Fathomless (20 page)

Had he passed out from heat exhaustion? No, because he lifted himself on his elbows and gazed without apparent chagrin at the way the mild surf lapped his enormous sneakered feet. In fact, he scrooched closer, so the wavelets broke to his knees, soaking his jeans.

Whoa. How about just wearing flip-flops and shorts? Or, sad to think, how about just taking his meds?

Sean pushed his kayak into the water and paddled over to Eddy, already afloat. He poked his chin toward the guy. “Crazy alert.”

“Where?” Eddy looked, and frowned. “Oh. I've seen him before, a bunch of times.”

“Here on the beach?”

“No, when I go to the pharmacy to meet Daniel. I call him Mr. Haddock, because of the smell. You caught it, right?”

“Hell yeah.”

“He hangs around outside Tumblebee's. Jess, the owner? She can't stand him—he drives away business, but she doesn't know how to get rid of him. I mean, what are you going to say? ‘Oh, sir, could you move along, you're gagging my customers?' I feel bad for him, but I feel bad for her, too. I hope Daniel doesn't see him.”

“How come?”

“A couple times we thought he was following us back to the house. Both times he turned the other way on Water Street, but it freaked us out.”

And there was Mr. Haddock again, dabbling fully clothed and staring off into the distance. Or maybe, hard to tell with his shades, he was staring specifically, creepily, at the jetty, on which Daniel had dwindled to a stick figure among the stick-figure fishermen. Damn, the guy's feet were a size 20, easy, and that wide mouth looked like a snake's, or a shark's. Sean wondered what kind of teeth he might keep in there.

Eddy prodded Sean's arm with her paddle. “Stop staring.”

“What if—?”

“We've got enough what-ifs in our lives already, in case you hadn't noticed. Let's get going.”

Yeah, they had plenty. There were the what-ifs about Orne, and about the seed world, and about Marvell and the Order, and that didn't even begin the list of what-ifs about magic in general. Sean snuck a last look at Mr. Haddock, who still sloshed in the surf and stared, maybe, out along the jetty. Unless he had his eyes closed behind the wraparounds. And what kind of eyes—?

But Sean shut down that speculation fast and paddled seaward after Eddy.

*   *   *

Sean
and Eddy stuck close to the concrete wall of the jetty, following its long curve to the end. Daniel waved from atop a plinth that supported the jetty's light mast—he had the prime perch to himself today, because most of the fishermen had clumped together closer to shore. “Somebody caught a big dogfish!” he yelled. “You guys better watch out.”

“Thanks!” Eddy yelled back. “Seen any great whites?”

“About fifty before you showed up. You must have scared them off.”

“Damn straight.”

Beyond the jetty were the remains of the old breakwater, most of which was underwater as high tide approached. Most, not all. The rocks closest to the jetty still protruded a few inches, and Eddy and Sean skirted them on their way to see what might be scrounging a meal on the man-made reef. Eddy spotted black sea bass and tautogs chowing down on mussels and barnacles. Sean glimpsed a sixty-pound striper; well, a thirty-pounder; okay, maybe fifteen. But still, plenty big enough.

Other kayakers joined them above the breakwater. To everyone's excitement, so did a pod of seven harbor porpoises. They swam around and under the kayaks, now and then poking their blunt-nosed grinning heads out of the water as if they thought floating humans were as good a show as they were. More kayakers arrived, along with some Jet Skiers. Fishermen crowded against the guardrails to toss baitfish to the porpoises, jetty strollers to take pics, and the bigger their audience, the more wildly the porpoises cavorted, some leaping clear of the water, which was unusual for this smallish species. From his plinth, Daniel had the best view of anyone, and he about fell off laughing when a porpoise leap soaked Sean to sputters. Soon afterwards, as if in search of even more admirers, the pod headed toward the swimming beach. The kayakers followed them by sea, the fishermen and strollers by jetty top.

“You guys go,” Daniel called down.

“Are you coming?” Eddy called back.

“No, I can see fine from here, and if I climb down, I might lose my spot.”

Eddy started inland, swift as a porpoise herself. Sean pursued her for a few strokes, then paused to strip off his drenched T-shirt. After redonning his life vest, he turned to see if Daniel was still laughing over his soaking, but Daniel wasn't looking at him. Or at Eddy. Or at the porpoise pod. In fact, he'd turned his back to the action and was gazing seaward, or rather, down at the breakwater. What was up with that? Something exciting, to judge by the only other person left on the end of the jetty, a boy maybe nine or ten, who stomach-balanced on top of the guardrail, feet kicking precariously in the air.

Sean paddled back toward Daniel. Rounding the jetty end, he saw what the big deal was: Two new harbor porpoises, considerably bigger than the others, loitered by the breakwater, tails down, heads thrust high into the air, and damned if they weren't checking out Daniel. “Dude, you've got fans!” Sean said.

If he heard, Daniel didn't answer. The porpoises' beady stares seemed to have mesmerized him. The kid on the railing had also frozen in fascination, but he soon thawed sufficiently to try scaling the plinth for a better view. He was skinny enough to have shared its summit with Daniel, if his flip-flop hadn't blown a crucial toehold. At the sound of his desperate scrabble to recover, Daniel whipped his head around and bent over to avert the danger. Too late: the kid peeled off the plinth, missed a grab at the guardrail, and plummeted headfirst onto the exposed teeth of the breakwater.

The splash and a sickening crack of skull on rock startled the two big porpoises. As Sean stroked for the fallen kid, one of them blundered against his kayak, nearly flipping it; by the time he'd recovered, the porpoises had vanished, the kid had sunk out of sight, and a woman was screaming “Brendan!” from the jetty above. He glimpsed Daniel's white face, a fisherman skidding up beside the woman, beach-bound kayakers looking back. But Sean was the closest, so he rolled into the water, tried to dive after the kid, and was buoyed right back up by his life vest.

While he was tearing at its straps, water exploded over him. It wasn't a porpoise this time, but backsplash from someone who'd dived from high overhead, off the jetty. Sean dashed salt out of his eyes and peered into the depths just off the breakwater. He made out frog-kicking feet, khaki shorts, a halo of dark curly hair. He looked up. Daniel wasn't on the plinth. He wasn't among the jostling crowd drawn back to the end of the jetty by the woman's escalating screams. A man standing by picked up something white, familiar—a foam neck brace.

Sean squirmed free of his vest. He couldn't toss it into his kayak, which had already drifted off. Who cared, with the kid drowning and with Daniel inexplicably in the water, already so far down that the gloom had swallowed him up. Daniel, who was too phobic to stick a toe in the baby end of a pool, forget the ocean. Daniel, who had dived like a pro, as straight and forceful as the punch of a knife.

Sean sounded like a whale with Ahab after it. The water remained warm for only the first few feet, clear and bright for only a few more. He dived belly parallel to the side of the breakwater, seaweed brushing him, a point of reference anyway, but too soon his ears popped and he could barely make out the weed he clung to. Without scuba gear, Sean couldn't go deeper.

He pushed off the breakwater and swam for the surface. The whine of an approaching motorboat greeted him as he broke into sweet air. Harbor police? He didn't have time to look before he dived again. It was useless, but he couldn't float in the warm water zone, sun on his face, while Daniel and the kid were down in the dark cold.

From the murk Sean couldn't reach, two white ovals rose. They resolved into faces, Daniel's, Brendan's, and they approached him fast because a blunt-nosed and grinning porpoise was on either side, the two big ones, each with a flipper locked under a human arm and flukes going like mad. Daniel kicked like mad, too, his free arm wrapped around Brendan's torso. For Sean to try helping with the carry could only slow things down, so he got out of the way and did his own kicking back up to the sun.

The first thing he saw, with huge gratitude, was the harbor patrol motorboat nosing toward the spot where Daniel dog-paddled, supporting an unconscious Brendan. The porpoises had vanished again, and who could blame them? Up on the jetty, Brendan's mom (had to be) stood silent now, another woman embracing her, but the rest of the crowd made a racket, including cheers as a harbor officer jumped into the water and another slipped him a backboard, onto which Daniel helped the first officer maneuver Brendan. Damn, the kid had this huge blood-streaming gash on the side of his head, and Sean thought he saw the white of bone poking from his right forearm. He swallowed bile. Daniel had blood on his cheek and neck, but it had to be Brendan's, because Daniel seemed fine, not even out of breath after his wild dive.

And there, at last, was Eddy, several lengths ahead of the other kayakers en route to the accident scene.

A Jet Skier reached Sean first, towing his errant kayak. She steadied it while he climbed back in—shaky with reaction, he needed the help. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“Yeah. Thanks for catching my yak.”

“No problem. That was crazy! But the guy who brought the kid up, he's some kind of free diver, right?”

“I don't know. The porpoises helped him, though.”

“Porpoises?”

“Two. Bigger than the ones you were following. They helped carry the kid.”

Eddy paddled up, red with exertion. “Where's Daniel?” she panted.

And that was a great question. The officers had gotten Brendan aboard, and their motorboat was racing toward the harbormaster's pier. Had Daniel gone with them?

“Daniel's the rescue guy?” the Jet Skier said. “He swam over that way.”

She pointed toward the launch beach side of the jetty. Eddy took off without another pant. Sean thanked the Jet Skier again and gave chase.

The tide had turned, leaving more of the breakwater exposed. Eddy negotiated the jagged rocks with deft thrusts of her paddles and swivels of her hips. By the time Sean had made his slower way through the gauntlet, he saw there'd be no catching her. She was twenty yards ahead, churning water alongside the jetty in her race after a swimmer
she
had no chance of catching. Daniel was halfway to the beach, stroking like an Olympian. Two dorsal fins flanked him, the big porpoises no doubt. Sean hadn't been joking, after all, calling them Daniel's fans; what were they now, his bodyguards?

Sean's arms were still a little shock-wonky when he started inland. He was just picking up speed when someone called to him off the jetty. “Hey! Hey, your friend's stuff!”

He back-paddled, slowed, looked up to see Mr. Haddock slouched over the guardrail, weirder than ever the way he'd pulled his Windbreaker collar over his chin and his cap down over the top of his wraparound shades. Awkward in his mittens, he brandished the neck brace someone else had picked up earlier, and a pair of Top-Siders, also Daniel's. “Your friend's,” he called, and his voice was as weird as the rest of him, thick and slurpy. “Left them up here when he jumped in.”

“Oh, thanks.” Sean steered his kayak to the jetty and caught the brace and shoes. By the time he'd stowed them, Mr. Haddock had turned from him, shades aimed shoreward—Daniel-ward?

The smell of dried cod and sweat and cheap cologne wafted down from him.

Sean paddled in earnest to get away from the stink. Far ahead, Daniel approached the beach. His porpoise guard stuck with him until he made shallow water and started wading; then they dived out of sight. Eddy was a quarter of the jetty back, Sean a half, when Daniel ran up the sand, ignoring some onlookers who seemed to question him. He hit the parking lot still running and vanished among the close-packed cars.

Eddy deserted her kayak at the tide line to run after him. Sean took the time to haul it out of the surf and to strap both kayaks onto their carriers. A guy helped him haul the yaks to the Civic in exchange for news of the accident but was discreet enough to return to the beach when they saw that Daniel had indeed stopped at the Civic. He sat on the backseat, driver's side, legs out the door and wet red polo wrapped like a towel around his neck. Eddy squatted beside him, saying “Daniel, are you all right?” as if for the hundredth unanswered time.

He bent forward, clasping both hands over his nape.

Sean squatted opposite Eddy. That way, if Daniel suddenly keeled, they could both catch him. “Did you, like, wrench your neck?” he asked. “Because I got your brace back. Your shoes, too.”

Daniel shook his head, and it did seem to move without a hitch, no grind, no pop. “I'm okay,” he said, muffled. “I don't need the brace.”

Since when?

Eddy touched Daniel's bare left foot. He jerked it back and draped it over the right one, curling both sets of toes—crazily long ones, and yes, scarred like his fingers. Then he swung his legs into the Civic and muttered, “Let's just get out of here.”

Fast as they could, Sean and Eddy racked the kayaks and stowed the carts, then Sean piled into the driver's seat, Eddy into the shotgun. Lately, she'd been riding in back with Daniel, but with him still clutching the back of his supposedly okay neck, she must have figured he wanted space.

The sunbaked parking lot had left the Civic stifling. Sean started it up and dialed the AC to
HIGH
. He zigged and zagged around illegally parked cars and turned left on Harbor Street. Eddy made him pull over by Saltonstall Park, under the first available shade tree. “We're not going to the house?” he asked.