You’ll be fine, Jacob told me. I’ll be there. I’ll take care of you. But there is no true slack current here. The current pushes one way, stops for a minute, then changes direction. My mask grows tighter, my suit heavy. I’m cold, too cold. I can’t draw a deep breath. We are not alone. A third diver swims up behind us. Another man? Is there a fourth diver behind him? Two other divers? Or only one? The water is murky now, silty. Full of shadows.
In an instant, the current whips us away. The undertow churns up the sea bottom. A cloud passes over the sun, and my view plunges into darkness. Where am I? At what depth? Forty feet? Sixty? The loud rush of my breathing fills my ears. I have a strong urge to rip off my mask, race for the surface, and gulp a deep breath of fresh air. Don’t panic. Panic is what kills most divers. If I ascend too quickly, I’ll get the bends, deadly nitrogen bubbles in my bloodstream. But I’m running out of air. Another diver swims up below me. His eyes widen with confusion, or fear, or both. I have to help him, but I can’t fight the undertow. The sea yanks him away. I awaken gasping for breath, my heartbeat pulsing in my ears.
I sit up, rub my forehead, trying to clear my mind. The clock on the nightstand reads eight o’clock. I slept later than usual. Jacob is already humming in the kitchen.
I pull on a robe and slippers over my pajamas and go down the hall to my office computer. In Google, I type in “Kyra Winthrop,” “diving accident,” and “Deception Pass” again, and I click on results in only the News category. The same stories appear—two divers rescued from the pass, both miraculously alive, except for my head injury. What did I expect to find? A fresh article, sprouting from my dream, reading, Correction: our previous piece erroneously reported only two divers nearly swept to their deaths in Deception Pass. In reality, a couple of ghost divers survived the treacherous currents . . . courtesy of Kyra Winthrop’s warped imagination.
So much for the revelatory power of dreams.
In my email inbox, I find a message from Linny.
Kyra,
Did something happen? Did you and Jacob get into a fight? Why are you asking me if you argued? Tell me what’s going on!
He was always careful and gentle with you. I’m sure he gets pissed off sometimes. We all do.
Xoxo,
Linny
Well, that’s a relief.
I sign off and go back down the hall to the kitchen. Jacob is seated at the dining table, reading glasses propped on his nose, jotting a list on a lined notepad.
I peer over his shoulder at his cramped handwriting: SWEET POTATOES, MAPLE SYRUP, CINNAMON, BUTTERNUT SQUASH, PECANS . . .
“A recipe?” I say.
“Butternut squash pecan casserole,” he says.
“I’m not fond of the word casserole,” I say, pouring a mug of coffee. “It’s what my dad made when he wanted to disguise leftovers.”
Jacob takes off his glasses and smiles. “At least your dad cooked. My dad didn’t know the difference between a colander and a cooking pot.”
“We weren’t a conventional family,” I say. “Except for the casseroles. For some unknown reason, my dad considered himself the male Betty Crocker.”
“This isn’t a conventional casserole,” Jacob says. “Vegan, crunchy, and sweet, just like you.”
“A sweet casserole?” I say. “Yuck.”
“Trust me. It’s good.”
“If you say so.” I yawn.
“You didn’t sleep well,” he says, a note of concern in his voice.
“I had the dream again.” I sit at the table with him, holding the warm cup in both hands. “Only it got scary. The current shifted and pushed us—”
“Wait, you think this recurring dream is a real memory?”
“I’m not sure, but this time there was someone else, at least one other diver.”
His brows rise, his expression puzzled. “Another diver? Who?”
“I don’t know. Did we dive alone?”
“Yeah, just the two of us,” he says, frowning. “Why would you dream of someone else?”
“Could other people have been diving with us?”
“Not with us, but when the conditions are optimal in the pass, there might be other divers.”
“Did we see anyone else?” I say.
“We might have. Wait. We did. Now I remember. One experienced diver with a less experienced diver trailing him. But we didn’t dive with them. We nodded hello. That’s all. We were diving along the wall, and we passed them.”
“Going in the same direction?” I say.
“We had to have been,” he says. “They’re not going to swim against the current. You drift with the current one way, then you let it carry you back the other way.”
I peer into my cup. I’ve finished my coffee, without even noticing. “This dream didn’t have much of the usual strangeness—you know, when the impossible happens. It felt real.”
“It could’ve been from another time.”
“It seemed like the pass.”
“We dove in other places.”
“But the dream.”
He looks up at me. “You had a dream of other divers before, and you’ve asked me this question before. My answer has always been the same.”
I step back, stunned. “I don’t—”
“You don’t remember, I know.” He tears off the sheet from the notepad. “I need to gather these ingredients for the dinner. I’m going into town.” As he shrugs on his coat, I pour a second mug of coffee to kick-start my fuzzy brain. I wish I could replay the dream like a movie, know for certain what I saw.