Secrets of Stone and Sea, page 16
“Just a vision,” Kai said. “We’re fine. In fact, we’ve been having fun, playing games.”
Games? That’s what Kai had been doing while Peter talked to Goody Nurse?
Dad stared as the cloth in Kai’s hand crumbled to dust. “Was that it?”
Kai nodded, and Peter looked at the cemetery. After they activated the seal, something bad usually happened. So he watched, waiting.
Nothing came. The place was as silent as the grave.
“All things considered, I liked this one better than the tunnel,” Dad said. “No explosions. Now, come on. We have the rest of the day, and we’re in Salem.”
So they went back to the car. Dad got his wish, and they visited the House of the Seven Gables. They also visited a couple of witch museums.
At one of them, Peter found a list of the people who were executed as witches. Giles Corey, the man pressed to death at Howard Street, was on it. He touched the name, wondering if that man wished he’d done something, or hadn’t done something, before he died.
As he was about to move away, another name caught his eye. Rebecca Nurse. An elderly woman, executed for witchcraft.
Feeling sick and guilty, but not knowing why, Peter left the list. He found his dad and brother, and left Salem, thinking about seals and Seas and kind old women who gave advice that no one followed.
* * *
They returned to the Widow’s Walk later that evening. Peter slumped into an armchair, exhausted. He didn’t know why, really, since Kai apparently had the real adventure. He wouldn’t shut up about it all the way to the bed-and-breakfast.
“I met a girl and two women and they gave me riddles,” he told their dad as Peter sat in the back seat. “If I failed the riddles, they were going to take my knowledge and my strength. But I guessed them right. I solved them, all by myself!”
“That’s great!” Dad had said.
Peter had frowned, though. Kai had said earlier that he’d gotten the last riddle wrong. He’d been troubled by that. Why gloss over that now?
Probably to sound more like the hero he thought he was.
Dad turned to Peter. “Rocky, what happened with you?”
Peter shrugged. “Nothing much.” Meeting Goody Nurse still unnerved him. How could not choosing be a choice? That didn’t make any sense.
What if by not choosing he let Kai’s recklessness get someone else hurt?
Why should it matter? He never wanted a part in this in the first place.
Even though the sun was setting behind a screen of gray clouds, neither Sophie nor Grandma had returned to the bed-and-breakfast.
“That’s odd,” Dad said. “Sophie’s shift should have ended hours ago.”
Peter had expected to find his sister working on her chemistry notes in her room. “Maybe she’s helping Grandma clean up.”
“Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense,” Dad said. He jingled the car keys. “Let’s go return Grandma’s car and help them finish for the night.”
They made the short drive to Grandma’s house, and Peter’s jaw dropped. A police car was at the house, red and blue lights flashing against the growing dark. Grandma stood on the porch, talking to an officer.
Dad leaped out of the car. “Mom! What happened?”
Grandma, eyes glinting wet, reached for Dad. Peter’s heart thumped. He followed Dad, with Kai right behind him.
Dad was shaking his head. He looked like he had at the cemetery: pale and hopeless.
“Dad?” Peter asked. “What happened?”
“Sir, Sophie Syracuse is your daughter, correct?” the officer asked.
Dad nodded, and the officer added, “I’d like to ask you some questions. Get a profile. Figure out if she may be with the others.”
She? As the officer escorted Dad to the side, Peter turned to Grandma. “Where’s Sophie?”
Grandma put her hand on his shoulder. “She came by after work, to help me clean the house. I tried to convince her she’d be more helpful hunting down the seals, and she got upset, though she tried to hide it. She hasn’t been herself, starting with the ghost voices on the wind, but it got a lot worse after you boys went to Hoosac Tunnel.” Grandma shuddered. “Sophie … Sophie said she needed to figure some things out. She went on a walk.” Grandma looked at the horizon. “She went toward the beach.”
It was like lightning had struck Peter in the chest, like he was both burning and freezing from the inside out. The beach.
The beach.
Sophie had gone to the beach.
He didn’t need to ask Grandma if that was the last time she saw Sophie. He knew it was. If it hadn’t been, she wouldn’t have called the cops. She wouldn’t look like she’d lost a great treasure.
It was all too clear.
The Sea had taken Sophie.
CHAPTER 19
LOST
KAI
Sophie was gone.
As soon as Kai heard that she was missing, he ran down to the shore, with Peter and his dad on his heels. The sand was swept clean by the frequent rain, except for a set of footprints. Sophie’s footprints, leading to the water.
They ended there.
Dad pushed Kai behind him, and paced back and forth beside the water. “She must have walked in the tide,” he said. “We just have to find where she left the water.”
“Dad,” Kai said. “You should step back.”
“No, you stay back!” Dad looked almost feral. “The Sea wants you two, not me, and not Sophie. She must be around somewhere.”
If that were true, Kai thought, Grandma wouldn’t be so worried.
Kai stepped closer to the water, close enough that if the ocean wasn’t shattered by waves, he would have been able to see his reflection.
Another wave surged with a sound like a deep sigh. And another. And then, a wave came with a roar. This one dropped something on the sand at Kai’s feet.
A phone.
Sophie’s phone.
Kai picked it up. As he held the phone, it sputtered to life, revealing the lock screen: a shot of Sophie and her friends last Fourth of July, waving sparklers. Then the picture flickered and died, and water gushed out of the phone. More water than Kai thought even a drowned phone could hold.
The message was clear. Kai fell back to where Peter was standing. “It’s got her,” he said to his twin, showing him the phone.
Peter nodded and bounced as he dug his foot into the sand. Kai’s twin stood perfectly straight and stiff. “Do you think it drowned Sophie?” Peter whispered. “To make us stop?”
“If it did, it’s an idiot,” Kai growled. “If anything happened to Sophie, I won’t rest until that monster is locked away for good. Or destroyed.”
Peter’s bouncing intensified. “Something did happen to her,” he said in a rough voice.
“Then I guess I have a promise to keep.”
Kai turned around and marched back into town, Peter following behind him.
“Kai, what are you doing? Kai, stop!”
Kai halted so fast Peter ran into him. “Kai,” Peter said again. “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m going to find Sophie.”
“It’s getting late. It’s already dark, and Dad, Grandma, and the police are already searching—”
Kai couldn’t believe it. “Are you saying we just do nothing?”
“No, of course not. But are you saying you’re just going to … challenge the Sea?”
“You know me. I like a challenge.”
Kai started to move again, but Peter grabbed his arm. “Just stop and wait a moment. Think. If you anger the Sea, it might hurt Sophie. If it hasn’t already.”
“It hasn’t.” Kai wouldn’t even entertain that thought.
“What about the others?”
“What?”
Peter took a deep breath. “The cop back there said Sophie might be with ‘the others.’ If the Sea got her, maybe she’s not the only one. Maybe it took a bunch of hostages.”
Oh. Kai searched the beach. It was remarkably empty, which could have been due to bad weather, but what if the Sea swept more than Sophie away with it?
The beach’s sand was smoothed, as if a huge wave had covered it from end to end. Peter had to be right.
Kai gritted his teeth. “All the more reason to find them now. To stop the Sea now.”
It was so clear to Kai. It would be to Peter, too, in a moment.
Kai watched, waiting for Peter to give in.
Then Peter shook his head. “No.”
“No what?”
“No, I’m not going to help you. I won’t risk Sophie’s, or anyone else’s, life just because you want to play the hero.”
Anger boiled inside Kai. “That’s not what this is about. This is you not wanting to actually do anything, isn’t it? Our sister was captured by a monster, and you want to do nothing?”
“If the alternative is making things worse, then yes!”
“We make things worse by doing nothing.”
“Yeah?” Peter leaned forward, fists clenched. “And how would you make this better? If you go off looking for Sophie, what happens? Maybe you find her. And then the Sea will try to stop you, and you’ll fight it, and lose, and it will take out its anger on Sophie and the other hostages. Have you even stopped to think about the cost?”
The word “cost” cut like shark’s teeth. “There won’t be a cost! We’re going to save them, and that’s how it’s going to be.”
Peter stared at Kai. “Do what you want,” he said. “But I’m going back to the Widow’s Walk to come up with a plan. Try not to get the whole town flooded before the thought that this might not be the best idea finally makes it into your thick skull.”
Peter shoved his hands in his pockets and started the trudge across town to the Widow’s Walk.
Kai seethed. How could Peter sit idly by when Sophie needed their help? Didn’t he care more about her than about his fear that he’d mess up somehow? Didn’t he care about Sophie at all?
But what if he’s right? What if you did mess this up and Sophie got hurt? What if an innocent person who just wanted to explore the beach today got hurt? First Dad’s arm, then Grandma’s house. The cost is piling up, Kai. For everyone. Except you.
No. Kai just had to work harder. Try harder. Starting with getting the people of Seaspire back from the Sea.
Kai was sure Sophie was still alive. The Sea was many things, but Kai didn’t think it was stupid. Alive, Sophie was a bargaining chip. And that phone, washed up at Kai’s feet? That was a ransom letter. I have your sister. If you want her back, stop activating the seals.
Nice try, but Kai didn’t negotiate with terrifying sea monsters.
Well, the good thing about a sea monster was that you always knew where to find it. As the sky darkened with night and the police and Dad drove inland to look for Sophie, Kai marched down to the shore. “Hey, ugly!” he yelled. “Give me back the people you took!”
Nothing responded but the roar of the waves.
Growling, Kai picked up a huge rock and lobbed it into the surf. It sent up plumes of white water. He picked up another stone and threw it.
“I can end you,” he said as he picked up another rock. “I’ll keep throwing rocks. Little pieces of the land. With every piece I throw, you get smaller, and weaker, and even more pathetic than you already are.”
A thought quietly reminded him that water volume didn’t work like that, but Kai didn’t care and, anyway, he didn’t have time to think about physics before the Sea rose in a crash of water in front of him.
“HOW DARE YOU!” it thundered. Whirlpools formed and water spouted. Kai dived as the rocks he’d thrown, plus several more, shot back at him.
The Sea rode the waves higher into the air. “How dare you pollute my domain with shards of land? With filth? Do you wish death, human boy?”
Spitting sand, Kai yelled back, “How dare you abduct my sister? Give her back!”
The ocean foamed and seethed. “DO YOU PRESUME TO GIVE ME ORDERS?”
“Yeah, I presume!” Kai stood up. The churning water only mirrored his own feelings: turbulent, dark, and enraged. “They’re not part of this. Sophie doesn’t even care about this.”
“She cares more than you think,” the Sea said.
“What have you done to her? To all of them?”
“They’re safe. Now you understand how it feels to have something prized stolen from you.” Kai frowned. What had they stolen from the Sea? The creature continued, “Give up your quest, and I will give them back. Perhaps I will give you a day’s head start to escape my waters when they come.”
“No.” Digging his toes in the sand, Kai glared at the Sea. “I won’t run.”
“I could destroy you, child.”
“So do it! What, are you scared?”
The Sea just laughed. “You are no threat to me.”
“Oh yeah?” Kai laughed. “Then why did you abduct Sophie and the others, if you’re so powerful and I’m no threat? You want leverage over me because I can stop you. I can send you back to your prison.”
“You have no idea what you meddle with,” the Sea said. Kai thought it sounded a little panicked.
“I know enough to know we can defeat you.” Realization struck Kai. “You can’t hurt me. Sure, you can send your water, but as long as I’m on land, I’m stronger than you.”
Standing firm on shore, Kai felt like a hero. Here, facing the enemy, issuing a challenge. Here, he’d save the hostages, including Sophie, and force the monster to comply.
But then the Sea bellowed with rage. “LAND?”
A giant wave plowed into Kai, slamming him into the sand.
“DO YOU THINK YOUR LAND PROTECTS YOU?”
Another wave.
Kai choked on water and sand and tried to crawl away, but the force was too strong.
Wave after wave pounded Kai. They flattened his chest, squeezing out the last wisps of air. Water smothered him. He couldn’t see, couldn’t hear anything but the Sea’s voice and the rush of the ocean.
He couldn’t breathe.
On the next wave, Kai let go. The water carried him farther inland to the boardwalk, where he clung to a splintered board until the water receded. Then he staggered to his feet and ran.
The Sea howled wordlessly behind him. Thunder boomed, and wind shrieked like a train.
Kai looked back to see lightning flash. A bolt struck the Spire once, then twice, and the water’s edge raced away from the shore like it was terrified.
Then the dark sea rose in an enormous wave, and Kai turned and kept running. Behind him, wood splintered as the ocean’s wrath hammered down on the beach and wharf.
The sound of water receding into a second enormous wave met Kai’s ears, but this time he didn’t look back.
The Sea was attacking Seaspire early, and it was Kai’s fault.
What have I done?
CHAPTER 20
SCREAMS IN THE WOOD
KAI
Kai didn’t go back to the bed-and-breakfast that night. He returned to Grandma’s sodden house, now abandoned as Grandma and Dad searched for Sophie. There, he went up to his sea-stained room and huddled, trying to sleep, as the Sea sent tidal waves to rip the coast and a storm with thunder that shook the walls.
But he couldn’t go back.
He couldn’t face them, not when he’d made it worse.
He couldn’t face Peter.
What have I done? What will happen to Sophie? To Seaspire?
Somehow, Kai made it through the night.
The next morning Kai woke from fractured sleep to hear something moving downstairs. Oh no. Had Seaspire been invaded by sea monsters?
Kai sneaked downstairs to find Grandma in the wrecked kitchen. She jumped and said, “Oh, Kai! Where have you been? I’ve been searching for you all night while your father handled the police. After I saw the wharf, I was so worried. Are you okay?” She hurried over and examined him.
“How bad is it?” he asked dully. When Grandma frowned, Kai said, “The wharf. How bad is it?”
Grandma was silent for a moment. “It’s gone,” she said. “The docks closest to the beach have sustained some heavy damage, and every boat tied there has either been swept out to sea or is in splinters. The power lines went down last night. Seaspire is out of power, and some places have damaged windows from the storm. The cleanup crew is working to board the windows in town. But we’ll recover,” she said, coming over and touching Kai’s face. “You can’t keep my town down.”
So the Sea didn’t destroy Seaspire completely. It wasn’t at full power yet; maybe the wharf was all it could manage. Kai had been right; the land stopped it. For now.
Still, it wouldn’t have attacked at all if Kai hadn’t been stupid enough to challenge it.
“What about Sophie?” Kai asked sharply. “And the others?”
Grandma shook her head.
“Still missing, last we heard.”
Missing, or worse. What would the Sea have done to Sophie now that Kai made it angry?
“Come back to the Widow’s Walk,” Grandma said. “I’ll call your father from there. We can figure this out, but we’ll need to work together. All of us. You, me, your brother—”
“No.” Kai couldn’t even imagine how painful it would be to return to Peter without Sophie, for Peter to have been right all along.
“Kai—”
“No,” he said again, stepping away. “I’ll be fine. I’ll see you later.”
Kai left the house, with Grandma calling his name from the door. He didn’t turn around.
He’d find Sophie, and he’d do it on his own.
Seaspire’s streets were littered with fallen branches and garbage from cans that had been blown over. People, Grandma’s neighbors, including Mrs. Perkins, had come out to assess the damage and try to clean up.
Guilt stuck in his throat like he’d swallowed a sea urchin. Kai averted his eyes and hurried past. He ended up walking back to the shore.
The beach was washed away. Lifeguard towers were gone, and what was left of the wharf hung in jagged splinters. A few boats lay on their sides, dead in the water.
It was all Kai’s fault.
