The shells were harder to find than he'd expected.

  Oisín had been walking the tideline for three days now, and he'd found exactly four of the pale pink ones. Four. He needed at least a dozen to make it work, maybe more if he wanted it to look like anything other than a child's craft project.

  He crouched at the waterline, letting the cold foam wash over his boots. The morning was grey and still, the kind of quiet that settled over the shore when the fishing boats had already gone out and the village was left to the gulls and the old women hanging laundry.

  His father had left before dawn. He had let Oisín take another day for his project. The third in a row. Oisín promised, once again, he would join him tomorrow. He told himself for the third day in a row that today was the last day he had to himself.

  He spotted a flash of color beneath the retreating wave and reached for it. He pulled up a fragment of something that might have been pink once, before the sea wore it down to nothing.

  He tossed it back.

  "Oisín!"

  He turned too fast, lost his footing on the wet rocks, and sat down hard in a tidal pool. Cold water soaked through his trousers. The crabs scuttled around him.

  Máire stood on the path above the beach, a basket over her arm, her red hair blazing against the grey sky like a signal fire. Even from this distance, he could see her freckles, the pink flush of her cheeks from the wind, the way she was pressing her lips together to keep from laughing.

  She was failing.

  "Comfortable down there?" she called.

  "Very." He stood with as much dignity as he could manage, which wasn't much. Water streamed from his trousers. A crab had taken refuge in his boot. "I was just…"

  "Taking a bath?"

  "Investigating the tide pools. For a project."

  "A project?" She was coming down the path now, picking her way over the rocks with the easy grace of someone who'd grown up on these shores. Her skin was pale beneath the freckles, the kind of complexion that burned in summer and glowed in winter. "And what sort of project is this?"

  "Well, uh, mostly research at the moment."

  "Interesting. And what have you learned?"

  "Crabs don't like toes for a start." He shook his boot. The crab dropped out and scuttled toward the sea, claws raised in what he chose to interpret as gratitude.

  Máire laughed as she reached the waterline. She didn't stand beside him. She stood at the edge of the rocks, keeping her boots dry, watching him drip.

  Her father was the baker. She always smelled like the shop. Warm and sweet. Like the top shelf, the one with the honey cakes that cost more than a fisherman's son could afford without saving.

  "Da sent me to find cockles," she said, lifting the basket. "He's making chowder for the Samhain feast."

  "I can help."

  "You're soaking wet."

  "Exactly. Might as well be wet and useful."

  She considered him. Her eyes were green, the color of sea glass, and when she looked at him like that he forgot how to arrange his face into something that didn't make him look like a landed fish. He was very aware that he was standing in a tide pool with seaweed on his shoulder.

  "Fine," she said. "But if you slow me down, I'm leaving you for the tide."

  They worked their way along the rocks, filling her basket with cockles. Máire knew all the best spots. The crevices where the shellfish clustered. The pools that stayed full even at low tide. She moved through the shore like she owned it. Oisín followed in her wake, trying to be useful, trying not to stare at the way the wind caught her hair, mostly failing at both.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  "You've been out here every day this week," she said, not looking at him. "I've seen you from the shop window. Doesn't your Da need help?"

  "He's giving me some time off for this project…" His heart did something uncomfortable. "So you've… you've been watching me?"

  "The window faces the path." She still wasn't looking at him. "You're hard to miss, leaving so late in the morning."

  He tried to read that. Hard to miss could mean she noticed him. Or it could mean he was obvious. Probably the second one. His brain said the second one. His heart said but she noticed.

  "What are you looking for?" she asked.

  "Nothing."

  "You're a terrible liar."

  "Some would say that's a good thing."

  That earned him a glance. Not quite a smile. "The delusional usually do."

  He should stop talking. He was only making it worse. Instead, he said: "Shells. The pink ones. The spirals with the shine inside."

  "The wishing shells?" Her eyebrows rose. "Those are rare. What do you need them for?"

  "A project."

  "What kind of project?"

  "A secret project."

  "They say secrets attract Cú Dubh."

  "Cú Dubh is a myth."

  "Tell that to the black dog that attacked you when you were a kid."

  "I did, the whole time. He wouldn't listen."

  The scar on his forearm itched. He reached for it before he realized what he was doing, fingers pressing against the old marks through his sleeve. The skin there always felt different. Tighter. Like it remembered something he didn't.

  Máire was watching him. He dropped his hand.

  "You're ridiculous," she said. But there was something in her voice that wasn't quite mockery. Or maybe he just wanted there to be.

  They reached a stretch of rocks where the cockles grew thick. Máire crouched to fill her basket. Oisín crouched beside her, close enough that their shoulders almost touched. He was acutely aware of every inch of space between them, of every breath she took, of the way her fingers worked quickly through the sand while his fumbled uselessly with shells that weren't the right color, weren't the right shape, weren't what he was looking for at all.

  "There's a cove," she said, "past the northern point. My grandmother used to take me there when I was small. She said the wishing shells collected there because the currents brought them." She dropped a cockle into the basket. "I haven't been in years. Don't know if it's still there."

  "Past the point?"

  "Through the rocks. There's a gap, if you know where to look." She stood, brushing sand from her skirt. "But I didn't tell you that."

  "Tell me what?"

  She didn't smile. She just looked at him for a moment, like she was trying to decide something, and then she turned back toward the path.

  He scrambled after her.

  They walked back toward the village together, the basket between them. Oisín offered to carry it. Máire refused. He offered again; she told him she wasn't an invalid. He offered a third time; she said if he asked again, she'd dump the cockles on his head.

  He let her carry the basket.

  She mentioned the cove, he thought. She told me where to find them. His brain said: she was just talking, it's just a fact she knows. His heart said: but she told you.

  "Will you be at the feast?" she asked as they reached the place where the path split.

  "It's what, three days out? Wouldn't miss it."

  "My father's making honey cakes this year. The ones with the almonds."

  "I remember." He'd stolen one last Samhain, warm from the oven, and she'd caught him and made him pay double. He'd paid without complaint. Would have paid triple just for the look on her face when she'd cornered him behind the stalls.

  "Well." She shifted the basket to her other arm. "I'll see you there, then."

  "You will."

  She turned toward the bakery without looking back. Her hair streamed behind her like a banner, and he watched her go because he couldn't help it, because looking away from Máire when she was in front of him felt like a waste of something precious.

  At the bend in the path, she paused. Glanced over her shoulder. Caught him staring.

  She shook her head. Just once. And then she was gone.

  Hopeless, that shake had said. As clearly as if she'd spoken the word aloud.

  He stood there with wet trousers and four pink shells in his pocket and told himself it could have meant something else. Hopeless like you're hopeless, fond and exasperated. Not hopeless like this is hopeless. Not hopeless like give up.

  His brain knew the difference. His heart refused to learn it.

  Dinner that night was quiet. His father was tired from the day's work, already thinking ahead to tomorrow's haul. Oisín helped with the nets, mended a tear in the sail, and did all the small tasks that needed doing before a long stretch at sea.

  "You seem lighter," Cormac said as they sat by the fire.

  "Do I?"

  "Like something good happened." His father's eyes crinkled. "The project going well?"

  Oisín thought of red hair and green eyes and a cove past the northern point. "Getting there."

  "But not done?"

  The question hung in the air. Oisín felt the weight of it. Three days already. Three days his father had worked the boat alone. Three days of hauling nets and mending lines and coming home to a son who'd spent the morning sitting in tide pools.

  "No, Pa, sorry. Need a little more time."

  Cormac didn't answer immediately. He looked at the fire instead, and the silence stretched long enough that Oisín felt himself start to sweat despite the chill coming off the stone walls.

  "How much?" his father finally asked.

  "Another day, maybe two?"

  Cormac's jaw tightened. Just for a moment. Then he leaned back in his chair, and the firelight caught the grey in his beard, and he looked older than he had that morning.

  "Well then," he said. "She'd better say yes."

  The words were warm. The pause before them wasn't.

  Oisín looked at the fire and didn't answer. He had a plan that involved going past the northern point and through the rocks. He would find the gap.