Ch. 8

True to her word, Maggie made peach cobbler for Rosie's birthday. It was the day after her fitful dream and Rosie still felt like she was sleeping. She managed to let one of the social workers ride with her on the bus to Maggie's house, and was given a strict curfew of 6pm before they had to meet again at the bus stop.

Rosie sat in Maggie and Bug's living room in her David Bowie t-shirt, her ripped jeans and scuffed sneakers. She tried braiding her hair the way Celeste showed her, but it became a tangled mess and she ended up combing it out with water. Bug was on the sofa next to her, waxing his surfboard on the coffee table. He had hidden his pot stash before Rose arrived, but she could still smell the dry, skunky smoke in the fabric of the couch.

"You want ice cream?" Maggie called from the kitchen.

"Yeah—no." Rosie shook her head. "No, sorry."

Bug glanced at Rosie. He was shirtless, tan muscles flexing as he waxed his board, his sandy blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. "You okay, little princess?" he asked.

Rosie nodded. "Yeah. Fine." Except she wasn't. She couldn't get the dream out of her head—the blue-eyed woman with brown hair, the golden light, the chipped teacup—and it all felt so close and yet so far, like stars on a clear night.

Rose took a surfing magazine from the end table and flipped through it. She never knew what to say to Bug when they were alone together. He smiled and cracked jokes, but he had a faraway look in his eye that suggested he was thinking of bigger things, things Rosie was still too young to understand.

There was clanging in the kitchen, the slamming of an oven door, and the smell of peach cobbler wafted into the room. Maggie arrived moments later with the pan of cobbler in her hand and sixteen candles stuck into the hard outer crust.

"Bug, move the board," Maggie said.

Bug did as he was told and set his surfboard against the wall next to the couch. Maggie set the cobbler on the coffee table and smiled. They sang Happy Birthday, and when Rosie blew out the candles, one remained lit in the middle.

"Uh-oh. One boyfriend," Bug said.

"Yeah, right." Rosie rolled her eyes.

Maggie got a spatula from the kitchen and cut everyone a slice. Rosie sat on the couch with the plate of hot cobbler on her lap and only stared at it. Maggie stopped eating from her spot on the armchair and looked at her friend.

"You okay, sweetie?" she asked.

Rosie nodded and picked at her birthday treat. She raised her hooded eyes to the wall across from her. It was painted blue, adorned with seashells Maggie had found on the beach and pinned with fishing net. Rosie had the sudden urge to run out into the ocean and swim as deep as she could.

"Excellent cobbler, mon cheri," Bug said, giving a wink to his girlfriend.

Maggie smiled, but frowned again when she saw Rosie staring at the wall. "What's up, Rose? You've been even quieter than usual."

Rosie blinked out of her ocean daydream and looked at Maggie. "I'm just . . . homesick."

"Homesick? For Linda?"

"No, no" Rosie scrunched her nose and shook her head. "I just . . . I had this dream last night—"

"Ooh, let's give her her present, Mags," Bug said.

"Oh, right!" Maggie stood, set her plate on the end table, and dashed down the hall to their room.

Bug grinned as he licked his plate clean and said, "You'll love it."

Rosie sighed and put her uneaten cobbler on the coffee table. She turned to Bug and asked, "Do you miss your parents?"

He looked at her. "Me?" Bug tilted his head up in thought. "Sometimes. I still see 'em at Christmas in Arizona and my brother comes down to borrow money every other month. Why?"

Rosie shrugged. "I was just thinking—"

"Here we go!" Maggie came from the hallway with a small box wrapped in newspaper. "Sorry we don't have a card or anything." She handed it to Rosie.

Rose mustered a smile and took the present. She opened it carefully, as if Maggie and Bug would want to keep old newspaper anyway, and revealed a new iPod. The tape had already been broken on the box, but everything was accounted for, including headphones.

"Happy birthday!" Maggie and Bug said.

Rosie smiled for real and looked at her friends. "How did you afford this?"

"I know a guy," Bug said. "Don't worry, it's totally legit."

"Bug jail broke it for you, so it has a bunch of your favorite songs on it already."

"That part wasn't entirely legal," Bug admitted.

Rosie looked at the mp3 player, then at Maggie and her boyfriend. Tears welled in her eyes. It wasn't a new sketchbook or a mom and dad, but it was the best birthday present she had ever gotten. "Thank you so much," she whispered. She leapt up and threw her arms around Maggie's neck, squeezing her tightly.

Rose took the iPod out of the box, checked the album list, and finally ate her slice of cobbler. Bug put on a Hawaiian shirt (but still didn't bother to button it up) and grilled fish on the patio. Rose and Maggie stayed inside and gossiped while playing Scrabble. Rosie wondered if she should tell Maggie about her dream last night, but just thinking about it put her back in that sad place that left her homesick. She pushed it out of her mind and focused on getting a double-letter score to beat Maggie's ten-point lead.

After they ate grilled cod, Rosie and her friends sat out on the patio that overlooked the ocean. The tide was coming in, rushing at the sand like a foamy army. Santa Monica Pier was a speck in the distance down the beach. The sky was gray, threatening rain, and a chilly wind blew in from the sea.

"It's times like these I wish we were a little older," Maggie said dreamily.

Bug looked at his girlfriend. "Speak for yourself, honey."

Maggie gave him a wink. She nudged Rosie, who sat in the lawn chair next to her. "Did you have a good birthday?"

Rosie tore her eyes away from the ocean and grinned at her friend. "Yeah. I'm sorry I've been weird."

"You're always weird," Maggie said. "That's why we love you."

Bug tilted his patio chair back and glanced at the clock on the wall through the glass doors. "It's almost six. Better start heading back, little princess."

Maggie stood and folded her chair up as Bug threw water on the coals of the grill. Rosie stayed in her seat and pulled her knees up to her chest. "Just a few more minutes," she said, gazing at the endless body of water.

Maggie looked at her boyfriend and shrugged. "Okay. We'll be inside."

The couple retreated indoors where the wind wasn't howling and the air was slightly warmer. Rosie stared at the ocean, that horrible feeling of homesickness creeping back into her soul. She thought about the blue-eyed woman who drank from the chipped cup so easily. Why did she seem so familiar? And why was her voice so haunting, so strangely comforting?

The wind picked up, forming white caps along the waves. Rosie squinted, hoping she would see the mysterious golden light on the water again, but there was nothing. She sighed, headed back indoors, and said a quick goodbye to Maggie and Bug.

Rose gathered her backpack and stuffed her iPod in the front zipper. She double-checked to make sure everything was there—her sketchbook, her wallet, a few tampons, some notebooks full of schoolwork—and threw the pack over her shoulders. Rosie looked at the clock on the wall. She had ten minutes to get to the bus stop before her social worker called out the National Guard.

Rosie slipped out the back door, closing the glass shut quietly as Bug and Maggie laughed in the kitchen together. She envied their closeness, the way they could communicate with just a look in their eyes, and even though Bug wasn't perfect, he was perfect enough for Maggie. Rosie wanted that more than she was willing to admit. She walked across the patio, arms crossed over her chest to block the wind. Her eye caught something shiny in the distance, a flicker of light. She stopped and looked at the water. The golden light was there again.

Rose blinked and rubbed her eyes to make sure she wasn't hallucinating, but it was still there when her vision cleared, close enough to the shore to reach out and touch. The wind carried bits of light across the water, swirling and dancing like snow on an icy lake. Rose walked down to the shore, the light pulling her in with its exotic, magnetizing force. The tips of her shoes were right against the shoreline. She turned her head and glanced back at Maggie's bungalow, but they seemed miles away, in another realm entirely.

"This is crazy," Rosie whispered.

She gripped the strap of her backpack and turned on her heels for the beach. A gust of wind blew at her back, blowing specks of light around her. Just as she made a successful step forward, Rosie was pulled into the water by an unseen force. A freak waved, glistening like sunshine, wrapped Rosie up and dragged her to the sea. She kicked and screamed for help, water rushing up and over her head. Rosie looked up, fully submerged, and saw the golden light twisting and turning in the water like an unruly tornado, sucking her deeper into what used to be the shallow end of the shore. She gasped for breath, writhing in a panic, then blacked out as if someone had pulled a mask over her eyes.

Even in the darkness, Rosie could hear the blue-eyed woman whispering, "Where did they take you?"

To be continued