The Fires Beneath the Sea ebook - Lydia Millet (primary phonics .txt) 📗

message, quickly and half whispering.

“Max thinks I’m crazy,” she said when she finished, and rolled her eyes, ready for Jax to make fun of her, too.

But his small face looked serious.

“Jax? What is it?”

“I don’t know,” he said solemnly, and shook his head. “But it has to do with her. Just like he did.”

“He?”

“The man in the rain.”

“You didn’t tell me he had something to do with Mom!”

“I’m not sure,” he said. “I just have a feeling.”

She looked into his blue eyes and knew he believed it.

“Max would say we’re both crazy,” she said.

“Then don’t tell him,” said Jax.

“By the way,” she said, remembering. “I also saw two otters. I swear! One yesterday, another one this morning. I was going to tell you before, but then I figured—actually, I was thinking about the last time you spied on me.”

“I’m sorry about that,” said Jax, and looked down, a bit ashamed.

“Mmm,” said Cara.

“I didn’t mean to, you know,” he mumbled after a pause.

“I guess,” said Cara.

But even if that was true—and she thought she believed him—in a way she didn’t care, because the point was that whether he had meant it or not, it had still been really, really embarrassing. No one should be able to see the truly private stuff.

“Anyway,” she said awkwardly. “Have you ever heard of otters around here?”

“There are still river otters in some coastal marshes,” said Jax slowly, “but I wouldn’t think there’d be any on the Cape.”

“The first one I saw was at Nauset Light. Floating on its back.”

Jax shook his head, perplexed. “But lying on their backs is a sea otter behavior. There shouldn’t be any sea otters for thousands of miles!”

“That’s what I thought,” said Cara.

They didn’t talk for a minute, staring down at the boat’s white wake as it curled away behind them.

“So what do you think the message means?” she asked finally. “Consult the leatherback made me think of an old book or something. But it’s actually a kind of big sea turtle, right?”

“I have to think about that one,” said Jax.

“Look! There!” said a tourist lady. “A whale! Spouting!”

The engine throttled down as the boat came about.

“That’s a pilot whale,” said Teddy.

All Cara could see was a grayish hump—that was her problem with whale-watching. It was all humps that looked like rocks. Whales were cool, but you could see more of them on nature shows.

Still, it was probably better to be here than dragging around the mall while her dad asked her questions like Why do some of the boys wear their pants so ridiculously baggy, and the others wear them so tight?

Jax pulled out his phone and took a picture.

Later, lying in bed, she had a long talk on her own cell phone—basic, not smart—with Hayley, in her own bed a few doors down the street. They had a plan where the minutes were free if you waited till late enough.

She told Hayley about the driftwood.

“Are you smoking something?” asked Hayley. “First there were those ocean beavers, now this.”

“Not beavers, Hay.”

“Chillax. You’re kind of freaking me out here.”

Hayley moved on to other subjects—who would talk to them at school this fall and who would ignore them; whether her mom would give her a big enough allowance for her to “accessorize.” She and her mom often struggled pretty hard with money, and Cara thought it made her feel better about it to treat it like it was trivial, like all it would affect was her fashion stylings….

After they hung up, Cara fell asleep with her reading light on. The next thing she knew, Jax was tugging at her arm. Since her mother left, he did that sometimes—came in at two or three in the morning to ask if he could sleep in her room.

“What is it, Jax?” she asked blearily, propping herself up on her elbows. “You want to sleep in here?”

Her little brother, in ancient pajamas speckled with dinosaurs, shook his head.

“You sure? It’s OK if you do.”

“It’s not that,” he whispered. “It’s that he’s … here.”

Cara sat bolt upright.

“He?”

“You know. The guy.”

“Here where?”

“Outside the door. The front door of the house.”

“Should we get Dad? What should we do?”

“He doesn’t want Dad. He wants us.”

“But I—you said he didn’t have a—a signal.”

“He doesn’t. But he still communicates.”

She didn’t want anything to do with it. It was giving her a sickening feeling.

TAKE CARE OF THEM ….

Who? Jax? Max? Who else could it be?

“Why should we talk to him? It’s night, Jax. It’s scary!”

“I have to. He calls and calls, Cara. Into my head. It’s like someone’s yelling at me. He won’t stop till we go down to him.”

“It’s not safe, Jax. Let’s wait him out, just wait until he leaves. You can go up to Dad’s room. Or stay in here tonight. With me.”

She patted her coverlet.

But Jax shook his head.

“I can’t. He’s blaring at me.”

Maybe Jax is making this up, she thought hopefully. After all, we’re talking about Jax here: a pretty weird kid. Maybe this is all in his head, and if I’m supposed to take care of him, then it’s my job to listen. And watch him.

“OK,” she said slowly. “What do you want me to do, then?”

He turned, and she got up and followed, shutting Rufus in her room so he wouldn’t bark and wake everyone.

Outside her room she flicked on the hall light, then the light over the stairs. Every light switch she saw, she flicked. Anything to make it brighter and more everyday.

Down they went, Jax padding ahead of her in his sock feet.

Their front door was old, thick with multiple coats of paint; the top half had a rectangular window with diamond-shaped panes.

“Is it locked?” she whispered.

Jax nodded.

“It’s too high up for me to get a good view,” he said.

So she stepped in front of him. She stood at the door and reached over to the wall, to the light switch for the porch.

She flicked it upward.

And gasped, jumping back and banging into Jax.

There he was.

The glass in the door