Dark Waters

There was one in the emergency kit. Brian nodded.

“We called it Goblin Cove—it’s where my old girl sank,” Sheehan went on. “Boat’s in a cave, oars shipped.”

The chiming of the fishhooks was getting louder. Closer.

Coco said, “We have to go!”

Sheehan said, “Now, miss, you just make straight for that cove. I don’t know if I can kill the beastie. But I can slow her down. Then I’ll be off. Wait for me, Tom.”

And he hefted the massive axe, standing in front of the old cabin, and his face filled up with a fierce happiness. “Come on, you!” he shouted. “I’m brave enough for this. One more time.”

Brian, turning, got a glimpse of shimmering scales before he dug out the compass.

South . . .

“This way!” he shouted, and ran. Heard the pounding feet as they all ran with him. And behind, in a voice shrill with laughter, he heard Captain Sheehan, of the Goblin, screaming insults at the snake.

Then silence, and they ran together, no one speaking, into the damp morning, while Brian consulted his compass and his shoes stuck in the mud of that cold and lonely island.

16

THERE WAS NO path across the island, of course. They climbed toward the summit anyway, shoving their way between trees. They were soon covered in clammy sweat, not a huge improvement from being cold.

None of them dared say very much. They were all listening. Even Ollie’s dad wasn’t cracking jokes. They crested a rise, finding themselves briefly scrambling on almost-bare rock, at the very top of the island, and then back down into trees. They didn’t even look around, just put their heads down and kept doggedly on, as fast as they could.

The wind was rising. It riffled cold over their heads, over the rock, and over the trees. “Phil,” said Mr. Adler once, abruptly, “what do you think of the haze? There, over the lake?”

Phil wiped his streaming nose and answered, “It usually means that the weather is changing.”

“That’s what I thought,” said Ollie’s dad. “Let’s get on. Not that I want to put to sea—or lake—in a two-hundred-year-old boat, but I really don’t want to do it in a thunderstorm.”

None of them had said what they were really looking for, scanning the beaches, the trees, the water carefully, but Brian knew what it was. They all knew. They were looking for a silver flash, the streaking light of those beautiful, horrible scales.

Down the other side of the rise, out of the wind, and back into the shadows on the other side. This side of the island was steeper, the rocks more broken, and they all stumbled. Coco tripped and tripped again, until her shins were bleeding through her jeans.

On they went.

And on.

Hours seemed to pass. They were all exhausted. They didn’t really dare stop. It was hard to know what time it was, but the shadows were definitely changing direction. Brian started to doubt his own reading of the compass.

Are we going in circles? he wondered.

How big can this island be?

Down and steadily down until they stood on a beach.

And there was no boat anywhere. Brian stared around him in the grayness—gray water, gray clouds gathering.

“The boat should be here,” he said. “We kept going south. We went due south. Like Sheehan said. I’m sure of it. But where?”

“Welp,” said Ollie’s dad, practical and cheerful—the only one of them who was, at that point. “The log said a cave, right? Let’s look around, shall we?”

“We’ll find it,” said Ollie, with a sudden, strange ferocity. “We’re getting out of here.”

And she glared at her watch as though she were talking to it. Mr. Adler looked down at her, frowning, but Ollie didn’t look up, and after a second, as though the watch—the ghost of Ollie’s mom—whatever animated the watch—was reluctant, the screen shifted and became a compass. But a very simple one that had two directions, n and f.

Near and Far, thought Brian.