Harrison Squared (27 page)

She felt a stab of pain. Her palm. He'd cut into her palm.

It was almost a relief to feel something besides the cold floor. She held onto that pain, concentrating on it. The bright sensation was connected to her hand, and arm, and body. All she had to do was move that arm.…

“Shhh,” the creature said. “You're about to become immortal.”

She saw her own hand. The creature was holding it before her. There was no color in her vision. The thin wound in her palm welled with blood that seemed as glossy and black as ink. A dollop of blood detached, and dropped onto her. Into her.

It was so warm.

Another drop fell, and another. The blood slid eagerly along her cheek, along the lines that made her lips and eyes and nose. It filled her. Defined her.

“From blood and bone, to blood and bone,” the creature said. “A new body, incorruptible. Do you know how beautiful you are?”

He lifted her from the floor and carried her across the cave. “You belong to the ages now,” he said, and set her on the shelf.

20

With sloping masts and dipping prow,

As who pursued with yell and blow

Still treads the shadow of his foe.

“You want to explain what you're doing here?” the coach shouted. He marched toward us, still wearing nothing but his swim trunks. His body was huge and pale.

I nearly jumped into the water after Lub. But Lydia turned to face him and said, “I could ask you the same question.” This was, hands down, the coolest response under fire I'd ever seen.

He stopped. “What did you say?”

Lydia nodded to a spot behind him, and he glanced back. Nurse Mandi stood in the doorway that led to the coach's office. A towel was wrapped around her body, and her hair was still wet and curly.

So much pale flesh turned red so quickly.

“We were thinking of a midnight swim,” Lydia said. “We didn't realize how popular the idea would be.”

“How did you get in here?” he said.

Lydia ignored the question. “I'm willing to make a deal,” she said.

Nurse Mandi came forward. “Wilbur? Is that the Harrison boy?”

“It is,” he said, and glared at me. “I thought you couldn't go in the water.”

I had no good answer for that.

“Are you all right?” Mandi asked me. “No aftereffects from the accident?”

“I'm fine,” I said.

“I'm glad,” she said. “Tell your aunt that I also appreciate her not … well, calling anyone about me.”

I had no idea what she was talking about. “No problem,” I said.

“What accident?” Coach asked.

“When he fell in the bay,” Mandi said.

“So,” Lydia said. “Why don't we just go, and everybody forgets that they saw anyone down here. Deal?”

Go? I thought. What about Lub? He was still down there. Then Lydia caught my eye and silenced me.

The coach looked uncomfortable. “Don't do this again,” he said finally. “It's dangerous to come down here at night.”

I bet it is, I thought.

“Have a good night,” I said, and then Lydia yanked me up the steps.

*   *   *

“We can't just leave him there,” I said. We were striding down Main Street. The wind had picked up, and cold gusts were blowing off the sea. Storm clouds hid the stars.

“No choice,” Lydia said. “Later, after the coach and Nurse Mandi leave, we can maybe sneak back in—but not now.”

“But he's going to come back up and think we ditched him!”

“Harrison, you've got to stop panicking about things we can't change. Lub knows we were almost caught, and he knows where we live. It's not like he can't get out of the school without us.”

“I guess. It's just … I hope he's okay.”

Icy rain began to fall. The wind was fierce, and Lydia's hair whipped away from her face. I was happy to have the coat Aunt Sel had bought me.

We'd almost reached Lydia's house when we saw the light of a bicycle coming up the hill. It was Garfield, pedaling hard to move what looked like a hundred-pound relic from the 1950s. He practically fell off the bike when he reached us. “They're at Ruck's!”

“Who is?” Lydia asked.

He gulped to get his breath. “Waughm and your uncle! They're getting on the boat!”

I looked up at the sky. Where was Venus, and the green glow the Congregation had been waiting for? The storm clouds now cloaked everything, even the moon.

Gar turned and zipped down the hill. We ran after him, and suddenly it was as if all of New England had decided to stop us. The wind kicked up leaves and grit into our faces. Thunder boomed overhead, and the rain came down. It struck us in sheets, dousing us. We pushed the water from our faces and kept running. In the distance, lightning spiked between low clouds and the black sea.

Ruth and Isabel were waiting in the gravel parking lot of the pier. Ruth pointed at Ruck's garage. The
Albatross
, outlined by its red and white running lights, slowly backed out of the big open doors.

“Did they bring my mother onboard?” I asked her.

Ruth said something I didn't catch in the roar of the wind.

“What?” I yelled.

“
Slay them all,
” Isabel said.

“I don't think Ruth said that.”

“I didn't see your mother!” Ruth said, shouting now.

The boat swung about, and I could see the main cabin, and the bridge above it. Several figures were silhouetted in its lights, but we were too far away to see who they were.

“It's going to cross in front of the bait shop!” Lydia shouted. She ran out onto the pier. I hesitated for a second, then chased after her.

The lights along the pier swayed in the wind. The entire structure seemed to shudder as the waves struck the pilings. At the end of the pier, the lights of the bait shop shimmered through the rain. I wouldn't have been surprised if everything suddenly went dark, the pier broke free from the shore, and the shack dropped into the bay. The lobster boats bobbed heavily in their berths. Lights shined from a few pilothouse windows. No doubt the crews were trying to tie everything down before the storm hit in full. Battening down the hatches.

Lydia was twenty feet ahead of me. A bulky figure appeared in front of her—Chilly Bob. He raised his hand to shield his eyes from the rain and yelled, “What the heck are—”

Lydia dodged to his right, barely breaking stride. He twisted to reach for her, and I went around to his left. Out on the water, the
Albatross
was aiming for the mouth of the bay, and seemed to be moving slowly in the choppy seas.

Lydia stopped, pointed over the side of the pier. “Bob's outboard,” she shouted.

I looked over the side. Below, Bob's orange boat was tied to the pier, bucking in the waves. The boat rose up, then slammed into the pilings. No
way
, I thought. We'd die in that thing.

Someone grabbed my arm. “What you up to, little man?” Chilly Bob bellowed. His salt-and-pepper beard was strangely matted by the rain, becoming five separate beards fighting for control of his face. He'd added another layer of clothing, a green plastic poncho with a peaked hood, and rain coursed down the creases in streams and rivulets. He looked like a mountain in the rainforest: not just his own landscape, but his own ecosystem.

I tried to yank my arm free, but his grip was fierce.

“No more messin' about on my pier!” Chilly Bob said, and pulled me toward him. He shouted something else, but I was beyond hearing him now. The only thing in my head was the roar of static.

Instead of pulling away, I grabbed the front of his poncho and yanked him toward me. His eyes went wide in surprise.

Pictures flashed behind my eyes: a dozen violent things I wanted to do to this man. “
Get out of my way,
” I said.

Chilly Bob released his grip. He backed away from me, then stumbled. He caught himself, then turned and ran down the pier, poncho flapping.

Lydia stepped up to me. “What did you say to him? Harrison?”

I turned to face her, and Lydia stepped back in alarm.

I took a breath, trying to calm myself down.

“Are you okay?” she asked. Rain had plastered her hair to the sides of her face.

“We've got to catch them,” I said. The
Albatross
had passed the pier and was heading out to sea, picking up speed. “This way.”

I ran toward a berth closer to the shack. Below was the lobster boat
Muninn
, parked nose-first against the pier. The rear of the boat was stacked high with lobster pots. No one was on deck, but the cabin lights still glowed.

I took a breath, then climbed down the ladder to the platform below, and then jumped onto the rocking deck of the boat. A man in a yellow rain slicker came around the side of the cabin, a length of rope wrapped around his shoulder. He saw me and stopped.

I shouted, “Mr. Hallgrimsson! We need your help!”

“Get off my boat!” Erik Hallgrimsson yelled above the wind. He looked up to see Lydia climbing down after me. “
All
you kids.”

I pointed toward the back of the
Albatross
. “They're taking my mom. Trying to finish the job.”

He glanced toward the departing ship, then turned back. “I can't help you. You're the worst kind of bad luck, kid.”

“That's the boat that rammed the
Huginn
!” I yelled. “Those are the people who killed your father!”

He stared at me.

“Hal Jonsson
was
your father, wasn't he?” I hadn't figured this out until I'd seen Hal's true name in the newspaper in the library. Icelandic names are patronymic—so the son of Hallgrim Jonsson would have the last name of Hallgrimsson—and Erik's son, if he had one, would be named Eriksson. I stepped closer to him. “Are you telling me you're going to let them get away with it?”

He looked again at the
Albatross
. Its lights were barely visible through the rain. The ship looked like it had almost reached the mouth of the bay.

“You know this?” he said. “For a fact?”

“Guaranteed.”

*   *   *

By the time Hallgrimsson cast off and we'd turned the
Muninn
toward the mouth of the bay, the
Albatross
had disappeared into the rain and fog.

“She could be two hundred yards in front of us,” the lobsterman said. “Can't see a thing.”

“You've got to go faster,” Lydia said.

“If she gets to open water, we're not going to catch her,” he said. “She's bigger and faster than us.”

“Then go faster
now
,” Lydia said.

As far as I could tell, most of our motion was vertical. The waves threw the nose of the boat up and slammed it down. The pilothouse was a small space, and smelled of lobster and diesel. I could barely stand to look out the small rectangular windows, preferring to concentrate on a patch of wall that wasn't moving, relatively speaking.

“Don't you hurl on my deck,” Hallgrimsson said to me. With his foot he nudged a plastic bucket toward me. “Or on my life jacket.” He'd insisted that Lydia and I both put on life preservers.

“I didn't think it would be like this,” I said.

“This ain't nothing,” Hallgrimsson said. “Wait till we get out of the bay.”

Perhaps I moaned. He definitely laughed.

“Do you know where they're heading?” he asked.

I took a breath. “Back to where my mom was setting out the buoys on the second day.”

“That's a pretty wide area.”

“I can give you coordinates.”

“Oh,” he said. “Then punch 'em into the machine.” He nodded at the GPS to the left of the wheel. It looked just like the car models, though the screen was bigger than usual. I detached myself from the wall and managed to make it the two steps to the machine without losing my dinner.

“Lights!” Lydia said. She pointed out the window. I could see nothing but the smear of rain across the glass.

From a rack above his head, Hallgrimsson took down a gigantic pair of binoculars—much bigger than the pair I'd bought in the mall. “They've stopped just outside the mouth of the bay, near the shore.” He lowered the glasses. “I thought you said they were heading out to sea.”

On the GPS screen, the crocodile mouth of Dunnsmouth Bay was easy to see. The
Albatross
was right up against the lower jaw. I zoomed out the map another level. “Lydia, the school's right about there, right?”

She came over to the GPS. Five or six hundred yards of rock separated the
Albatross
from the school.

“Okay, but—” Then she got it. “The Scrimshander's cave.”

“We never searched out that far, because there's no beach,” I said. “Now.” A hundred and fifty years ago, Tobias Glück had walked to the cave from the docks. We'd assumed he'd gone to the north-side cliffs, because those were the only caves we could get to. But who knows how much the coastline had been reshaped by surf and storms and rising water levels?

“Global warming,” I said.

Lydia said, “The tunnels could run right to the school.”

I was such an idiot. Lub had told me that his people lived a ten-minute swim from the tip of the bay. It would make sense for the Scrimshander and the Toadmother to have made their tunnels there.

“What are you two talking about?” Hallgrimsson said.

“I may have lied to you,” I said. “My mom's not on that boat—yet. I think they're stopping to load her onboard.”

“That means we can still catch them,” Lydia said.

“And what do we do when we do that?” he asked. “Board them like pirates?”

“As soon as we know she's on their ship, that's kidnapping,” Lydia said. “We radio the authorities.”