She leaned her head against him. Even just risen from bed, she smelled like grass and earth. "What about your fear of megalomaniacal fiends? I didn't think our recent trip was the ticket to getting over that.”
He felt crazy with confidence. Luis liked him. His curse was gone. Everything seemed possible. "Let's get the fiends before the fiends get us.”
Luis came out of the bedroom, closing the phone against his chest. "I saw your mom this morning. She said that she wanted to talk to you when she got home from work. I didn't tell her anything.”
Corny nodded, reminding himself to seem calm. Reminding himself not to kiss Luis. He hadn't brushed his teeth and it didn't seem like great timing anyway. Luis was probably feeling grim.
"I'll leave a note. Then we'd better go. Luis, if you have to stay here and sort out stuff—”
"What I need is to stop Silarial from hurting anyone else." He looked Corny dead in the eye, as if daring him to act pitying.
"Okay," Kaye said. "We're all in. Now what we need is a map and a boat.”
"Hart Island is in the Long Island Sound, off of City Island, which is off of the Bronx. But it isn't exactly within paddling distance." Corny held out a mug to Luis. When he took it, their fingers brushed, and he felt a different kind of power.
"So we could get a boat with a motor," Kaye said. "There's a boating store on Route 35. I could turn a pile of leaves into money. Or we could find a marina up there to filch a boat from.”
Luis busied himself adding sugar to his coffee. "I've never steered a boat or read a navigational chart. Have you?”
Kaye shook her head, and Corny had to admit that he hadn't either.
"There's mermaids in the East River," said Luis. "Probably in the Sound, too. I don't know much about them, but if they don't want us to get to Hart Island, they could pitch us into the water. They've got vicious teeth.”
Corny shuddered at the thought. His mind went to Janet, held underneath the waves by a delighted kelpie. "We could trade them something, maybe," he said. "They might drag us there for a price.”
Kaye looked over at him warily. He figured she was remembering how they'd traded an old carousel horse to that same kelpie for information. Before they knew how dangerous the kelpie was. Before it murdered Janet.
She nodded slowly. "What do mermaids like?"
Luis shrugged. "Jewelry . . . music . . . sailors?"
"They eat people, right?" Corny asked.
"Sure. When they're done with them."
Corny smiled. "Let's bring them a couple of big steaks."
They bought an inflatable green raft and two oars at the boat store. The clerk looked at Kaye strangely when she counted out hundreds of curled and tattered dollars, but her smile charmed him into silence.
They got back into the car.
Luis rode shotgun and Kaye rested in the back with her head on the cardboard box. As Corny changed lanes on the highway, he looked over at Luis, but Luis looked out the window, his eyes not focused on anything. Whatever he saw, it wasn't something Corny could share. Silence filled up the car.
"Who was it?" Corny asked finally. "On the phone?”
Luis looked toward him too quickly. "It was the hospital. They were upset about me not having a mailing address or a landline phone and him being under eighteen. And even though they didn't know if I'd be allowed to claim him, they started talking about my options. Basically, I have to come up with the money for cremation.”
"Kaye could—”
Luis shook his head.
"We could sell the boat when we're done with it.”
Luis smiled, a small lift of his lip. "I want him to have a good burial, you know.”
At Janet's funeral there had been a coffin and a service, flowers and a stone. Corny had never asked about the cost, but his mom wasn't rich. He wondered how much she'd gone into debt for his sister to be buried in style.
"My parents—they're out where we're going." Luis's finger turned his lip ring.