“Welcome, Audra,” the three skirted girls greeted in unison.

“Yes, welcome,” Deacon said, kneeling on the sand beside his two newfound friends. “There’s no need to be shy,” he assured them. “We’re all family here.”

Family, Audra thought. If you only knew about mine, you wouldn’t say that with such benevolence.

“Are you guys camping? In this?” She motioned to nothing in particular, calling up the wind and the rain and the misery of it all.

“Not camping so much as traveling,” Deacon said. “We’ve been moving up the Pacific coast for a few months now; started down in L.A.” He paused, as if recalling the memory of the first few days of their trip. “I think the weather may have been nicer in California.” Deacon cracked a good-natured smile. Audra couldn’t help but to smile at him in return.

“Are you from there?” she asked. “California?”

Deacon dipped his head down in a thoughtful nod. “I’m from Calabasas,” he said. “You know it?” He spoke to them both, but he focused his attention on Audra, not Maggie. Deacon’s attentiveness unspooled a sense of nervousness inside her chest, the sensation accompanied by an undeniable thrill. Audra and Maggie didn’t go out together much, but whenever Maggie did manage to talk Audra out of the house she stole the spotlight with her bubbly personality and her classic beauty. It seemed that Maggie was set on epitomizing the likes of Mia Farrow with her pretty clothes and her perfect makeup. But Audra felt awkward with her stringy yellow hair and her dumpy, stretched-out sweaters. Not that she couldn’t be pretty—she had plenty of summer dresses crammed in her closet and a vanity packed with everything from hair products to fake eyelashes. The difference between her and Maggie was that Audra didn’t feel pretty, and why should she? The cross-hatching of scars up and down her arms was a constant reminder of her weakness; her parents’ disinterest, an assurance of her insignificance. Audra Snow was used to feeling inconsequential, but now, here was a man who was speaking to her and her alone, as though Maggie wasn’t there at all. And for once, odd as it was, Maggie wasn’t showboating to steal the attention away.

Audra shook her head in response to Deacon’s question. She had heard of Calabasas, but she’d never been to California. Though it would have been nice to walk along the Santa Monica Pier and ride the Ferris wheel, play arcade games, and pretend everything was perfect, even if it was only for a single sunny day.

“It’s close to where they shoot all the pictures,” Deacon said. “You like movies?” Audra nodded. She loved movies, and she especially loved the way Deacon kept his eyes fixed on hers. It was as though he was genuinely interested, as if she was the only one who existed on that beach, the one he’d traveled up the coast hoping to find.

3

Saturday, February 6, 1982

One Year, One Month, and Eight Days Before the Sacrament

AUDRA HAD NEVER been the outdoorsy type. Even as a child growing up in Seattle, she preferred to stay in her room than to play out on the preened back lawn or explore the rivers and trees of the Cascade Range. In her mind, people who enjoyed being out in nature were at peace with feeling small, but for her, being swallowed by the Washington forests was a terrifying prospect. Standing on the shore only to stare out at an endless expanse of ocean made her feel even smaller than she already imagined herself to be. The only peace she found in the water or trees was the lingering thought that Mother Nature could take her if only Audra allowed it. The forest would bury her if she lay down for long enough. The ocean would pull her under if she didn’t fight the current, if she breathed in the water the way she so effortlessly did the air.

And yet, late that morning, she found herself pacing the length of the kitchen, back and forth across the linoleum. Her gaze occasionally flicked up to the window above the sink, casting a glance onto the overgrown cherry orchard just beyond the glass. It had been two days since she and Maggie had taken their walk on the beach, forty-eight hours since she had met the charismatic mystery man who had made her feel a little less invisible than usual.

Now, the beach was calling her back. She needed to see the ocean. The sand. Those tents.

Back and forth she went, from the refrigerator to the stove. Shadow watched her from the mouth of the kitchen, his tail giving her a hopeful wag every time their eyes met.

You know you want to, he panted. It isn’t raining. We could go check, just give a peek down the coastline to see if they’re still there.

Audra paused her pacing, her gaze fixed on her dog’s furry face.

“What is it?” she asked him. “You want to go out?”

Shadow sucked his bobbing tongue into his mouth. His ears perked at the suggestion, but he didn’t move from where he sat.

“You want to go to the beach?”

He stood up, his tail flicking left and right.

“You . . . want to go see if Deacon is still there?”

Shadow snorted, excited by a prospect Audra knew he didn’t understand. He bowed into a quite literal downward dog, his butt held high in the air.

“But it’ll be weird if we just show up,” she murmured, lifting a hand to chew on a nail. “Maybe I should call Maggie.”

Shadow barked. Forget Maggie.

She raised an eyebrow at his insistence.

What do you need Maggie for? You’ve got me.

“You’re right.” She let her arms drop to her sides. “I live here, and you want to go for a walk, don’tcha?” As soon as she uttered Shadow’s trigger word—walk—his eyes went wild. He reared up and bolted out of the kitchen, completed a couple of breakneck doughnuts around the coffee table, and returned to his spot with unbridled anticipation. Audra cracked a smile at his enthusiasm. There really was no choice now. If she backed out, she’d break Shadow’s thumping doggie heart.

She saw the tents as soon as she and Shadow made their way out of the thicket of trees and into the clearing that opened onto the coast. At first she thought she was imagining things, but the charred remains of their bonfire assured her that the tents had moved from where they’d been on Thursday afternoon. They were closer now, as if inching their way toward her home.

Shadow made a run for the tents. When he nudged his snout inside one of them, she sucked in a breath to yell for him to come back. Before she could find her voice, Deacon’s head popped out of the flap. He clambered out and then strolled toward her with a wide smile across his face.

“Audra!” He caught her in a tight hug as soon as he was able to reach her. “We were wondering when we’d see you again.”

You were? The question was poised on her tongue, but she held it back.

“Come,” he said, motioning for her to follow him despite not giving her much choice. Without asking whether she’d like to join him, he looped his arm through hers and pulled her along. By the time they reached the new campsite, the girls who had fussed over Shadow on Audra’s previous visit had crawled out of Deacon’s tent. “I want you to meet everyone,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, there are nine of us,” he explained.

Nine? Audra gaped at the number. How can nine people fit into two tents? And how was she going to handle meeting them all without Maggie there to help her through it, to take the edge off, if only by stealing away some of the undivided attention?

“I . . . I was just taking Shadow for a walk,” she stammered, anxiety crawling up her throat. “We can’t stay. He just needed to go out.”