A Trick of the Light

by Tina Wainscott

  In the end, it didn’t matter what he told himself or what made sense. He grabbed up towels and a pair of his sweats. Then he walked to his boat and jumped in. No way was he going to let Chloe spend the night in the bay, especially with a front moving in. She might be nuts, but she was trying to find his son. That was reason enough to love her.

  Love her?

  No, he’d meant reason enough to pull her nutty tush out of the water.

  He pulled on a jacket and headed across the bay toward the lights. Boats were anchored around her as a shield. A crowd of people huddled at the end of the dock. The reporter he’d just been watching was kneeling down talking to Chloe. The cameras were off now. He spotted Stella trying to get through the crowd, but the police had the far end of the pier roped off.

  Dylan maneuvered through the tangle of boats surrounding her. He asked one man to move his small boat so he could talk to Chloe, and the man obliged.

  All the while, she hadn’t even looked in his direction. That was probably good. A surprise attack. If only he could pull her into the boat before she realized what was happening.

  Chloe’s teeth were chattering even more. All he wanted was to get her warm and dry. Only then might he throttle her for endangering herself.

  “Chloe, I’m one hundred,” he said from behind her.

  She swiveled around in the water. “D-Dylan! You’re not s-supposed to be h-here. We-we-we’re not associated!”

  “I’m the one-hundredth boat to search for Teddy. Now come on.”

  “Look! It’s the kid’s father!” someone yelled.

  The camera lights came to life again, and the reporter jumped to her feet and grabbed her microphone. “Are we on? Good. Dylan McKain just arrived on the scene. Mr. McKain,” she yelled. “Do you believe Chloe’s vision?”

  He was about to hedge, but suddenly it all clicked together. She’d cut her curls, she’d known Teddy was nearby and on a boat … and something else slipped into place. He’d seen a box of Cocoa Puffs at Chloe’s house. Teddy’s favorite cereal, what he’d been eating on the boat. “Yes,” he said. He was looking at Chloe as he spoke the words in his heart. “I believe her. And I want her to get into this boat right now.”

  Chloe was looking at him, her face filled with both question and elation. “You believe me?”

  “Yes. The Cocoa Puffs convinced me.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’ll explain later. Just get in the boat. Now.” He held out his hand to her.

  “Do we have a h-hundred b-boats l-looking?” she asked the man with the note pad.

  Dylan coached him, nodding his head. Say yes so I can get her out of here.

  “With him, I believe we do,” he said. “Yes, we definitely do.”

  She turned back to Dylan. “All r-right.” She swam over to his boat with stiff movements.

  “Cut the lights!” Dylan yelled. “If you’re really naked,” he said to her.

  “As a b-blue jay,” she said with a grin.

  “You are crazy, you know that?”

  “I p-probably am.”

  Her hands were ice cold when he reached for her, her fingers stiff. The lights went down, and Chloe came up. He grabbed a towel and wrapped it around her, but not before glimpsing her nice, white bottom. His own body went around her too, trying to infuse her with his warmth.

  The lights came back on, and the reporter started asking more questions. He held up his hand and squinted in the glare. “I’ve got to look for my son.”

  As soon as they reached the open bay, he said, “What the hell were you thinking of?”

  “I wasn’t th-thinking, if you m-must know. I tried t-to get a rep-porter to d-do the story, and he couldn’t m-make any promises. He s-said he had to h-have a h-hook. So I gave him one.”

  He shook his head, but couldn’t help smiling. “Go down to the cabin and change. I brought some sweats for you.”

  A few minutes later, she came back up again, lost in the oversized sweats. Her hair was still wet and sticking out all over, and her cheeks were pink. Before he could think any better of it, he pulled her in front of him. She was shivering, and her nose felt like an ice cube. She burrowed against him, and he held her with one arm and steered with the other.

  “I have a couple of lights in the back. When we get near your house, we’ll pull them out and start looking.”

  She nodded, face buried inside his jacket. He squeezed her tighter. This is better. She’s not in the water anymore.

  After a few minutes, she looked up at him. “Why did you come get me?”

  “I didn’t want you in the water anymore.”

  “Is th-that the only reason?”

  “Chloe …” He pushed wet strands of her hair away from her forehead. “I just couldn’t let you stay there anymore.” Don’t think about what drove you to get her. Don’t think about how good she feels, how right she feels.

  She nodded, then looked ahead. He squeezed her closer against him and closed his eyes for a moment. He didn’t want to let her go. It was crazy to have this kind of feeling about her. She was crazy.

  “I saw Stella there. At the dock,” he said a few minutes later.

  “She was there?”

  “We could go back and get her. If you want to face everyone again.”

  “She was p-probably just there to tell me I’m nuts. Or to tell me they’ve voted me out of t-town.” She sighed. “No.” He liked the way she leaned into him. “I’ve already blown it anyway. With my aunts, with everyone in Lilithdale. For the first time in my life, I really, truly don’t belong anywhere.”

  She belonged in his arms, he felt like telling her. But she didn’t. He didn’t want anyone in his arms.

  As they neared the Ten Thousand Islands a short while later, he pulled out the lights and put the engine on coast. They’d seen other boats searching along the way. No matter how crazy it had been, Chloe had convinced people to look for a boy who was considered a lost cause. He could love her for that alone. If he could love her at all.

  Every time he passed a boat that was obviously searching for Teddy, Dylan would get on the radio and thank them. Soon that channel became the Teddy channel, with people occasionally reporting what they’d seen. Or more appropriately, what they hadn’t. Each person checked out a certain area, and Dylan marked it on his map. It became a real system. But there were far too many personal messages for Chloe. “Tell Chloe she’s a sweetheart.” “Tell Chloe she’s got real guts.”

  She was too focused on finding Teddy to pay much notice. She took one of the jumbo lights, climbed up on the bow of the boat, and shined it through the mangroves.

  “I’ll shine low, you shine high,” he said. “We can cover more territory that way.”

  He didn’t want to hope that his son was still alive, only to find it wasn’t true. But hoping, he realized, was better than feeling dead inside.

  “Are you warm enough?” he asked, watching her curl up on the bow with the light propped on her knees.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Here.” He handed her his jacket, and she slipped into it.

  “Thanks.”

  He felt colder now that she wasn’t standing beside him. It was odd how she’d made him warmer, hotter, more of anything than he’d ever felt. And tonight, he’d felt afraid for her. Pretty amazing for a man who didn’t feel much.

  They stayed silent for the next hour, working as a team, searching the shadowy mangrove islands. They were a team, he had to admit. Maybe later he’d admit that to her, too. The only sounds were the occasional crackling report on the radio and the hum of the engine. In front of them stretched a sea of blackness.

  An hour later, they pulled into the area south of Chloe’s house. The wind was picking up, carrying the damp forewarning of rain.

  “I kept feeling he was nearby,” she called out. “I kept taking canoe rides looking for him.”

  “I’m beginning to think you’re Teddy’s guardian angel.”

  She smiled at him, looking mor
e than angelic in the lights. Her smile faded and she looked into the darkness. “If I were his real guardian angel, I would have already found him.”

  But she hadn’t given up when everyone else had. Just the thought made his throat feel thick.

  “Dylan, stop! Go back! Put this thing in reverse.”

  “What’d you see?”

  She’d sprung to her feet and her light bounced against the trees. Her voice was a heavy whisper. “Maybe I was imagining it. But I thought I saw Teddy.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Despite her hours in the cold water, Chloe felt as though a Mexican Mariachi band had taken up residence inside her. Her heartbeat was the rapid shake of the maracas, so loud she could hear them in her ears.

  Don’t get your hopes up. It was probably a raccoon.

  Dylan reversed the boat, and she held her light high.

  “There!”.

  He cut the engine and climbed up on the bow with her. Her face felt hot, and she could already feel tears forming in her eyes. A little boy’s face caught the light just before he ducked out of the glare.

  “Oh, my God, it’s him!” she said, turning to Dylan and nearly knocking him off the deck.

  He was still staring at where the boy had been, as though he couldn’t believe it. Then he took the light from her and played it over the area. His shaking hands made the light wobble. Until he spotlighted the boy again.

  He shoved the light back at her, dropped the anchor, and jumped over the side. She kept the light aimed at the boy. Dylan swam to the edge of the mangroves, then started picking his way into the tangle of roots and branches that grew over the water’s surface. She alternated the light now, helping Dylan to see his way and keeping the light on his goal.

  “Seventeen times seventeen equals two-eighty-nine. Forty-nine times five equals two forty-five,” she said.

  She could hear Dylan talking softly, coaxing the boy who was moving away.

  “It’s him, isn’t it?” she asked.

  “It’s him, Chloe.” She hardly recognized his voice; it was so filled with emotion. “And he looks all right. No cuts, no blood that I can see. He can sure move.”

  She put her hand to her mouth and bit her knuckles, also biting back a sob of relief.

  “Teddy,” she could hear him say. “Teddy, it’s your dad. It’s going to be all right.”

  But Teddy kept moving away from him. Chloe could hear his puffing little breaths as he maneuvered deftly through the branches. The boy had gotten accustomed to living amongst the mangroves and not having ground beneath his feet. It amazed her that he still had the strength.

  “Chloe, call for help. All I’m doing is scaring him.”

  “Let me try. I want him on our boat before the other boats arrive. They’ll only frighten him more. I’ve been here before. I know what I’m doing.”

  “What?”

  “My dreams. I know exactly what to do.”

  This time the murky water didn’t bother her. She grabbed the battery-powered flashlight Dylan had been using and dropped over the side of the boat.

  Dylan was moving toward her, but she said, “Stay there and keep him in your sight. I’ll make it all right.”

  The soaked sweatshirt weighed her down. She awkwardly climbed into the mangrove forest holding the flashlight in one hand.

  As soon as she neared Dylan, he took the light and helped her climb the remaining way to where Teddy sat clinging to the branches. Just the sight of him, so near, so alive, shot adrenaline through her veins and filled her heart. There were smudges of dirt on his face and hands, and he huddled against the chill, damp wind that filtered through the leaves.

  “Don’t aim the light at us,” she said, maneuvering closer to him. “Just enough so I can see him, and he can see me.”

  She remembered the dream and slowed down. It was hard not to reach out and grab his arm. But she held back, remembering the gentle ways she and Teddy had touched hand to hand. She stopped two feet away from him, and for a moment, all she could do was soak him in.

  He didn’t look like his picture. His blue eyes were wide with uncertainty. His cheeks looked gaunt. His hair was messy and without curls. Just like in the dream. She ran her hand down over her own hair. He watched her. And then he did the same thing.

  She smiled. “Teddy? Are you all right, Teddy?”

  He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

  One of the roots below her right foot started buckling, and she had to find a new one to support her weight. He watched her intently.

  “Chloe,” Dylan said from behind her. “What are you doing?”

  “Trust me,” she whispered.

  After a moment, he said, “Like no one else.”

  She bit her lip as those words warmed her from the inside. She wasn’t looking directly at Teddy. It was hard not to look at him, but she remembered the doctor saying he wasn’t comfortable meeting anyone’s eyes. So she started plucking first one leaf, then another, off the tree.

  Teddy watched her, and she watched him from the corner of her eye. Then he plucked a leaf from the tree. While he did that, she inched closer. He was absorbed in the leaf for a minute, and she moved closer yet, until she was precariously balanced on the roots a foot away.

  She mimicked him now, looking at the thick, leathery leaves in her hand, pretending not to pay attention to him. The only sounds she could hear was the water splashing around the roots of the mangroves and a distant boat engine.

  That’s why his voice startled her, even though it was soft. “One. Two. Three.”

  She shifted her gaze a bit and found him counting the leaves in his hand.

  He dropped one leaf. “Two.” Then another. “One.”

  Hey, she could relate to counting. “Three,” she said, holding up her leaves. She tugged another leaf free of a branch. “Four.”

  He pulled another leaf to add to his. “Two. Two. Two.”

  Chloe dropped two of her leaves. “Two, two, two.”

  Teddy giggled. It was the most wonderful sound she had ever heard. She giggled too, because her joy was overwhelming. She couldn’t believe that he was still functioning after days without food and water. But he was, and that’s all that mattered.

  Then he handed her his two leaves. She stared at that little hand for a moment, stunned.

  “Grab him,” Dylan whispered.

  She merely shook her head, then took the proffered leaves. “Three, four.”

  “Three, four. Three, four.”

  “Chloe, do you know how much I want to touch my son? To see if he’s all right? To get him to the hospital?”

  She nodded, but didn’t look at him.

  “And you’re perched in a tree counting leaves.”

  She could hear the edge of his impatience. “You said you trusted me.”

  “I do, but —”

  “Then shh!” She knew, absolutely knew, this was the way to reach Teddy. She wasn’t sure how she knew, but she was trusting her instincts from now on.

  That’s when she felt a touch on her cheek. Her first reaction was to give in to the joy in her heart and turn to him. She resisted the impulse, remembering the dream. Instead she held out her palm. He held out his hand and touched hers, and Chloe drew in a breath. She couldn’t hold out her other hand, like in the dream, because she had to hang onto the branch. She smiled, though, and she could see him smiling back.

  “Hi, Teddy,” she whispered, feeling giddy.

  “Teddy,” he said.

  She squeezed his hand very gently, then let go. “Come with me, Teddy. Home. Do you want to go home?”

  He tilted his head, as though trying to understand her. “Home,” he repeated.

  “Yes, home.”

  “My room?”

  “Yes, your room.” She could hardly contain the excitement in her voice. She pulled her hand back, nodded toward the boat, and then started climbing away from him. Every few minutes she turned to see if he was following. At first he was just watching her, and then he
plucked a leaf from the tree and stared at it.

  She let out an exasperated breath, catching Dylan’s gaze. Or at least what she thought was his gaze in the dark behind the light. “He’ll come. Just wait and see.”

  Dylan kept the light between Teddy and Chloe, so both could see. She looked at the water below her and saw a cache of food containers. “Dylan, he’s been catching discarded pop bottles and drinking them. Eating other people’s leftovers.”

  “Smart kid,” Dylan said, and she could hear the pride in his voice.

  “Teddy,” she said in a sing-song voice.

  He looked up at her, smiling. She repeated his name, and he smiled wider. And then he took a step across the roots toward her.

  A gust of cold wind shuddered through the mangroves, stilling Teddy. She heard raindrops plopping against the leaves. The process took time, but getting him toward the boat without his fighting or being terrified was worth it. At the water’s edge, she slipped into the cold water and splashed. Teddy crept to the edge and watched her for a few minutes. She was already wet and cold. A few more minutes in the water wouldn’t kill her.

  “Stay there,” Dylan told her. “I’m going to radio for help and get a flotation device.”

  She could hear the cheering on the radio once Dylan had announced that he’d found Teddy. He asked that everyone but the Coast Guard stay clear of the area so as not to frighten his son.

  Teddy didn’t seem afraid of the dark water. He jumped in, creating a big splash. Dylan tossed her the orange life jacket, and she held it out to Teddy. As she suspected, he was fascinated by it. She was surprised when Dylan tossed her one too, since she was able to stand up. He dropped back into the water again. The night was getting darker, with clouds obliterating the stars. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

  “Instead of trying to put it on him, show him how to hold onto it,” he said, drifting up behind her.

  “Good idea.” She pulled it up to her chest and held on.

  It didn’t take Teddy long to follow suit. Dylan ducked beneath the water as Chloe sang his name again and again. He looked just the way he had in her dreams. She couldn’t believe he was real. She wanted to touch him, but she remembered autistic children didn’t like to be touched. But Teddy had reached for her. She let her hand float in front of her, and Teddy watched it in fascination. She splashed a little, and he mimicked her. Raindrops hit the water, not a downpour yet, just a warning.