“Exactly.”
“But there’s blood here,” whispered Whitley. She was using the light on her cell to illuminate the area where the Nissan had been parked. “It wouldn’t take much effort for police to see that something brutal had happened right here.”
“We cleaned it up,” said Kipling. “I noticed the blood, and we spent an hour tearing up the grass with bloodstains. I shoved it into my backpack and spent more time at school flushing it down the toilet.”
“There you have it,” said Martha. “The freak possible.”
There was nothing to say, nothing to do except to consider the strange history Martha had just related like a professor illuminating to her students some new law of gravity. For a while, I was aware of nothing but my own shallow breathing, and the orchestra of crickets, and the night, gasping and alive all around us.
Never had I imagined a truth like this.
“It’s too extraordinary,” whispered Whitley, crossing her arms, shivering. “When you think about it, we all killed Jim. I sent Cannon here. And Cannon hit Jim with the car. And Kipling helped him cover it up. All of us are guilty, right? All of us except Martha and Beatrice. You’re the good ones.”
“That’s not true,” I blurted, tears burning my eyes, a lump in my throat.
“It’s time to get out of here.”
Martha whispered this, frowning thoughtfully as she stared overhead. Bewildered, none of us moved. Then she was pushing us and I realized, stunned, looking up, that without even being aware of it, I’d been standing too close to one of the tower’s steel legs, because the entire thing was tottering. The wood was groaning and splintering.
Suddenly, with a thunderous moan of metal and glass, the entire Lookout was tipping over, rusted nails and screws and wooden beams raining down on us as we took off across the quarry road. I threw myself into the wall of grass, fighting back blades as they slapped and whipped my face. I ducked and covered my head as the entire structure collapsed around me with a roar, Kipling and Whitley shouting somewhere behind me. I felt myself tossed forward.
When I opened my eyes, I was on my stomach, the immense pressure of the ending wake pressing against my legs. I managed to heave myself onto my back, blinking up at the sky.
I heard voices, and then Martha and the others were bending over me.
“She’s at the end of her wake,” said Martha. “We don’t have much time. We have to find Cannon.”
“I think I know where he is,” said Whitley, her face grave.
When she told us the location, no one spoke. Of all possible places in space and time, this one seemed the most frightening, and the most impossible.
“No,” said Martha. “No way. It’s too risky for Bee.” She was helping me to my feet, pulling me toward the edge of the quarry. “We should go back to Wincroft.”
“We need Cannon for the vote,” I said. “I’ll go. I’ll get him and bring him back.”
Martha looked anxious. But there wasn’t time to argue. I could feel the wake traveling up my neck. I knew what to do. I stared down at the quarry and the lake, so far below.
This was the same journey Jim had made. My Jim.
“I’ll see you there,” I whispered.
They were watching me, afraid, but there was no time and nothing to say to reassure them. I squeezed their hands, one by one.
Then I jumped.
When I opened my eyes, I was submerged in freezing water.
Milky blue liquid floated before my eyes. I kicked, barely able to feel my legs. I couldn’t tell which way was the surface. My lungs throbbing in pain, I blew bubbles, watching dimly as they floated in the opposite direction of where I’d thought to go. I kicked after them into murky darkness, the water growing icier, shadowed fish circling me, their cold, gelatinous skin brushing my toes and fingertips.
I wanted to scream.
I kicked again. Suddenly, I breached the lake’s surface, gulping in the icy air.
I looked around. Dense white fog swirled everywhere, chalky and crystalline. A thin layer of ice on the pond’s surface splintered around my shoulders. I dog-paddled in a circle, groping for something to hold on to, but there was nothing. It was impossible to see more than a foot ahead. Dead white tree trunks rose out of the water around me, retreating into the whiteness overhead.
It was where Whitley had told us to go. Blue Pond, Cannon’s Birdcage, at 3:33 p.m. on his birthday last year. It was the real-life place in the photo inside the bug Cannon had discovered in Apple’s operating system sophomore year at Darrow. It was a dreamlike setting of chalky mist, and thin black Japanese larch and silver birch trees growing straight out of an icy blue lake.
There was nothing else here.
“Cannon?”
My voice, hoarse and unsteady, ventured only a few feet in front of me before giving up. My legs were so frozen, they felt unattached to me. The cold was like knives in my back.
“Cannon!”
A boat motor roared behind me. Startled, I turned to see the paint-chipped bow of a skiff blasting out of the fog, heading straight toward me. I caught a glimpse of faded blue words, Little Bird, Cannon hunched over the motor, his bearded face red, his hair long and matted. The boat hit my head. White pain exploded through my skull. The water silenced my shocked scream as I was dragged under.
Everything went black.
When I opened my eyes again, I was submerged in freezing water.
It was silent.
Blue water clouded my eyes. I could see debris floating around me, seaweed, bits of shell, and mud. Long, dark fish with overbites and bulging eyes drifted around me. They looked dead until I touched one and it shot into the shadows.
I wasn’t in pain, apart from my lungs. I blew bubbles, kicking after them. Within seconds I had blasted through the surface, gasping.
It was the exact same scene, the Blue Pond, Cannon’s Birdcage.
A motor grunted. I whipped around to see the skiff heading for me again.
I dove back down into the water, madly kicking through the explosion of bubbles as the boat missed my head by inches. My left foot burst with pain as the propeller’s blade sliced it. When I resurfaced, Cannon had circled the boat around and was aiming for me again.
I dove under again, swimming away a few feet before coming up for air.
“Cannon, please, just wait a minute—”
“You shouldn’t have come here, Beatrice.”
“We need to talk.”
“There’s nothing to say.”
“What about Jim?”
He scowled at the mention of the name, killing the engine.
“Cannon. Please. I just want to talk to you.”
I held out my hand.
He leaned over the boat, smiling reluctantly, extending his hand to help me aboard. As I grabbed it, however, he pulled an oar out and struck me with it on the side of the head, my vision exploding into whiteness.
I screamed. I could feel my body sprawling, coming apart, cold water in my mouth, an oar on my back as he pushed me down.
No matter how hard I fought, that oar remained on my shoulders, keeping me underwater.
He was drowning me.
There was no reasoning with Cannon anymore.
The Neverworld had driven him mad.
When I opened my eyes again, I was submerged in freezing water.
The quiet was deafening.
I realized with a stab of panic exactly what was happening: I was reliving the same wake over and over again. Cannon was killing me, whereupon I remained dead until I was pulled back to the wake. How long did it last? An hour? Minutes?
I could hardly think. I was nauseous with fear. I had to stay calm. Trying to ignore the pain in my lungs, I kept swimming. Blinking up at the surface, I could see the underside of Cannon’s boat amid large chunks of ice. He was hiding between the trees, waiting. I dove deeper, ignoring the dark fish with their flaking skin shooting around my legs. When I couldn’t hold my breath any longer, I swam to the surface, trying not to make noise as I gulped down air.
Cannon’s boat was yards away. He didn’t see me. He was standing in the skiff, looking around.