“No,” said Coco’s mom. “Look.”
There was a good-sized pine standing sentinel on the edge of the beach. On the side of the trunk facing the water, someone had carved, deeply and skillfully:
maye god have merci on yer soules.
They stared, and no one said anything at all.
8
THEY JUST STARED at the carving in the tree. Ollie’s dad was the first to move, trying to get up from the bottom of the lifeboat. Ollie instantly turned away from the carved trunk and knelt beside him. “Ollie,” he said. His breath wheezed. Even the gulls weren’t crying now. “What’s happening?”
“We’re on the island,” said Ollie. “We got off the boat. It was sinking. There was—well, I don’t know what it was. Sort of like a big version of the snake that bit you. It sank the Cassie. But that doesn’t matter. We’re getting off this island as soon as we can. We’ll take you to a hospital.”
He nodded but didn’t answer. His eyes drifted shut.
Coco’s mom picked up the portable radio. “Mayday,” she said. “Mayday. Require immediate assistance.”
Silence. Not even static. Just silence.
“Look,” said Coco suddenly. She stooped and brushed a litter of pebbles and pine needles from below the carved tree.
There, in the dirt, was a hard brown dome. Coco dug all around it until she revealed, unmistakably, the eye sockets and brow ridges of a skull.
She let it go abruptly and stepped back, wiping her hands on her damp jeans.
Behind them, they heard Ms. Zintner’s voice. “Mayday, Mayday . . .”
“We’re in trouble,” said Brian, and Coco nodded, biting her lip. “What should we do?” she said. “I don’t know anything about islands.”
Brian tried to peer deeper into the woods. No luck; the forest was too dense. He could only see a few feet. The ground sloped steeply up. There were no paths. Maybe a few bare spaces between the trees, where the pines crowded out the undergrowth, but that was all.
Brian turned away from the forest. The lake glittered like a monster’s scales in the afternoon sun. The water was still now, except for a few tiny whitecaps whipped up by the wind. As though neither the Cassandra nor the lake monster nor Mr. Dimmonds had ever existed.
Phil was staring out at the water, his arms wrapped around himself. Coco went over to him. “Phil,” she said. “I’m really sorry. About your uncle.”
“He was my favorite uncle,” said Phil. He wiped his nose on his sleeve.
Brian had been feeling angry at Phil. For fishing, for not listening to them. Now he was just sad. Mr. Dimmonds was dead. Mr. Adler was hurt. So what if Phil had met the smiling man and somehow that meeting had led to all this? It wasn’t Phil’s fault. How would he even have known? It was so, so easy to trust the smiling man. Brian went over to Phil too. “Buddy,” he said. “I’m really sorry.”
Phil shook his head and didn’t answer.
Coco’s mom had finally put the dead radio aside. She pushed her fair hair off her face, eyes slitted with frustration. Ollie was trying to make her dad more comfortable. She’d dug an emergency blanket out of the first aid kit to put around his shoulders. He was still sitting in the damp raft.
“How are you doing, Ollie-pop?” said Mr. Adler, not sounding so great. “I’m okay. How are you, Zel? That was a pretty quick exit off the boat, wasn’t it?”
“We’re fine, Roger,” said Coco’s mom. She put a hand on his forehead, looking worried. “We’ll get out of here really soon. I just can’t figure out why the radio isn’t . . .” She trailed off, scowling at the machine. “Here’s a dry spot,” she added. “Let’s get you off this raft. Come on, Roger, you can do a little for yourself. One—two—three—there you go.”
Between Ollie and Ms. Zintner, they got Mr. Adler to stand up and walk a few steps to a tall dry rock. “Here,” Coco’s mom said. “Sit down, Roger—you need to be still—no—” Mr. Adler was trying to get up, making incoherent noises. “You’ll only make it worse, moving around.”
Ollie retucked the emergency blanket around her dad. His hand had gone black, nearly to the wrist.
We have to get off this island, Brian thought.
But there was a lake monster—between them and everything else. Rescuers and
hospitals. The whole world. Phil was still standing rigid, staring at the water.
Coco glanced up at the sky and then pulled out her phone. Made a face at whatever she saw.