The Secret Sea (6 page)

They went back and forth. Accusing. Defending. Zak put his hands over his ears, but he could still hear them. Maybe he should have told them the truth. Maybe he should have told them about Tommy, the voice, the boat, the dream. The sleepwalking. But every time he considered it, the truth seemed too enormous and too fluid to contain, as if he'd tried to gather the ocean in his arms and lift it up out of the world.

He couldn't tell them anything, so he'd told them nothing. And so they argued.

They were arguing because of him. When they'd divorced, they spent a lot of time telling him it wasn't his fault. He'd gotten used to hearing them argue, dismissing it as Parent Stuff. But this time it
was
his fault that they were yelling at each other. His fault and nothing more.

Dr. Campbell interrupted them. Zak could hear her voice, low and murmured, but he couldn't make out the words. His parents' voices eventually went mute, and a moment later the door opened.

Mom's makeup was a mess, cried into a frozen mask that made Zak think of old Native American warriors he'd seen in movies. Dad's eyes were bloodshot. They both looked like they wanted to be anywhere but in Dr. Campbell's outer office, anywhere but near each other and Zak.

“Zak? Come on in and let's talk a bit, hmm?” Dr. Campbell beckoned from just inside the door.

Zak had to force himself to stand, to walk past his parents. They'd never hit him or spanked him, but these days he figured he was headed in that direction. He probably deserved it, too. If he had a kid who'd done what he'd done, he'd seriously consider giving him a good smack.

Inside, with the door closed behind him, he was still keenly aware of his parents just on the other side of the wall. The wastebasket was filled with tissues.

He took the sofa again. Dr. Campbell sat across from him. She drew a deep breath and then smiled at him.

“So, we decided to go walkabout, eh?”

Zak wasn't sure what that meant; he shrugged.

“Walkabout is something the Aborigines do in Australia. They leave their villages or their towns on foot, and they wander in the wilderness until they have a vision from what they call Dreamtime.”

Zak startled at the description, then tried to mask his surprise. That sounded scarily like what had happened to him. Except he hadn't intended to “go walkabout.” It had just happened to him.

Dr. Campbell noticed his reaction, though. “Is that what happened, Zak?” she asked very softly. So softly, he knew, that his parents wouldn't be able to hear. “Were you looking for something?”

He said nothing.

“Was there something you needed to find?”

Still nothing.

“Did you find it?”

The cry of the gulls.
Trim the sails!
The storm overhead.

The Secret Sea.

Tommy.

What could he tell her?

He couldn't tell her anything.

Don't tell.
That's what the voice said, the voice of his imaginary friend, or maybe the voice of his long-dead uncle, dead before Zak was even born.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Zak said quietly.

Dr. Campbell nodded slowly and wrote something on her pad for the first time.

*   *   *

At home, decisions were made outside of Zak's earshot, and the next thing he knew, Dad was packing up, even though he still had four days left in his week. Mom was taking over.

“Bedroom. Now,” she said as soon as Dad left.

It was two in the afternoon. Zak didn't protest. He resisted the urge to slam his door.

He scrounged for the old iPod and plugged in the earbuds. A moment later, his best friend's long, thin face filled the screen.

“Hey, man, what's going on? You still grounded?”

“They have to invent a new word for what's happening to me.
Grounded
doesn't begin to cover it. Tell your dad I'm sorry I woke him up the other day.”

“He was already up. For
Fajr
.”

That was even worse; he'd interrupted Mr. Shamoon's morning prayers.

“Hey, look, Khalid, can I—”

“Oh, hey! Moira's on! Hang on!”

Before Zak could say anything else, a still image of Moira popped up as she loaded into the conversation. Zak couldn't help himself—he grinned as soon as he saw her. That was his default reaction to Moira, and even as depressed as he was at that moment, he still grinned.

An instant later, the image moved and she was on with them.

“Now, laddie,” Moira said, mimicking her old Irish brogue, “why are ye misbehavin' so? Don'tcha want to be playin' and gambolin' with your wee friends in these fine summer days before school's startin' again?”

She was laying it on pretty thick to amuse him. It wasn't quite the same as Mrs. O'Grady, but it still made him feel a lot better. “I'm trying, believe me. I'm trying.”

“What
happened
?” Khalid asked. He was always the one who put the camera too close to his face; now he was so eager and so excited that he had positioned it mere inches away, and Zak and Moira had a distressingly close look at his upper lip and nostrils. “I heard Pop and Mom talking about it, but I didn't get the whole thing.”

“What did they say?”

Khalid's image moved in a way that made Zak think he'd shrugged. “Not much. Just that maybe I shouldn't hang with you so much for now.”

Not much. Not much?
That was everything!

“Fortunately, we're not listening to parents these days, are we?” Moira chimed in.

“Why start now?” Khalid asked.

Zak could only nod. His throat had clogged, and he couldn't speak.

“So, you went to the tower,” Moira said. “What's going on, Zak?” Her voice had lost its playfulness. Khalid would be concerned but never let on; Moira wasn't afraid to get serious.

Zak shook his head and swallowed down the ball of hot emotion that had congealed in his throat. “I don't know,” he whispered. “I didn't mean to do it.”

Khalid furrowed his brow. Moira frowned. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“If he doesn't want to talk about—”

“Was I asking you, Khalid?”

“I think I sleepwalked.” He was grateful to Khalid for trying to spare him, but also grateful to Moira for making him talk about it. He had the two best
best
friends in the world. “I don't remember anything before waking up there.”

His friends absorbed that for a moment. If
that
freaked them out—and it should, shouldn't it?—then what would they say if he told them the rest? If he told them about Tommy and Tomás and the boat and the gulls and the storm and the sky?

“Well, that's new,” Khalid said.

“Are you sure you sleepwalked?” Moira's bottom lip was chapped and rough from her constant gnawing at it; she had it between her teeth now as she thought through the situation. “Maybe someone came and
took
you—”

That was even scarier than the idea that he'd sleepwalked! “No. The cops have video of me going in and out of the subway.”

All three fell silent and pondered that. Zak decided to risk a little more.

“Do you guys know anything about boats?”

“My people have the ship of the desert, the camel!” Khalid chortled in a very broad, fake, heavy accent, clearly glad for an opportunity to joke.

“I mean real boats, like sailing ships.”

“Why?” Moira asked.

“Well, this might seem crazy, but I just have this feeling that there was a boat there.”

“Where?”

He hesitated but then told them: “Where I was. At the tower.”

If they'd all been in the same room, he was certain that at this point Khalid and Moira would have exchanged a worried look. Instead, they both just nodded on his screen and looked away from their cameras for a moment.

Before anyone could speak again, Zak heard his mother's tread on the creaky hardwood floor outside his door. He signed off quickly and hid the iPod just as Mom opened his door.

“Dinner,” she said, clearly leaving him no other option.

*   *   *

Dad had made empanadas and left them in the fridge the day before, so Mom heated them up for dinner. She sat at one end of the table and picked and pecked at her food, a sight that set Zak's parent alarm off. Mom couldn't live with Dad or love him anymore, but she'd always liked his cooking.
“On our first date,”
she'd told Zak once, years ago,
“your father cooked chicken mole and brought it to my apartment in the Village. He thought it was the way to my heart, and I guess he was right. It was the most romantic thing I'd ever seen.”

“Hey, Mom?”

At first he thought she hadn't heard him. She just kept poking at an empanada. But she finally looked up at him, her eyes tired and dull.

“What, Zak?”

He'd meant to ask her something, but her expression prompted an apology instead. “I'm really sorry.”

She nodded as if she didn't quite believe it. “I appreciate that, but what I want is less an apology and more an explanation.”

“I don't have one.”

She threw her fork down in disgust. “Why would you do that, Zak? Leave the house and go into the city like that?” She stared at him, and he was helpless under her angry gaze. Clearly, she expected him to say something, and when he didn't, she picked up the fork again and savagely stabbed at her food. “Is this what they warn parents about when they talk about kids becoming teenagers? Because this is
crazy
, Zak. This isn't just acting out or being disrespectful. This is
dangerous.
This involved the police. You're all I—we—I have left. You could have been hurt. You could have been killed. Do you even understand how serious this is?”

“I understand,” he said quietly. Because he did. Better than
she
knew. Because he knew more than she did.

Chowing down, Zak barely tasted Dad's cooking as his mind spun wildly, trying to think of a way out of his situation. She was deeply focused on him right now, and she would take whatever he said very seriously. He might be able to learn something.

“I have a question,” he said, picking his words carefully. “Can I ask it?”

“I can't believe you're
speaking
. Yes.”

“It's about Uncle Tomás.”

The stricken look that crossed her face pained him. He felt as though he'd pressed a scalding-hot iron to her flesh. So many years later, and her brother's death still slashed at her like a sword.

“What about him?”

“You miss him, don't you?”

Mom grimaced as though hit with a migraine. “I miss him like…” Her lower lip trembled. “When I was … A while back, before you were born, your dad and I moved from the Village to Brooklyn. And I messed up and left a box of kitchen stuff in the old apartment. Nothing expensive, just some dishes. But one of them was a serving dish that was just the right size.”

Zak wasn't sure where his mother was going with this, but he said nothing and let her continue.

Wiping at the corners of her eyes with her napkin, she said, “By the time we'd unpacked in the new place, I remembered the box, but it was too late. It was days later and it was gone. And every time I have people over, I think of…” She sighed. “I miss him so much, Zak.”

“Did he
give
you the dish?”

“No. No, it's just that … That's how I miss him. Like that dish you forgot to go back for, the one that would be perfect for guests right now.”

It made no sense. It was actually ridiculous, but his mother seemed near tears anyway. He didn't want to press her, but he had to.

“Did he…”
Careful, now. Think about this.
“Did he have a boat? Or did he go out on a boat?”

Mom's pained expression melted into a mix of disbelief and exasperation. “What on
earth
are you talking about?”

Great.

“What is
with
you and boats?” she asked, and he knew then that Dr. Campbell had told his parents about his dreams. Which was fine. She'd said she would do as much.

“I don't know,” he said lamely.

“Well, here's what I know: Dr. Campbell is worried, and your father and I are worried, and we're running out of options very quickly. You're exhibiting signs of … Look, Dr. Campbell wants more intensive therapy sessions with you.”

He shrugged. Fine. Whatever.

“And she's also putting together a recommendation for some medications.”

Zak tried not to let his expression betray his surprise and dismay. Drugs. Great. Just
great.
More meds, in addition to the verapamil he took every day for his heart condition. Who knew what these new drugs would do to him? Wasn't there a chance they would just make him worse?

There were any number of kids at Wellington Academy who headed to the nurse's office each day to pop some kind of pill. ADD, ADHD, bipolar disorder, whatever. There was a medication for everything, even for the things that didn't bother the kid in question.

He'd known many of those kids before they started the meds and now after. None of them had volunteered for the drugs or asked for them. There wasn't necessarily something
wrong
with them afterward, but there wasn't necessarily something
right
, either. They were different kids now.

Maybe that's what I need. Maybe I need to be a different kid.

Would that mean sacrificing his friends? The things he loved? What would he be like, and would he like himself, and would he even be able to tell the difference?

I don't think I want to find out.

But he knew that if the decision was made, he wouldn't have a choice.