Salt Storm: The Salted Series: Episodes #31-35 by Galvin, Aaron (top 5 books to read TXT) 📗

Chidi’s mind raced with the memory of chasing Marisa through the Shedd Aquarium, how the elusive runner had swapped positions with Allambee and sent him out as a decoy to be caught instead. “Why didn’t you come with us at the Shedd, then?” Chidi asked. “If you saw that we would all come to be here later, why did you run at all?”

“For the same reason as the treasured gifts you wear now,” said Marisa, again pointing to the ring and necklace Chidi wore. She smiled ruefully. “I had long dreamt of meeting Grandmother Wilda. Longed to spend time at her side and hear of all the stories about her time in the War of the Ancients. Yet each time I tried to visit her, I found myself again thwarted at every turn for your crew’s continued hunting of me at the zoo also. Time and again, I attempted to seek the elderly Merrow out and speak to Wilda of the precious ring that you wear now. Both to meet and warn her that the Tide-Turner would soon come for the Ancient key that she had once been given also.”

“Why didn’t you reach her, then?” Chidi asked. “What happened to you at the zoo to keep you from it?”

Marisa snorted and looked to Bryant. “Will you tell her what happened at the Silent Hammer’s exhibit, David Bryant, or should I?”

When Bryant stumbled over a response, Chidi inferred Marisa’s inquiry of him. “You caught her there?” Chidi asked, remembering how she and Lenny Dolan had found Marisa in handcuffs in Bryant’s charge on the same night they took Garrett Weaver too.

Bryant shrugged like a little boy scolded by his mother. “Didn’t exactly know we’d all end up here, did I? Hell, if I’d have known we’d all end up this way, I might’ve just turned her loose.”

“No,” said Marisa. “And it would not matter if you had, David Bryant. For like both of you, I had kept myself blinded to truths I did not want to accept, then. But I understand now that I was never meant to meet Wilda. The final result has occurred all the same, as was always meant to be.”

“How’s that?” Bryant asked.

Marisa chuckled. “Destiny is a fickle thing, my friend, and one not easily understood upon its face. Cast a rock into a stilled pool and you may watch the ripples as they grow for your decision and the action made. But, in time, the pool will grow still again. For the next to chance that way, they may look upon the pool’s stilled surface and believe they are the first to ever pass that way. Yet beneath the surface, David Bryant, and for however deep the pool may go, the rock you threw will still remain as a testament that you once were there and made your decision. Both to stop at the time and place, the choice of which rock to pick up, and then to cast it from you also. Who is to say you were not meant to do so all along?”

Bryant scoffed. “Still don’t see how chucking rocks into a pond, or pool, has anything to do with destiny.”

“In regards to time, David Bryant, a few precious seconds can mean life or death,” said Marisa, looking on Chidi again. “But even I cannot see all ends. The results of all the decisions made, or how they come to pass. There is always a choice, but it does not mean there will not be others making their own decisions to thwart our own.”

Bryant grunted. “That may be, but if we all end up where we’re supposed to, then what’s the point?”

“You speak as one who believes we are now where we are supposed to be,” said Marisa.

“Are we not?” Bryant challenged her.

“No, David Bryant,” said Marisa Bourgeois. “We still have some way left to go before our shared journey ends . . .” she looked away from him and Chidi, toward the rear of the boat instead. “And we will not be alone in venturing there before this storm unleashes its fury in full. Say rather, before the old Salt returns to lay claim over the new.”

Chidi startled when a pair of Nomads breached the surface, not five yards away from the end of the boat. Though the waters and sky were still dark, the moonlight shone off the leader’s seashell eye-patch as he swam toward the boat.

Chidi shared a surprised look with Bryant as ran for the back of the boat. Her chest tightened when Watawa and a shadowed companion drew nearer to the boat. As both came into focus, she noted not only the two-toned skin patterns of Watawa’s companion, but recognized the teen by face and name as well. Garrett Weaver? She thought to herself, her mouth running dry when Watawa ushered Garrett to climb the ladder and join them on the deck.

Bryant reached down to help Garrett aboard. “C’mon, son,” he said, yanking the teen up the ladder and onto the deck. “There you go.”

Shivering, Garrett reached for the boat side to steady himself before taking a seat. His gaze met Chidi’s for a moment, his eyes narrowing like one swearing recognition of an old acquaintance, but unable to put a name to the person’s face.

Chidi glanced away before he could place her from when they had crossed paths ashore, inside his school after the events of the Indianapolis Zoo. She opted to find Marisa instead.

The mystic Silkie was smiling again, and not in a way that gave Chidi any comfort.

What is he doing all the way out here? She wondered of Garrett Weaver, along with a host of other questions. For all of those plaguing her mind, one came to the forefront the longer she studied the face of the elusive runner. What have you seen for him, Marisa? What awaits us and Garrett Weaver next?

Bryant distracted her from such thoughts, whistling off the back end of the boat at Watawa