Page 10 of The Wild Beneath

She tries again: “I’m Annie.”

Maybe he’ll talk if she’s patient enough. She waits, staring at the sand, at the flecks of rock and plastic. A hollow mussel shell cradles a bent paper clip and a piece of orange sea glass.

“You were walking on the beach. Then you passed out,” she tries. She’s telling the story all out of order.

She waits some more.

“Walking,” he says, enunciating the syllables, emphasizing the walk. His expression is gentle; he almost smiles.

Annie is drawn to his square jaw, the breadth of his shoulders. His eyes feel a bit too widely spaced. Water drips down his neck.

“Yes, walking,” she echoes.

“Walker,” he says. His voice is deeper than she expects it to be. A river where she can’t touch bottom.

His hum spirals back around and lands in the bottom of Annie’s belly. She almost recognizes him. She forgets, for a split second, her parents.Amphitrite. All the destruction.

But then, a breeze brushes against her face. Smoke rises in the distance, likely from the fires they’re using in Hale’s to incinerate bodies and garbage.

“Did you get thrown off a boat?” she asks.

He searches her eyes. Tiny shifts of his grey irises.

“What happened to your clothes?” Her voice is an octave higher than usual. “Can you understand me?”

His eyes descend to watch her lips.

Maybe he doesn’t speak English? “Are you alright? Do you have a name?”

He blinks but doesn’t move. “Walker.”

“That’s your name?”

“Annie,” he says.

The shape of her name as he says it feels fluid and rounded, the nicest way it’s ever been pronounced. She wants a name to call him, too. He breathes in and out; it reminds her to do the same. Has she been breathing before this?

“We can call you Walker for now?”

He looks at her and a deep stillness takes hold. She should feel awkward, this close to a stranger, a boy—­well, technically a man—­looking at her so intently. But instead, she feels settled and clear. Her words seem pointless, and they float away with the crash of waves.

Chapter 6

Before

The second time Annie meets Evan Hale is in June the following year, early in the morning. She is seven years old.

“Pass me that line, Annie.” Aiden steps out of thedinghy and ties them off to Ruth’s dock. Ruth waits in an Adirondack chair, in her scrubs, two steaming cups of coffee beside her.

Annie dives straight into her lap. Ruth kisses the top of her head.

Over the curve of Ruth’s shoulder, she sees him. Evan is lying belly-down on the dock planks, poking the water with a stick. Annie remembers his soft chocolate eyes, the way he tried to fend off the bullies at school. But today he looks smaller. Alone.

Aiden takes a long sip of black coffee. “You’ve got company?”

“Isaac’s up at camp.”

“So now you’re a babysitter in addition to a nurse?”