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

“Sorry. But I have to,” said Cara.

Hayley shook her head. “I may be an only child and all? But if I did have a brother, I’m really not sure I would go through all this just so he could, like, look at slimy bugs through a microscope.”

“They’re not exactly bugs,” said Cara. “They’re dinoflagellates. Phytoplankton that are bioluminescent.”

She could hardly believe she’d got all the syllables in the right order. She felt almost as smart as Jax.

“Whatev,” said Hayley.

Cara moved away from the tent and stood under one of the taller pines. The longer she stood still, staring out to a sea that didn’t even seem to be there, the more she wished she had a folding chair.

Huddled with her cell phone sheltered inside her raised jacket collar—and partly to distract herself from her nervousness—she dialed Jax.

“Tell Max you can’t see anything from inside the tent,” she said. “He needs to bring a lawn chair or something for the person who’s keeping watch. Even though it’s raining. So, Max’ll have to watch for him the whole time, too. He’ll have to watch the sea and watch for the Pouring Man. And even if he’s going to end up getting soaked, he probably still won’t want to just have to stand out here for five hours.”

She finally found a tree branch to sit on, a short way along the edge of the cliff. To her left was the red glow of the lantern from inside the tent, as Hayley read a magazine about celebrities—her main provision for the evening, which she’d brought a whole stack of. To Cara’s right there were no lights at all unless she looked out to sea, where a cruise ship was sitting with its swooping strings of yellow-white lights like Christmas decorations.

No lights nearby. Except the tent’s lantern.

Her fingers were getting cold, slick with rainwater where they stuck out of the end of her sleeves. She tried hopping from one foot to another to keep her toes warm, realizing she should have worn thick wool socks instead of thin ones beneath her Pumas. It was surprisingly cold for August, standing out here at night with the light rain falling. She listened to the waves crash below and the drizzle patter down on the leaves around her and thought of her mother. The lines in the message—the poem that supposedly told them what they needed to do—her mother had to have left that in the shell box for them, right? Because who else could have gone in and put it there? So, did that mean her mother was the one who had scratched the message on driftwood, too?

It was a strange thought, the idea that her mother might possibly have been watching her—watching her and Rufus on their morning walk, making their way down the sand road a short time after dawn, and never showed herself.

And when had her mother had a chance to put the message in the mother-of-pearl box—just a few days ago? Weeks? If she’d put it there recently, as in this summer—if she could come and go as she liked—why hadn’t she let them know she was safe? And why communicate in complicated language instead of just saying right out what they were supposed to do?

She felt a surge of resentment. First her mother had left them without warning, now she was making them do hard things—jump through these crazy hoops without even explaining why.

At least, Cara hoped it was her. Because if it was someone else, that was scarier still.

She thought she heard a faint rustle in the trees behind her. Was it him?

She tensed, ready to dash back into the tent. Then she looked to her left and noticed there was no red light emanating from the tent anymore. It was dark all around her. She should have told Hayley to keep the light on, she should have made that clear! She could take a break, couldn’t she? Five minutes. The red tide couldn’t come and go that quickly.

She had to get the light on again. She had to be able to see.

She edged toward the tent, not wanting to use her flashlight, and felt panicky when, kneeling down in front of the opening, she fumbled with the zipper on the door and couldn’t get it to unzip—a panic as though there was something right there at her back, something unknown bending down.…

Then the zipper gave, and she slipped inside, her heart beating fast.

Hands shaking, she zipped it up again.

“Hey, Car,” came Hayley’s tired voice beside her in the dark as she turned over and her sleeping bag made its swishing sound. “Did you find any of those dinoflatulence?”

“Not yet,” said Cara, and flicked the lantern on. “Sorry, but we really need to keep the light on. We have to.”

“Mmm,” murmured Hayley, not caring.

Cara pulled a blanket around herself to warm up, her teeth chattering.

Hayley’s breathing got slow and regular again—she’d fallen back to sleep. Cara told herself she could relax briefly, too—she could lie back for just five minutes, couldn’t she? Before she went outside again. Just five minutes.

In the dream, her mother was in the tent with her. Cara could almost smell her clean, lemony skin, a saltiness in her long, dark hair.

“Cara,” sighed her mother. “Cara. Cara.”

Her hair was flowing like a mermaid’s. Was that soft water around them? Or just the plain old air?

“Come home,” said Cara, begging. “Where are you?”

“Nearby, sweetie,” breathed her mother. Her voice was warm and comforting.

“Why aren’t you home with us?” asked Cara plaintively. She wanted to reach out for her mother, but her arms were not moving. She couldn’t get them to rise no matter how much she wanted them to. They weighed nothing, as though they were not attached to her.

“I’m in hiding,” whispered her mother. “Not from you, honey. But I can’t let you know where, exactly. If you knew where I was, then he would, too. He’s like Jax,