Dark Waters

“We can’t do anything tonight,” Ms. Zintner said firmly, after the radio had been silent for half an hour. The small spattering rain had started up again, and no one was particularly comfortable. The moon hung low over the mountains, making a trail of silver on the lake. “You should sleep. Especially you, Roger. You have been very sick.”

Brian had pulled the bandage away from Mr. Adler’s arm to check the punctures. To his surprise, the black swelling had faded from his arm; the holes themselves were scabbing over. The skin was a little red and puffy right around the holes, but not bad, not worse than a spider bite. It was as though they’d imagined the black swelling, the leaking fluid, Mr. Adler’s eyes gone glassy . . .

He rebandaged the punctures, wondering if he should say anything. Ollie sure didn’t. She was still leaning on her dad, quiet, staring out at the water.

He and Phil and Coco finally wound up huddled on the other side of the fire, wrapped tightly in one emergency blanket. It was neither dry nor warm nor comfortable, but it was a little better than just the bare rocks. They whispered to each other.

“I think the grown-ups are going to want to stay close to shore and keep trying to signal tomorrow,” said Coco. “But I don’t think it will do any good.”

“No,” said Brian, whispering back. “Whatever happened to Sheehan—it happened to us too. No one’s coming for us. It’s the world behind the mist all over again. The world behind the mirror.”

“Behind what mirror?” said Phil.

“Long story,” said Brian.

“Fine. But if no one’s coming,” said Phil, with a shake in his voice, “what do we do? We don’t have a boat! And we don’t have food! Or any way to get food! If we can’t get off—then we’ll die!”

His voice went a little shrill.

Coco said suddenly, “They had a boat.” Coco was between them, huddled down in the emergency blanket. They could hardly see more of her than the top of her damp, pinkish head.

Brian stared at her, not sure he’d heard correctly. Phil had stopped talking in surprise.

“Sheehan and his men, I mean,” Coco said, muffled. She poked her head up. “The one they hid. In the cave. Somewhere. Remember? He mentioned it in the log.”

“But,” said Brian, objecting, “they hid it over two hundred years ago! Wouldn’t it have rotted?”

This time Phil answered, eyes narrowing. “Not if it was a good boat to begin with. Especially if they put it in a cave. Temperature-stable, you know. Even if it got wet sometimes, that would only swell the timbers and make it watertight.”

Brian felt a sneaking flare of hope.

“But,” said Coco, “even if there is a boat—how do we find it? The log didn’t say where, exactly. Just a cave, near the shore. We could walk around this island for weeks before we found it. I mean—the cave might be overgrown, or whatever.” She hesitated. And then she added, “I don’t think we have weeks.”

“No,” said Brian. “I don’t even think we have days.”

Neither of the others objected. They were silent awhile, thinking.

Then Phil said, “I wonder what the axe man knows?” Then he answered himself. “Probably nothing. If he knew there was a boat, why would he still be here?”

Brian and Coco looked at each other. He’s here because he’s a ghost, they were both thinking.

“We should talk to him,” said Brian.

15

THE NEXT DAY dawned frigid and damply cold, with a high wind blowing and the sun of the day before a distant memory. The pale buds tossed back and forth on the black-branched trees, and Brian would have given almost anything to stay on the beach and wait for a boat, rather than go back into the forest. The forest with its mud, its monster, and its axe-wielding stranger. Its fishhooks and its cabin and the feeling of long, cold despair. It felt like a trap. At least on the beach you could see the horizon, you could hope for a boat, for a rescue that was quick and easy and painless.

But Brian had seen enough of strange spaces, of small, haunted worlds, to know by now that there were no miracles, no easy escapes. That they’d have to smash their own way out.

They had chocolate and lake water and a few handfuls of spruce tips for breakfast. They’d collected a little rain in the night, but their water bottle was only half full. Mr. Adler threw a few spruce tips into the water, to hide the taste of purifying iodine. Brian eyed the bottle with misgiving. There were five of them, after all. But what were they going to do? None of them felt safe going back to the lake for refills.

At least Mr. Adler was better. He woke up looking cheerful; he ate his granola bar as happily as he’d gobbled pancakes and bacon back in Evansburg. The sight almost made Brian smile. Mr. Adler was a morning person even when he’d nearly died of a lake monster bite.

Coco’s mom was looking tired; Brian didn’t think she’d slept. She’d been watching the lake and the fire and the woods, keeping an eye out for the lake monster and the axe man.

Brian reopened Sheehan’s log, squinting to see its pages in the flat morning light. Coco looked over his shoulder. Phil was peeing behind a rock. Ollie sat still, watching the lake. Brian wondered why Ollie wasn’t more curious, and he was struck again by the thought, There’s something she’s not telling us.

Coco said, “It just says a cove, where they hid the boat. But which cove? Where?”