Dr. Li nods. “We really do.”
I slump back in my chair. All kinds of feelings swirl around inside. I feel ashamed that my family has probably played a part in hurting Maple Lake, but I’m scared too. I’ve slept over at Liza’s house enough to hear Uncle Mark and Aunt Mary in the kitchen, talking about bills after they think everyone else has fallen asleep. I watched Liza once, straining to hear their voices through a heating vent. Her lips pinched up in a straight line; her eyebrows nudged together. I knew it was the same face I made, lying in my room at home, listening to different voices saying basically the same things. Maybe everyone gets that look when they run up against a problem they can’t quite solve.
“How about you head out to the lake for one more sample?” Dr. Li asks. “You could go out to the mouth of the Pine River and bring back a bottle; I could analyze it for you, and show how the numbers compare to other parts of the lake.”
Leaving the office sounds great. Even though Dr. Li’s being really nice, everything she’s saying about phosphorus and farms feels like it’s closing in on me, and I can barely breathe.
The room spins, but I put my hand on the back of a chair and take a shaky breath. Just walk out the door, I tell myself.
Tai and I had planned to look for clue number three, but right now I feel like I’m walking through deep sand, stuck and sliding. I squeeze my eyes shut tight.
Out the door, I tell myself again. Get out on the water.
Now that we know what could be causing Maple Lake’s pollution, Dr. Li probably won’t need to send us out on the boat anymore. Now might be our last chance.
Chapter 19
Phew,” Tai says, leaning back in his seat on the boat, “I’m so glad we’re out of there.”
It does feel good to be back on the water. But also, when you feel gray and cool inside and the sun’s so bright it clusters in crystal pools on the water, it feels cruel. It’s supposed to be so hot today, we both put our swimsuits on under our clothes so we could swim later.
I let the wheel slip in a circle through my fingers, guiding the boat in a gentle arc so the water sprays up around us in little beads.
“When you traced your finger up from the Pine River to Black Creek,” Tai says, “you got all pale and looked like you were about to fall over. You okay?”
“I just can’t believe this is happening to Maple Lake,” I say.
I slow down, then cut the boat motor. An image of Amos splashing in the shallows wavers into focus, and tears pool in my eyes. “I don’t want it to be different than it’s always been,” I say, my voice cracking. It’s not just because I love being on the boat, or because I want to keep fishing. It feels like keeping Maple Lake just the way it is lets me keep Amos too.
“I’m upset about what’s happening to the lake,” I continue. It’s hard to explain this to Tai, but I need to try. “Except it’s also that… I don’t want to believe that this could really be my family’s fault. We’ve been on Maple Lake for so long, you know? Generations of us. Part of me feels like we must know the lake better than Mr. Dale or your mom or anyone else—”
“Wow, you kind of sound like Darren,” Tai says.
My heart drops into my stomach. “No, no, that’s not what I meant—” I begin, but Tai holds up his hand and speaks quietly.
“Darren didn’t want to believe that someone who wasn’t from here belonged here, or knew anything about Maple Lake,” he says. “Right?”
I don’t want to admit it, but I nod.
“Well, maybe he has a point, in a way,” Tai says.
I shake my head. “No he doesn’t. I think even he realized that.”
“I just mean, sometimes people don’t want to look at what they might be doing wrong,” Tai says. “Sometimes it takes someone with a different way of looking at things to be able to see what needs to change.”
“Are you saying that just because I’ve grown up near Maple Lake, I can’t help fix it?” I look out at the water, toward the opposite shore.
“No way,” Tai says. “I mean, obviously you care about the lake. But hasn’t it been kind of hard too? When my mom first told you Maple Lake was polluted, did you believe her?”
“I didn’t even believe Mr. Dale,” I admit. “I didn’t want to.”
“But you do now, right?” Tai says.
I nod. Of course I do. I’ve seen the evidence.
“So if you know what’s wrong, you can help fix it.” Tai looks at me, his eyes patient and still. “That’s the way it works.”
“But I love my family,” I say. “And also, I love the farm. It’s hard to think about it hurting Maple Lake.”
Tai reaches out, his palm open. I reach back and squeeze his fingers.
When we let go, Tai speaks again, softly. “You’re doing your best,” he says. “You know?”
I hope that’s true.
There’s so little wind today I don’t have to worry much about drifting. The boat rocks just a little, then leans hard to one side as Tai bends over, sample bottle in hand. He steadies himself on the edge of the boat, then rinses and fills the bottle.
“It makes sense that you’re worried,” he says. “Isn’t your uncle’s manure pit right near that stream in the pasture? Seems like there’s a lot he might have to do differently. What do you think?”
I shudder. I don’t feel like talking about phosphorus anymore. Words from the articles we read have been jumping around my head all morning. Crop cover. Downslope surface water. I picture Grandpa, his big shoulder pressed against Bess’s side, hands moving quickly as he showed Tai how to milk.
“I think—” I stop, watching the trees along the shore flash by. I push the throttle and turn toward Bear Rock, letting the boat’s edge cut the water clean, a dark wave rising against the side, clear water droplets spattering. About ten feet out from Bear Rock, I slow to a stop and look at Tai.
“It’s definitely a lot,” I say. “Changing where they put the manure. How they store it. Not using it on the fields as much. Planting different stuff. Not tilling as much.” I feel my heart pounding. I look away from Tai, toward the dark green mountains jutting toward the water.
Tai puts his hand on my shoulder. “It’ll be okay,” he says. “Mr. Dale said there were ways to help pay for the changes. And besides, isn’t it worth it to protect Maple Lake?”
I definitely want to protect Maple Lake. I just want to protect the farm too.
“We’ll figure it out,” Tai says. “And hey—” He points past the boat. “We’re just about at Bear Rock. Should we check out clue number three? The shape in the water?”
Amos’s magic doesn’t make perfect sense. But right now, I’d much rather be thinking about the creature, and how to find it if it’s really out there, than about where Uncle Mark’s manure pit is, or what he might have to do to fix it.
“Okay,” I say. “Can you give me a hand with this anchor? I don’t want to get too much closer—it gets shallow kind of fast, and rockier. We have to swim.”
“Uh, I thought we were swimming later,” Tai says. “Like, from land. Remember what Mr. Dale said? Stay inside the boat?”
I shake my head. “I know we’re not supposed to swim,” I say. “But we can’t stay in the boat this time. Not if we want to look for that clue.” I lift the anchor, and there’s a soft thunk as it drops into the water. Will it hold this time? Part of me hopes it does, but the other part wants to have another reason to believe in the creature. “We’ll keep our life jackets on. Nothing to worry about.”
“If you say so!” Tai sounds excited; he heads to the little platform at the back of the boat and balances there, bobbing back and forth. Then he cannonballs into the water, shrieking. Water sprays up around his body.
I catch my breath as Tai bobs on the surface, sputtering. “That was awesome!” he yells. “Your turn!”
I hang the swim ladder over the side of the boat and start lowering myself in, step by step.
“Oh, come on!” Tai yells. “You gotta jump!�
�
I bite my lip and hang on, little waves tickling at my heels. This is the first time I’ve been back in deep water, really swimming, since last summer. When Amos was still alive.
“No thanks,” I say.
Swim ladders are supposed to make it easier to get in and out of the water from a boat, and they technically do, but they’re just attached to the side with a hooked top and the pressure of your own arms pulling them tight as you climb. They wobble a lot, so if you let go with one hand, the ladder sways to one side and you get all off-balance. There’s this moment where you just have to let go with everything you have and let the water take you.
The cold makes me gasp.
“C’mon!” Tai says. “Over here!” He takes a few strong strokes toward Bear Rock.
I suck my breath in now and spin onto my back, staring at the white-hot sky. The water holds me. For a second, I can pretend Amos is there, floating on his back just out of sight.
“Come on!” Tai yells again. “You’re lagging, Addie!”
The nice thing about swimming is I can rub my eyes hard and pretend it’s just water. “Coming!” I yell. “Geez!”
I take a deep breath and spin back onto my front, then swim toward the rock. When I stop just past Tai, his mouth’s hanging open.
“You’re fast,” he says.
“Not with this bulky life jacket on,” I say, lifting my shoulders in an awkward shrug. “But I’ve been swimming here my whole life.”
“Still,” he says. “Impressive.”
Bear Rock is huge and flat, pinkish brown and filled with sparkling bits of crystal that catch the sun. Tai and I haul ourselves up and sit, breathing hard.
“So where should we look?” Tai asks.
“I don’t know.” I’m hoping I’ll recognize what I’m supposed to find when I see it. “Somewhere in the middle of the lake was all he said.”
“I guess we’ll figure it out,” Tai says.
The sun’s hard and bright; I hold my palm up to shield my eyes. Out in the center of the lake, light collects in a wide band.
“Have I ever told you about Sparkle Island?” I ask.
“No,” Tai says. “Where’s that?”
“Right there.” I point to the light, so thick on the tiny waves it looks like we could hop out and walk on it.
“Is that one of Amos’s clues?” Tai asks.
I shake my head. “No, my dad’s the one who told us about Sparkle Island. It’s not an actual thing—well, I mean, most people wouldn’t think of it as one anyway—it’s like a mirage. Anytime there’s so much sunlight shining on one distant part of the lake that it makes the water start looking like a solid thing, that’s Sparkle Island. So it can be anywhere, on any lake. It could even be on Lake Tianchi.”
“Huh,” Tai says. “I can see where Amos got it, I guess.”
“Got what?” I ask.
“His taste for magic,” Tai says. “Sounds like your dad has it too.”
Then memory surges, bright and strong: Amos and I, really little, in the boat with Dad, and Mama there too, her head tipped back against the prow to catch sun.
“Is it a real island, Daddy?” I heard Amos ask.
Dad’s mouth twisted into a little smile. “What do you think, son?”
I’d been looking out at the water, shading my eyes like I was doing now. Wondering what it would feel like to step out onto all that light.
Amos nodded slowly. “Go over there,” he said. “I want to walk on it.”
Dad laughed then, and ruffled Amos’s hair. “That’s not how Sparkle Island works, buddy.”
Mama sat up and reached for Amos, smiling. “Your dad’s right, honey,” she said. “The closer you get to Sparkle Island, the harder it is to see it.”
“If it’s real,” Dad said, “there’s no way to know. Because it breaks apart as soon as you get close to it.”
Amos shook his head. “I think it’s real,” he said. “I’ll go find it when I’m bigger.”
Mama laughed. “Not till you can tread water for five minutes straight and swim at least halfway across Maple Lake without stopping,” she said. “I’ll time you. Then you can go find Sparkle Island.”
Usually Amos would’ve smiled then, given Mama a high five. Game on. But that time he didn’t. He squeezed his face up, thinking hard, then leaned against the boat and looked out toward Sparkle Island, his chin in his hands, his head cocked to one side, like he was listening to something far away.
Even now, I think I know a little how he felt. There’s a way of being empty that can fill you right up when you want something so bright, something that slips away the closer you get.
Tai taps my shoulder. “Hey, Addie,” he whispers hoarsely. “Hey.”
I realize I’ve had my eyes closed, the memory filling them.
“Look,” he says, louder.
I open my eyes. And the Sparkle Island I see then is different from the one Dad pointed out, from all the ones I’ve seen growing up on Maple Lake. And what’s different is the shape in the middle. I open my mouth, but no words come out.
“Is that it?” Tai asks, not taking his eyes off the water. “What Amos saw? Is that the creature?”
Still, I can’t say anything. I just watch as a pocket of deep blue, glowing like a star, emerges through the sparkles. At first the silvery-blue shape seems to spread, but then it gathers itself and rises slowly, held up by the water. Pinpoints of light shimmer around it, zigzagging like fireflies.
Even though I can’t explain what I’m seeing, I’m not scared. I remember when Amos tried to show me this once, but it looks different this time. It’s bigger, and it glows. It has a shape, curved and smooth. A neck? It moves so gracefully, like a dancer. It dives, plunging into the sparkles. But this time it doesn’t disappear: it rises again. Then it seems to turn, as though it’s looking at us, and I see two dark points on either side. Eyes? Before I can decide for sure, it dives again, and then the sparkles cover it. I count five deep breaths, waiting for it to come again. But it doesn’t. Sparkle Island moves back into place, as real as an illusion can be.
“Yes,” I say finally, so softly I’m not even sure I’ve spoken out loud, but Tai whips his head around to look at me, so I know he heard. “That was it.”
Tai nods. “I thought so,” he says. “That was beautiful. It kind of reminded me of a Chinese New Year celebration—on mute, maybe.”
“Really?” I’ve heard of Chinese New Year before. It happens later than the one we celebrate in the United States, and I really like that it’s based on the cycles of the moon.
“Oh my gosh, the fireworks are like nothing you’ve ever seen before,” Tai says. “Tons of colors and lights, just shooting every which way. It’s amazing. If you could be in a city in China, watching from an apartment window, you’d just feel like the whole world was one big awesome light show. It’s so… happy.”
“I really hope I can see it someday,” I say. “But those lights just now—they weren’t loud, like fireworks. And they were just one color. Maybe two.”
“I know.” Tai still sounds like he’s seen something he can’t quite believe. “But they felt just as big, somehow.”
Then we both sit quiet for a moment, looking at the water. I’m waiting for the shape to come again, but I did see it once, and maybe that will have to be enough.
Once we’ve swum back to the boat, I get in the driver’s seat and stare at the water, trying to make sense of everything.
“I can’t believe it,” Tai says, shaking his head, his eyes wide.
“Me neither.” My heart pounds. “I don’t know what exactly they prove, but the clues Amos wrote down—he’s not the only one who could see them.”
“You’re going to record it, right?” Tai asks.
Slowly, I pull the notebook out and start writing. Then, I flip back through all the pages of my notes alongside Amos’s, his handwriting next to mine. It’s almost like we’re talking.
“So, I was thinking about the creatu
re,” Tai says, breaking the silence. “And everything my mom said, and I wondered… do you still believe the creature could be related to the pollution somehow?”
“I think… I think if the creature exists, it’s a part of the lake,” I say. “A really important part. But it’s also a mysterious part. Not everyone will know about it. Even your mom says it’s hard to know everything for sure.”
“I get it,” Tai says. “But remember my scientific method? Do we share the information we have, or not?”
It’s hard to know how to answer. At first, I’m quiet, letting my thoughts churn. Finally, I say the only thing that makes sense to me so far. “What happened on the boat, with the creature… I still think that should be our secret. Sharing—isn’t that so people can have a chance to fix problems?”
“Pretty much,” Tai says.
“If there’s really a creature,” I say, “it isn’t a problem. If anything, it’s just trying to show us a problem. So I think we need to share what we know about the pollution. The creature—” I pause. “The creature, or whatever it is—it’s just ours. Something between me and Amos… and now you too.”
“That doesn’t sound very scientific,” Tai says, his voice teasing. “What is happening to you?”
“I know, I know,” I say. “But why does a person have to be just one thing?”
Tai shrugs. “I never said they did,” he says. “I mean, as you know, I’ve never been that into science. Always thought it was kind of a drag. But doing all this research has made me actually think it’s kind of cool. I guess it just took me a while.”
What took me a while was realizing that I could believe in science without giving up on magic.
Chapter 20
Tai and I tie the boat up and step onto shore, our feet making soft imprints in the sand. We already toweled off, put our clothes back on over our suits, and stayed out long enough in the sun to dry our shoulders and the little bits of our hair that got wet from splashing water, even though the life jackets kept us afloat.
The Light in the Lake Page 15
