since my sister Elin drowned here, and the town had spent every one of them pretending it was an accident. I stood at the edge of the cove, where the black rocks they call the Teeth break the surf into white teeth of their own. Somebody had left fresh flowers on the highest rock, their petals still bright, still wet. After ten years, someone in this town still came here to mourn her, and I needed to know who. I had believed, since the night it happened, that Elin did not simply fall. Standing there, with the wind pulling at my coat, I made her a promise out loud: I would find the truth, whatever it cost me. The walk into town felt like walking into a photograph that had faded but never changed. At the Gannet, the only inn still open, the landlady Marta went pale when I said my name. "We don't have rooms," she said, though the key board behind her was full. When I mentioned Elin, three men at the bar stopped talking at exactly the same moment, as if a switch had been thrown. Marta finally gave me a key, but she held onto it a second too long, watching my face. "People here have made their peace, love," she said quietly. "Be careful you don't come and break it." That night I lay awake listening to the sea, and I understood that the town was not grieving with me — it was guarding something from me.