.jpg?w=1920&resize=1920,2899&ssl=1 "Dark Fantasy YA Novel This Raging Sea Ties in Bisexuality, Ocean Monsters & Haunted Carnivals: Exclusive Excerpt")
Bad news tastes like salt.
It’s one of those certainties that Briar knows but can’t explain, like the way she can finish her best friends’ sentences without thinking. It’s as factual as anything in a textbook; it might as well be a law of physics:
When Briar Winters tastes salt between her teeth, terrible things follow.
She swallows the bitterness as she trudges through the dusty beach parking lot, flanked by her three closest friends. They might as well be her family.
Though, lately, it’s been hard to call Finn that at all.
Ahead, the ocean reflects a galaxy of rainbow lights. A towering Ferris wheel slices the black sky, and screams haunt the sticky, humid air. The seaside carnival is usually her favorite night of the year, but in just a week, Kai, Astrid, and Finn will be scattered across the country at their respective colleges like little red pins on a map.
And she’ll still be here.
In another universe, Briar would snap photos until her battery runs out, drink in every second. The night would become one of those rose-colored memories, forever crystalized in past tense. They’d say, Remember that time at the carnival? and think of right now, this moment.
Tonight could still be like that.
But if Briar can’t heal the wound that’s split open between her and Finn, they won’t remember it that way at all. Instead, they’ll think of a night drenched in quiet regret, each rolling wave like a taunt: It could have been; it could have been.
“Bee, what do you think?”
She snaps her gaze to Astrid’s as they approach the ticket booth. “What?”
“Nostril or septum?”
Briar blinks. “Huh?”
Astrid angles her face skyward, glossy braids spilling down her back. “I can’t decide which piercing to get before orientation next week.”
“Careful, your Libra sun is showing,” Kai says with a laugh.
Astrid slides a pretend glare toward Finn, who’s been silent this whole time. “Did you teach him that?”
Finn shrugs. “Just pierce both.”
Briar’s stomach twists at the detached clip of his voice, the sadness she knows is only there because of her. He looks so different from the Finn she remembers on graduation night, the last time things felt soft between them. His skin looks pale instead of sun-kissed, and his gold-streaked hair is haphazardly tousled, not styled like it usually is. Two half-moons hang beneath his stormy-gray eyes as though he was awake until sunrise, his desk strewn with math books and graph paper. Briar can easily picture him, glasses on, spinning theories into ink, and her chest aches with everything that’s still unsaid.
Kai and Astrid keep talking, but Briar remains silent as they move forward in line, slipping into a pool of ruby light from the sign overhead: Loch Creek Summer Carnival. In smaller print underneath, the Massachusetts town’s catchphrase: A haven since 1692.
Briar’s seen the slogan a million times, can trace her hometown’s roots to the cries of misunderstood women tied to burning posts. Loch Creek, a safe ground amid a sea of witchcraft hysteria. A haven. Some people believe the description still fits, pointing to the summer rush of tourists, the way many are so proud to live in Loch Creek that they never leave.
