“You have to jump here.”

He leaped down, his arm stretching out straight to keep his fingers twined in mine. I hesitated. All I could see was his face smiling up from a few feet below.

“I won’t let you fall.”

Someone laughed in the darkness, and a few more flashlights flickered to life. When I squinted, I saw Krista, Kevin, and Bea standing there, waiting. I swallowed my fear and jumped. Almost instantly, the soles of my sneakers hit soft, damp sand.

“Rory!” Lauren rushed out of the darkness, slid between Bea and Kevin, and threw her arms around me. “You did your first ushering! Congratulations!” I could smell the alcohol on her breath and felt her fighting for balance. I patted her back awkwardly until she released me. She staggered sideways toward Bea and giggled.

“How did it go?” she asked, looking around at the others.

“He was…reluctant to leave us,” Joaquin said, kneading my shoulders from behind.

The others laughed.

“But Joaquin took care of that,” Tristan said.

“I’ll bet,” Lauren said knowingly. Then she hiccuped and covered her mouth with one hand.

“So, Rory…welcome to the cove,” Joaquin said, smiling as he tilted his flashlight toward his face. The effect was eerie, lighting his mouth and nose but casting his eyes in half shadow. “Check it out.”

He trained the beam up ahead, and the others did the same. The tall rock wall we had just descended formed a perfect C around a wide swath of white sand. Waves curled into the shore, but in a more timid, tame way than they did out on the open beach. Dotting the sand along the sheer rock were several colorful camping tents, all but one of them dark. Someone was moving around in the second-to-last tent, which was lit from inside by a lantern.

“Hey, Fish!” Joaquin shouted. “Get your ass out here.”

The arc of the tent door unzipped, and Fisher stuck his head out. I half expected Darcy to be right behind him, since I’d last seen her flirting with him, but when he unfolded his large form in the small doorway, he was alone. A few beach towels were tucked under his arm, and he wore a white fedora at a jaunty angle.

“Hey, all.” Fisher slapped hands with Joaquin, then slid his free arm over Lauren’s tiny shoulders. “How you feeling, lightweight?” he asked her. She giggled, then hiccuped, then giggled some more.

“Okay, what’s your deal?” Joaquin asked Lauren.

“Her new charge likes to drink,” Fisher said, grinning.

“A lot,” Lauren said, widening her eyes as she swayed. “Like, a lot a lot.”

Everyone laughed. “Someone’s going to be sleeping late tomorrow,” Bea chided.

“What’s a charge?” I asked.

“That’s what we call the people we’re supposed to usher,” Bea explained.

“Brian was supposed to be mine,” Tristan told me.

“Oh.” My cheeks warmed, and I looked down at my sneakers, pressing my toes farther into the sand.

“It’s fine,” Tristan said, sliding a hand across my shoulders. “Don’t worry. I’m going to teach you everything you need to know.”

“Yeah?” I said, a hopeful flutter inside my chest.

“I promise,” he replied. “Why don’t you come by tomorrow morning? I’ll take you on a tour of the town. A Lifer tour.”

I grinned. “I’m in.”

His smile widened, and my heart responded with an extra hard thump. The weight of his hand on my shoulder felt comforting and meaningful. Here we were, in front of all his friends, and he had no problem keeping his arm wrapped around me for all to see.

“So where are Nadia and those guys?” Joaquin asked.

As if in answer to his question, there was a loud shriek, followed by a splash, and three people emerged from the water. One of them was Mohawk Girl, the second was the whistler from the boardwalk, and the third was their girlfriend from the basement that morning. They made their way over through the wet sand, and Fisher tossed each of them a towel.

“Rory, I don’t think you’ve officially met Nadia,” Tristan said, gesturing to Mohawk Girl. Her white bikini was practically see-through and her nose ring sparkled in the beam of Joaquin’s flashlight. She stared me down as if I were an atom bomb sitting in the center of her beach.

“Hi,” I said.

She didn’t reply. She simply rubbed her hair with the towel, then tied the towel around her waist, covering up the bottom of her skimpy suit.

“And this is Cori,” Tristan said, introducing the other girl, who had dark curly hair and olive skin and was wearing a modest one-piece. She had more curves than her friend, and a much more welcoming expression.

“Hey, there!” she said, earning a scowl from Nadia.

“And this loser is Pete,” Fisher said, throwing his arm over the shoulders of the tall, gangly guy, who was jerking his head up and down, trying to clear water out of his ear.

He nodded at me, then turned his attention back to Joaquin. “We doing this or what?”

“Why? Got somewhere you need to be?” Joaquin asked.

Pete shrugged.

“Come on.” Tristan tugged me forward, walking along the rock wall as everyone else fell in step. I didn’t see the opening of the cave until we were right on top of it. It was an uneven triangle cut out of the stone, very wide at the bottom but tapering drastically as it reached the top, like a Hershey’s Kiss listing to one side.

“You ready?” Tristan asked.

“We’re going in there?” I demanded.

“If you dare,” Pete said coolly in my ear.

Tristan shot him a look, and together, he, Krista, and I stepped inside the cave. The air was about twenty degrees colder, and the opening narrowed so swiftly that it forced us into a single line for a few feet before it widened into a huge, round chamber. The second we stepped inside, my jaw dropped.

The walls surrounding me burst with color. They’d been graffitied so thoroughly that hardly any of the black rock was visible beneath the intricate lettering and design work. I stepped toward the nearest wall and ran my hand over the first name I saw. It had been spray-painted in red and yellow, the letters square and bold.

RYAN DUNN (CORRIGAN) 1995.

JACINDA RAND (LORNING) 2004.

MISTY CALLAIT (RABAT) 1982.

KRISTA KINCAID (PARRISH) 2012.

I stared at Krista, and she nodded, lifting a shoulder almost like an apology. “That’s me.”

I turned in a quick circle now, names and numbers assaulting me—2010, 2001, 1965, 1984, 1921, 1876.

“Eighteen seventy-six?” I gasped, gaping at the tight cursive. My words bounced off the high ceiling and echoed back at me, filling the chamber with their screeching tone.

“Every Lifer who ever came to Juniper Landing has written his or her name on these walls,” Tristan explained, stepping up next to me. “The year marks the date they accepted their calling and received their full powers. For you, today is that day.”

I glanced around the room at all the faces, every one of them watching me closely.

“Are you ready to become a true Lifer?” Krista asked.

I swallowed hard.

“I know it’s overwhelming,” Tristan said softly. “And I know you’re worried about your family, but look around. We’re your family, too, now, Rory. This is your new home.”

My heart thumped painfully. Kevin rubbed his nose with the back of his index finger. Bea gazed at me unwaveringly. Krista beamed, like I was her new baby sister. Pete tapped his toe, glancing over his shoulder. Joaquin shot me a small smirk, Lauren teetering and hiccuping at his side. Fisher smiled at me, like we were sharing a private joke. Nadia and Cori stood arm in arm, an alliance of two, while Nadia scowled openly.

I tried to believe what Tristan was saying—that these people could be my family—but my heart closed in on itself. I hadn’t shared Christmases and birthdays and Thanksgivings with them. They’d never seen me win a science fair or run a race. They hadn’t been there when I contracted the chicken pox at age six or when I broke my arm on the tire swing at my grandma’s or when they lowered my mother’s casket into the ground.