Hidden Realms

by Dean Murray

And meanwhile, some dehaian girl had just electrocuted the ocean.

  Which was impossible.

  I swam a bit closer, my ears beginning to pick out their words over the waves.

  “My dad does have a boat,” the guy said. “We could go out on the water tomorrow, if you want?”

  “Uh, yeah,” the girl answered, and I could hear the excitement in her voice.

  “Cool,” the guy replied with his expression twitching toward a smile.

  They got up and headed back for the stairs.

  I watched her go. She was acting like a human, which made sense. But she’d also let herself start changing in the water, which really didn’t. From what that guy had said, he sounded like he lived on land, and if she’d let that go much further, he easily could have seen her change.

  Which, really, was just about the most dangerous thing we could do in front of a human.

  And then there was whatever she’d been doing to the water, and why.

  I glanced back to the waves, frustration hitting me. I wanted to go up there. To find a way to talk to her and figure this out. But as much as I’d like answers, I couldn’t just stay here. There was still Ina to consider, and Dad would be furious if I gave up on looking, regardless of the reason.

  Above the bluffs, the guy and girl were joining the others, cheering them on as they played their game.

  I could do both, I decided. Keep an eye on this girl and look for my sister – assuming Ina didn’t just make her way home before I even found her. But whoever this girl was, she had to head back into the ocean eventually, which would give me a chance to ask her what she’d done to the water without risking the humans hearing.

  But I’d stay close to the shore, regardless. Something weird was going on; something unlike anything I’d seen. And I wanted to figure it out.

  After all, as Ina always said, it wasn’t like I didn’t have a curious streak.

  Chapter Three

  Chloe

  Water lapped at the white hull of the boat and the craft rocked as we climbed on board. The bright morning sun had already heated the deck and the plastic seat was warm beneath me as I sat down. All around us, other boats filled the marina, some of them occupied like ours, and the voices of the passengers carried strangely over the distance.

  “Try to have the boat back in by sunset, okay?” Peter called to us from the dock.

  I looked back as Noah grinned.

  “We will,” he replied. Behind the wheel, Maddox just nodded and then turned on the engine.

  A shiver ran through the boat. On the dock, Peter undid the moorings with quick motions. Tossing the ropes to Noah, he waited till everything was stored safely and then raised his hand, waving to us as Maddox steered the boat away.

  And just like that, we were on the water.

  Wind pulled at my hair as we sped beyond the confines of the marina and the salty spray misted my skin and my swimsuit. Baylie laughed as we bounded over the waves, and I grinned at her, thrilled beyond the ability to speak.

  Finally.

  That was the only word I could think to describe it. More even than last night, it felt like some sort of switch had been thrown, releasing a pressure that had been building inside over the years without me realizing it. Tension I hadn’t known existed just seemed to flow out of me as we left the marina and raced onto the open water. We probably weren’t even going as fast as a car in the city, but with the wind rushing around us, I felt like we were flying.

  “You like?” Noah called over the noise of the wind.

  I could only nod.

  A few minutes later, Maddox slowed the boat, killed the engine and then lowered the anchor. At least a mile off, the shore was a mosaic of green mountains and white buildings below. Puffs of clouds drifted over Santa Lucina, but out here, only the barest wisps hovered in the brilliant blue sky. Baylie leaned back on her seat, a smile on her face, while Daisy just eyed the water as though trying to figure out how the demented humans could possibly think this was a good idea.

  “So…” Noah started. “Anyone want to go for a swim?”

  I smiled. My parents being so psychotic and all, we didn’t even have a bathtub in the house, just a stand-up shower the size of a broom closet. I’d never been able to teach myself how to hold my breath underwater, let alone swim.

  But that was going to change, starting now.

  “Well, um,” I began, feeling a bit reckless with excitement. “If you wouldn’t mind teaching me?”

  His eyebrows climbed. “Uh, no. I mean, sure. I–”

  The boat jumped.

  “What the hell?” Maddox cried as the rest of us grabbed at the guardrails.

  “Did we hit something?” Noah asked, scanning the water.

  Maddox shook his head. “I don’t–”

  The ocean around the boat began to bubble and roil.

  Noah swore. “Get us out of here!” he called to Maddox.

  His brother didn’t need the encouragement. Quickly, he scrambled back toward the driver’s seat and turned the key in the ignition.

  The engine wouldn’t respond.

  Shudders shook the boat, while all around, the ocean’s surface began to foam like the calm sea had suddenly become a boiling pot on a stove. Waves surged from every direction at once, growing more violent by the second, and on all sides the water darkened, as though a shadow was spreading below us.

  “What’s happening?” Baylie cried.

  No one could answer. As if shoved from beneath, the deck tipped up at a sharp angle and then just as quickly rocked back, wrenching us hard as we fought to hang onto the guardrails. The lurching came again, throwing us forward and back.

  My grip broke. The metal rail hit me, knocking the air from my lungs.

  And then came the water.

  I didn’t even have time to scream. Waves closed over me, choking my instinctive gasp and tossing me so hard that, in only a heartbeat, I lost all sense of up and down. Flailing, I tried to reach out and find something, anything, to grab onto as the water pummeled me like it was a prize fighter and I was its punching bag.

  Strong hands caught me. Steadied me. Pulled me from the maelstrom into a space of calm. I clutched at them, thinking Noah had managed to find me in the chaos.

  Eyes like brilliant sapphires met mine.

  “You’re okay,” a boy said, gripping my shoulders. “You’re fine.”

  I stared at him. In the impossibly black water, I could see nothing but his face and his arms, both pale as though he’d spent his life out of the sun. He seemed only a year or two older than me, and his features were angular, carved like they came from stone, and strangely mesmerizing. In the darkness, his eyes shone like deep blue jewels, simultaneously seeming to reflect light and yet glow from within.

  But we were underwater. We should be drowning. And instead, I could hear him as clearly as if we stood in the open air, and the oddest sense of peace was settling over me.

  I wondered if I was dying.

  His brow furrowed and he ran his gaze over me, as though he couldn’t figure out how I was there either. “Who–”

  Suddenly, his eyes went wide and his hold on my shoulders vanished. Other hands grabbed me, snagging my arms, my hands. I struggled, confused and disoriented, as an arm wrapped around my chest and yanked me backward.

  My head broke the surface and I coughed, struggling to breathe. Twisting, I saw Noah behind me, holding me while he swam hard for the boat. The white-hulled craft had capsized and Baylie clung to its side, one hand holding Daisy’s collar to keep the sodden dog from swimming off. By her side, Maddox was hanging onto the boat as well, though he was stretched out, trying to catch Noah as he swam closer.

  But the water had stilled. Waves lapped the upturned hull and pushed us back toward the land.

  “Is she alright?” Baylie cried as Maddox grabbed Noah, pulling him nearer to the ship.

  Still coughing, I nodded and took Baylie’s hand. She tugged me toward the hull and helped me find a grip, w
hile Noah braced me against the side, keeping me from sinking or being forced away by the waves. Air burned on my throat, and my lungs still felt choked. My hair plastered my face, the auburn strands a tangled mess from all the jostling, and with my free hand, I swiped them away.

  “Fine,” I managed. “What happened?”

  “No clue,” Noah said. He sounded angry and, as he scanned the ocean around us, he looked it too. A few feet away, his brother’s expression was the same.

  “There,” Maddox called, pointing.

  I followed his gesture and spotted a large, white boat racing toward us, the markings of the Coast Guard on its side.

  Baylie made a noise of relief. “Oh, thank God.”

  I seconded the feeling, though as the boat drew closer, I couldn’t help but look back at the horizon and the rolling waves. I’d heard people had all kinds of visions before they died – saw their life flash before their eyes or whatever. Shock, adrenaline and God knew what other chemicals could make your mind do all sorts of things when your life was on the line.

  Yet that hadn’t felt like a bunch of synapses firing because my brain was freaking out from lack of air. That hadn’t felt like panic at all.

  My hand rubbed at the place on my shoulder where the boy had grabbed me.

  That had felt real.

  Chapter Four

  Zeke

  The Coast Guard ship cut through the surf and I ducked low beneath the waves, knowing they probably wouldn’t see me – or believe what they saw, if they did – but not wanting to take the chance. Overhead, the people still tread water by the hull of their capsized boat, not a single one of them seeming dehaian except for her.

  And she only barely.

  I stared at her, at a loss to figure out what had just happened. I’d been swimming near the beach to see if Ina had decided to spend the morning on the sand – and planning what I’d say to her if she had; I’d been looking for hours – when something had changed in the water. It’d been subtle, and not nearly to the degree of last evening, and for a few minutes, I’d been struggling just to find the source.

  And then I’d heard her screaming.

  I dropped lower in the water as the white ship drew up beside the capsized boat. By the hull, the blond guy held her close, as if worried she couldn’t swim, while on her legs, iridescent threads appeared and then vanished almost as quickly as they formed.

  She was fighting it, obviously. With so many humans around, that made sense.

  But she’d also been absolutely panicked in the water.

  Of course, to be fair, maybe that made sense too. With what I’d seen, I couldn’t exactly blame her.

  The water had gone mad. I’d swum toward the sound of her screaming beneath the waves to find her being dragged down like she’d been caught in a net. Despite the fact we were barely any distance from the shore, the temperature had dropped to levels ordinarily found in places even deeper than Nyciena, with darkness to match.

  And when I’d come close, it’d all started to go away.

  I shook my head, baffled. Never in my life had I heard of anything like what I’d just seen, and given my older brother’s proclivity for reef camping stories, that was saying something. The girl changed the ocean when she was near it – a statement that on any level should have been impossible. No one affected the water like that. No one could. Boat-sized maelstroms didn’t just appear out of a calm sea either, and they didn’t bring with them darkness and temperatures normally only found in the true deep.

  The Coast Guard pulled her and the others from the water. A few moments passed and then the white ship started back for the shore.

  I watched them go. By any definition, this was weird. Truly, truly weird.

  And maybe it was time to finally just ask her about it. She was going around like a human. Didn’t mean I couldn’t too. I’d simply wait for a time when she was away from the others and then talk to her and figure this out. But regardless, I wasn’t ready to turn around and go home.

  Kicking hard in the water, I followed the boat.

  Chapter Five

  Chloe

  “What do you mean ‘what happened’?” Maddox demanded. “We were just going along and then all hell broke loose! You saw that, right? You couldn’t miss it!”

  The Coast Guard crewman gave him a warning look, and Maddox made a furious noise, throwing his hands up.

  Sitting on the deck with Baylie and Daisy, I watched him storm away, only to be brought up short by another crewmember. Rising to his feet, Noah went to calm his brother down, though one of the Coast Guard intercepted him before he got far. To a person, we were all under watch till they got back to the dock, where hopefully the guys’ parents would be waiting.

  “They have to have seen that,” Baylie whispered. “Right?”

  I didn’t know how to respond. From everything the Coast Guard had said thus far – which wasn’t much – they’d simply received a call from a passing ship that a boat had capsized, and they’d rushed out. No one had said anything about churning water or waves that seemed to come from everywhere at once.

  Apparently, that’d only been witnessed by us.

  And us was looking crazier by the minute.

  I shifted uncomfortably under the scratchy blanket they’d wrapped me in moments after pulling me onboard. I understood why the others wanted someone to corroborate our story; for insurance purposes alone, it’d be nice to have an official statement saying we hadn’t just randomly decided to destroy Peter’s boat. But for my part, there was no way what I’d seen wasn’t impossible, and admitting to it out loud wouldn’t help anything.

  My gaze slid toward the open water. I pulled it back again, forcing myself to look at the deck and praying I wasn’t actually insane.

  With her shoulder pressed against mine, I could feel Baylie shivering beneath her blanket, despite the nearly boiling warmth of the summer day.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  She looked at me, confused.

  “You seem frozen.”

  Her eyebrows climbed. “That water was like ice!” She paused. “You mean you’re not cold?”

  I hesitated. I hadn’t felt cold in the least, and too much more of this blanket and I’d probably melt.

  But I couldn’t say that.

  “Too freaked out, I guess.”

  She tugged the blanket tighter around her shoulders like it wasn’t the itchiest thing known to God or man. “Guess that makes sense,” she allowed.

  I swallowed hard, looking at the deck again.

  Thankfully, Peter and Diane were indeed standing on the dock when we got in, and as we disembarked from the ship, they seemed more worried about us than anything. Talk of calls to lawyers and the local police commissioner finally allowed us to be packed into the car, rather than kept for further questioning – though the Coast Guard made it clear they wanted to hear from both parties without delay.

  Peter smiled and shook hands and handed out his lawyers’ business cards, and then bundled us all out of there as quickly as possible.

  For which I was incredibly grateful.

  “I’m just so glad you all are okay,” Diane said for the twentieth time as she pulled her sedan up to the house. Ahead, Peter came to a stop as well and then climbed from Maddox’s sports car, saying something to his sons that I couldn’t hear. Whatever it was, the guys didn’t look angry or defensive as they got out after him, though, which I took as a good sign.

  “Yeah,” Baylie answered for us both.

  I managed a smile and then pushed open the door. Baylie followed, still wrapped in the blanket, though she seemed less cold now. Together, we trailed the guys inside.

  Diane made a beeline for the kitchen and busied herself with putting a kettle of water on the stovetop, while Maddox disappeared into the next room, still talking in a low voice to his father.

  “You alright?” Noah asked, coming up beside me.

  I nodded, eyeing the impending tea with nausea twisting my stomach. The wh
ole place was hot enough to have a roaring fire nearby, and they wanted tea? What were they thinking?

  It occurred to me that it was strange that, alone of everyone in the room, I’d be this warm.

  “Actually,” I said to Noah, my throat suddenly tight with the effort of not throwing up. “I… I don’t think I’m–”

  The world tilted and everything went dark.

  ~~~~~

  I opened my eyes to Diane in front of my face.

  And I could see the ceiling behind her.

  Jerking away, I tried to turn to the side, only to find Noah there.

  A groan escaped me. “What happened?”

  “You passed out, honey,” Diane said.

  My brow furrowed. “Huh?”

  Memory started to play back.

  I wanted to groan all over again.

  Drawing a breath, I moved to sit up and, quickly, Noah put his arm around my shoulders to help. All the embarrassment in the world didn’t stop goose bumps from rising on my skin at his touch and I felt a blush race up my neck. Behind him, Baylie hovered, a worried expression on her face, and as I braced myself on the cold tile floor, she reached out, offering me a glass of water.

  “Thanks,” I said, taking the glass. Peter, Maddox and Diane were all watching me and I managed a smile, though I kind of wanted to melt through the ground. Trying to ignore my mortification, I focused on taking a drink, while the others straightened and gave each other concerned looks.

  I could feel the blush getting worse.

  Avoiding their eyes, I set the glass down and then pushed up from the floor. My legs wobbled, my whole body feeling thick and strange, and as I reached my feet, Noah kept his arm on me, steadying me.

  I swallowed, quivers running through my body for a whole other reason.

  Diane gestured toward the living room. “Why don’t you go have a seat in there?” she offered.

  Noah led me down the short steps into the sunken room off of the kitchen. The white couch was softer than its sterile appearance gave it credit for, and the breeze coming through the open window carried the smell of the sea.