Island (3 page)

I ran to his side and took his arm. “It’s almost over,” I said.

“At my age, you say that to yourself every day,” he said with a wan smile.

“I meant the
cruise
!”

Grandpa wasn’t listening to me. His eyes seemed hollow and frightened. “Do you ever feel like stopping time, Rachel? Just staying the same age forever?”

Something’s up.

He’s not himself.

The cruise is affecting his mind.

I knew it.

“Why do you ask?” I said.

Grandpa was giving me a funny, faraway smile. “Remember how you and I used to sing together when you were little — we’d pretend we were onstage?”

I nodded. “And Mom and Dad yelled at you because I wasn’t doing my homework.”

“Promise me you’ll remember those songs. Always. Sing them aloud. Make mistakes, go to places you’re not supposed to.
Live.
My grandfather told me that. He saved me when my parents had almost trampled my spirit into the dust. Don’t give in, Rachel, or you’ll spend the rest of your life trying to get that spirit back. Like me.”

“Grandpa, you’re scaring me.”

“Just promise me. Because soon I won’t be around to remind you.”

“Stop! You’re in great shape! You’re going to live forever!”

“No, Rachel. Don’t
ever
say that.
No one
should live forever. Better to die among people you love than outlive them all.”

“It was … a figure of speech, Grandpa.”

His face grew distant once more. “Pardon me. I’m … feeling a bit cranky, dear. I’ll … rest.”

As he shuffled into the cabin, he seemed to be shrinking. I felt as if I were seeing him slowly disappear before my eyes.

I turned away. I couldn’t watch.

And I became aware of a prickling at the back of my neck.

I
was being watched.

I glanced over my shoulder.

Colin’s eyes startled me at first. In the reflection of the afternoon sun they seemed almost transparent.

“Hi,” he said.

“Don’t you have to work?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I cleared all the glasses. Dinner prep starts in a half hour.”

“Cool,” I said.

We began walking along the railing. I wasn’t really in the mood to talk.

Colin had his hands in his pockets. I noticed his shoes were soaking wet. “Accident?” I asked.

“Accidents. Plural. Lemonade on the left. Bloody Mary on the right.”

“Clumsy.”

Colin shrugged. He was beet-red now.

I liked that about him. For a tough guy, he embarrassed easily.

I was surprised when he took my arm.

But I didn’t pull back.

Soon we were heading down the metal stairway at the bow of the boat.

Belowdecks was a narrow, cramped walkway. Overhead, the floor of the upper deck formed a low ceiling, No one was down there but us.

I didn’t mind. Much.

“Why are we here?” I asked.

“So no one asks me for a spare lemon or another cup of coffee. I’m on break.”

“Oh.”

A salty breeze caught me full in the face and I breathed in deeply. We both turned toward the water. The cloud wall seemed closer than before, its ebbing whirls clear to the naked eye.

“Besides,” Colin said, “you sounded like you wanted to escape. From the party.”

“
This
is an escape?”

“You’d prefer a tropical island?”

“Definitely.”

“ ‘Where the lemonade springs and the bluebird sings …’” he sang in a shaky, whispery voice, “ ‘and no one ever grows o-o-older … ’ Or something like that.”

“ ‘The Big Rock Candy Mountain’!” I said. “Grandpa Childers used to sing it to me all the time.”

“So … what’s keeping us?”

“You called your helicopter?”

Colin stood up straight. He pulled off his shirt, kicked off his shoes, and began to climb the railing. “Who needs a helicopter?”

“Colin, what are you doing?”

“We can go there ourselves.” He crouched, pitched forward, and dived into the bay. When he emerged, he let out a whoop. “The water’s perfect!”

“YOU’RE CRAZY!”

“The ship is floating. The propellers are off!”

“But your pants — ”

“I’ll change later! Come on!”

Insane.

“Someone will see us!” “ He gazed toward the upper deck. “No one cares!”

“My mom and dad would kill me!”

“They’re already mad. How much worse could it get?”

“But my dress — ”

“Okay, your choice. Be back in a minute.”

He swam away. Butterfly-stroking. Back-paddling. Spitting water high into the air.

I felt hot and itchy. My dress was stifling.

What am I afraid of?

What wasn’t I afraid of?

Live.

Go to places you’re not supposed to.

It doesn’t have to make sense.

Just do it.

I thought about going back to the upper deck. To the party. To Mom and Dad. To Grandpa Childers’s sad face.

I took off my shoes.

I held tightly to the railing.

And I pitched myself over.

Number 209, you can’t get away with this!

Don’t bother. The channel’s off.

C
OLD.

Freezing cold.

The water hurt.

I broke the surface and gasped.

“You did it!” Colin shouted.

I tried to answer, but my lips were locked.

I turned back toward the yacht. I expected Mom or Dad to be watching. Furious.

But they weren’t there. Just a dozen or so party guests, who were too busy talking to pay attention to us.

Colin was treading water furiously, fingers pointing upward. “Thirty-seven, thirty-eight — you think — thirty-nine, forty — I can pass a lifeguard test?”

I lunged toward him, splashing water in his face. “N-n-nope.”

“Hbbbbb-hey!” he burbled.

I swam away — crawl, my fastest stroke.

I could hear him following.

He grabbed my feet. I went under.

As I broke the surface, coughing and gasping, I yelled out, “Some lifeguard!”

He sent a huge plume of water into my face. “Gotcha back!”

I chased him. He chased me.

And no one cared.

Up on board, they were all
talking.
Stocks and bonds and portfolios and pretty maids all in a row.

“Boring!” I shouted to them.

“Landlubbers!” Colin added.

This was fun.

Fun.

We were floating on our backs now, drifting away from the yacht. In the sharp-angled sun, the sky was a wash of colors, from pale amber to deep blue.

“Still scared?” he asked.

“No.”

It was the truth.

I
wanted
Mom and Dad to see us.

I imagined the shock on their faces.

I imagined waving good-bye and swimming to the horizon. Plunging into the clouds to find my dreamland, my castle —

Clouds.

I twisted my body around.

A wall of white faced me.

Close.

Extremely close.

How — ?

Colin was backstroking toward the cloud wall, smiling blissfully, eyes closed.

“COME BACK!” I shouted.

He didn’t hear me.

The sound.

A low hissing. A rumbling.

“Colin!”

Don’t yell. Go.

His head was disappearing into the mist … his shoulders and chest …

The clouds seemed to be reaching out.

Billowing toward us.

I couldn’t see him now. All I saw was

White.

A curtain of white.

Opening. Expanding. Beckoning.

Turn around.

I stopped swimming and looked behind me.

The yacht was small. Impossibly distant.

And then, in a rush of wind, it was gone.

I felt my hair rise up from its roots.

The sky was washed white.

All that was behind me and before me — white. I couldn’t even see the water.

Where is he?

“COL-I-I-IN!”

I heard him call my name back.

I swam toward the sound.

The water rose up to slap my face. I fought to keep from swallowing it. “WHERE ARE YOU?”

“Here!”

To my left.

I veered blindly.

A moment later, my arm hit something solid.

“Rachel! Hold on to me!”

I grabbed Colin’s arm. Now I could see him. Faintly, like an apparition. He was pulling me forward.

“You’re going the wrong way!” I cried, pulling against him.

“No!” he shouted back. “It’s this way!”

What’s he doing?

In the blankness, there was no telling direction at all. I tried to swim, holding on to Colin. Coughing up salt water. We hit a cold spot and my right leg seized up.

“DON’T FIGHT ME, RACHEL!”

“I HAVE A CRAMP!”

“WHERE?”

“RIGHT CALF!”

He was holding me now. Lifting me higher. Above the water. Turning me horizontal. Massaging my calf.

I saw him gulping water, floundering.

Swim.

Swim now or he’ll drown.

I flexed my foot. I kicked. My leg was usable again. “I’M OKAY!”

I took his arm and swam forward, but a wave welled up between us, and he slipped out of my grip.

“WHERE ARE YOU?” I yelled.

No answer.

I looked around frantically.

There.

Through a momentary break in the clouds.

He was swimming.

In the opposite direction.

“NO-O-O!”

My cry was swallowed up in the mist.

With each breath, water flooded my mouth. Seared my lungs.

Don’t drown.

I thrust my arms into the water. Pushing. Keeping my head up. Anything that worked.

But I was losing.

Losing oxygen.

Losing strength.

Losing the battle.

I turned my head upward and tried to gulp air.

And that was when I heard the roar.

It rose behind me like the sound of a caged beast. Only it wasn’t animal or human.

I felt something pulling me back. A force in the water.

Undertow.

I knew about undertows.

I knew you couldn’t resist them.

They took you wherever they wanted.

Usually to the bottom of the sea.

Fight it.

FIGHT IT, RACHEL.

I tried. But I felt myself falling into a hole.

A hole in the water.

The white was fading to black.

My tense muscles went limp. My thoughts — an entire life condensed into fast-forward images — eddied upward and out of my body.

And I knew I could fight no more.

It is done.

We do not kill.

I didn’t mean to do that. I meant to save lives.

I
WAS UNCONSCIOUS WHEN
the jolt came.

But I felt it.

In a dim flicker of awareness, I felt my body lurch upward with a force so sudden it threatened to rip me apart.

My head tore through the surface of the water. Air exploded out of me.

Air.

I pulled it in. I devoured it, in racking gulps. I felt nothing but the action of my lungs, pumping. My arms thrashed in the water, my legs kicked wildly.

Alive. I’m alive.

I was bouncing, moving forward on violent swells.

Before me, the mist was thinning.

A dark form floated in the distance.

Land.

Just a glimpse. As quickly as it appeared, it was engulfed by the cloud.

I took control of my body. Steady arm movements. Lifting myself with the rhythm of the wave. Pushing toward the landmass.

There.

Its shape was still dark. Still vague.

But closer.

I’d turned around. I was heading home.

Just keep yourself afloat.

Then, with a barely audible pop, the hiss stopped. The silence was so sudden, so total, it felt
physical
— like pitching forward into a ditch.

The mist had lifted.

I was floating on calm water.

The landmass was clear.

It was a cove, ringed by rocky outcroppings. The sand was bright pink in the sunlight.

Sunlight. Calm.

As if the clouds didn’t exist.

I swam toward the shore — slowly, favoring my aching muscles.

Soon I was bodysurfing on a long, low wave that took me into the shallows.

My legs were shaky and weak as I staggered onto the beach. I scanned the short coastline and the expanse of water, hoping to see Colin. Or the yacht.

No sign of either.

The clouds were sitting on the water, pillowlike. Looking so harmless, so …

Distant.

Strange. I couldn’t have swum
that
far. The clouds seemed miles away — exactly the way they’d appeared back home.

But this isn’t home.

I gazed around the cove. Nothing was familiar.

I knew the coves of Nesconset. All of them.

This was someplace else.

Where?

The nearest island to Nesconset was just beyond the horizon line. Twenty-nine miles away. There was also a cluster of small islands near Woods Hole. But that was at least thirty miles to the west.

I couldn’t have swum that far. Impossible. Even the steamship ferry took two and a half hours to cover the distance.

Besides, the sun was still in the same spot. I’d been in the water for a half hour, tops.

“Colin?” I called out.

I headed up the nearest sand dune. At the top I’d have a better view. My dress and hair were dripping, my feet bare.

Halfway up, I stiffened.

Voices. From the other side.

Muffled. Unintelligible.

“HELLO?” I shouted, breaking into a hobbing run. “I’M OVER HERE!”

I crested the dune.

And someone sprang at me from the other side.

She did it.

You were lucky, Number 209.

I trust she’s in good hands.

“A
AAAAAAGH!”
I
SCREAMED.

I bit my attacker’s arm.

He jumped off. I scrambled to my feet and faced him. He was at least six feet tall. His face was acne scarred, his hair short on the sides and slicked back into a severe ducktail. He sneered at me as he massaged his arm.