Micah Fennly’s life had been spinning in an eddy of self-wallowing for months. He had so looked forward to that summer after the end of fifth grade—no more homework or demanding teachers. But this summer had been different. It had been lonelier than any previous summer. Perhaps that was the way it was meant to be. The punishment fits the crime.
​
A perfect day had been reduced to sitting alone in his bedroom playing video games. If Micah was feeling adventurous, he might ride his bicycle down to the gas station for an ice-cold pop and a salty snack. Those always paired well. And on a few fortunate occasions, it would rain. The rain lessened the chances his mother would think of a chore or want to do something absurd like go to the beach or, worst of all, take him shopping.
​
When Micah’s parents gave him a puppy last Christmas, he wasn’t sure if the brown dachshund pup was a blessing or curse. Micah named him Grubb for his tendency to bury himself in blankets. Grubb had big floppy ears and an extra-long tail that sprouted like cotton at the tip. He instantly loved Micah and followed him around like...well, a lost puppy.
​
If appreciating cuteness was all that was expected of Micah, Grubb would have been the perfect companion. But Micah quickly learned that owning a pet was more work than he’d bargained for. Grubb’s constant need for food and attention nickeled and dimed precious time away from Micah’s video game habit. As Grubb grew, complications set in. He barked at everything. He gobbled up Micah’s snacks and tipped over his drinks too many times to count. He even chewed up a couple of game controllers. Grubb was exhausting.
​
Micah looked out the glass kitchen door and sighed. Another interruption. It was hot outside, and he had a video game paused up in his bedroom. Hastily, he filled Grubb’s chewed-over dog dish with too much food and waited. Grubb usually was punctual when it came to his mealtime.
​
Growing impatient, Micah cracked the door and shook the dish outside.
​
With no sign of Grubb, he slid the glass door open and stepped out onto the porch.
​
Grubb often hid in the bushes to ambush birds or squirrels that wandered into the yard. He was good at catching them, too. But at mealtime, he’d blow his cover. Where was he?
​
Searching the bushes, Micah fixated on the oak tree that rose from the middle of the yard. A gust of Pacific wind blew through the boughs, and the tree came to life like a welcoming friend. Between the oak and a stir of lilac in the air, the memory of his sister pushed the cares of the day aside. Today, it had been one year since the accident, and the guilt hit him like a punch in the stomach.
​
He went to the tree’s shadow to escape the afternoon sun. Leaning against the sturdy trunk, he continued his leisurely search for Grubb.
​
Idly, he reached up and touched the lowest branch without standing on his toes. He had grown three inches over the summer. The oak had become his favorite place to disappear when his mother threatened to clean the house. He looked up into the branches where he and Mariam once played and felt a mixture of nostalgia and sorrow.
​
When Micah and Mariam had fought, she would often escape up into the oak tree with his favorite toys. With Micah’s fear of heights, the branches were a perfect way to declare a victory. But Mariam was kind by nature. She started to feel sorry when her younger brother stopped caring.
​
“I’m going to get you to climb this tree if it’s the last thing I do!” Mariam had threatened. She carried through with that threat by taking his beloved video games up into the tree. Micah had no choice but to face his fear. After the many battles they fought, he eventually found the bravery to conquer the tree and his fear of heights.
​
Mariam may have lost her advantage of the tree, but she was proud of her younger brother. “See, you can do anything if you want it bad enough,” she told him, hugging him like he had conquered the world. To celebrate, they ate lunch perched on the highest branches: a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a couple of juice boxes.
​
It was a cruel irony that shortly thereafter, Micah chose to use Mariam’s trick of climbing the tree when they fought again. He had scrambled up with her favorite hairbrush. Reluctantly, she followed, even after complaining that she didn’t feel well. Micah did not believe her and showed no mercy in proving he could climb higher than she could.
​
That was when she fell.
​
Even after countless assurances from his grief-stricken parents that the accident wasn’t his fault, time had only managed to dull the shock of the memory, but the guilt was still an open wound. He missed Mariam.
​
“Trees don’t eat dog food, you know!” Ben Farnsworth shouted over the white picket fence separating the two backyards. He hung over the edge, swiping a rake back and forth through the Fennlys’ rose bush. With each violent swing, rose petals erupted, carpeting the grass in crimson.
​
Micah blinked. He was holding Grubb’s dog dish like it was an offering to the tree.
​
“Earth to Micah!”
​
Micah set his jaw. “You better not be teasing Grubb again.” Ben scoffed as he plucked the sparse remaining roses with the
rake. “Why don’t you teach that mutt not to bark so much?” he said, flinging the mangled flowers at Micah.
​
Ignoring Ben, Micah shook the dog dish as he searched the yard. “Grubb, come here, boy.”
​
“Is something missing?” Ben grinned, motioning to the open side gate entangled with grapevines.
​
“You opened our gate!”
​
Ben cackled as he used the rake like a sword when Micah raced up to him. With a swift jerk, Micah yanked the rake out of Ben’s hands.
​
“Hey! That’s ours!”
​
Ben was eight years old, and Micah was almost twelve. Their age difference suggested that Ben should respect Micah, but he didn’t. Between Ben and his older brother, Jack, the two took every opportunity to cause trouble.
​
“When did you let him out?” Micah demanded.
​
Ben grinned with his usual overconfident smirk. Micah struck the fence with the rake close to Ben’s knuckles, causing him to fall back into the grass.
​
“How dare you, Micah!” Ben’s mother shouted through her kitchen window. The back door banged open, and Margot Farnsworth rushed out, waving a wooden spoon dripping with batter.
​
“Ben let Grubb out of our yard!” Micah protested.
​
“You have no proof of that. Benny’s been with me the whole afternoon, haven’t you, sweetie?” Margot said, helping Ben to his feet.
​
“I was raking up pine cones like you told me. I was just trying to tell Micah that he left their gate open—”
​
“Oh, he’s lying!” Micah said, striking the fence again with the rake.
​
“Don’t you threaten us, young man! If I ever see you raise a finger at Ben again, I’ll...” Margot trailed off and took a deep breath. She reached over the fence and calmly said, “Hand me my rake back and apologize this instant.”
​
Ben stepped behind his mother and stuck out his tongue.
​
Micah glowered at Ben as he surrendered the rake and folded his arms.
​
“And the apology?” Margot demanded, putting her hands on her hips.
​
“Micah! What’s all the shouting—oh, it’s you, Margot,” Micah’s mother said, poking her head out the second-floor window. She had been brushing her teeth.
​
“Hello, dear!” Margot said. “Micah’s just upset about—”
​
“Ben let Grubb out of the yard,” Micah shouted over his shoulder.
​
Margot stomped her foot, about to let loose when Lorna said, “Grubb’s running around the front yard. Just go get him. We’re in a hurry.”
​
“Not until Micah apologizes to Ben,” Margot insisted.
​
“Apologize? For what?” Lorna said, wiping toothpaste from her lips.
​
Margot sighed. “Lorna, sweetie. I’ve worried about you and Kimble since Mariam’s accident.”
​
“And what does that mean?”
​
“Well, dear, it just means Micah has developed a bit of a temper lately. He has too much free time and nowhere to vent his frustration except on my boys. I can imagine that it’s been difficult since the accident. But it might not hurt to keep him occupied with some chores.” Margot glanced around the Fennlys’ backyard. “Perhaps Micah could use some of that aggression to fix up your yard?”
​
With every word that fell from Margot’s lips, Micah added more colorful adjectives in his mind to how he really felt about Margot and her bratty son. As he watched Ben nodding with his smug grin, he could feel the sentence being cocked behind his tongue.
​
Margot was correct about one thing. The Fennlys’ backyard was a gardener’s worst nightmare. The truth was, Micah’s mother liked the shabby bushes, uncut grass, and weeds. She had even given the plants their own special names like they were her pets.
​
“Oh, and while I have you, what did we decide to do about that eyesore?” Margot added, pointing the rake at the tree house in the oak tree.
​
Micah and his father had built the tree house shortly after Mariam’s accident. The simple wooden platform with a guardrail and dangling knotted rope had become the centerpiece of every conversation Mrs. Farnsworth had with his mother. Micah knew why. When the weather allowed, he slept out in the tree house. During one of Margot’s endless nightly parties, Micah had overheard her gossiping. “Isn’t it strange they have such a young son? I mean, really, what are Lorna and Kimble...in their seventies? Was Micah adopted? It would have been more responsible for them to plan their funerals than to have another child.” As her guests laughed at her snobby comment, Margot was mortified to see Micah eavesdropping from the tree.
​
“I don’t know why it bothers you so much, Margot,” Lorna said. “You can barely see it.”
​
“Oh, Lorna, please, I beg of you to take it down. Considering your age, wouldn’t it be wonderful to have one less worry? What if Micah had an accident like Mariam?”
​
“Micah, get Grubb and be ready in five minutes! We’re going to be late,” Lorna said, slamming the window shut.
​
“Well!” Margo exclaimed, shaking her head at Micah with a sniff. She leaned back on her heels and said, “Come along, Benny.” Following in the shadow of his mother, Ben picked up a handful of pine cones and lobbed them over the fence at Micah.
 
Fuming, Micah ignored him and started for the front yard. On his way, he nearly tripped over his bicycle lying in the tall grass. He had a paper route that he shared with his best friend, Richard Sommers. Thanks to another nightmare that kept Micah awake all night, Richard had excused him from today’s torture. Micah had never wanted a summer job, but Richard had tricked him into being his partner by begging him to death.
​
The jingle of Grubb’s collar led Micah to the Dickersons’ yard next door.
​
“Grubb,” Micah called with a whistle.
​
Grubb scampered from the flower garden, wagging his tail. Two crows dove from the roof, squawking angrily as they soared away. Grubb sat on his haunches, panting like his work was done for the day. His floppy ears suddenly perked when a change in the wind kicked up a swirling of leaves in the street. The hairs on Micah’s neck prickled when he heard familiar, infectious laughter carried on the wind.
​
“Mariam?” Micah called, feeling foolish for saying her name out loud. Of course it couldn’t be her, but something caught Grubb’s attention, and he took off up the street.
​
“Grubb! Your dinner!” Micah shouted. It was no use. He tossed the dish aside. If Grubb wasn’t interested in food, it was certain he was sniffing for trouble.
​
The laughter grew louder as Micah ran up Albatross Avenue. Huffing, he soon found himself in the older neighborhood where the summer rental clapboard houses had a front-row view of the Pacific Ocean. Grubb stopped, took a bearing with his nose, and sniffed down a side trail.
​
Micah slid to a stop on the sand-covered sidewalk to catch his breath. He hated running. It was so deceptive that a video game character could run all day and never get tired. Running felt like death in real life.
​
The weedy path led to a leaning fence made of wood slats and wiring. A prominent sign made of driftwood read HERMIT COVE—NO TRESPASSING. Grubb scurried under the fence and disappeared over a sandy rise.
​
“Ah, man, don’t go down there!”
​
Micah stopped at the fence and listened for the laughter. All he heard was the rustle of beach grass and the distant roar of the surf. This whole situation was ridiculous. Mariam had been on his mind all day, and his imagination had filled in the rest. Grubb running off had caused the urgency.
​
Grumbling, Micah punched the no-trespassing sign. The sign glared back, daring him to challenge its authority. He considered heading back home. Grubb had run away before and always returned. But Micah knew better because of his mother. He also knew the Stonehelm Bluff trails were dangerous from when he and Mariam used to go on their adventure hikes together.
​
“Stupid dog,” Micah muttered, crawling under the fence. He jogged through the waist-high grass and stopped when he found Grubb panting at the trailhead. “Where do you think you’re going?”
​
The blast of a ship’s foghorn came from the sea, distracting Grubb. Micah crept forward and dove. Grubb escaped with a countering leap. For a wiener dog, Grubb was quick. He trotted down the trail, indifferent to the danger.
​
Lying in the sand, Micah’s brow rose when patches of fog blew over the cliff edge. He crawled forward to get a better look and saw a peculiar cloud in the cove below.
​
He stood and dusted himself off. Grubb showed no sign of slowing his descent down the trail. Micah frowned. “Get back here right now!”
​
Grubb stopped and looked back.
​
“That’s better,” Micah said. He waited, but Grubb sat defiantly on the trail like a rock.
​
Mariam had always been a risk-taker, but even she hadn’t dared take the bluff trails. Could Micah do it now that he was older and had conquered his fear of heights?
​
Micah started confidently down the path until it narrowed. He could feel the strength in his legs weakening when he was forced to side-step with his back against the cliff wall. He had an excellent view of the two-hundred-foot drop. The cliff was sheer, formed from loose earth packed around enormous rock outcroppings. Moss and lichens made the rock slippery. The rocky trail was nothing like climbing the oak tree.
​
He halted at a section where the trail sloughed off. Grubb had somehow managed over this part, but Micah wasn’t so confident. He spun around and, with both hands, grabbed a tree root above and stretched his foot out to test a rock outcropping. In doing so, he disturbed a hairy spider that scuttled onto his hand. Surprised, he shook off the spider, leaving only one hand gripping the root. Off balance, he dangled backward, desperate to keep his footing. He looked down, and fear gripped him like a vise. If his mother saw him now, she’d ground him for a month.
​
The ship’s horn blew again, closer this time. The blast rolled up the cliff, sending a peppering of sparrows fluttering from the hemlocks below. Micah clenched the roots until his hands burned.
​
At that moment, all the troubles in Micah’s life came in like a tidal wave. Every trouble battered the calm he desperately guarded in the quiet harbor of his bedroom: Grubb, the paper route, Ben and Jack Farnsworth, and school about to start up. It was too much. Life was determined to take him out into uncertain waters.
​
Then there were the dreams. The nightmares visited every night. Last night was the worst. The months of poor sleeping were adding up.
​
Lastly, the guilt of his sister’s accident brought tears to his eyes. Why did she have to die? A storm of guilt and self-pity washed over him. In this whirlwind of emotion, he stared at his hands gripping the roots, and a serenity came. What if he let go? Would death excuse him from the guilt he had lived with for so long?
​
A jingle came, and this dark thought flitted away. Grubb stood nearby, peering up with his innocent golden eyes.
​
“This is all your fault,” Micah sobbed. He reached out to grab his wayward pet, but Grubb bolted back down the trail. “Come back here!”
​
How dare Grubb put his life at risk with such indifference! Through teary eyes, Micah swung to the other side of the washout, chasing after Grubb with blind anger and disregard for the danger of the cliff. He ran into the dense, soupy cloud that shrouded the cove.
​
Robbed of his sense of sight, he became disoriented. He ran off the trail and fell with a terrified scream. The fall was mercifully short. He landed on a slope of dirt and stones, tumbling down until finally sliding to a stop at the bottom. Nothing was broken, but as his chest heaved, he decided taking risky trails should be avoided in the future. The forest of trees creaked in a light breeze, accompanied by the distant cries of seagulls and crashing waves.
​
A flash of light caught his eye.
​
Was that lightning?
​
Micah stood and shook the dust from his unkempt brown hair. Two crows fluttered down, landing on a dead branch nearby. They squawked as if they were laughing at him. He gave them brief notice when he saw one had an unusual pink crown of feathers.
​
Looking into the fog, an uneasy feeling came.
​
“Grubb?” Micah called timidly, ignoring the mocking crows. Another light flash came and faded away.
​
Unable to locate the trail, Micah pushed blindly into the fog with the thorny undergrowth scratching and jabbing through his jeans. He spat out the bitter taste of pine as the conifers brushed his face. He reached a rocky embankment and climbed down. His feet sank in the wet sand of a tide pool filled with barnacle-encrusted stones. Shrouded in fog, two colossal rocks rose up, flanking the cove like sentinel guards.
​
The light flared again, revealing a shadowy, tangled web rising up from the water.
​
Micah took cautious steps forward until water foamed over his feet. The air carried the briny scent of seawater mingled with the muskiness of wet sand. His imagination played tricks on him as he squinted into the gray. Was that a shadow darting to his left?
​
His senses buzzed with anticipation. A pocket opened in the billowing fog, revealing a grand ship a stone’s throw away. Three masts speared the sky with a web of ropes reaching the tops. An- chored, the vessel rocked gently on the water as it rose and fell in the quiet surf. Carved in ornate script along the swooping nose was the name Miss Darby.
​
Was it just a coincidence this ship was just like the one in his nightmare last night?
​
Micah backed away from the water. Though he was sure he wasn’t in danger of a shark attack like in his nightmare, the cove conjured up a deep sense of déjà vu.
​
“Hello? Is someone there?”
​
The ship creaked, and the ding of a bell rang from the mainmast.
​
Another flash of light. A distant red-and-white-striped lighthouse sat perched on a craggy rock. An ocean swell struck the rock, erupting into an explosion of sea spray.
​
Was there a lighthouse down here before? Micah wondered.
​
The two crows fluttered down and landed in the wet sand, skittish and uncertain. The crow with the pink crown of feathers had something shiny in its beak. It dropped it into a shallow mossy pool of water at Micah’s feet.
​
Moments later, Grubb emerged from the fog, licking his chops. Noticing the crows, he charged and barked after the one with pink feathers. The crows flapped away frantically, barely escaping Grubb’s snapping bite. They landed on a large boulder, ruffling their feathers.
​
“Way to go, Grubb. You almost got that one,” Micah said, patting his huffing friend.
​
A torrent of wind rushed from the forest, pushing the fog out to sea. The crows squawked as they leaped from the boulder and flew toward the ship.
​
Watching them fly over, Micah was stunned when the ship and the lighthouse suddenly disappeared in the blink of his eye. The crows panicked in their flight, retreating back into the woods.
​
“Micah?”
​
“Mom!” Micah exclaimed, spinning about.
​
His mother, shrouded in swirling fog, stood above him on the rocky embankment with her arms raised to the sky. Noticing Micah, she quickly lowered her arms and removed her cell phone from her pocket. The screen glowed an ominous red. She tapped the screen and discreetly tucked it back away.
​
“What possessed you to come down here? I told you we were in a hurry. You were just supposed to get Grubb and put him in the backyard. Now I’m going to be late!”
​
Micah stared with disbelief. His mother was seventy-two years old and had difficulty with the stairs in their home.
​
“How did you get down here?” he asked with his brow raised. “No, why are you here?”
​
“Grubb ran away. There was a pirate ship down here. It was here just a moment ago, I swear!”
​
Lorna looked confused. “A ship? It must have been your imagination.”
​
Micah scanned the cove, scratching his head. “It was right in front of me.”
​
“Oh, pishposh! You should have come and got me. Lots of junk floats into the cove, and you could have been hurt,” Lorna said as she paced about, looking around the rocks and crevasses.
​
“No, Mom, it wasn’t junk. It was a ship—a galleon. It even had a name. It was Miss Darby.”
​
Lorna’s expression hardened as she continued to look around the cove.
​
“What are you looking for?”
​
“Never mind that. Was there anything else you saw down here?”
​
“There were just a couple of crows. They...”
​
“Crows?” Lorna shot back. She scanned the woods around her. Micah knelt over the tide pool. “They dropped something here
​
in the water.” He fished around the moss until a glint of gold caught his eye. “Look at this! It’s a locket... It’s Mariam’s!”
“Let me see it.” Lorna hastened down the rock embankment without the slightest hint of difficulty. Taking the locket, she looked disappointed. “Did you notice where the crows went?” she asked casually.
​
Micah gestured at the forest. “They flew off that way. What do you think about the locket they gave me?”
​
Lorna examined it, looking skeptical. She removed her phone and took pictures of the gold disc.
​
“Why are you taking pictures?”
​
She was quiet as she thumbed through the images. Curious, Micah looked over her shoulder.
​
“Hey, it just looks like a rock on your phone,” he said, taking back the locket.
​
Lorna tapped the screen, and the image cycled through a rainbow of colors. Finally, she declared, “That’s because it is a rock. Why would you pretend it was her locket?”
​
Micah looked surprised. “It’s her locket, Mom, I’m sure of it. Look, it has the M engraved on the outside.” Prying it open, he found a small colored photograph of himself from second grade. “It even has my picture inside, see?”
​
Lorna let out a heavy sigh. “Micah, I’m in no mood for this.”
​
Micah watched with disbelief as his mother struggled back up the embankment. “Mom, it’s Mariam’s locket. Why don’t you be- lieve me?”
​
“Micah, son. I know it has been hard lately, and you’ve always had an active imagination. Maybe Margot is right. Perhaps all of this is our fault for not spending more time with you since Mariam’s death. Things will get better, I promise.”
“It’s not that, Mom. It is Mariam’s locket, just look!” Micah insisted.
​
Lorna turned and walked away. “It’s just a pebble, Micah. We need to get back.”
Frustrated, Micah dangled the locket before Grubb’s nose and whispered, “Pebble? I don’t care what she thinks. It’s her locket, isn’t it, boy?”
​
Grubb sniffed the locket, wagging his white-tipped tail. Micah stuffed it away and followed his mother.

(End of Chapter 1)
​