The Fires Beneath the Sea ebook

by Lydia Millet

  “Listen,” said Jax, and put his mask back on. “Our work’s not quite done yet. Almost, but not quite. Hold on, OK, Hayley? Just a few more minutes. Dive down along the rope, Cara, and put your weights back on.”

  “We’ll be back,” said Cara, and slid in her regulator.

  “No!” said Hayley. “Are you kidding? Don’t you dare—”

  But they had to, and following her little brother, Cara sank underneath the waves again.

  They were going down, down, down—pushing without the dive weights took far more effort—and Cara saw that the glow was starting to diminish. Whether the plankton were leaving or winking out she didn’t know; there was still some brightness in the water, but it was definitely less.

  As they neared the bottom she felt something fly past her—a flash of bubbles, glinting in the dimness.

  On the soft sand of the bottom, Jax handed her her weight belt again. She clipped it around her waist and then thought, trying to pull at him: Jax. What was that? Moving past us?

  He shook his head.

  As they made their way toward where they’d met the selkie, Cara looked down and around at the wreck fragments poking out of the ground. It was harder to see now, with the light fading, and she had to concentrate hard to make out shapes through the growing gloom.

  Where were the ghosts?

  And then she saw—in the darkness beyond, she could detect their shapes, their eyes and their lips and thin hands. But then the shapes were changing. The outlines flickered and when they reappeared were different. The bodies turned sparkling, becoming less dark—they were all shining now, twinkling and glistening and fading.

  What is it? What are they? she thought at Jax.

  They’re like dolphins, said Jax’s clear head-voice. But not exactly. I think it’s—yeah. They’re dolphins now, but they’re also still ghosts. Ghosts that can leave this place, finally.

  And the translucent dolphins were churning the water, and then they leapt in a great, joyful rush, spinning past her and Jax and leaving streams of silver bubbles in their wake—passing them both in a kind of quick caress, a series of grateful nods good-bye.

  Cara thought: So now they’re free.

  She watched as the wake of their bubbles vanished into the dim distance, and behind them the water settled into quietude once again.

  After a long moment she felt a presence behind her, and she and Jax rotated slowly, swishing their swim-fins. The selkie was hovering, her dark eyes like pools you could fall into and never come out of.

  But instead of giving them something—instead of handing over the key—she laid one of her flippers where Cara thought her heart might be. She bowed her head to both of them. And then, in a whirl of water, she too was gone.

  Nine

  When they got back to shore they were too tired to take the boat home with them, so instead of hitching it back onto the bike they hid it in the undergrowth to pick up later, along with the scuba gear and the snarled-up, peeled-off wetsuits. They were too tired to do almost anything but pull their sandy clothes on and start pedaling home; the sounds of dawn rose around them, birdsong and faint car noises, and light streaked through the sky, pink and yellow.

  “So,” said Hayley. “When do I, like, get the skinny on what happened back there?”

  “There were—there were these ghosts underwater,” said Cara wearily.

  “Say what?”

  “Dead,” said Cara. “These ghosts that used to be the crew of the Whydah. Like, pirates.”

  “Cara had a faceoff with the Pouring Man,” said Jax. “That was when he split into two and shifted his shape….”

  “We had to win over the ghosts to our side,” said Cara. “They were—Jax says they were the ghosts of the pirates from that ship. The pirates of the Whydah.”

  Hayley just looked at them over her handlebars, her mouth open.

  “He tried to scare us. He’s all about fear,” said Cara, but it sounded stupid, and she lapsed into an exhausted silence.

  She wanted to ask Jax what had happened, why, after all that, the selkie hadn’t given them the key. At the same time, she wanted to tell him not to read her anymore, since the emergency was over. But of course she couldn’t, not with Hayley here—Hay didn’t know about Jax’s ability, and it had to stay that way.

  “Of course,” said Jax suddenly. “I won’t.”

  “Won’t what?” asked Hayley.

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Cara.

  “And about the key,” went on Jax. “We’re covered.”

  “Later, when I’m not totally wiped out?” said Hayley. “I’m gonna need the 411.”

  They rode quietly again. They’d forgotten to take towels with them so their hair was still wet and full of salt, their fingers and toes were just coming out of numbness, and they shivered in the chill early morning air as they pedaled. Cara could barely keep her eyes open; her arms and legs ached, and she wondered if it was tiredness or some lingering pain from the Pouring Man’s invading her.

  “Uh-oh,” said Jax as they cruised slowly down their street.

  Hayley peeled off down her driveway; there was Lolly, waiting for them at their front door.

  Her toddler grandson was holding on to her leg beside her, his face smeared with applesauce.

  It was a good question, Cara thought, whether he or Lolly looked more disgusted with Jax and her.

  “We’re really sorry,” said Cara humbly as they trudged up the steps.

  “We’re very sorry,” agreed Jax, nodding.

  Lolly seemed like she was about to yell at them. But then she must have noticed the state they were in, because her face softened a bit.

  Maybe, thought Cara, she was deciding she had priorities other than yelling.

  She shook her head, turned, and disappeared down the hall, and they followed her in. When she came back she was carrying plush bath towels that were still warm from the dryer.

  Gratefully, Cara took one. As she rubbed her wet hair with it she realized the exhaustion she felt wasn’t necessarily bad; it was a sweet tiredness. It had a sense of accomplishment. She saw the dolphins’ glittering trails as they moved up through the water toward the surface, toward sunlight, and knew she and Jax had actually done something.

  She’d been happy plenty of times in her life, but she couldn’t remember feeling glad like this.

  “Both of you: hot showers. Right away. You, Jax, downstairs. Cara, you take the upstairs bathroom. Meanwhile, I’ll make oatmeal. Brown sugar and cinnamon. Your lips are blue! As if your poor father doesn’t have enough to worry about with Max laid up in the hospital and the family car crumpled up like an accordion! He’ll be home in less than half an hour. You hear me? He just called. I didn’t say anything about all this, because thankfully I hadn’t checked your rooms yet. If I’d known you’d disappeared I would have ended up scaring the bejaysus out of that man for absolutely no reason. He’s in a cab from the ferry dock right now. Headed for the rental-car place to pick up a car to use, then home, then to the hospital. And you should both go with him. Half an hour at the most! I want you warm and dry before then. And sitting at the table for breakfast. Go! Now!”

  All Cara wanted to do was sleep, but as Lolly grabbed Jax by the elbow and steered into the nearby bathroom she headed up the stairs to immerse herself—this time in water that was not freezing and not salty, not home to the Pouring Man and not shining with billions of microorganisms.

  At the hospital, they left their dad sitting next to Max’s bed, patting the hand that wasn’t in the cast. Max was too big and tough for hand-holding these days and looked pretty close to his old self to Cara—not upset or in pain or anything, just bored of the hospital room and restless to be released.

  Still, it was pretty obvious that her dad, who felt so bad about not being there when it happened, wanted time alone with him; the story of what had happened last night would have to wait till later. So she and Jax closed the door behind them and took the elevator down to the cafeter
ia.

  It smelled like processed cheese food mixed with plastic. They lined up and pushed their trays along the metal rails, each grabbing a small plate with pudding and a whorled flower of whipped cream on it. Apparently it was the only dessert that was served here, at least in the morning.

  Then they found a table near a big window, where they could see into the tops of the trees outside.

  “So tell me,” said Cara. “You said it was OK, about the key. I mean—did she tell you where it was or something? What did she tell you?”

  Jax spooned up pudding, smearing it on his mouth and chin. Not unlike Lolly’s grandson, who was two.

  Telepath. Genius. Slob.

  “The key,” he said, with his mouth full, “isn’t a physical object. The key is something we have to do.”

  “It’s always something we have to do!” burst out Cara, exasperated.

  She’d been hoping the key would be real—i.e., an actual key. A key to a locker or a box or a chest that would give them what they needed to get their mother back.

  A key to buried treasure, she realized, basically.

  Was that too much to ask?

  So maybe it would have been too good to be true. But part of her had still hoped.

  “I know,” said Jax.

  “And actually? I don’t really need to see your food while you’re eating it,” said Cara.

  “Huh,” said Jax, chewing. “Well, you’re the one who asked me to talk.”

  “It just—it seems like whatever we do, the next step is to do something else. Find the leatherback. Solve the poem. See the tide. Meet the selkie. Free the ghosts. Fight the fear!”

  “What’d you expect? I mean there’s a reason they call them quests. It’s not like sitting on your butt and watching TiVo,” said Jax, and pushed away his empty plate.

  “You have an answer for everything, don’t you?” said Cara.

  “Hey, it’s who I am,” said Jax. “What can I say.”

  “So, spill it. What do we have to do?”

  “It’s kind of this—ritual, I guess,” said Jax.

  “Yeah? And what’s the point of it?”

  She was in a bad mood, suddenly. When they got back from undersea she’d been almost euphoric, but now she felt let down.

  “It’s just fatigue,” said Jax.

  She hadn’t anything out loud. She felt spied on.

  “You’re not supposed to do that!” she snapped.

  “I didn’t do anything!” protested Jax. “You had a look on your face! I just reacted to it, like anybody else!”

  She clicked her tongue and shook her head, not quite sure if she believed him.

  “Whatever,” she said finally, and looked away, drumming her fingers on the smooth top of the cafeteria table.

  “The ceremony,” he went on, “has to be done tonight. Well, first thing tomorrow morning, I guess—right after midnight, that is.”

  She groaned.

  “Are we allowed to sleep? Ever?”

  “Hey man, we’ll sleep when we’re dead,” came a voice from behind them.

  Max was rolling up to the table in a wheelchair, pushed by a nurse, with their dad a few feet behind him.

  Cara thought it must be a line from a song.

  “Geez,” said Jax. “Is something wrong with your legs, too?”

  “They always make you leave in a wheelchair, even if you can walk,” said Max.

  “Standard policy,” said the nurse, nodding.

  “That’s Kafkaesque,” said Jax in an admiring tone.

  “Cough-what?” said Max.

  “You kids ready?” asked their dad.

  He looked pale, Cara thought. Even more so than she’d become used to, over the course of the summer. Hadn’t he been outside at all? In all the months of the summer, hadn’t he seen the sun?

  He’d been in his office, she thought. In his study where he worked—and even slept, on that narrow sofa.

  She felt a rush of concern for her dad. Was he actually doing worse than any of them?

  She reached out and squeezed his hand. He looked down at her and smiled as he squeezed back—grateful, she thought.

  They followed Max, and the nurse who was pushing him, out through the hospital’s automatic front doors. Walking behind the nurse, Cara wondered why they always wore the same shoes, white and homely with big thick soles. Maybe it was a nursing rule—like good-looking, normal-colored shoes would make people sicker.

  “I’ll bring the rental car around,” said their dad. “You three wait here.”

  “You can get out now, sweetcheeks,” said the nurse to Max, and Cara watched as she rumpled his hair with her pink-nailed hand.

  Apparently even fifty-year-old ladies had crushes on her brother.

  The nurse went inside again, taking the wheelchair with her.

  “Sweetcheeks!” said Jax.

  The three of them watched their dad hurry across the parking lot, dangling his keys from one hand. Then Max elbowed Cara with his good arm.

  “I miss anything?”

  She and Jax looked at each other and smiled.

  “You could say that,” she said.

  “We did it,” said Jax—a certain satisfaction in his voice, Cara thought. His chest was sticking out a bit, too. “We went down to the Whydah.”

  Max’s mouth gaped open, making him look not so bright.

  “You—what? No way!”

  “Way,” said Jax, smugly.

  “But how?”

  “We used the scuba gear,” said Cara, and shrugged. She couldn’t help feeling a little smug herself. “It worked.”

  “Man,” said Max bitterly, and shook his head. “I can’t believe I missed it.”

  “We’re sorry, too,” said Jax, and Cara thought he actually looked sincere. Max had really been into the pirate-ship thing, that was true. He had to be disappointed.

  “We had to go,” said Cara. “You know that, right? We saw the light on the ocean. It was time. We couldn’t wait.”

  Max kept shaking his head—he could barely believe it had happened without him, she thought.

  “We missed you being there,” said Cara. “Actually, I was … well. I was terrified. I didn’t want to go without you. I almost called. But then I thought of you, you know, here.” She gestured at the hospital behind them. “And I didn’t think it would be fair to wake you up when there was no way you could leave your bed anyway.”

  “I guess,” said Max after a second, gruffly.

  “As far as the actual ship went,” said Jax, “there wasn’t much left to see. Just sand, mostly. Some ancient rotted timbers. You know: they’d already brought up the treasure.”

  “OK, spill it,” said Max reluctantly. “Quick, before Dad gets back.”

  So they told him the story, falling over each other a bit to get to the most amazing parts—the selkie, the pirates with their translucence and their impossibility. When Cara described how the ghosts had been set free, he looked almost suspicious—as though that detail was more astounding than an encounter with a half-seal, half-human out of Celtic mythology.

  She wished she could have taken a picture for him.

  They were still talking excitedly when a horn honked and they looked up to see an unfamiliar vehicle pull up—a bright-red convertible sports car, with their dad driving.

  “It was all they had,” he said sheepishly.

  “A Camaro? You look like one of those midlife-crisis guys,” said Max cheerily, and got into the front.

  The car only had two doors, so Cara and Jax jumped over the side into the squished backseat.

  “Thanks a lot, Maximilian,” said their dad. He pushed a button, and the top started moving up, closing over their heads.

  “Does it go fast?” asked Jax, as they buckled their belts.

  The car pulled away from the curb—hesitantly.

  “Your brother just totaled the car. You want to know if he can total this one, too?” asked their dad.

  “It wasn’t his fault,�
�� said Jax. Cara shot him a look, worried he might say too much.

  “The deer,” said their dad, and nodded. “I know. It could happen to anyone. But there was no deer on the scene, according to the police. Right? He never hit it. You swerved, didn’t you, Max.”

  “Swerved, yeah,” said Max. “So I, uh, wouldn’t hit the deer.”

  “Deer sighting or not, it’s not going to look good to our insurance company. Believe you me.”

  “He’s in the dreaded under-25 male driver bracket,” said Jax to Cara, nodding sagely. “They wreck everything. It costs the earth to insure them.”

  “You got me into this,” said Max testily.

  “Got you into what?” asked their dad.

  There was an awkward silence.

  “Oh, I—I made him go out in the car just then,” said Jax. “I wanted a bear claw.”

  Their dad looked at them in the rearview mirror—it was a thin explanation, and Cara could tell he didn’t buy it.

  Still, in for a penny, in for a pound, as her dad liked to say.

  “He was whining, so Max just said, you know, give me a break, I’ll get you your stupid donut,” she elaborated. “You know how they have them at the general store sometimes, and Jax didn’t want to walk.”

  “Huh,” said their dad.

  The silence started up again.

  “Sorry, everyone,” said Jax, and leaned up to pat Max on the shoulder.

  “Yeah, well,” said Max.

  “Look, guys,” said their dad. “Sure, maybe I shouldn’t have gone. It’s tough that you had to be without me after everything that’s happened this summer …”

  They came off a fast roundabout and merged onto Route 6. Cars rushed by, overtaking each other and whipping past, and Cara thought how lucky Max had been, in the end. How lucky they all were. She remembered how their car had looked last time she saw it, wrapped around the tree like the tree was a part of it.

  Their dad was going to get another shock when he saw the car.