“Another five minutes ahead, I think.” I glanced at his profile. Can’t keep up? He barely looks like he’s struggling. “You’ll wait to show it to Lorcan, right? I want to be there.”
“Of course.”
We located the site I’d buried the metal stick, and I was relieved that it was exactly where I’d hidden it. I handed it to Flynn while I wiped off my muddy fingers. He knocked more earth from it.
“Aluminum?” he asked as he peered at it.
“It’s light enough to be. But it seems less malleable?”
Flynn frowned at it, turning it over and around to fully inspect it. “I hope Lorcan might know.”
“Only one way to find out. Come on.” I turned to start our run back to the dorms and stopped. On a low-hanging branch ahead, that crow stood taller, extended its wings, and cawed. I’d gotten so used to it, it had become part of the background.
“What’s that thing?” Flynn asked. He squinted at it. “Crow?”
I shrugged and frowned at the bird. Why had it chosen today to make a sound? It was normally so quiet. “Come on. Let’s go,” I said, eager to leave the dark bird in the dark woods.
****
Lorcan and Flynn were hanging out on a porch at the back of the Green House dorms after dinner. We’d waited until darkness approached, but with the increased security and buckling down on curfew, thanks to Sabine, we wanted to make sure of two things: that we’d be alone and that we wouldn’t miss our deadline to turn in for the night.
“What’s up, you two?” Lorcan asked as he swiveled lightly in a Pascal chair.
“We’ve got something to show you. Or Layla does.” Flynn brought out the arrow from his messenger bag. “She found it while running one morning.”
I glanced at him, prepared for my part of the lie we’d rehearsed earlier.
“I asked him if he knew anything about it.” I watched Lorcan take the metal rod from Flynn and study it. “Because I don’t know anything about arrows. He said you might.”
The redhead nodded. “Hmm.” He spun it between his fingers, taking a careful look. “It does seem to be an arrow.” Dipping it up and down, he seemed to gauge its weight. “Some new kind of alloy of aluminum and something else.”
“You don’t recognize it?” I asked.
He fingered the rougher point where the spade must have broken off. “Not really. It’s definitely not something we use.” Then he set it down on the coffee table. “But I’m not surprised.”
“Why not?” Flynn asked as he sat on a loveseat.
I took a chair and scooted it closer.
“Erik mentions new advancements on arrows all the time.” He rolled his eyes. “He’s a sophomore on the Gold’s archery team. A fanatic. I think his family owns some outdoor supplies chains of stores. Hunting gear and all that.”
“Where are all the weapons stored?” Flynn asked.
Lorcan frowned at him. “I don’t know about all the weapons, but we lock our bows in the archery cabin. Same with the arrows.”
“Could someone have gotten in there?” I asked.
Lorcan frowned even deeper at me, his eyebrows dipping low. “What, you think someone’s taking arrows and using them for…something bad?”
“It’s just weird to have found one on my run,” I said. Even weirder to have found it lodged in my longma’s limb.
Lorcan nodded. “I agree. And no one would have been practicing in your neck of the woods. At least, not if you still run on the same trails I’ve seen you return on.”
“Where do you guys practice and compete on campus?” I asked.
Lorcan leaned back and let his feet fly into the air with the rocking of the chair. “Over on the eastern border.”
Hmm. Woodsy over there, to the right of the lake. But it was nowhere near the paths where I ran in the mornings.
Maybe the longma had been over there? A change in territory? I frowned at my thoughts. Even though I’d never seen it in the air, it did have wings. Would it even be a territorial animal?
It’d been so long since I’d seen it. Sadness lurched in my chest at the loss of a dear pet.
“You can check it out when we head to the field exercise of Botany tomorrow. I heard Mr. Alwin say it’d be nearer the lake though.”
I tore my gaze from Lorcan to glance at Flynn. I found him watching me, perhaps waiting for another reaction at the mention of the body of water. To my knowledge, Sabine hadn’t told the others about my freak-out in the watering hole in Coltin. Knowing that Flynn trusted me enough to tell me that a wraith-like monster had formed from a rain shower and killed his sister right before his eyes, I felt…selfish. He’d shared with me, but I still couldn’t trust him to tell him about my incident?
While the boys picked up an easygoing chat about finals, I resolved then and there.
As soon as we finished with the final quarterly tomorrow, I’d tell him.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Dawn broke bright and early the morning of the finals. As we took our tests inside the castles of the campus, the winds picked up and grew outside the windows. Dark clouds gathered and loomed in the distance, promising a turbulent night. Most of my written exams had been completed without a hiccup, and at the end of the school day, we’d finish it off with Mr. Alwin’s field exercise near the lake.
With the increasingly stormy weather, I held on to high hopes we’d have to cancel our walk.
No such luck. Huddled into myself to withstand the breezier area near the lake, I internally groaned as we headed out for our field exam.
On the walk out to the site, Mr. Alwin droned on about the importance of the riparian species. Water giving to land. Land fading to water. A mesh of landscapes and ecosystems. It was all the same old drivel he’d mentioned in the classrooms, and it was a repeat of everything we’d read. Even if I’d wanted to diligently pay attention to his words, I couldn’t.
With every step we took toward the shore, my heart raced faster and my breaths came shorter.
We’re not going in.
I gulped and studied my classmates. My hair whipped around my face and I clutched it aside.
No one is dressed to swim. We’re not going in.
Everyone faced Mr. Alwin as he led us in a cluster toward a shady grove adjacent to the rocky water edge. Except for two people.
Ren watched me, a smile teasing his thin lips.
Sabine smirked at me, her eyes hinting at mirth.
She thought it was funny seeing me so close to the water?
I swallowed hard again and jerked when Mr. Alwin called on me to tell him the identity of a shrub.
He went through us, one by one, asking questions about the flora one can find near water. After a half-hour of the ordeal, I started to relax. It had to be almost over. We couldn’t stand out there forever, and we still had another whole day of both written and field exams tomorrow. Mr. Alwin might want to linger, but he had to respect we had other obligations too, right?
I barely listened to Paige providing an answer because Mr. Alwin started to head along another path. This one bottlenecked to a narrow swinging footbridge.
Leaning around Lorcan, who stood in front of me in the lineup, I peered at what awaited us.
That rocky cliff on the other side? What was there that we needed to see? Mr. Alwin didn’t have many plants to test us on over there. It was merely a jutting out prominence of rocks. Waves rose and broke against the jagged edges of the land we were on and the matching terrain across the bridge.
Why? Why did we have to go over there? For that one dinky little stalk of a flower that had sprouted from the rocks? He could point to it from here.
I pressed my lips together so no one could see that they trembled. Flynn glanced at me from my side, his brows raised.
“Now we will walk across and see another example of a seasonally occurring…”
Damn. It.
Mr. Alwin did want us to walk over this stupid bridge. Right over the water.
I fought not to
stumble as I took my first step onto the wooden plank of the bridge. Both hands gripped the old, crusty, rough rope of the handrail I could reach.
“You okay?” Flynn whispered as we gathered to cross and follow the leader. It was wide enough to walk two across.
I nodded, not trusting my voice. When I stumbled on a plank, I flattened myself to the woven rope “wall.” Others snickered. I could hardly hear them. All I heard was the constant ebb and flow of dark water coming and going below. The slaps of slickness as the waves broke on stone.
“Afraid of the water, Layla?”
I couldn’t trust my voice to retort anything to Ren’s taunt.
Sabine grinned next to him.
Had she told him my fear? She’d been chatting with him that day after she was caught sneaking out. Had she ratted me out? She’d told him?
Her wide smile was answer enough.
That bitch!
Another step forward and my shoe slid between the planks.
Oh, my God.
Just make this all stop. I closed my eyes and felt Flynn’s hand at the small of my back. Maybe he was whispering something to comfort me. To encourage me on.
And there it was.
Faint at first, but it grew louder and louder, like a force surfacing the waves.
A sound I’d never forget.
A low, rumbling gurgle.
A noise I’d only heard one creature make.
No.
Please, no.
It couldn’t be.
I looked down, letting my terrified gaze drop down, down, and down. Twenty feet below, bobbing in the murky waves, I saw it.
Bright yellow eyes stared up at me from the most hideous face I’d ever witnessed. Slimy, muddy flesh rippled like it was decaying from its face. A rounded bald shape of a head. Two slits flared for a nose and its mouth—
I gasped as it opened it. Curving, slimy fangs hung from its maw, and it growled the unearthly rumbling roar again. I stared at it as it tossed in the water, sliding higher into the air as it unveiled itself. It wanted a reunion, it seemed.
Like a slippery mound of muddy, rotting stink, it rose to show one of its snaking thick limbs. The black talons at the nubs of hands were just as I’d remembered from the watering hole in Coltin.
In a hot, desert-like slum of a small town in Texas, swimming options had been limited to inflatable pools from Walmart and brittle hand-me-down plastic kiddie pools. Following a flash flood though, all everyone wanted to do was swim in a “real” pool. A normally always empty depression that filled with rainwater. In Coltin, it wasn’t hard to stay away from seeing another one of these sea monsters like I had before kindergarten.
Here, though…
Go away.
Here, though, I was screwed. I couldn’t back off this bridge. Mr. Alwin would probably mark me down for not participating.
I didn’t want to bow to it, to my fear.
If I could command mutant dogs to leave me alone, if I could command a longma to trust me to give it first aid, I could tell this monster exactly what to do.
I looked it in the eye and took a deep breath.
Go away. Now!
It rumbled a rippling gurgle.
“Oh, my God.” Flynn had glanced down. He must have sensed it. Yet he kept his face neutral, likely so used to hiding his ability to see from others. Everyone else was oblivious to it down below. Mr. Alwin prattled on, his lecturing voice cut out at gusts of wind. Other students peered around at the water, something like awe in their eyes at the different scenery.
I fought to remain blank-faced, too, and I tried again.
Go away!
It remained, staring at me with those eerie eyes. As it gurgled another rumble, a burst of wind rose up from the lake, knocking all of us on the bridge side to side. I gripped the handrail tighter, and Flynn took hold of the shirt at my back.
Then another sound came, cutting off the sea monster’s taunting noise.
Sabine screaming. The whole way down from the bridge and into the waves below.
Chapter Thirty
I froze as my sister fell off the bridge and into the water. Time stilled as, one minute, she was there on the bridge with us, then dropping through the clammy air, and then gone. Underneath. Her head bobbed back up from the water, her mouth open like a guppy as she gulped in air.
“Sabine!” Mr. Alwin peered over the bridge at her and grappled with a walkie-talkie he’d produced from his pocket.
“Oh, my God!”
Several students gasped and yelled surprise. I could barely hear them. All I could concentrate on were the fluctuating cries for help from Sabine’s grotesquely twisted lips in the water. That and the eerie gurgles the monster made. Still eyeing me, it slinked under the surface.
Probably going right for her.
“Oh, shit,” Flynn whispered and pulled me closer.
A gust of wind flurried my long hair everywhere and I scrambled to see.
“Help!”
Sabine ducked under again, and my heart hammered furiously in my chest. How fast could that thing go? From my memory, awfully damn fast. Like an eel. It’d sneak up on you, wrap its oozy arms around your neck and waist. Secure you in a deathly grip and go down into the depths.
“Off the bridge, everyone. Back up off the bridge!” Mr. Alwin ordered us to retreat.
I stayed frozen, staring at the water, my sister’s golden tresses matted down like she was a blonde rat. Ren had gripped the rope handrail and leaned over to peer below. From the corner of my eye, I noticed the glittery yellow next to his foot. Sabine’s footwear wedged into a space between the planks.
“What kind of an idiot wears four-inch platform heels on a field trip?” I screamed to the whipping winds pushing against us.
“We have a student in the lake…”
I tuned out Mr. Alwin’s report and call for help.
All I heard was that damn gurgle. It grew louder. Lower. Like it was excited.
“Help me!” Sabine’s head bobbed up once more, and I saw the muddy, graying brown arm slide around her neck.
No!
It didn’t matter if Alwin was summoning all of the closest members of the Coast Guard. Sabine wasn’t going to survive long enough for help to arrive. I didn’t hesitate. I shoved Flynn’s hand away from me and jumped in.
The freefall to the water chilled me and I barely had the brains to hold my breath as I fell in. I was terrified of water—I didn’t know how to swim, let alone dive. My skin burned in a full-body sting as I smacked the surface. Water rushed at me, and I squinted my eyes shut tight.
Waves knocked at me, disorienting me from top and bottom.
Dammit!
I poked my head up for air. Flailing, I fought to gain a breath when the cool winds chilled my wet face. The gurgling rumble wasn’t close. I listened for it as I tried to tread water. Overhead, a crow cawed.
Where is it? Where are they? I pivoted my head, gasping at air as waves splashed up in my face, slipping into my mouth.
Where are you, you nasty pile of mud?
The crow cawed again.
Come on! Not now! Bad time for bird calls!
Again. Its whiny screech sounded over the drowning roar of the water tossing me like a buoy.
What? What the hell did it want?
I growled and spun, pulling my hair from my face to search for anything bobbing in the water with me.
Where are they?
The crow cawed again, and I squinted to find it in the sky. Cost me a mouthful of water.
It hovered near the water a good thirty feet away. As I looked to where the bird waited, Sabine’s blonde head poked above the surface and she screamed. Or tried to. Probably hard to make any sounds with a slimy sea monster strangling her.
It was guiding me. That annoying black bird was helping me.
Thank you! I propelled my arms and kicked my legs the best I could. I’d seen people swim, it couldn’t be that hard. I made some progress and neared them, choking and
coughing out water as I struggled.
Damn you, Sabine. Damn you for making me come after you!
As I drew closer, the gurgling increased. Faster, lower, louder. Splashes obscured my vision as frantic, plowing waves of water shoved at me. She was fighting it, flailing out her arms and kicking her legs.
“Sabine!” I swam faster. Harder. I refused to let that beast get her. As much as I despised her, I couldn’t let that thing take her from me.
“Lay—”
She was pulled under.
“—la!”
“Hold on!” To what? I grunted as I tried to find them swirling in the water. How could I help her? This thing had already proved it wouldn’t obey my thoughts. I was no scuba-girl warrior.
“Sabine!”
Her foot flung up, and I dove at it. My fingers brushed at slippery, rubbery flesh instead. The monster! I’d found him. I pushed deeper, harder, trying to, what, I didn’t know. Distract it. Grab it. Hurt it. Anything.
Let her go!
Something slammed into my stomach, thrusting me away. Had it kicked me? It was too fast of an impact to know how it had struck me. I somersaulted through the lake. Let her go!
I surfaced for air.
Help, dammit. Something, anyone—help me!
I dove back under, my hands out to feel for them. A piercing fire stabbed my flesh. Its talon. It had found me.
Let go!
I pulled my arm back and resurfaced. Down under again. I was closer now. With my left hand, I felt Sabine’s drenched shirt clinging to her shoulder. With my right, I gripped the monster. His elbow? Some kind of joint. My fingers were too small to wrap around it, so I squirreled my arm around it like a chokehold.
It flung me off, freeing Sabine in the process too. She surfaced just after me, gasping in air. “Layla! What the hell—”
Her head dipped under as it must have grabbed her again. I gulped in air and gave chase.
Let her go! Listen to me and let. Her. Go!
Gurgled rumbles mocked me, and I tried to follow the movements of limbs underwater. Another talon pierced my leg.
Close. I was getting closer. I kept my eyes squeezed shut and tried to get to them—ignoring the pain in my thigh. Those were damned sharp nails. My school tie slipped around my neck, and I pulled at it before it choked me.
Secrecy: Olde Earth Academy: Year One Page 20