23. Clark #2
As Thomas talked, I looked at the water, which I just knew was supposed to be calm, and ripped the cape from my shirt.
I didn’t want anything bogging me down. Barefooted, I began marching down the beach toward the ocean.
“Hey, bro!” I shouted, and I saw Thomas stand on his rock, dropping the clipboard and pen onto the sand.
“Any of them go this way?” I was up to my knees now, and oh my flying fuck this water was cold.
I guess it made sense. This being the South Shore of Nova Scotia meant that there was nothing breaking the frigid waters of the North Atlantic, save a few islands in the distance.
It was open ocean out there, and out there was where I was headed.
I don’t know how I knew, but this was the right thing to do.
Thomas was at the shoreline now, his mouth downturned, and biting his lower lip.
His right arm was shaking, and he stuck both his hands in his pants pockets.
“Clark, have you ever been in the North Atlantic before? Because I’m telling you right now, there’s no explanation I can give you as to how Olly and the baby they’ve named Bea—Beatrice—lived after their jaunt at sea.
You go in that water without purpose, without clear intention, and you pop out near Big Tancook a popsicle, that’s bloody guaranteed. ”
“Thomas McLeod, are you giving me tips? Something tells me you didn’t give the other twenty-three Clarks survival tips.” Thomas looked down at the sand and kicked at a stray clump of seaweed.
“Well, maybe all the other Clarks were smart as a fence post and had no plan. Or no guts. Maybe they just didn’t know Olly enough to know where their heart would take them.”
“Hey, you’re using her—sorry, their—new pronoun.” I was genuinely pleased to see that the only family Olly could talk with was respecting their wishes. “Thomas, be straight with me, okay? Please?”
“I’ll try.”
“If I drown or freeze to death here in this in-between place...do I die in the ‘real’ world?”
He seemed to be thinking hard on this, because he was doing that chewing on his bottom lip again, and ran his fingers through his hair.
“I don’t know, Clark. That’s the truth, I promise.
Perhaps once you get out there you’ll just know what to do, or where you’re going.
Hell, maybe you do have to die here to get back to your ‘waking’ world. ”
“I have a plan, but it doesn’t involve freezing to death before I can carry it off. If I were to concentrate very hard, could I manifest an object here?” Thomas’s eyes lit up.
“Fence posts, the lot of them.” He shook his head.
“You’re the first one to ask that question.
And the answer is yes. But I don’t know how in tune you are with this place.
You haven’t been here long. I could help you.
I can pretty much create what I want. What, you want a motorboat?
” He let out a laugh, which was immediately quashed when I said,
“Yes. I’m going out there, and when I get to a place that feels right, I’m taking the biggest breath I can, jumping in, and swimming straight down. I need to reach them, Thomas. Olly. And I think they are down there, somewhere.”
“Olly’s secrets aren’t all mine to share, but you’re putting your ass on the line here, so I will tell you one: there is an ocean inside them. It’s filled with creatures that look scary, but none have ever harmed them. The animals soothe, guard, and protect Olly.”
I couldn’t help it. My eyes widened and I balked at this revelation. But Thomas just kept on speaking. “My sister may have an ocean in their mind, but you have galaxies inside you, Clark. Galaxies unexplored, untouched, and waiting.”
“Waiting for what?” My voice sounded strange, and I felt like I was suddenly standing on hallowed ground.
He looked at me with eyes full of unshed tears, and cupped my cheek.
“For you.” He dropped his hand, and turned, and walked back to his rock, where just behind him the wild roses bloomed and their scent was carried in the breeze.
The clipboard and pen materialized again, as did a small stack of books.
I guess he had a lot of time to fill. He reached up an arm and pointed to a spot behind me, and I turned to see a wooden boat with paddles, and an outboard motor with a spare tank of gas.
There was rope, and even two lifejackets stowed under one of the benches. Holy shit.
“Thomas!” I yelled a bit, so he’d hear me.
“Thank you.” He responded with a giant wave and a brilliant, beaming smile.
With that, I pushed the boat down the sand and hopped in, grateful for the tide being in, because this was a rocky beach, given the dark lumps I could see underwater.
I moved from one of the benches to the seat beside the motor and got that running with silent thanks to my parents for making sure we knew practical skills that could save our lives one day, rather than our homeschool always being about books.
It was choppy out here today, but I wasn’t going to capsize and I adjusted my speed as necessary for the conditions.
There was an island in my view that had houses on it, large patches of green fields, and some forest. I was about halfway between East River Beach and the island when I came up beside a bright orange buoy, and decided to stop here.
This just felt right, and as I went about attaching the boat so it wouldn’t float away, I felt more and more determined.
I was in the right spot. I knew it. Once the boat was moored, I jumped over the side, and cried out at the feeling of a thousand needles poking me, plus a few Klingon pain sticks for good measure.
It was the cold, of course, but oddly, I felt warm within a minute or so.
My body no longer in agony, I took a deep breath, and swam downward into the deep.
I was thousands of feet in the air on my way from Halifax to Montréal, but I was also in the depths of a sea.
There was an otherworldly feeling about it, because I didn’t need to breathe, and the water was barely cold.
Strange, because I was so far down it was almost dark, and because I had the sense that this ocean was deeply connected to what was happening to Olly.
Actually, it more felt like this ocean was Olly, like Thomas had said, and what creatures I could see moving through the dim light were telling me bits of their story.
I was first approached directly by what mostly looked like a humpback whale but with some extra flippers, and it sang a sad yet not hopeless song.
I reached out and put my hand on the creature near its eye, and as soon as my hand made contact, I swear I heard Olly’s voice, everywhere around me.
“Clark? What...how...” Their voice faded, and then I saw ‘my’ Halifax apartment, loaded up with the old man’s research in banker’s boxes.
It was almost like watching a film. Olly wandered from room to room, stomping around, mumbling to themself, “This isn’t right!
It’s all wrong, he would never just vanish and not tell me.
And don’t you dare tell me he never existed at all.
I refuse to believe that.” Holy shit, the cult were trying to erase me completely from their life?
“My dear, the proof is iron-clad. I’m Edward Evans, and the one you think of when you hear that same family name is but a figment of your incredibly fertile and powerful imagination, mixed with your untrained psychic abilities run amok.
” I lifted my hand from the whale, refusing to look at more.
The whale had let me know I wasn’t seeing exact events, but rather memories, and memory was a fickle thing, though things were recent enough that we were near enough to the truth.
Olly’s mind had been fucked with by people who wanted to use them, exploit them, and confuse them to the point where they would believe almost anything.
It was sickening to see, but explained a lot.
What I couldn’t figure out is where they had Olly stashed now.
Were they in Montréal, too? Or on the lam and hiding on a cheese farm like Becky?
I was reasoning this out, just sort of treading water so I’d stay floating in place and not be too far from the light above, when I felt something wrap itself around my ankle.
And this creature? It wasn’t like the others.
It tugged, and then another tentacle, because I was certain that’s what it was, secured itself higher on my other leg, around my thigh.
I began to thrash around as more appendages joined the first two, and I could actually feel the lack of blood circulation to my legs as one cinched itself around my waist. This wasn’t a friendly beast, and even though I could feel it was connected to Olly, it was like, the ultimate defense mechanism in their psychic arsenal.
I screamed Olly’s name with my mind, but nothing happened.
I was still being entombed in whatever the hell this was.
A giant squid? No, this was more like a fucking kraken, and it might decide to squeeze at any time.
When finally a thinner tentacle wrapped itself around my head and I began to panic before remembering I didn’t need to breathe here.
However, I was completely entrapped, only my eyes left uncovered.
Worse yet, this thing wasn’t interested in the light level of where I was, or if my body, so frail by comparison, could survive the pressure of where it was dragging me: down, down, down to the dark deep.