by Ali Standish
All those nights I waited, watching Kacey’s window, sure she would come home.
Kacey could do anything.
Kacey’s heart thirsted for life.
Nobody understood that about Kacey the way that I understood it.
Kacey could do anything, and Kacey would never leave me.
Which meant that she would come back to me, no matter what.
Even when Mr. Reid told me she was never going to wake up and threw me out of the nursing home, I didn’t believe it. That’s why I tried to run again the third time.
If I could just get to her, make her realize I was still there, waiting for her to come back to me . . .
But then, when Roddie caught me trying to run the last time, something snapped.
Even as Dad pulled him away from me, I knew what he said was right.
Kacey wasn’t coming back.
Mr. Reid was right too. I was the reason she was gone in the first place.
I sit up. The clock reads 6:17 a.m. I look outside again, and only then do I realize that the reason it looks pitch-black is that the storm shutters have been closed over the window.
My mouth feels like dried mud, and I ease my way out of bed and down the hall to the bathroom to brush my teeth. I notice as I brush that the bathtub is full of water.
Even though it’s early, I hear the TV on downstairs. When I lean over the banister, I see everyone awake and huddled around the blue screen. Even Roddie. Which is odd, since I don’t remember the last time I saw him up before eleven on a day he didn’t have to go to school.
Mom catches sight of me. “Ethan!” she calls, standing up and dropping the remote. “You’re up.”
“Is Anastasia here?” I ask.
“Not yet,” Dad says. “Not the worst part. It’s still a few hours out.”
“Come downstairs,” Mom says. “I’ll make you some breakfast.”
I hesitate. I don’t want breakfast, and I’m not sure I want company. But the alternative is sitting in my dark room, listening to the wolf-wind and thinking about Kacey lying in her nursing home bed, waiting to die. So I trudge downstairs and flop next to Dad on the couch. He rubs a hand over my shoulders. Roddie sits on the floor in front of the TV with a blanket around him. He gives me a faltering smile.
“Morning, bro,” he says.
He hasn’t called me “bro” since before the incident.
Grandpa Ike nods at me from his chair, and I drop my eyes to the floor.
“What can I get you?” Mom asks. She’s wafting around the room like a bedraggled butterfly, picking up paper plates and plumping pillows, as if all my problems might just be fixed by some good housekeeping. “Eggs? Toast? Bacon?”
She must be really worried if she’s offering to cook me bacon. “Nothing now,” I say.
“I’ll just get you some water, then.”
I can feel everyone’s eyes on me, but I don’t want to talk. So I stare at the screen, where a lady in a yellow raincoat huddles in front of a beach, trying not to get blown away by the wind.
“At this point, we have power outages reported in over ten counties in Florida, and two so far in Georgia,” she yells. “If you still have power and you’re in the storm’s path, get your flashlights, candles, and water ready.”
The TV flashes to a radar screen, showing the storm’s predicted path.
“Looks like it could go either way,” Grandpa Ike mutters, studying the two possible storm patterns, one of which spirals back out to sea; the other keeps tumbling inland. “If it hits us square-on, it could be a big one.”
The show returns to the news desk. “We have a local casualty being reported,” says the male anchor, whose hair is too slick and tie too pink. “Unfortunately, the missing wolf from the Georgia Red Wolf Preserve has been found dead. Local restaurant owner Reese Magellan found the body late last evening, collapsed behind his Dumpster.”
“That’s right, Lou,” says Maria Olivas. “Representatives from the preserve say they believe the cause of death was likely accidental rat poisoning, though they have not been able to get to the body to confirm. The wolf is thought to have already given birth to her pups, but authorities are not hopeful for their chances of survival without a mother and in this storm.”
Mom clucks her teeth sadly.
I think numbly about what Coralee said the first day I met her, about all animals needing someone to look out for them.
“Now we’re back to Andi to give us some tips about staying safe indoors. We are reminding all our viewers again that within the next few hours, Anastasia will be bearing down on the southern Georgia coast, and at that point no one should be outdoors under any circumstances.”
The coverage goes on like this for an hour or so. When my legs get stiff, I stand up.
“Everything okay?” Dad asks.
“Fine,” I lie. It’s a stupid question. How could everything be okay? “Just going to go change.”
I’m still wearing the outfit I wore to school yesterday. No one has bothered to force me to put clean clothes on.
The stairs take all my energy, so when I get to my room, I’m out of breath. I flick on the overhead light and lean down to get fresh clothes from my dresser. Just as I reach it, the phone trills to life.
Before I have time to think about it, I grab it and punch it on.
“Hello?”
“Ethan?” Coralee’s voice pipes feebly through the phone line.
“What do you want?” I ask.
I feel bad about what I said to Coralee. It’s not her fault Kacey’s going to die. It’s mine.
But it doesn’t change the fact that she lied, that she broke her promise not to tell anyone about Kacey. That she told Suzanne, of all people.
“I know you’re mad at me,” she says. “But I need you to meet me at the cove.”
“Are you kidding? There’s a hurricane outside, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“I know, and I know you’re really upset right now, but we have to get there. It’s important. It’s the tunnel. I think I know who—”
I hear a click. “Hello? Ethan?” It’s Mom. “Are you on the phone?”
“Just hanging up.”
And then I end the call before Coralee can say another word.
Where Coralee Is
THE LIGHTS FLICKER A couple of times the next hour, but the power stays on. Rain drills down so hard that there’s a constant low roar. Wind sweeps around the house, and every floorboard seems to moan with the effort of staying put.
It feels right, somehow, the storm rattling the house. Like the wind is feeling everything I’m feeling.
At eight, Mom forces me to eat some toast, which I choke down by taking big sips of water after every bite.
At eight thirty, I say I’m tired and go back to my room. I flip to the end of the time-travel book. Of course, the hero saves the day. He goes back in time and sacrifices himself to save his friend’s life.
The ending, which I liked when I first read it, just makes me angry now. I throw the book against the wall.
At nine o’clock, the phone rings. I don’t answer it. I don’t want to talk to Coralee again.
Less than a minute later, there’s another knock on my door.
Dad comes in with the phone in his hand. His mouth is set in a frown.
“Hang on,” he says into the receiver. “I’ll ask.”
Placing his hand over the mouthpiece, he says, “Adina Jessup is on the phone. She can’t find Coralee. She wants to know if Coralee is here, but I told her no. She didn’t say anything to you about coming over, did she?”
I stare at him, speechless, before slowly shaking my head.
Dad repeats this message into the phone. “Of course, we’ll let you know if we see her.”
When he’s hung up, he leans his shoulder against the doorframe. “Can you think of anywhere she could be?” he asks. “This is important, Ethan. If she’s out in this storm, she could be in real trouble.”
I open my mouth to answer, but Mom cal
ls Dad’s name from downstairs. He looks over his shoulder and back at me. “If you think of anything,” he says, “come tell me immediately.”
Then he shuts the door.
Which leaves me by myself to wonder why I didn’t tell him that I know where Coralee is.
At least, I think I know. What did she say earlier this morning? “I need you to meet me at the cove. . . . I think I know who—”
Who what?
Who the thief is?
Who we heard in the tunnel?
I rub my hands over my face, racking my brain, listening to the howl of the wind.
And for some reason, Suzanne’s face flashes into my mind. Suzanne in Mr. Charles’s class.
Then the holes dug in the sand and the empty food containers from the Fish House.
Then the reporter on TV.
And suddenly, I know why Coralee has gone to the cove.
Now I just have to figure out how to save her.
The Plan
MY FIRST THOUGHT IS Roddie. Roddie seems to be trying to make things up to me, and he’s way more likely to let me leave the safety of the house to go out into the hurricane than my parents, or even Grandpa Ike.
But when I get to Roddie’s room, I hear a stifled sob. I also hear a girl’s voice, and she’s crying too. It’s not my mother, so it has to be Grace, talking to him on the computer. I lean my ear to the door.
“I love you,” Roddie says. “This is so hard.”
“I know,” Grace’s voice hiccups. “But it’s for the best.”
They’re breaking up. No way is Roddie going to help me right now.
I run through my options in my head. If I tell one of the adults, they won’t let me go. They might decide it’s too dangerous for any of us to go, and Coralee will be stranded. Or Dad will go by himself, or Grandpa Ike. And what if they don’t come back? It will be my fault. Again.
I could call Coralee’s house and tell Adina, but it would end the same way. Adina would go alone into the raging storm.
No. I can’t put any of them in danger to fix my mistake. I won’t let anyone else die because of my mistakes.
Coralee could be running out of time.
Why did I say those stupid things to her?
Coralee might be a liar, but she’s out there in the storm. And she’s all alone because of me.
She would never leave me alone like that.
I can’t let anything happen to her.
I tiptoe back to my room and rifle through my closet until I find my snow boots, which have gone unused since we moved to Palm Knot. They’re the closest things I have to rain boots, so I pull them on and grab my rain jacket, which I stuff under my arm.
When I crane my neck over the banister, the living room is empty. That’s good. At least I won’t have to climb out of my window.
I creep down the stairs, feeling oddly grateful for the noise of the storm.
When I reach the front door, I stop and listen. There are voices coming from the kitchen. Since the windows are all shuttered, no one will be able to see me once I’m outside.
The door creaks when I open it, but no one can hear it over the wind.
The instant I step out, I’m soaked. I throw my rain jacket on, but it makes no difference. The rain shoots down from the sky in diagonal sheets.
The wind blows so hard that I have to hold on to the banister to get down the porch steps. Once I’m out in the open, I walk like a sumo wrestler to keep my balance as I move toward the garage. After I I adopt this tactic, things don’t seem so difficult.
But when I get to the garage, the door is locked.
My bike is in the garage.
If I want my bike, I’ll have to go through the kitchen.
If I go through the kitchen, I’ll get caught.
I curse out loud without worrying about being heard. I can hardly hear myself.
It’s time to reconsider my options.
I could make a run for it, but I might never get there, battling against this wind. Even if I did, I might be too late by then. I glance down the driveway. I can barely see ten feet in front of me.
But what I do see is Grandpa Ike’s truck. I guess there wasn’t room in the garage for it.
I remember Grandpa Ike driving me home yesterday.
I remember him tucking his key under the windshield visor.
I have a new plan.
Ways I Could Fix Things (with Coralee) If I Could Time Travel
1. By actually listening to Coralee on the phone and talking her out of it.
2. By telling Mom and Dad right after I talked to her so they could tell Adina, who would stop her from leaving.
3. By calling Adina and telling her myself.
4. By going to Coralee’s house and tearing down her satellite so she couldn’t watch the news and never would have figured out who’s at the cove.
5. By forcing Coralee to stay at my house yesterday so that I could stop her from leaving.
6. By not biting her head off when she came to see me yesterday. (Okay, maybe this wouldn’t fix things, but I’d still take it back if I could.)
The Dare
DRIVING BY MYSELF THROUGH the lashing rain is much harder than driving in the sunshine with Grandpa Ike riding shotgun. But it’s still way faster than running against the wind.
Fortunately, I’m the only car on the road.
Unfortunately, the wind rocks the truck cab dangerously back and forth, and when I reach the strawberry farms, where there’s almost no tree cover, I have to keep turning the wheel to the right to even stay on the pavement. I also have to keep slamming on the brakes and jerking the truck to avoid debris flying across the road: a yellow tricycle, a spinning plastic pot with a sapling planted in it, a birdhouse, two mailboxes.
The road is flooded. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, so I just push down on the gas harder, which seems to work okay, even though the truck groans every time.
I think I’m doing a pretty good job, and I start to feel almost confident. That is, until I approach the bridge over the inlet. The houses here are all shuttered up, and there are no cars in the driveways. No one is waiting the storm out this close to the water. On the other side of the bridge is the cove, and Coralee.
But there’s a problem.
The water in the bay is coming in fast and high. So high that the bridge is flooded. My stomach twists in thorny knots. If the water is this high here, surely the storm drain tunnel is underwater by now.
I can’t take the truck across the bridge.
But I can probably manage to get across on my own.
I veer into the closest driveway to the bridge and turn off the truck.
When I get out, the wind hits me ten times harder than it did back at home.
I assume my sumo wrestler stance again and bow my head into the gale, walking at a right angle. When I reach the bridge, I hold on to the pedestrian rail with both hands. The seawater laps at my knees so it’s almost impossible to pick my feet up and walk. I turn and face the rail, step up onto the lower bar, and slide one foot forward, then the other. Left, then right.
Like Kacey on the tree branch.
Pain suddenly rips through me. I can’t explain why, but it’s enough to make me want to double over. It’s enough to make me want to let go of the rail and float away on the surging waves.
I can’t do this, says a voice in my head. I can’t make it across this bridge.
My grip on the rail loosens.
But then there’s another voice in my head. Yes, you can.
“I can’t!” I cry aloud.
But it’s like I can hear Kacey whispering in my ear. I know it’s crazy, but I hear her voice all the same.
You can, Ethan. You can because I dare you. I dare you to make it across this bridge.
A dare. The one thing neither Kacey or I could ever turn down.
My grip tightens again, and I feel my legs pumping against the heavy water.
Through the deafening wind and beating rain, it�
�s like I can feel Kacey pushing me forward.
And suddenly I know Coralee is alive. I know it.
I pump harder.
When I reach the end of the bridge, I find I can walk again. Main Street, protected by the rocky bay shore and the wall of sandbags, has only taken on a foot or so of water.
I hit the trail to the cove running and immediately slip in the mud, landing in the water. I grab hold of a small tree and use it to pull myself up. From there, I wade along the trail and through the tree grove. There’s even less flooding here. The land rises higher than Main Street, and it’s sheltered from the rain by the trees.
I feel a flutter of hope in my chest.
It takes me a minute to see her when I reach the opening in the trees. The first thing I notice is a splash in the water. Then I catch sight of one of Coralee’s feet, kicking up through a white swell in the tide.
“Coralee!” I bellow. “Hold on, Coralee! I’m coming!”
I run into the wind, ignoring the sting of the rain and the sea spray on my face.
Coralee grips the rocks above the storm drain with one hand. Her other hand is pressed against the pocket of her hoodie. When the surge pulls out, only her legs flail in the water. When it pushes in, she’s almost level with the rocks, her belly floating on the tide. Every time it pulls out, it tries to drag her with it.
She doesn’t see me yet. Her eyes are shot with panic, her knuckles gray from holding on to the rock.
“Coralee!” I shout again.
The rocks above the drain are slippery. If I lose my footing, I’ll fall into the water.
If I don’t reach Coralee in time, her hand will let go, and she’ll be pulled out to sea.
And she won’t come back.
A second passes that feels like a lifetime. The cove and the bay and Coralee are whipped from my sight, and I’m watching Kacey edge out onto the branch once again.
“I can grab it, if I can just get a little farther out.”
“Ethan!”
I’m sure it’s Kacey’s voice again, but when she calls my name, it’s like a spell has been broken. I am back in the cove, and Coralee has finally seen me, and she’s calling out my name, too, because she needs me.
