About this Book
Forget What You Know,
Remember What They Made You Forget
Tim’s reoccurring nightmare is strikingly vivid. Perhaps it is more than a dream—part of a reality that he has been programmed to forget. As Tim and his friends delve deeper into the search for the missing children of Briny Deep, he uncovers secrets so sinister and mysterious that he begins to question the motives of those closest to him. What is the truth about Briny Deep and its connection to a place called Earth? In The Return: The Briny Deep Mysteries Book 2, author Jennifer Torres continues to unfold the story of this riveting paranormal mystery trilogy.
About the Author
Jennifer Torres lives and writes in a little beach town on the coast of Florida. She loves to write about fantastical lands, secret passageways, and doorways to magical places. A journalist for over fifteen years, she has also written a series of celebrity biographies for children and numerous articles for magazines, newspapers, and non-profit organizations. The Briny Deep Mysteries series is her debut into mystery fiction.
Contents
Cover
About this Book
Title Page
* * *
Chapter 1: Back to the Beginning
Chapter 2: School Daze
Chapter 3: Secrets
Chapter 4: Deceptions
Chapter 5: The Underground
Chapter 6: What Lies Above
Chapter 7: Don’t Mess With Texas
Chapter 8: Lost
Chapter 9: Silence Is Golden
Chapter 10: Hello Again
Chapter 11: Escape
Chapter 12: Heading Home
* * *
Dedication
Note To Our Readers
Copyright
Read each title in The Briny Deep Mysteries
Chapter 1
Back to the Beginning
It was a normal day.
The sun was big and bright within a blue sky that was filled with puffy white clouds.
Laughter filled the air as children amused themselves outside the small nursery school. A young girl giggled with delight as the ball she threw bopped a little boy right on his head. Another squealed with joy as his tiny plastic car sailed down a long toy ramp.
As the young teacher kept careful watch over her students, she could see the playground alive with activity—every swing taken and a sandbox full of happy faces.
Ms. Wolpert loved her job at the school. She had gotten it right out of college and considered herself blessed to have a career around children. She loved each and every one of them—and they loved her right back.
“Here, Ms. Wolpert, I made this for you,” said a little girl with big eyes and blonde pigtails.
The teacher took the work of art and carefully studied the picture of a tall woman with dark hair, long eyelashes, and red lips which she could see must be her. Holding her hand was a little girl with golden pigtails—and the word love written in big crayon letters above.
“Oh, Polly, this is a masterpiece,” she cooed as she ran her hand atop Polly’s head. “I absolutely love it.”
Polly grinned widely and stood up on her tippy toes to whisper in her teacher’s ear.
“You can take it home with you if you want to.”
“I do, Polly, I really do! Thank you!”
She knew she wasn’t supposed to have favorites—and she didn’t. But she hoped that one day she would have a little girl just like Polly.
With her mission accomplished, Polly ran back to join the other kids.
“Another love note?” said Ms. Horne with a smile. “You have become quite popular in your first year here.”
Ms. Horne, who had been at the school for nearly ten years, was a trusted mentor to the young teacher and also a dear friend.
“I’m going to run inside and try to grade a few papers. Think you can handle things out here on your own?” she asked.
“Of course, you go ahead,” Ms. Wolpert replied.
“Thank you so much, and listen, do me a favor, keep an eye on Matthew. He still seems a bit shy around the other kids, and I worry that he’s spending too much time alone.”
“Yes, I noticed that, too. I’ll check on him now,” said Ms. Wolpert as her eyes scouted the playground for little Matthew.
Just then, a shadow passed over the school, darkening the yard for a moment. She looked up to see if the beautiful sunny day was about to turn to rain, but there wasn’t a cloud in sight.
How strange, she thought. Maybe it was a plane. But it would have to be a large plane—a large, fast plane.
Within minutes she had spotted Matthew. He was under the picnic table by himself.
“Hey, Matt,” she called lightly as she reached for his hand. “Want to play on the swings?”
He eagerly took the pretty teacher’s hand and came out from his hiding spot, putting both arms around her in a big hug.
“Oh, sweet little one, why are you all by yourself?” she asked, knowing he probably couldn’t tell her as he was barely two years old.
She carried him over to a swing, gently placed him down, and began to push him from behind. Matthew felt safe, and then she began to sing, softly and sweetly, and he felt happy.
“Girls and boys, come out to play,
The moon doth shine as bright as day;
Leave your supper, and leave your sleep,
And come with your playfellows into the street.
Come with a whoop, come with a call,
Come with a good will or not at all.
Up the ladder and down the wall,
A halfpenny roll will serve us all.
You find milk, and I’ll find flour,
And we’ll have a pudding in half an hour.”
After a while, Ms. Wolpert put him down and led him over to a small group of boys.
“Now you go have fun,” she coaxed.
Recess was almost over, and they had made it through without any rain. Whatever had been in the sky was gone now and nothing but blue skies remained.
She looked at her watch and picked up a whistle—five more minutes, just enough time for Matthew to get to know those boys—but as she looked over, she could see he had already retreated back under the picnic table.
Oh well, she thought, there’s always tomorrow.
The kids raced into three lines when she blew the whistle. It was time to go inside for art.
She quickly scanned the lines of children. Where was Polly?
And Matthew?
She looked back at the picnic table where she had just seen him a moment earlier. But he wasn’t there. As she surveyed the lines again, she counted at least five children missing.
A slight wave of panic rose from her gut. They had to be hiding. She quickly summoned Mr. Dunkel, the principal, on her walkie-talkie.
He and a few other teachers came outside and together they looked under tables, in trees, behind playground equipment, but the kids were nowhere to be seen.
Ms. Wolpert’s eyes widened with fear, and she tried her best to stifle the scream when she realized what had happened.
The kids had vanished.
A small group of children have been distracted by a strange man. Drawn into a secluded corner, out of sight from other adults, the children follow the man out of the schoolyard and into a waiting van.
All but one, a little boy not more than two who decides something doesn’t feel right, and he runs. The feeling of dread, of sheer horror, begins to grow. Looking ahead there is a patch of flowers and a yellow house; if he can just get there, he’ll be safe.
But a rock hidden in the grass is steps away and he trips, landing on his knees. He looks up; sweat dripping onto his lips, unable to catch his breath.
His breathing is so labored, the thought of formulating a word seems impossible—but he tries with all his might and can feel it rising from his gut and rolling out of his mouth in a scream.
“Mom!”
Suddenly, a strong hand grips his shoulder, pulling him up from the ground.
The man is very tall and he manages to scoop the small boy up in one big arm while placing a soft, moist cloth gently over his face with the other arm.
He feels strange.
The intense fear and panic is giving way to a sleepy sense of well-being.
Both arms are around him now, snug, secure—but gentle.
As both suns rose in the sky, a cool breeze slipped through the open bedroom window, waking Tim from the nightmare.
It had been two weeks since he had been home from the hospital after his encounter with the yellow-haired man, the one he heard went by the name Canary.
The school year loomed long without his best friend Luke to share it with. There had been no word about any of the missing. They were just gone.
As he lay in bed, he pondered just going back to sleep. At least then he wouldn’t have to deal with the loss. But then again, sleep didn’t offer much relief because of the reoccurring nightmare. It had gotten worse over the last few nights. More detailed and terrifying.
Nope, sleep wasn’t where he would find comfort. The only thing that would give him peace was finding his friends. And he felt sure that meant finding the place called Earth.
Chapter 2
School Daze
They were whispering again.
As Timothy made his way downstairs, he could barely hear his parents’ hushed conversation. Pausing, he tried to make out exactly what they were saying.
He knew they were worried, why else would they keep such a close watch on him? He couldn’t leave the house without a complete debriefing on who he was seeing, where he was going, and exactly what he was doing.
There had been no more disappearances since Luke. But four kids were gone. Vanished.
There had been no sign of any of them and the stranger, the one they called Canary, hadn’t spoken a word to authorities, not one word.
From what Tim had learned, Canary was being held at the Reef Institute, a large facility just outside town. He’d seen it once before when he was younger when he’d ridden his bike a little too far one day and gotten lost. His father had found him about an hour after he left the house. His mother had been so angry—or worried. He wasn’t really sure which. But he remembered asking about the building then, and his father had told him it was a place for people who made mistakes.
This had really scared Tim because he made a lot of mistakes. But his dad had reassured him someone had to make a really big mistake to end up there.
When Tim was older, he had gone back and seen it again, this time taking his friends. Together they still couldn’t figure out how people got inside. He couldn’t see any windows or doors. It seemed empty, no cars outside, and no movement. The whole thing was surrounded by a huge fence. The friends had come back another day and saw a man in uniform standing outside the building, but they could not see any door that he could have come through. All he did was stand there for about two hours until Tim and his friends got tired of waiting for something to happen and went home.
It had taken a few trips for the building to finally reveal a secret. Watching from a wooded hill, just out of sight, Tim could see a large door open as a black car approached. The car went through it and the door quickly closed. Once shut, there was no sign a door was ever there.
Tim knew he had to go back there. He had to talk to Canary.
“Tim, what are you doing?”
His mother eyed him curiously from the bottom of the stairs.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah mom, fine. I’m running late though, so I have to skip breakfast.”
“But Timothy, I made your favorite; you have to eat a few bites.”
Looking past his mom into the kitchen, he could see it was indeed his favorite meal on the table, toasted grasshopper. He grabbed a few for the road, gave his mom a peck on the cheek, and headed out the door to school.
“Be careful!” he heard his mom call after him.
As he turned to wave, a Meganeura buzzed right over his head, knocking his cap clear off. The annoying gigantic dragonflies were everywhere this time of year. He picked up his hat, hopped on his skateboard, and rode past rows of red and purple trees down the hill to school.
Max was waiting for him at the bottom.
“You’re going to make us late, man,” he scolded.
“Sorry, my mom made me breakfast,” Tim replied, holding out a few of the tasty critters for Max to sample.
“Hey, thanks, dude!” Max said as he grabbed the goodies and popped them in his mouth. “Your mom makes the best hoppers in town.”
The two friends arrived at school within minutes of the final bell.
“See you at lunch,” Max called out as he disappeared into his classroom.
Tim barely made it to his class on time, plunking down in his seat just as the teacher, Mr. DeLuca, closed and locked the door. There was no excuse for being late to his class. Arriving after the door closed meant an automatic trip to see the principal, Ms. Leavitt.
“Glad you could join us,” Mr. DeLuca said looking directly at Tim.
DeLuca’s geography class moved at an excruciatingly slow pace, and the clock seemed to move backwards each time Tim checked it.
Today’s topic was the ocean and waterways of their planet.
Indus was made primarily of water with only about 10 percent land. There were four land regions. Each had its own town: the Falls, River Bend, Shoreland, and Briny Deep. Each was separated by vast oceans. Travel between the regions was limited to those with a credential for passage, something difficult to get approval for—and expensive. Tim’s father had a credential, and so did Luke’s dad who traveled between regions for business a lot.
Of course Tim wanted to see what the other towns were like, but what he really dreamed of seeing was the sub-aquatic city of Nomad. It was a sprawling underwater domed metropolis where thousands of scientists, explorers, and researchers lived and worked. It was also home to Vantage 5, the intergalactic fleet of spacecraft and their pilots.
The ships were launched into space on the far side of Indus from the deep waters near Nomad where no land existed.
Tim’s eyes wandered across the room at the empty chair where Luke had sat. He thought about the other regions and Nomad—where was Luke? He couldn’t be in Briny Deep anymore; the search for the kids had been extensive. So that meant they had to be in one of the other towns or in the underwater city. But why would anyone want to take them?
“Tim, do you hear me?”
“Uh, sorry, Mr. DeLuca,” Tim stammered as he was jolted back to the present moment by his teacher.
“Well, can you answer the question I posed?”
“Sure, but can you repeat it, sir?”
The teacher looked at Tim for a moment and then, perhaps feeling a bit sorry for him, calmly repeated the question.
“What is the distance between Briny Deep and the Falls if you are traveling on the underwater network?”
He had no idea. He knew there were thousands of miles of underwater travel tubes leading to all the towns and Nomad, but he couldn’t remember the exact distance to the Falls. Luke would have known the answer. He loved this kind of stuff.
Tim began to open his mouth, about to admit he hadn’t a clue, when the bell mercifully rang indicating the end of class. The other kids bounced up from their desks and out the door like a herd of animals, and Tim managed to disappea
r in the middle of them out into the hallway.
As he headed for his next class, he felt a sudden pang of anxiety. He didn’t care how far it was from here to the Falls, he just wanted to know was how far it was to the place called Earth.
Chapter 3
Secrets
The lunchroom was noisy, crowded, and had a weird smell.
As Tim made his way across to the food line, he couldn’t help but notice all the kids staring at him. He assumed they were curious about his experience with the stranger—the one who was now called Canary. The authorities had questioned Tim at length about the brief encounter while he was still in the hospital, and then again once more after he had returned home. He had told them about finding the necklace, the bracelet, the pictures, and the list of names that included his. They seemed very interested in the paper he found that contained what he could only describe as some sort of code. The men really wanted him to try and remember anything on that sheet. But he could not. It was a blur now. They also made him recount the conversation he had heard Canary have with someone on the phone before authorities had arrived. Tim was injected with something that had made him very sleepy, but he did hear Canary tell someone about “being ready for transport” and that something was “unavoidable” before yelling “Abort!” into the phone.
After relaying the whole story to them, Tim had asked about the photo, about Earth. They had no answers for him. But after staring at him for some time, one of the men had asked, “What do you think it is?”
“A place I never heard of,” Tim had answered. “But the man said it was my home.”
“Well, that’s clearly a lie,” the man had answered. “Briny Deep is your home, and there is no such place as Earth.”
Tim spotted Max at their usual table. Nina and Emily were there, too. Luke’s seat remained empty.
Perusing the choices for lunch, nothing in the trays looked appealing. Hearing an annoyed sigh from the kid behind him in line, he settled on the cicada soup thinking it might help settle his stomach.
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