“But—”
“We do have to,” said Jax gravely.
No one said anything for a few seconds.
“Then I’m coming,” said Hayley.
“That’s crazy,” said Cara. “It could be dangerous. Have you already forgotten?”
“You might need me. It was supposed to be three, remember? And now there’s only two of you. So count me in.”
Cara and Jax turned toward each other, but she couldn’t see the expression on his face in the dark.
“OK, get your bike,” he said after a moment, decisive. “I’ll go back and get you a life vest, so you don’t sink.”
In five minutes they had three bikes and were on their way again. Cara didn’t know what she thought about Hayley being with them, but the message had said three, that was true. Tonight might not be the time, in any case. She hoped it proved not to be—hoped it was a false alarm, so the real action could wait until Max was back.
It seemed like a long, dark ride to Zee’s place, and once there they could barely fit the gear and the wetsuits into the kayak. Finally all of it was bundled in, though, and they lowered the garage door with a creak. Then they had to cross Route 6, and turns were the hardest part. But finally they were making their slow way up the lonely road that cut through the national seashore to the beach. It had no streetlamps, being a park road, and the moon was gone, covered in black. The lights on their bikes were solitary in the dimness around them—a dimness full of the sighing of the breeze through short pines, the rubber of their tires on the pavement, the rubbing of the kayak against its bungee cords.…
Cara found herself counting, at times, in her head, to ward off thoughts of the Pouring Man. He could appear anytime, couldn’t he, now that it was dark out? Wasn’t that what they’d found out today? On the Cape, after all, water could pop up anytime.
But at long last, when Cara’s phone said two in the morning, they made it to the parking lot and left their bikes lying on the sidewalk. Maybe having their bikes stolen was the least of their worries. They untied the kayak and carried the boat and its contents, with some awkwardness, down the steep wooden staircase to the sandy flat of the beach. It dropped once, but luckily it slid only a few steps before it stuck, and they were able to pick it up again.
As they sidestepped down the stairs, she looked out over the water. Far out in front of them was a glow—a pale and otherworldly green.
They pulled on the wet suits first, which were too big for them and felt heavy. Hayley had done some scuba once before—something called a “resort dive” a while back on a Bahamas vacation, when her dad was still around and the family had some money—so she offered to go in, if they needed her to, but Cara and Jax shook their heads. It was hard to figure out how to fit into the kayaks with tanks on their backs, especially since there were only two seats and Hayley had to be crammed into the same seat as Jax, but finally they figured it out and Cara pushed out the boat and then jumped in herself.
With Cara and Jax handling the paddles and Hayley trailing her arms not so helpfully in the water, they headed straight out toward the patch of light. Their wet, bare feet, awaiting the fins, were braced against the footrests and Cara felt how fragile they were, in a way—three kids in a pygmy boat, balanced there tenuously, out in the middle of nowhere, on the vast, dark kingdom of the ocean.
At first they heard nothing but the soft, low curling-under sound of the waves hitting the sand behind them. Then that sound faded out as they drew farther away from shore, and there was only the rhythmic scoop and splash of their paddles and the slosh of water against the kayak’s hull. For once, Hayley didn’t say much.
Cara’s stomach felt hollow with nerves. She wished Max were here—Max with his scuba knowledge and his common sense, his casual, skeptical attitude that somehow inspired confidence. She almost wanted to call him at the hospital, just to be reassured by his voice; and technically she could if she wanted to, because there was a strong enough signal out here and Jax, of course, always had his cell in his pocket. Or in this case in a dry bag, at least.
But Max was asleep in a well-lit building on solid ground, his arm in a sling and an IV stuck into him with a button he could push if he decided he needed pain relief, and he deserved to rest. Anyway, if she called him now he’d be furious that they were going without him—furious both that he was being left out and that they were taking such a big risk.
If this turned out not to be a false alarm, she would simply have to do it without him—she would have to be the eldest, the responsible one.
And yet, at the same time, she had to trust herself to Jax—Jax and his wild instincts. Commit her belief utterly to a ten-year-old, in a matter that could be life or death.
Something compelled her forward. She had to do this; she couldn’t give up. She was needed.
She closed her eyes as she lifted, dropped, and raised the paddle again, as she dipped it on the other side. It wasn’t much harder than paddling with her eyes wide open, at the moment: there were no obstacles, and no moon over the wide-open dark water. For some reason she thought of “The Owl and the Pussycat,” which she had loved when she was a little girl and her mother read it to her at bedtime: The Owl
