Tides (19 page)

He’d have to swim around to the beach. He turned back toward the ocean, preparing to dive, and saw a glimmer in the water.

He swam to it in a few quick, broad strokes. He knew—he told himself—it wasn’t Mara, but he couldn’t keep from hoping that she’d realized he was innocent. Maybe she’d come back to forgive him.

His hands found the source of the glimmer, but his eyes were still bleary with salt. Noah groped at it, a soft slither in his hands like an eel. For a horrible moment he thought it might be another lost sealskin.

Then he recognized the feel of Mara’s dress from when they’d danced, when he’d held her. Noah opened his raw eyes and saw a ragged swath of green silk in his hands, destroyed by dirt and seawater.

Noah released it back into the ocean. Mara had discarded it, and he would too—it wasn’t as if Lo would want it back now. He watched the dress slide over the water until a large wave clipped over it and pulled it down.

He dove again and swam to the beach. The power in his arms and legs surprised him. He knew he should have been exhausted long ago, but adrenaline sparked in his muscles and he couldn’t help but swim quickly, his limbs pushing through the water with a manic energy.

Noah winced as his foot connected with a sharp underwater stone. He surfaced and clutched at the wound, squinting to see it in the moonlight. Threads of blood wove out between his fingers. He prodded his instep, and a long slice of skin flapped back at him.

He found his footing in the water and waded to shore. Limping toward the cottage, he focused on the light in the upstairs window. He knew Lo and Gemm were worried, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. The salt water dripping into his wound sent a deep and throbbing pain up his shin, but he didn’t care about that, either.

His mind was on Mara, somewhere out in the darkness, in the cold and wind and water. Noah knew he’d never been in as much pain as he’d seen on her face tonight.

He knew with equal certainty that whatever he’d done—whatever she thought he had done—she wouldn’t ever forgive him.

twenty-nine

L
O
tried to unclench her fists and loosen the knots in her back. She could see Noah wading onto the beach, only fifty feet away. She knew he was safe now—safer than he’d been before—but she couldn’t make herself relax.

When Mara had attacked him like that, Lo had felt a hot surge of protective anger. She’d never felt so aggressive before, as if she could really hurt Mara if she got the chance. But in the same instant, Lo had known that her body was too weak to fight, or even to scramble down the cliffs the way Noah had. Her aggression had leaked away. In that moment, Lo had hated her body’s weakness more than she’d ever hated its size. She’d felt ridiculous for ever thinking her body was
big.
She’d felt tiny and weak and helpless, watching her brother in danger and knowing she’d hurt herself so much that she couldn’t help him.

Noah stumbled over the rocks. She ran toward him, promising herself she’d run again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, until she was strong. She took his arm and draped it over her shoulder, trying to support him.

“Are you all right?”

Noah moved his head, but she couldn’t tell if he meant yes or no. She braced her arm against his back. “Come on,” she said. “You need to get inside.”

Gemm waited for them, mugs of fresh tea steaming beside her. As soon as they walked in, she snatched the old knitted throw off the couch and wrapped it around them.

“Now, please,” she said, “someone tell me what on earth is going on.”

Noah and Lo looked at each other, silent. The anguish on Noah’s face was too awful for Lo to see. She looked away.

And then she burst out laughing.

Gemm frowned. Noah, if possible, looked even worse than he had a moment ago.

“I’m sorry—I know it’s—” Lo gasped, shaking so hard that the blanket slipped from her shoulders. She took a deep breath. She stopped laughing, but as soon as she quieted, tears started in her eyes. “I really am sorry.” Another breath. “It’s just . . .” She took yet another breath. “You know, a few weeks ago I wouldn’t have believed any of it.”

Noah managed a quiet chuckle. “I know.”

Gemm tucked the blanket around Lo again and returned to the stove. “I’ll believe it, if someone will just tell me what it is,” she grumbled.

Noah laughed again, louder this time. “I’ll tell you, Gemm,” he said, standing up. “You can sit here, with Lo. I’ll bring your tea over.”

Gemm reached up and stroked his hair. “A good boy on both counts.” She lowered herself onto the couch.

Lo leaned her head on her grandmother’s shoulder. After the cold and dark and panic of the last few hours, it was good to feel so warm and safe. Her chest was still tight with suppressed tears or laughter—she could no longer tell which—but it didn’t matter. They were back with Gemm, and Noah would explain, and somehow things would work out.

“Mara thinks I want to take her skin,” Noah said. “The whole pod’s panicking. I think one of their—their children was kidnapped.”

Lo felt her grandmother flinch. But Gemm stayed silent, and Noah continued.

“I think it happened during the dance,” he said. “Everything was fine—more than fine . . .” His face burned red.

Lo smiled to herself. She’d seen him and Mara dancing together. She remembered wishing that someday someone would look at her the way Noah looked at Mara. More than fine, indeed.

Noah raised his eyebrows at Lo, and she removed the knowing smirk from her face.

“Anyway,” he said pointedly, “things were going pretty well, but then Mara just freaked out. She ran out of the tent, and I followed her, and we—” He stopped and blushed again.

“Yes?” asked Gemm.

“Well, then she panicked. She screamed, and she ran toward the rocks and started digging through them as if she’d forgotten her skin was back here . . .” He shook his head. “I don’t know. It was bad. And then she dove into the water and swam away, and it was so dark—I had no idea where she’d gone.”

Noah collapsed onto one of the dining chairs, its legs creaking under his weight. He raked his hands through his hair—the sun had bleached it almost white by now—and sighed deeply before speaking again.

“I didn’t know what I could do, but I had to do something. I had to try to find her. I thought if I could find her skin, I’d find her, too. I don’t know.

“Only I guess something happened out . . . wherever she was . . . that made her think I was helping whoever took her brother. She thinks someone from the Center took him. And when she did come back here, she found me in the water, and I guess she thought—” His voice broke. “She thought I wanted to take her skin, too.”

He looked up, his face drawn, red lines spidering in his eyes. “God, Gemm, I’m such an idiot. I couldn’t—I can’t—help her, and she’ll always hate me now.”

“Oh, honey.” Gemm walked over to hug Noah. “That’s not true. You tried to do the right thing. I’ll talk to Maebh, tell her what happened. I’m sure it will work out.”

Lo heard a tremor in Gemm’s voice, and she wondered if her grandmother believed what she was saying.

Gemm stood up, staring out the window at the black ocean. Lo couldn’t tell what she was looking for.

“I’ll stay up and wait for Maebh,” Gemm said. “I know she’ll want to see me.” Her wrinkled face creased deeper with worry, but she smiled at her grandchildren. “You should both go to bed. I can’t imagine how tired you must be.”

It was as if Gemm’s words broke through a wall of adrenaline Lo had built up inside her body. She yawned, wincing at the ache in her legs and spine.

She looked at Noah, and he nodded. They trudged up the stairs.

The room was in shambles: drawers pulled all the way out of both dressers, clothes everywhere, Lo’s empty suitcases dragged from under her bed. For once in her life, she was too tired to care about the mess. As soon as Noah disappeared behind the folding screen that divided their bedroom, Lo changed into her pajamas. She pulled back her sheets and buried herself in the cool softness of her bed.

The window creaked open.

“Just leave it,” she mumbled. “Go to sleep.”

“Not happening,” said Noah.

Lo slowly pushed herself out of bed and walked to his side of the screen. “What d’you mean?” She yawned hugely and felt a pop in the back of her jaw. She groaned and rubbed her cheek.

“I’m going back to the Center,” he said. “I want to see if I can find out anything to help Mara—to help the pod. Or at least—maybe it’s not anyone from the Center at all, and I can prove it. You can come, if you want, but be quiet about it if you’re staying. I don’t want Gemm to worry.”

Lo glanced back at her bed. The sheets were crumpled into a soft nest, probably still warm from her body. All she wanted was to settle into that nest and sleep, maybe for days.

She looked at Noah. Dark half-moons spread under his eyes, and his hands were clenched into white-knuckled fists.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll go with you.” She yawned again. “But you definitely owe me one for this.”

Noah rolled his eyes. “Great,” he said. “Let’s get going.”

thirty

N
OAH
imagined them tying sheets together and climbing out the window, like they do in old prison-escape movies. He got as far as pulling all the sheets off his bed before he realized there was no place to tie them.

His head throbbing, he sank to the floor in despair, too tired to think quickly. It was Lo, in the end, who figured out how they would manage their escape.

“You go first,” she said. “I think I can hold you if you climb quickly. Then I’ll go downstairs and talk Gemm into going to bed. I’m in my pajamas already, so she won’t think anything of it. We shouldn’t get her involved in any more of this—God knows she’s been through enough tonight. I’ll at least get her to go in her room and rest a bit, and then I’ll meet you outside.” She frowned. “I think we’ll have to take the rowboat, since she would hear the
Minke
’s engine.”

Noah nodded. “Okay. I’ll row, but you have to be lookout, since it’s dark and I’ll be facing backwards.”

Lo looked so confident laying out her plan, her head high, her back straight. He hadn’t seen her stand like that in so long—usually she slouched and hunched her shoulders, as if she were trying to vanish inside herself. He tried not to make too much of the change, but it sent a pulse of hope through him.

He smiled at her. He needed hope just then, even if it came in the form of his little sister in her ridiculous crossword-puzzle-print pajamas.

He finished tying the sheets together and fed them out the window. They vanished like an eel into the darkness.

“Lean against the wall,” he told Lo. “You can put a foot under the window, like this, and let it take a lot of the weight.”

She nodded. “Got it.” She picked up the end of the last sheet, and Noah tried not to think about how weak her arms looked. He just had to believe she would be able to hold him.

He climbed out and gripped the sheet in one hand, clinging to the windowsill with the other. He braced his feet against outside the wall and, holding his breath, he let go of the window.

The sheets pulled tight and groaned as the knots adjusted. He heard Lo breathe in. He looked up.

“Just go,” she hissed through clenched teeth. “Christ, you’re heavy.”

Noah stared at her in surprise. She smiled at him, and they both had to laugh.

He wrapped his legs around the rope and slid down. Then he crept over the island to the
Gull.
He realized he hadn’t pulled it past the tide line the last time he’d used it; the edge of the water lapped the boat’s stern, pulling it toward the sea one wave at a time. Another half hour and it would have floated away.

Noah pictured the boat drifting all the way out into the open Atlantic, a tiny red dot on an unfathomably huge expanse of water. A prayer his mother had taught him as a child floated in on his memory:
For thy ocean is so big, and my boat is so small. Amen.
He couldn’t remember the beginning of the prayer, but he figured the ending must have been the important part.

He took the oars from the long metal trunk on the shore. When he came back to the boat, Lo was waiting for him, still in her pajamas. She’d rolled up the pants to her knees and waded into the surf, pulling the boat after her.

“You didn’t even put on your shoes?” he asked.

Lo shook her head. “Doesn’t matter, no time. Let’s go.” She glanced back toward the island, her eyes flickering with sadness.

“Is it Gemm?” Noah asked, holding the boat steady while Lo climbed in.

Lo swiped her fingers over her cheeks. “Yeah. She’s just miserable. She was crying when I came downstairs, and she tried to hide it, but that just made everything worse, you know? She loves Maebh more than anything, I mean, anyone could tell that, but Maebh hasn’t come to her and she can’t do anything to help. She’s so afraid.”

He sighed and climbed into the boat after her. “I’m sure she’ll come soon,” he said, to himself as well as to Lo. Maebh loved Gemm, really loved her, even though Gemm had once hurt her so much, if the story Lo had told him was true. Maebh would come to her. He had to believe that if Maebh still loved Gemm, he could win Mara back too. He could show her he was innocent.

He remembered her under the cliff shadows, her face panicked, the shreds of her dress tossed in the waves. She’d wanted to kill him, and he’d still wanted to help her. He could still feel the pulse of her emotions—what she’d called their link—and all he wanted was to soothe her pain.

Noah took a deep breath and kept rowing toward the Center. If he couldn’t help her, was he just risking his job for nothing? Was he throwing away his whole future?

But that didn’t matter, either. Even if she would always hate him—and sensing the echo of their link in his body, he thought maybe she would—he had to do this. Even if it was useless, stupid—he had to try.

“A bit to port,” Lo said. “There’s a bunch of lobster traps just there.”

Noah nodded and pulled them away.

They were almost at the pier, but the harbor felt larger and darker to Noah than it ever had before. Waves rocked the rowboat, spattering cold water onto their legs.