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backed up his truck so I could follow him in my car. He caught my eye and winked at me. I smiled. Couldn’t help myself.
    I would need to spray myself down with ice water, then dunk my head in the ocean.
     
    On the way to Toran’s I glimpsed the road on top of the cliffs in the distance, the straightaway part, no curves.
    It shouldn’t have happened. Those were strange, mysterious circumstances. Different scenarios played out in my head. I spun them up and turned them around, analyzing each one.
    Would we ever know what truly happened on top of the cliffs? Did Toran or Bridget know? Did they suspect?
     
    Toran, Bridget, Pherson, and I were together from the time we were babies. Our mothers had tea and biscuits together, whenever meek and beaten down Bonnie Ramsay could sneak away from her hellfire and damnation husband, Carney. Pherson’s mother, Nessa, would come with Pherson and one little sister, to be followed, years later, by twin girls.
    My earliest memory is playing dress up with Bridget. We put on my mother’s silky dresses, tutus, sequined shirts, hats, and heels. We danced together, had tea parties. My mother said Bridget and I were three when we snuck off with Pherson and Toran into the woods to play Kings and Queens. The mothers were frantic when they couldn’t find us.
    Toran, Bridget, Pherson, and I would ride the bus to school each day, always sitting in the back. Bridget and I sat side by side at lunch. I shared my treats. Her father rarely let her have sweets. We baked pies with my grandma, gardened with my mother, listened to the legends my father told, and pretended we were evil scientists. We avoided her house entirely.
    Bridget and I whispered our secrets, our thoughts, and our plans, as we grew older. She told me about Carney and what he said, what he did, her fear, her pain. When I was five I remember giving her a hug as she cried under our dining room table.
    But it was the four of us, Toran, Bridget, Pherson, and Charlotte, from the start.
    Our mothers laughed and said we must have all been related, or in the same clan, in past lives. We didn’t know what that meant, but we named ourselves Clan TorBridgePherLotte. What we did know is that we were best friends, which was all we needed to know.
    It never occurred to us that it wouldn’t last forever.

3
     
June 12, 1985
 
Bridget,
I wore my furry purple sweater dress to Olga’s gift shop the other day and received some odd looks. When I returned to my car I realized that I was also wearing my pink pajama bottoms with the ghosts on them that you sent me.
I am becoming more strange by the day. I read science journals and send chess moves to two pen pal chess partners. Ah well, Bridget. If all else fails, I can use my chess pieces as weapons. Against who, I don’t know. We don’t even have handsome bad guys on the island. If there were any bad guys on the island I would probably bore them to death with what chemicals can go together to make explosions or force them to study the geological history of the earth, including all Ice Ages.
My butterfly bush is blooming, beautiful purple flowers. How is yours doing?
I’ve killed another hydrangea. The pink one. What is your secret to not murdering hydrangeas? I know you’re the queen of hydrangea growing, so do tell me.
Love,
Charlotte
 
June 25, 1985
 
Charlotte,
The queen of hydrangeas will tell you that you may have to add a smidgen of lime to your soil for the pinkies and acid for the blue ones. Give it a go. And don’t think of yourself as a hydrangea murderer. That’s rather harsh. Think of yourself as a hydrangea curse. Less violent.
So you’re still the weird loner on your island with the cat stroller, right? Hold your head high. It’s something to be proud of.
I have enclosed one of my miniature drawings. I know you like them. As you can see, this one is of the fort we built when we were kids. I added our crowns and capes, Queen Charlotte. As we used to say, Clan TorBridgePherLotte,