Chapter 53
“What are you going to do?” Rasmus asks.
We are sitting on the stony beach outside school. The pale afternoon sun peeks through the cloud cover. In a few hours it will disappear below the horizon, but for now I’m free from the fear that darkness brings.
We’re actually in the middle of art class. We’re supposed to be sketching something that we can see on the island, but our sketch pads are on the ground, the pencils stuffed in our pockets.
Rasmus is playing with a bruised apple, tossing it in the air and catching it over and over again.
“I don’t know,” I mutter.
The fact that I don’t know is pretty much all I do know.
“Did Ms. Granberg say anything about your powers?” Rasmus asks. “What you can do?”
I shake my head. “But I must have done something. Under the water. When I . . . sang, or whatever you want to call it.”
Rasmus puts down the apple, picks up a flat stone, and skims it on the water. It bounces three times before it sinks.
“So you’ll be able to do it again, right? It worked before, didn’t it?”
The chill from the beach is making my thighs go numb, and I shift my weight from one hip to the other.
“I almost drowned.” I dig my hands into the pebbles and feel the damp surface beneath.
Rasmus says nothing.
It’s nice to sit in silence.
“I have to do something,” I say after a little while. “Or more people will die. They hunt in packs. Ms. Granberg said they get stronger with each victim. I can’t let them run wild.”
Silvery light plays across the waves. The monsters don’t come out in daylight, yet I can’t help but scan the surface for shadows, listen for that splashing sound I would recognize anywhere.
“They know where I live, by the way,” I add.
Rasmus sits up abruptly. “What do you mean?”
“I heard them last night. Outside my window, in the water by our dock. Like they were lying in wait.”
“Are you sure? It could have been something else. A bird. Or a seal.”
He wants it to be something else. So do I.
A shudder runs through my body.
“I could feel their presence. I knew with my whole being that they were out there, waiting.”
“What does this mean?”
“I don’t know,” I say again.
How can I explain something I don’t understand myself?
“I’ll help you.” Rasmus’s pupils are very small in the cold, clear light.
My heartbeat quickens.
“We’re in this together,” he says. “You can do it. We can do it.”
His hand brushes against my little finger. I want to simultaneously move away and stay completely still.
“I don’t know if it’s going to be okay,” I whisper.
“It has to be.” His words are solid, like rocks.
I want them to be true.
But I remember that feeling, when the force that frightened the serpents away was replaced by that crushing, burning pain in my chest.
When I was sinking to the bottom of the sea.
This time tomorrow, I could be dead.
The thought appears out of nowhere.
Rasmus leans forward and raises his hand to my cheek but stops when a window opens in the school building and Mrs. Lindgren leans out.
“Everyone back in the classroom! Come on, chop, chop.”
I stand up and vigorously brush sand and grit off my jeans.
“Last class,” I say, trying to sound casual, as if everything’s normal. “Nearly done.”
How long until sunset? Two hours? Three?
I try to smile at Rasmus.
This isn’t the last time we’ll see each other, even if things do come to a head tonight. Still, it feels like I need to savor the sight of him, just in case.
My throat tightens.
I start walking quickly back to school with the sketch pad under my arm. But Rasmus catches up with me.
He takes my hand in his and doesn’t let go until we enter the classroom and sit down.