Down at the ocean’s edge, Nora screams.
We race toward her, our boots pounding the wet sand. There’s another tide pool between us and the ocean, and Elliot charges through while I find a shallower place to cross. Nora is still screaming, and in the moonlight, I can see her backing away from a large object on the ground.
Elliot reaches her first, bends low to look at whatever that thing is, and then staggers backward. He wraps his arms around her, pulling her away from it, and I still can’t understand what’s happening, can’t make out what the thing is. Maybe a dead seal or dolphin, washed up by the tide? But we’ve seen those before, and they wouldn’t make Nora scream like that.
And then I’m closing in and I see it, and my brain starts to understand. Dark hair splayed out like seaweed on the sand. A long, gray dress tangled around thin legs. Skin so pale, it’s almost glowing.
I crash to a stop beside them, hands clasped over my mouth. “Oh God, oh God,” I keep muttering against my frozen fingers.
“I th‑thought it was a dead animal,” Nora stammers. “Then I got closer and I thought it was a person sleeping. Like, maybe kids were drinking out here and somebody wandered off and passed out. Or maybe they ODed.”
It wouldn’t be the first time somebody overdosed around here. It happened to a girl from our school last year. She’d just graduated, and her friends were too messed up to call an ambulance to save her.
Through the wet fabric of her dress, the dead woman’s ribs stand out like the rungs of a ladder. I can’t tear my eyes away from her.
Nora’s teeth are audibly chattering. “I c‑came over to try and wake her up before the tide came in. And when I touched her shoulder, she . . . she rolled over. And . . . oh God, she was so cold.” She buries her face in Elliot’s chest and he hugs her tighter, and underneath the shock and horror, for a tiny, selfish moment, I wish that was me.
The tide is slithering closer, tiny waves licking at the ends of the dead woman’s hair. It’s impossible to tell how old she is— or was. Her eyelids, just barely cracked open, reveal a glimpse of white inside. Her cheeks are sunken holes. But what keeps drawing my gaze is her mouth. It hangs open, revealing torn gums. Sour nausea floods my own mouth.
“Where are her teeth?” I say.
“Where are her hands?” says Elliot.
I peer at the lace sleeve that’s draped across her stomach, and my throat closes up. He’s right. There’s no hand under there. I can’t see her other arm— it’s tucked under her back at an unsettling angle. This woman didn’t just overdose or pass out. Somebody killed her and took pieces of her. Eyes watering, I swallow hard.
“It seemed she was going to sit up, right before she rolled over.” Nora sobs. “I still keep thinking she’s going to wake up and say something.”
“God, I hope not.” I take a big step back and pull out my phone. “We need to call the police before the tide pulls her out.”
Maybe we should drag the body closer to the shore, but I can’t bring myself to touch it. Plus, every cop show I’ve ever watched has told me that’d be tampering with evidence. It takes me three tries to type 911 into my phone, and as I hold it up to my ear, the wind roars harder, blotting out all other sound. The dead woman’s flimsy sleeve flutters over the place where her hand should be.
“Hello?” I yell, only faintly able to hear the person on the other end of the line. “I’m on Mayflower Beach, and there’s a dead body here.”
Copyright © 2025 by Nicole Lesperance. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
