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After Ma died, I’d needed a friend so badly that I began imagining that the fairy boy was with me, in my world, all the time. I told myself that he had to stay hidden so that he wouldn’t get in trouble, but I knew he was there. I could feel him.
But between my unpredictable crying fits, my insistence that my mother was actually a selkie, and my imaginary fairy friend, it wasn’t long before the whole town began calling me Crazy Clover. Including my da.
The teasing got so bad that I stopped talking to everyone, including the boy. I had nightmares about car crashes and freshly dug graves, walls closing in and waves pulling me under, cruel children and crueler adults. I picked at my lips and cuticles until they bled. I pulled out my eyebrows and eyelashes completely. I withdrew into my fairy-tale books, and whenever I did emerge, I wished that I hadn’t. Life was just easier once everyone forgot that I existed.
But by secondary school, everything had changed. My eyelashes and eyebrows had grown back in. My auburn hair was nearly down to my waist, thanks to Oliver never bothering to get it cut. And my scrawny body had filled out in new places. Suddenly, I wasn’t invisible anymore.
Quite the opposite.
Boys who’d once tripped me in the hallway began cornering me at my locker. They’d ask me out on dates, take me places alone. They’d kiss me and touch me and tell me nice things when no one was around, but in front of other people, they pretended like they didn’t know me. It hurt, so much, but it felt better than being invisible all the time, so I let them do it.
I’d let them do anything they wanted.
A fact that Cash McNalley had taken full advantage of the summer before sixth year. When he’d driven me to the Baily lighthouse after dark, I assumed that he had romantic intentions. Maybe we’d look at the stars, I thought, tell each other our deepest, darkest secrets. Instead, he invited me to sit in the backseat with him, where he took my virginity in seven minutes or less. As soon as it was over, he tossed the condom out the window and drove me home. I cried myself to sleep that night. Quietly. Oliver hated crying.
And because I was no longer invisible to the boys, I was no longer invisible to the girls either. They’d glare at me and chat shite about me and laugh whenever I walked by. I’d thought it would end when I finished secondary school, but … no such luck.
Sophie held up a rose-gold phone, which glimmered almost as brightly as her cruel eyes and icy-blonde hair. “Forty-seven notifications to evacuate, and Clover here decides to”—her gaze flicked down to the lobster net in my hand—“go fishin’ with her invisible boyfriend.”
“Very on brand,” Liv added with a smirk while the two boys looked around uncomfortably.
I stepped off the trail to give them enough room to pass, careful not to trample the heather, and stood facing the water so that my red, swollen cheek would be out of view.
The cruise ship was still there, and that gave me hope. They probably had all kinds of technology that would tell them about other ships nearby. If they weren’t worried about the Russians, then I decided I wouldn’t be either.
“Seriously? Yer just gonna stand there, staring at the water, and not say anything?” Sophie rolled her eyes as they approached, but Cash’s gaze locked on to mine and held it.
There was an apology in his stare, but he’d never say it out loud. Not in front of them.
“She’s so weird,” Liv whispered, loud enough for me to hear.
“And she smells like fish.” Sophie giggled, causing both girls to erupt into a fit of laughter.
“Maybe that’s just her gee. Cash would know, wouldn’t ya?” Caiden gave his brother a playful shove.
Cash immediately shoved him back much harder. “Fuck off, arsehole.”
For one brief moment, I thought he might be defending me, but I knew better. Cash was defending himself. God forbid anyone find out that he’d stooped so low as to sleep with Crazy Clover Doyle.
The second they passed, I turned and walked in the opposite direction, the aching knot in my stomach throbbing in time with my bruised cheek and battered ego.
A few more meters down the trail, hidden between two yellow gorse bushes, was where my trail began. I had to be careful not to let anyone see me take it. If the tourists discovered a path leading from the cliff to the sea with a charming little cave at the bottom, it would be all over the travel sites in a heartbeat. And then we’d be done for. That cave and the lobster I caught inside were the only things that kept us afloat in the summer.
The cliff was steep, but there were enough jutting rocks and grassy patches to form a skinny trail down. Climbing back up with a few kilos of wet lobster thrown over your shoulder … now, that was trickier.
In fact, Oliver couldn’t take my trail at all—he was far too big. He could only access the cave by anchoring his boat outside the entrance and either swimming in or taking a small, inflatable raft. It was a pain in the arse, which was why he insisted on making me do it.
I’d never admit it to him, but I actually loved checking the traps. That cave was my favorite place in the entire world.
As a kid, I’d read that in ancient Ireland, caves were thought to be portals to the otherworld—the magical realm where fairies and other mythical creatures lived. So, when Oliver began making me check the lobster traps on my own, I was elated. I’d scour every inch of that cave, looking for a secret passage, a hidden door, a symbol, a code, anything that might take me away from there and deliver me to the world of my silver-eyed friend. I never found it, of course, but I never gave up. Every time I went down there, I did a lap around the cave, exploring the farthest, darkest corners, pressing on stones and feeling for cracks. I’d kept searching long after I stopped believing in fairies.
Because hope was the only drug I could afford.
I descended the cliff with sure-footed steps, grasping at stones and bushes on the trickier parts. The trail ended on a flat patch of rock, maybe two meters above sea level, which, to most people, would seem like the final destination. But I knew there was more under that stone. So much more.
Scaling the slope on the far side of the landing, I ducked under the capstone and made my way in. The left side of the cave entrance had a narrow ledge I could walk on, just a few centimeters below sea level, but the ceiling was so low that I had to crouch to keep from bumping my head. The right side of the cave entrance was a narrow channel of deep seawater—the perfect little hiding place for lobsters trying to avoid predators.
With every wave that crashed against the rocks outside, a burst of salty mist peppered my back, and a swell of cold seawater swirled around my ankles, chilling my feet, even through my rubber boots.
