The Darkdeep

by Ally Condie

  “Is there anything we can do?” Emma asked softly.

  Nico sighed, putting a hand over his eyes. “No. But thanks.”

  “We’re still going to the island after school, right?” Emma batted puppy dog eyes. “Please? You can count it as my birthday present. For the next seven years.”

  Nico couldn’t help but laugh. “Fine. But we have to be back by dark. My dad won’t flake out two nights in a row.”

  “What do you think that houseboat really is?” Tyler glanced around to make sure that no one was listening in. “How the heck did it get there? Because I’ve got a bad feeling about a floating collection of misfit toys nobody seems to be watching.”

  “It’s a mystery,” Emma agreed, but in an entirely different tone. “We have to solve it!”

  “I’m curious, too.” Nico lifted a hand to cut Tyler off. “We’ll just take another look. And you know you want to, so stop playing around. We’re the only people on Earth who know about that place.”

  “Going into Still Cove on purpose.” Tyler shook his head as Emma raised her arms in triumph. “How stupid can we be?”

  “Don’t tell Opal,” Nico said sharply. “Don’t tell her anything we’re doing, period.”

  Tyler shrugged. Emma frowned, but nodded. The bell rang and they faced forward as Mr. Huang closed the hallway door.

  Another day to get through, Nico thought. One hour at a time.

  6

  OPAL

  They ditched me.

  Opal stood at the mouth of the cave.

  No Nico, Emma, or Tyler. And, when she peered down at the water, no rowboat.

  Only a few daylight hours remained, and her parents would miss her soon. Did she have time to get her dad’s canoe? Could she paddle all the way back to Still Cove, or even find the island again if she did?

  Why’d they leave me behind?

  The day before, they’d tied the rowboat to a sunken post below the cave, promising to keep everything secret. It was Opal who’d spotted hidden notches carved into the cliff, which let them climb up to the ledge from the water.

  They’d done it all as a group. Together.

  And then they ditched her.

  She’d looked for the others after school, then pedaled to the field and found three bikes in a pile. So she’d descended the heart-stopping trail through the fog and discovered exactly what she’d feared. She was alone.

  Tears burned behind Opal’s eyelids, but she blinked them back. She walked into the cave and splashed water on her face. When she finished, she kicked at the stone wall, dirtying her sneakers. They were not going to cut her out of this. Suddenly furious, Opal kicked the wall again. Dirt rained down on her head. Stupid. Don’t make the roof fall in on you.

  She had to think. How could she get to the island?

  We found one boat in this cave. Maybe there’s another?

  Opal moved deeper, exploring the narrow fissure where the rowboat had been. Near the back, a draft chilled her skin. With a start, Opal realized there was a hidden corner. A passageway. Her phone light was just bright enough to reach the next turn.

  Opal stared into the opening for a dozen heartbeats. Opal took a deep breath. Why not?

  She entered a narrow tunnel reeking of seawater and damp earth. The path dove sharply, switching back and forth as it burrowed underground. After dozens of turns, the way leveled. A long, straight tunnel stretched out before her. Water dripped from its ceiling.

  Fear squeezed Opal’s throat. A warning of Go back! coursed through her, shouted down by a second voice that whispered: This might take you where you want to go. She tried not to think about the thousands of tons of rock and seawater above her head. The tunnel had to cut directly underneath the cove.

  Gritting her teeth, Opal ran headlong into the pitch black.

  Just keep moving. This has to lead somewhere.

  At one point the passage widened into an open space, but Opal raced through it until the walls narrowed again. She had to find the others. She was tired of being the odd one out, the afterthought. She was an outsider to her parents’ lives, their jobs at work and their obsession with the new house. And she was an interloper in Logan’s group. He kept inviting her places, but she knew Parker and Carson resented it. Ever since her best friend Melissa moved to Seattle last year, Opal felt that she was hovering at the edge of everyone else’s closed circles. And now this.

  The tunnel ended at the bottom of a jagged ramp. Opal jogged up another set of switchbacks to a second, smaller cave. Outside, brambles choked the bottom of a steep-sided gully.

  Opal knew where she was. She’d been right.

  She was standing on the island in Still Cove.

  Opal climbed up the ridge. From the top, she could see the dark wound of the pond and its eerie houseboat.

  Opal grinned wickedly.

  She had a secret.

  Opal pushed open the front door of the houseboat, strode through the foyer, and parted the velvet curtain. She found the others crouched over an old wooden trunk.

  “Hi, everyone.”

  It was almost worth being left behind.

  Tyler’s eyes popped.

  Emma’s mouth dropped open in amazement.

  Nico straightened like a switchblade. “What are you doing here?”

  “I have as much right to be here as you do.” Opal spoke calmly, though her heart thudded inside her chest. “You should’ve invited me to come with you.”

  “How’d you get here?” Emma seemed more astonished than upset.

  “I have my ways,” Opal replied, trying to be cryptic and casual all at once. Make them wonder.

  Tyler raised his eyebrows like he was impressed, but Nico replied bitterly. “We didn’t invite you on purpose. You can’t barge in and tell us what to do.”

  “You can’t keep me out,” Opal shot back.

  Tyler began edging down the aisle. “So I’m just gonna … head on over … away from here. Maybe I’ll look for a bathroom.” He shot a glance at Emma. “You want to help?”

  Emma shook her head. “No thanks. I went before we came.”

  Tyler covered his face with his hand. “Emma …”

  Odd she didn’t take the hint, Opal thought. Tyler and Emma had been joined at the hip since second grade, when Emma’s family moved to Timbers and opened a tiny sporting goods store. Why is she sticking around now? Hoping to see some fireworks? Opal could not figure her out.

  “You’re not a part of our group.” Nico crossed his arms, refusing to look directly at Opal. “This place doesn’t change that.”

  Ouch. Opal thought about all the times she and Nico had played as kids, building pillow forts in Nico’s den, or camping out in Opal’s backyard. Sometimes they’d race their bikes around the fountain in town square until they got dizzy, screaming that a black hole had gotten them. They’d collapse on the grass and take turns imagining new worlds on the other side of the galaxy.

  This houseboat was as close to a new world as Opal might ever find.

  Nico Holland was not going to ruin it for her.

  Her nostrils flared. “Listen. I don’t want to argue with you, but—”

  “Holy crap!” Tyler yelled, but he wasn’t anywhere in sight. His voice sounded muffled, as if it were coming from behind another room. “Yo, check this out!”

  “Knock it off, Ty,” Nico shouted. “Nobody wants to hear about your … business.”

  “Not a bathroom.” Tyler’s head popped from behind a wall panel. “Something even weirder.”

  Emma startled. “Where’d you come from?”

  Tyler waggled his eyebrows. “I found a trick panel. I think there’s a basement.”

  “Boats don’t have basements,” Nico shot back.

  “This one does. Get over here!” Tyler ducked back out of sight.

  “Secret door!” Emma squealed, clapping her hands as she raced across the room.

  Opal brushed past Nico, ignoring his intake of breath as she stepped around the weird jar pedestal.
She belonged there, whatever Nico thought. He couldn’t close her out of this. I won’t allow it.

  The wall’s wooden panels fit snugly together, but when Opal pressed on the section where Tyler had been, it popped open to reveal a wrought-iron spiral staircase.

  “Whoa.” Emma turned on her phone light and aimed it at the steps.

  Tyler had stopped a quarter turn down and seemed to be listening.

  “This must be where they keep the good stuff!” Emma hopped onto the steps.

  “Wait.” Tyler held out an arm to stop her. “Should we make sure it’s safe first?”

  “That’s what I’m doing.” Emma sidled past him down the stairs. “Safety check.”

  Nico darted past Opal, getting the jump on her as he joined Tyler on the steps. Single-file, they descended after Emma. At the bottom, a diffuse glow illuminated a chamber half the size of the room above.

  “Where’s that light coming from?” Opal asked. Nico shrugged.

  “Are we underwater right now?” Tyler’s foot was tapping out of control.

  “We must be,” Opal replied. “The ceiling’s ten feet above our heads.”

  There was no more arguing about who should be there. Not here, in a place where it felt like none of them should be.

  Opal spotted a shadow in the room’s center. A circle of black in the floorboards.

  Emma aimed her light. They all moved close, stopping shoulder to shoulder at its edge.

  “It looks like … water,” Tyler whispered.

  “Like a well,” Nico murmured. “Or pool.”

  In a hole in the bottom of the houseboat, black liquid spun slowly, as if stirred by unseen hands. The inky water rolled against a low wooden lip built around the opening, but it never flowed into the room.

  The pool simply … swirled. Ceaselessly. Relentlessly.

  A million questions turned in Opal’s mind. Was this part of the pond? The cove? Why did the water swirl? What kept it from surging out and flooding the chamber? Was it even water at all?

  She knew only two things for certain.

  The pool was the darkest thing she’d ever seen.

  And it went deep.

  7

  NICO

  “None of these came out,” Emma grumbled, chomping on a Dorito.

  She shoved her phone toward Nico across the cafeteria table. He squinted down at the photos. It was true—all of the shots Emma had taken of the pool were blurry. It was like the water didn’t want its picture taken, though Nico knew that was crazy.

  How crazy? You felt that thing. Not as much as Opal, but still.

  They’d stood above the hole in silence, marveling at the whirling black liquid. Then Opal had jerked around and hurried up the stairs. Tyler was behind her in a blink, and suddenly Nico hadn’t wanted to be down there, either.

  Only Emma resisted, snapping a series of shots before reluctantly following the others. Climbing the steps, Nico had felt eyes on his back that didn’t belong to his friend, something he knew was impossible but was equally impossible to shake.

  Opal had gone straight through the showroom and foyer, bolting out the front door and across the stepping-stones. Only when completely off the pond did she stop, hands on her knees, a sheen of sweat dampening her forehead.

  It would’ve been comical if Nico hadn’t felt the same way. A weird sort of panic had gripped him, down there in the dark. He’d felt … small. Vulnerable. Like a rabbit sensing a cat, and knowing it had strayed too far from its hole.

  “The light was bad,” Tyler said, fidgeting with his ear. “That must explain the pictures. I wonder how far down that well goes.”

  “Deep,” Emma said solemnly. “And dark. That’s what Opal kept saying, when she was trying to calm down. Dark, deep, dark, deep. Over and over.”

  An icy spider walked up Nico’s neck. He’d heard Opal, too.

  “It was cold in there.” Nico shivered at the memory. “Plus, I can’t figure out that lower level at all. Houseboats usually have a flat underside, with almost no draft. Who’d build a ship with that much of it jutting underwater? It’s like an iceberg. You could never move the thing.”

  “Who parks a dilapidated funhouse boat on a creepy pond in the middle of a deserted island?” Tyler spread his hands. “The whole thing is crazy. I think we should leave it alone.”

  Emma shook her head, her focus turned inward. “I think the houseboat is there because of the Darkdeep beneath it. That must be why. Nothing else fits.”

  Tyler covered his eyes and groaned. “Tell me you didn’t give it a name. Now we’ll never get away from it.”

  Emma’s brow crinkled in disbelief. “Get away from it? You’re joking, right? We just found, like, the coolest thing in the world, and you wanna pretend it’s not there? Aren’t you insanely curious about that pool? Did you notice the water never stopped moving?”

  “Of course I noticed!” Tyler slumped in his chair, his head flopping back to stare at the ceiling. “Gave me the willies, too. That’s all I dreamed about last night, except that the pool—”

  “The Darkdeep,” Emma said.

  “—was inside my toilet bowl, and I was out of other options.” His face scrunched at the memory. “I woke up sweating like a shoplifter.”

  “Whatever that well”—Nico held up a hand to forestall Emma—“that Darkdeep is, I get the feeling it’s been there a long time. Like, maybe forever.”

  “Why does it swirl?” Tyler intoned slowly, squeezing his forehead. “I can’t get over that part.”

  Nico grimaced. “Maybe there’s a crack at the bottom of the pond. That might explain a whirlpool—it could just be freshwater spilling into the cove.”

  Tyler nodded uncertainly. Emma gave Nico a skeptical look. “Did you notice the strange way it was spinning, though?” she said. “Like in slow motion, almost. It didn’t seem fast enough to be a whirlpool.”

  “Maybe the cove’s salt water balances it out,” Nico said defensively. He didn’t have a good answer but was determined to believe one existed. Otherwise his mind crept to conclusions that scared him.

  “We need to find out everything we can about the Darkdeep,” Emma insisted, tapping the table with an index finger. “Someone’s got to know about it. Maybe try the library?”

  Tyler snorted, taking a pull off his milk before responding. “You think Old Lady Johnson has a book called The Secret Houseboats of Still Cove?”

  Nico chuckled. “I gotta agree with Tyler. That showroom was buried under a foot of dust. It’s been years since anyone set foot inside. And rumors would be all over Timbers if anyone had ever seen it before.”

  “We should still look.” Emma began chewing on her curly blond hair. “The houseboat had to come from somewhere. What if it’s listed in a shipping registry? Or maybe some logbook by whoever built it.”

  Nico nodded, biting into a carrot stick. “Okay, you’re right. It can’t hurt to try.”

  “Ah, man.” Tyler shook his head. “You fold so easily, Holland. Like a deck of cards. Like a folding chair.”

  “She’s right, though. Someone gathered all that stuff out there. Wouldn’t you like to know who? And why?”

  Tyler sighed dramatically, but nodded.

  Emma opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. “I think we should include Opal.”

  Nico’s head snapped up. “No way.”

  Emma lifted a palm. “Just hear me out.”

  “I told you he’d say no,” Tyler mumbled in a singsong voice.

  Emma shot a glare at Tyler, then refocused on Nico. “Like it or not, Opal has a point. She was there when we found the houseboat, so she does have as much right to explore it as we do. But think about it this way—what happens if she gets mad we won’t share, and decides to bring other people so she’s not alone?”

  Nico felt a chill cut through him. He knew which people Emma was talking about.

  A memory flashed in his head—Opal, hunched over and gripping her knees after fleeing the houseboat. Her meltdown
had only lasted moments, but Nico was sure she’d experienced something down there in the dark, beside the endlessly spinning pool.

  Would she even want to go back? Did he?

  “I still can’t figure how she got onto the island,” Tyler mused.

  Nico frowned. He had no idea either, and Opal had refused to tell. Smugly.

  “I’m just saying, think about it.” Emma lowered her voice. “I don’t think Opal means to be a jerk. I know she feels bad for … about that day.”

  The sympathy he’d felt evaporated in a blink. The image of his drone vanishing into the fog still riled Nico every time. “I’ll think about it,” was all he managed.

  “Good.” Emma sat back. “By the way, did you hear what the town is planning?”

  Nico shook his head, thrown by the change in topic.

  “A freaking radish festival.” Emma giggled. “To boost tourism.”

  “A what?” Nico cringed. “Why?” Tyler just blinked in confusion.

  “It’s the official vegetable of Timbers,” Emma said in a mock-scolding tone. “Remember? We learned that in second grade. Because of all the radish farms outside of town.”

  “But a radish festival?” Tyler ran a hand over his face. “Oh boy, that’s bad.”

  “Uh-huh,” Emma agreed. “And it’s a big deal. There’s gonna be a pageant, a parade, and lots of things on Main Street. All about radishes. It sounds totally ridiculous.”

  “Hey, show some respect,” Nico joked. “You can’t make radish tacos without radishes.”

  Tyler snorted, but then his gaze flicked to the door. A four-letter word escaped his lips. Nico turned. Logan was walking toward him with a vicious twinkle in his eye.

  Jeez. Not again.

  “Hey, flyboy!” Logan stopped directly behind Nico and loomed over him, talking loud enough for every table to hear. “Have you packed yet?”

  Nico’s eyebrows rose. Whatever this was, it wasn’t what he’d expected.

  “Packed?”

  “For your move,” Logan said matter-of-factly. Then he leaned over and mock-whispered in Nico’s ear. “Or maybe you don’t know?”