CHAPTER 1

Some summers are the funnest and some summers are the longest but last summer was perfectly ordinary until the day we found the hand.

Well, not exactly ordinary. Let me back up and start again.

On the day we found the hand, it hadn’t rained for almost an entire year. It wasn’t a dry spell—it was a real, official drought that showed no signs of stopping.

I’d never thought twice about the rain until it disappeared on us, but that summer I had a constant crick in my neck from staring upward, wondering what might come next.

I wasn’t the only one.

Bex, my usually patient little brother, Davey, would say, sighing deeply. "Is it ever going to rain?"

I didn’t know how to answer. For everyone on our island, weather had become a never-ending topic of conversation. Once in a while we’d get our hopes up, if a breeze was cool or if the air had a certain heaviness. But day after day passed without a single drop.

There was an itchiness we felt, like we were waiting for something big to happen. On Pelican Island, June clouds should be fat cotton balls, bursting with afternoon thunderstorms that rattle your teeth. But that summer, the sky was pale and eerily still. The grass was dry and crunchy. Even the dirt looked thirsty.

Besides the weather, a few other things made the summer unusual. Dad pulled double shifts on the ferryboat, Mom seemed tired all the time, and Davey had stopped speaking to anyone but me. But except for that, you could say it was a regular kind of summer. At least, it was—until the day I saw something poking up above the water and decided to investigate. That was when it officially became the Summer of the Hand.

Officially, anyway, to Davey and me, which was really all that mattered.

So I guess that’s where I’ll start.

CHAPTER 2

Over the worn edges of my black composition book, I peeked at Davey. He was reading, propped up on his skinny elbows and sprawled across an especially wide branch of the big live oak we climbed most afternoons.

We were in our special place, which was called The Thumb—named for the way the far corner of our island curved back toward the mainland, like it was trying to hitch a ride to shore. When we were there, time slipped away and Davey spoke most freely. As always, his incorrigible cat, Squish, had tagged along. She napped on a nearby V-shaped limb.

Davey. My voice was barely a murmur.

He didn’t budge, a look of concentration on his freckled nine-year-old face.

I swung my feet impatiently, breathing in the damp air. It had been a just-us kind of summer, our schedule set only by the sun. As long as we were home by supper, Mom and Dad let us explore far and wide. It helped that Dad had grown up on Pelican Island himself and knew the way that the streams of the Carolina salt marsh could call out to a kid, begging to be discovered.

Mom was generally supportive of adventure as well—she was the one who had given me a rowboat two years ago, for my tenth birthday. She was a high school biology teacher, so her preference was for adventures with an educational angle. When we were younger, Davey and I helped collect samples for her research projects. But that summer, I had my own secret mission: to get Davey talking again.

My brother had always been quiet, but he’d changed over the last year. With each passing day, his words faded, like something left out in the sun too long. There were times Davey refused to talk to anyone at all.

But that summer, I realized that our special place had its own magic. Out at The Thumb, we sat for hours up in the tree—reading, talking, and listening to the wind. Life was softer there, the edges gently blurred. When I looked out on the horizon, it was impossible to tell the exact place where the sea became sky.

Davey, I repeated, more firmly this time. Come on.

I could tell by the way his eyebrow twitched that he had heard me. He scratched idly at a mosquito bite behind his ear, but his eyes never left the page.

Davey was the type of person who gobbled up words. As a writer myself, I considered him the perfect reader. But writers have jealous hearts, and it burned me to see him devouring words written by another.

Quickly, I plucked a twig and launched it in his direction. It grazed his nose and fell onto the page in front of him.

He brushed it aside without looking up. Yes, Bex?

When Davey was a toddler, he couldn’t make the sounds for Rebecca. He shortened my name to Bex, and that’s what everyone on our island has called me ever since.

I want to read you something, I said.

Davey squinted, rubbing his nose thoughtfully. He understood how much I’d struggled with my stories. Up until recently, writing had been as natural to me as breathing. But lately, I’d been stuck—instead of filling pages, I was wearing out erasers.

He used his finger to mark his place and then peered at me. Go on.

Once I had his attention, my mouth turned into a desert. I swallowed hard. I only had a couple of sentences, but maybe they were the start of something good. Something real.

The sunshine was a bully. The ground dry and parched. I let the words hang in the air. I checked for his reaction but couldn’t read his expression.

Well? I asked.

Davey blinked. If he was surprised that I didn’t have more written down, he had the decency to hide it.

The sunshine was a bully—I like that. Davey rolled the words around in his mouth like he was tasting them. "But why say dry and parched when they mean the same thing?"

The words, which had seemed so glorious a moment ago, felt clunky and wrong. I groaned. I’ll never get it right.

I flipped my pencil over and scrubbed at the page. I’d erased so many times that the paper had worn thin in spots.

Davey leaned forward, eyes wide and earnest. Listen, Bex. What’s that thing you always say about writers?

I scowled, flicking away eraser crumbs.

They can’t ever lie, I muttered.

Davey nodded. Writers must tell the truth thoroughly, constantly, and recklessly. Do that and the words will come.

I held up the page, smudged gray from the erasing. Not likely.

I know you can do it, Davey said. Who was the only one brave enough to tell Principal Trout when she had a long piece of toilet paper stuck to her shoe?

I shrugged. Me.

Davey smiled in that very specific way he had, where the left side of his mouth lifted up first and then the right side curled, like it was afraid to be left behind.

He scratched behind his ear again, thinking. And who was the only one who let Aunt Louise know she’d made her famous blueberry pie with salt instead of sugar?

My tongue puckered at the memory. Also me.

He grinned. See what I mean? You’re the best truth-teller I know.

His words loosened the knot that had been forming in my chest all afternoon. Thanks, Davey.

Anytime, Bex. He returned to his book.

A breeze rustled the leaves and I settled back against my branch, gazing at a patch of sky.

As far as telling the truth goes, this is a big one: in life, we all need someone to remind us of who we really are. I was lucky enough to have that person as my brother. He always managed to see the best parts of me, even when I couldn’t.

CHAPTER 3

The live oak tree grew according to its own logic. More outward than upward, its branches swooped low before spiraling into crisscrossed webs around us, the perfect framing for a view of water or sky.

Davey rummaged in his red backpack, which held a rotation of items, such as favorite rocks or leaves, a beat-up water bottle, and, once, an unusually placid and forgiving frog. But no matter what Davey collected, there were two items that stayed the same: a copy of whatever book he was currently reading and a plastic jar full to the top with yellow M&M’s.

Why that color in particular? Davey was convinced they tasted best and wouldn’t touch the other ones. It never made much sense to me—because color isn’t a flavor. But every time Mom filled the glass bowl on her desk, Davey picked out all the yellows.

He unscrewed the lid and carefully took out two. He tossed one to me, and I caught it, popping it into my mouth. The sweetness spread across my tongue just as sure as sunshine. During times like these, I had to admit that Davey was onto something.

I aimed at his book with my chin. What are you reading, anyway?

Davey raised it so I could see the tattered cover, which any kid would recognize immediately. It was a crying book—my least favorite. It was the kind where one of the characters dies at the end, which is the worst kind of crying book there is.

I shook my head. Again? What’s the point of getting to know a character only to have them killed off?

Over the years, my parents and teachers have labeled me as contentious, which means that I was born to argue. My brother was naturally easygoing—but because he knew how much I loved a good squabble, he’d never dream of letting me win without a fight. This was one of the things I loved best about him.

Davey’s skinny shoulders heaved in a dramatic sigh. You wouldn’t understand, Bex.

Try me, I said, blowing at the strands of hair plastered to my forehead—the irregular line of bangs I’d trimmed last week. Meanwhile, Davey scratched his forehead like he was thinking deep. He didn’t seem anywhere near as hot and miserable as I was. His dark hair was freshly combed. Sprays of freckles stood out against his fair skin.

I like books that make me feel things, Davey said finally. I think that’s the entire point of a book.

I waved my arms in wide circles. "But why in the world would anyone ever choose sadness when there are so many other things to be? I’d rather feel happy because someone is winning a gazillion dollars. Or scared because someone is fighting a monster. Or curious because of a puzzle or a surprising twist."

"The whole book isn’t sad, Davey said stubbornly. It’s mostly happy, except the part at the end."

But looking back at it, it messes up the whole story, I told him. How can you read the whole thing again knowing something bad is about to happen?

Davey loosened the jar lid. He lobbed another candy in my direction before placing one in his mouth.

"If a book is sad and stays that way, then it would be depressing, Davey said slowly. But this book starts happy, gets sad, and then at the end, it’s happy and sad mixed up together. That’s what makes it special, that it has both."

But it’ll break your heart. This time, my voice sounded stubborn.

Worth it, Davey said, opening his book again.

I turned over the M&M in my mouth, considering his words. My brother was a bit of a genius—not the boring kind who always knew the answer. The good kind, who asked questions that my own brain could never think up. The kind who helped me see the world differently. Sometimes I thought that was why he’d always been on the quiet side—it was as if he needed to conserve energy to power the enormous gears in his brain.

I shifted on the branch, the deep furrows of the tree pressing their pattern against my back. Even on a hot day, the marsh was full of life.