“Daddy, that’s great,” Darcy said as my father went to the cabinet for plates. “Are you done with it?”

“Almost,” he replied happily. “She said she’ll read it as soon as it’s finished.”

I walked slowly to the kitchen threshold, watching as the three of them settled in for their meals. They looked like some kind of brightly lit sitcom. The single dad, his pretty daughter, and her sweet little friend. For a brief moment I wondered if that was why this house was decorated like something out of the fifties. Were they—whoever they were—trying to paint the perfect American family backdrop before people moved on?

“That’s where you’ve been all day? With the mayor?” I asked.

My father frowned, thinking, as he loaded his plate with fried clams. “No. I went for a walk, had lunch at the general store, then bumped into her at the library.”

Untrue. Completely untrue. He’d stormed out of here on a mission and driven to the ferry. There was no way he’d spent the day wandering around. Someone or something had screwed with his memory—screwed with his mind. I looked at Darcy, waiting for her to ask about the mainland, but she didn’t. She simply pushed herself up from the table and went to get everyone drinks.

They’d messed with her mind, too.

“Are you gonna have some?” Aaron asked, glancing at me over his shoulder. “If you are, you’d better start or I’m gonna eat it all.”

I just stared at him. They were all brainwashed. Every one of them. If Darcy disappeared tonight, then tomorrow, Aaron wouldn’t remember her. And if Aaron disappeared, too, my father wouldn’t remember either of them. How did they do it? How did they erase everyone’s memories and replace them with new ones?

“Rory?” my father said.

And even worse, if this was happening all around me, how did I know it wasn’t happening to me, too? Everything that had occurred since I got here could be a lie.

“Actually, I’m not really feeling that well,” I said, taking a step backward. “I think I’m just going to go to bed.”

I raced up the stairs two at a time, ignoring my father’s call to come back. What did it matter? There was every possibility he wouldn’t remember any of this in the morning.

The coin

I saw it the second I awoke the next morning. Sitting dead center in the middle of my polished brown nightstand was a single gold coin. I reached for it, my fingers trembling, and laid it flat in the center of my palm. How had the coin gotten there? I felt like I had on every Christmas morning from the day my logic-loving, four-year-old brain had realized the improbability of Santa Claus. Every year for four years I’d tried to stay up to see how it all really happened, how those gifts appeared under the tree, but every year I dozed off and woke up with a start, amazed at the wonder of it all, but secretly angry at myself for failing, yet again, to see the truth with my own eyes.

Leaning back against my pillows, I flipped the coin over and over between my fingers, trying to keep the hovering sadness at bay, knowing I was just avoiding what the coin really meant.

Today was the day. I was going to do my first real ushering, all on my own. But instead of feeling full of purpose and light, my chest was impossibly heavy. I was going to begin my mission without Tristan.

I tromped downstairs and into the kitchen, focused on the coffee machine, but a blur of blue outside on the beach stopped me cold. It was Tristan. He was sitting on the beach behind our house, staring out at the water.

Suddenly, I could have sworn I felt the coin burning a hole in the front pocket of my jeans. I forgot all about the coffee and headed outside. Tristan didn’t turn as I approached. He had his legs pulled up, his forearms resting across his knees as he played with a bit of broken reed between his hands. The wind whistled in my ears as, out on the ocean, a rainbow-striped sail bobbed over the waves. I dropped down next to Tristan and pulled out the coin. He glanced at it.

“Today’s the day,” he said.

“Do you know who it is?” I asked.

He shook his head and pushed his legs out in front of him, poking the reed into the sand at his side, making a long, straight mark like a tally. “Not yet. But you will, soon enough.”

I swallowed hard, staring out at the water, my jaw set. “What’re you doing here?”

“I wanted to check in about yesterday—”

“Yeah. About that—” I interjected.

Tristan hesitated for a beat. “What’s up?”

“What the hell happened to my dad?” I demanded. “When he came home, it was like his memory was wiped.”

“What did you expect to happen?” he asked neutrally.

For some reason, that blasé tone got right under my skin. This was my father’s mind we were talking about. His memory. His emotions. He might be just another dead guy to Tristan and the mayor and the rest of Juniper Landing—just another visitor to keep in the dark—but he was my father. The only parent I had left.

“I don’t know,” I snapped, shoving myself up to my feet. “I thought you guys would pretend the ferry broke down or the mayor would…just convince him she’d find out what was going on with Nell.”

Tristan got up as well, still holding the small reed. The wind blew his hair back from his face, and I couldn’t help noticing how sharp his cheekbones suddenly seemed.

“What would be the point of that?” he asked calmly. “He’d only start asking more questions tomorrow.”

Like memory wiping was an obvious and not at all insidious solution. I groaned and started to walk back toward my house. Tristan, of course, followed.

“Rory, look, I’m sorry if you find the whole thing disturbing, but that’s just how it works around here,” he said. “Would you rather your father be up there right now in a panic, planning his next attempt to leave?”

I looked at the windows of my dad’s bedroom. He’d been up late working on his novel with renewed enthusiasm, now that the mayor had him convinced she could get it published. He was probably at his desk right now, editing and rearranging, muttering lines of dialogue out loud to himself.

“Of course not,” I said. “But that doesn’t make it right.” I stared past him at the sailboat, wishing I could be on it, sailing off to…well, anywhere but here. “How does it work, exactly?” I asked. “Does the mayor have special powers or something? Did she sneak in here at some point and wipe Darcy’s brain, too?”

“No. It’s not like she has to touch a person or something,” he said, his blue eyes serious. “Most of the time, the memory fix just happens on its own. Like when a visitor leaves and no one remembers them the next day. It’s automatic. Your dad was a special case. She had to place new memories in his mind, and once she did that, Darcy’s memories were changed to match his.”

I shuddered in the wind and hugged myself tightly. “How does she do that? Place new memories?”

Tristan ran his fingers through his blond hair. “It’s kind of wild, actually. She just sits with the person, looks them in the eye, and tells them a story,” he explained. “When she’s done, whatever’s she’s told them, they believe it actually happened that way.”

“So she hypnotizes people,” I said.

“In a way. But she doesn’t do it often,” Tristan said. “Only in extreme situations.”

I nodded, trying to swallow the lump in my throat. “Why can I still remember what happened?”

Tristan turned to face me fully. “Because you’re a Lifer,” he said, like it was obvious. “Our minds can’t be altered.”

“How do I know that?” I demanded. “How do I know that anything that’s happened to me is real?”

“Because,” he said, reaching out and placing his hand on my forearm, “I’m telling you. I swear to you, Rory. You’re safe here.”

I stared down at his hand, an accusation in my eyes. He quickly released me.

“Can you do that, too?” I asked, watching his hand as he pushed it into his pocket. “Implant new memories? Can I?”