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

“It’s kind of this—ritual, I guess,” said Jax.

“Yeah? And what’s the point of it?”

She was in a bad mood, suddenly. When they got back from undersea she’d been almost euphoric, but now she felt let down.

“It’s just fatigue,” said Jax.

She hadn’t anything out loud. She felt spied on.

“You’re not supposed to do that!” she snapped.

“I didn’t do anything!” protested Jax. “You had a look on your face! I just reacted to it, like anybody else!”

She clicked her tongue and shook her head, not quite sure if she believed him.

“Whatever,” she said finally, and looked away, drumming her fingers on the smooth top of the cafeteria table.

“The ceremony,” he went on, “has to be done tonight. Well, first thing tomorrow morning, I guess—right after midnight, that is.”

She groaned.

“Are we allowed to sleep? Ever?”

“Hey man, we’ll sleep when we’re dead,” came a voice from behind them.

Max was rolling up to the table in a wheelchair, pushed by a nurse, with their dad a few feet behind him.

Cara thought it must be a line from a song.

“Geez,” said Jax. “Is something wrong with your legs, too?”

“They always make you leave in a wheelchair, even if you can walk,” said Max.

“Standard policy,” said the nurse, nodding.

“That’s Kafkaesque,” said Jax in an admiring tone.

“Cough-what?” said Max.

“You kids ready?” asked their dad.

He looked pale, Cara thought. Even more so than she’d become used to, over the course of the summer. Hadn’t he been outside at all? In all the months of the summer, hadn’t he seen the sun?

He’d been in his office, she thought. In his study where he worked—and even slept, on that narrow sofa.

She felt a rush of concern for her dad. Was he actually doing worse than any of them?

She reached out and squeezed his hand. He looked down at her and smiled as he squeezed back—grateful, she thought.

They followed Max, and the nurse who was pushing him, out through the hospital’s automatic front doors. Walking behind the nurse, Cara wondered why they always wore the same shoes, white and homely with big thick soles. Maybe it was a nursing rule—like good-looking, normal-colored shoes would make people sicker.

“I’ll bring the rental car around,” said their dad. “You three wait here.”

“You can get out now, sweetcheeks,” said the nurse to Max, and Cara watched as she rumpled his hair with her pink-nailed hand.

Apparently even fifty-year-old ladies had crushes on her brother.

The nurse went inside again, taking the wheelchair with her.

“Sweetcheeks!” said Jax.

The three of them watched their dad hurry across the parking lot, dangling his keys from one hand. Then Max elbowed Cara with his good arm.

“I miss anything?”

She and Jax looked at each other and smiled.

“You could say that,” she said.

“We did it,” said Jax—a certain satisfaction in his voice, Cara thought. His chest was sticking out a bit, too. “We went down to the Whydah.”

Max’s mouth gaped open, making him look not so bright.

“You—what? No way!”

“Way,” said Jax, smugly.

“But how?”

“We used the scuba gear,” said Cara, and shrugged. She couldn’t help feeling a little smug herself. “It worked.”

“Man,” said Max bitterly, and shook his head. “I can’t believe I missed it.”

“We’re sorry, too,” said Jax, and Cara thought he actually looked sincere. Max had really been into the pirate-ship thing, that was true. He had to be disappointed.

“We had to go,” said Cara. “You know that, right? We saw the light on the ocean. It was time. We couldn’t wait.”

Max kept shaking his head—he could barely believe it had happened without him, she thought.

“We missed you being there,” said Cara. “Actually, I was … well. I was terrified. I didn’t want to go without you. I almost called. But then I thought of you, you know, here.” She gestured at the hospital behind them. “And I didn’t think it would be fair to wake you up when there was no way you could leave your bed anyway.”

“I guess,” said Max after a second, gruffly.

“As far as the actual ship went,” said Jax, “there wasn’t much left to see. Just sand, mostly. Some ancient rotted timbers. You know: they’d already brought up the treasure.”

“OK, spill it,” said Max reluctantly. “Quick, before Dad gets back.”

So they told him the story, falling over each other a bit to get to the most amazing parts—the selkie, the pirates with their translucence and their impossibility. When Cara described how the ghosts had been set free, he looked almost suspicious—as though that detail was more astounding than an encounter with a half-seal, half-human out of Celtic mythology.

She wished she could have taken a picture for him.

They were still talking excitedly when a horn honked and they looked up to see an unfamiliar vehicle pull up—a bright-red convertible sports car, with their dad driving.

“It was all they had,” he said sheepishly.

“A Camaro? You look like one of those midlife-crisis guys,” said Max cheerily, and got into the front.

The car only had two doors, so Cara and Jax jumped over the side into the squished backseat.

“Thanks a lot, Maximilian,” said their dad. He pushed a button, and the top started moving up, closing over their heads.

“Does it go fast?” asked Jax, as they buckled their belts.

The car pulled away from the curb—hesitantly.

“Your brother just totaled the car. You want to know if he can total this one, too?” asked their dad.

“It wasn’t his fault,” said Jax. Cara shot him a look, worried he might say too much.

“The deer,” said their dad, and nodded. “I know. It could happen to anyone. But there was no deer on the scene, according to the police. Right? He never hit it. You swerved, didn’t you, Max.”

“Swerved, yeah,” said Max. “So I, uh, wouldn’t hit the deer.”

“Deer sighting or not, it’s not going to look good to our insurance company. Believe you me.”

“He’s in the dreaded under-25 male driver bracket,” said Jax to Cara, nodding sagely. “They wreck everything. It costs the earth to insure them.”

“You got me into this,” said Max testily.

“Got you into what?” asked their dad.

There was