Chapter 5
With the kirr! of the diving birds rankling my head, I scramble up the mossy ramp.
Mr. Sanders’s three-level mansion looks unreachable at the end of a quarter-mile stretch.
But there, across the green—Jeddah and his father, Gilly, are carrying buckets up Nowhere Road.
I sprint toward them, cries spilling out.
Despite his grizzly appearance, sagging oil pants, and stained shirt, Gilly is a welcome sight. “My God, girl,” he blurts, glancing at my red-stained dress.
Jeddah spits. He is half the width of his father but casts the darker shadow. “She’s crazy.” His hazel eyes challenge me. Paint speckles his arms.
“He’s b-by the yew,” I stammer, pointing toward Jawbone Beach.
Gilly ticks his head toward where I’m pointing, and Jeddah bolts. Usually, Jeddah moves like he’s nailed to the earth, but with his father behind him, he is a sprung arrow, long legs flying over pine cones.
I want to flee back to the safety of the big house.
Or, better yet, return to the Lucy of twenty minutes ago, whose worries were small and survivable.
But something compels me to follow the pair.
Maybe it is that I do not trust Jeddah. Or maybe it is because I do not trust myself.
Have my eyes played tricks on me in this heat?
The ocean makes a rhythmic smacking noise, as if, having tasted death, it’s now licking its chops. Reaching the shade of the yew, Jeddah glances around. Animated by the current, Mr. Sanders’s head lolls about like a buoy.
Jeddah freezes. He twists around and gags.
I could’ve warned him.
“Holy Mother of God.” Gilly stoops, hands on thighs. “Holy bleeding Mother of God.” Removing his canvas fisherman’s hat, he stares up, lips moving, and crosses himself.
Mr. Sanders’s tanned skin has dulled to the winter gray of the murrelets he so loved. Only yesterday he was building ships, taming mountains. Now the ocean has claimed him.
My stomach begins to buck again, but I clamp an arm around my middle. Jeddah braces himself against a rock, horror stripping the sneer from his face. Bright spots that set off the three slashes of his raised scars have appeared on his still-smooth cheeks.
“Jeddah,” his father calls curtly, then jerks his head toward the big house. “Go fetch help.”
His son wipes his face on his sleeve and sets off. At least I won’t be the bearer of bad news.
Gilly licks his lips, staring hard across the sound to the west shore, hilly and thick with conifers. The shimmering blue is now quiet. Almost bashful. “I told him to stay out of the water, what with killer whales coming and the salmon going, but he didn’t listen.”
Mr. Sanders always took an afternoon dip, the only one brave enough to bear the cold. Though I dislike the term “killer whale,” which suggests a vicious creature, did one do Mr. Sanders in? Snag his body with its conical teeth, leaving behind the head?
All the moisture has left my tongue. “Perhaps it was a shark?”
Gilly frowns. “Not a shark. A shark isn’t wasteful. Besides, we only get baskers here, and they eat plankton. No, this was evil, like what done in the Can Man.”
The Orkus. Despite the warm weather, a shiver picks up the skin on my arms.
I can already hear the stories: The demon finally took its revenge on Mr. Sanders for clearing that path to Mount Consternation. Sent its sea wolves to do the job, maybe even that wild boar.
But I can’t believe it. Animals may be dangerous, but they are not evil.
Yet, sure as the sweat trickling down my neck, evil has washed ashore, rippling the water here forevermore.