Emma
The rain takes us all by surprise—even Haley.
“This is a sign,” she tells us as the ground grows muddy beneath our feet. “A sign he’s getting closer!”
I’m still not sure who “he” is and I can’t ask because it looks as if everyone else knows exactly what she’s talking about.
That can only mean that I’ve missed something important, and if Haley finds out, I’ll be in trouble. Again.
“We need to form a defensive ring,” Haley insists. “We need to come together to ask Hecate for her love and protection!”
This is easier said than done since the second the raindrops started to hit, Haley ran for the shelter of her tent. It’s an
expensive one from REI. The rest of us only have strips of plastic sheeting because that’s all Haley says we need. Hecate
will defend us from the elements—and Gaia.
Only I haven’t noticed Hecate doing this lately. Oh, this is the first time it’s rained—at least this much and for so long.
But Meg found a deer tick in her hair the other day. It was already attached to her scalp. I had to pick it off with tweezers,
and even then, I didn’t get the whole thing.
“I think its head is still in there,” I told Meg.
“She’ll be fine,” Haley said.
“No,” I said to Haley. “It’s better if we can get the whole tick and save it so if Meg does start feeling ill, we can send
it out and have it tested for Lyme disease, or even worse, babesiosis.” It’s not Haley’s fault she doesn’t know these things.
She’s not from Connecticut. “We need some rubbing alcohol—”
“Enough!” Haley cried. “None of you are going to get Lyme disease. Haven’t you been listening to me? We’re special. We have
the blessing of Hecate!”
But apparently Hecate’s blessing doesn’t protect us from the rain. And neither, as we quickly find out, do the plastic sheets
Haley’s given us.
“Ugh,” Trina says, as she squats beside me. “My sleeping bag is soaked.”
“So are my shoes.” I look down ruefully at my Silver Stars. I know I shouldn’t be so attached to material things, but I saved
for a long time to be able to afford these shoes, and now they’re ruined.
I’ve given Haley all the money that was left in my savings account. So have the other girls. Haley said she would use it to
make sure we were safe from Gaia, who will surely want to exact revenge for our support of her rival, Hecate.
“Your things will dry,” Haley snaps from the unzippered entrance to her luxury tent. “Can’t you see this rain has been sent
by Gaia to distract us from our mission? We need to double—no, triple—our efforts to find it. We’ve got her running scared!”
I peer out at the holes in the dirt all around us—holes we spent the whole day digging, and which are rapidly filling with
rainwater. It’s raining so fiercely, every single one of them is already overflowing, sending a stream of muddy water in our
direction.
“She doesn’t seem very scared to me,” I can’t help murmuring. Fortunately it’s raining too hard for anyone to overhear me.
“Get back to work!” Haley commands us. “This rain might have been intended to keep us from our goal. But the truth is, it’s a gift—a gift from Hecate to help us!”
I look down at the rapidly overflowing holes. “Help us? Help us how?”
This Haley overhears.
“By softening the earth for us.” She gestures toward the holes through the flaps of her tent. “It will be much easier to dig
now!”
She’s right. But it will also be much messier.
No one mentions this. Or maybe they do, but I can’t hear them over the rattling of the rain on our plastic sheets.
“Get back to work,” Haley commands.
But I notice she still hasn’t come out from her tent. Haley never helps us dig. She says that’s because she’s busy praying.
Except I can’t help wondering if it’s really because she doesn’t want to get dirty and then have to bathe in lake water, which
never quite seems to wash anything clean.
Also, I know she has a mini fridge in that tent—along with a microwave and portable AC unit, all powered by a generator. Even
though she says it’s wrong to use fossil fuels, Haley makes an exception for herself because she needs to eat Greek yogurt
every day. The probiotics help prevent gastric bloating caused by her IBS, so the moon goddess doesn’t mind her weekly runs
into town for Chobani and gas for the generator.
“This is our chance!” Haley cries. “Hecate is blessing us with this rain!”
I can’t see what anyone else is doing—it’s raining too hard, and the plastic sheets are over everyone’s heads. But I can see
that no one moves.
So I’m not the only one who doesn’t want to ruin her shoes any more than they already have.
Haley seems to notice this, too.
“What are you all doing, just sitting there?” she demands from her tent.
When still no one moves, Haley glares out at us. It’s difficult to see her face through the rain, but I can tell by her voice that she is furious.
“Emma,” she snaps. “Meg. I know you can hear me. Grab your spades and get back to it while the earth is soft and yielding.”
I look around. So does Trina beside me.
“Uh,” Trina says hesitantly. “I’m Trina, not Meg.”
Haley sounds impatient. “Fine. Get back to work, all of you. Meg? Where are you, Meg?”
I glance around. We’re squatting at the base of the roots of an enormous oak tree. We’ve dug here before, but this time, Haley
had assured us, we were going to find it.
All we’ve found so far, however, is roly-polies, mosquitoes, and ticks. And now mud.
“Meg?” Haley shouts. Whenever things get tough, Haley calls for Meg, probably because Meg never pretends not to hear her,
like I sometimes do. “Meg, will you show them that they aren’t made of sugar and won’t melt in the rain?”
But for the first time, when Haley calls Meg’s name, Meg doesn’t respond.
“I don’t think Meg’s here,” Trina says after we all listen for Meg’s voice for a few seconds and hear nothing but rain.
“Very funny.” Her bloating must be bad today if Haley thinks any of us are in the mood for joking. “Where is she?”
Suddenly I realize why I’ve been walking around all day with a kind of knot in my gut. I assumed it was the coming rainstorm—as
an empath, I’m highly attuned to shifts in the weather and can always tell when it’s about to rain. Though truthfully, that’s
because my camp counselor showed me when I was ten how the leaves on certain trees flip over when the barometric pressure
is changing, and that can be an indicator of an incoming storm.
No, the knot in my gut has been there since last night. Which is also the last time I saw Meg.
Wait . . . is that true? It must be, because Sidney says, “I haven’t seen her since last night,” and Bella agrees. “Yeah.
I saw Meg by the friendship circle around the fire. But I haven’t seen her since.”
I realize I haven’t seen Meg since last night’s ceremony, either.
“Um.” It’s Trina again. “I saw her this morning, over by the beach.”
“The beach?” Haley sounds upset. “What was she doing by the beach? I didn’t give anyone permission to go to the beach.”
“She said she was going fishing,” Trina says. “That’s why she took the boat.”
Haley seems as confused as I am. “But I didn’t give her permission to use the boat.”
Trina looks concerned. “Oh. I think she wanted it to be a surprise.”
“She knows better!” I can hear the anger in Haley’s voice. “And if she really went fishing, why isn’t she back yet? Did that
goddamned bitch steal our boat?”
And that’s when I realize I know exactly where Meg is. Or where she’s trying to get, anyway: away.
Away from this island. Away from us.
And away from Haley, too.