Chasing Xaris (5 page)

“Miss Bloom,” Jordan said.

I peered up at him, expecting a scowl, but found him watching me with a faint smile.

“You’re trying to bribe me,” he said, pointing at the cookies.

“They’re peanut butter. Gran made them, so they aren’t burnt or anything.”

Jordan nodded. He knew what a terrible baker I was.

“Want to come in?” he asked.

“Not yet.” I needed to do this outside, with plenty of space around me. “I’m sorry I was so horrible. I shouldn’t have said… that. And I shouldn’t have gotten all judgmental on you. I mean, I still think you could do more than tag along with your brother after graduation… but it’s your life.”

Jordan’s lip curved up on one side. “That was an awful apology.”

“But look, cookies.” I pushed the bag into Jordan’s stomach.

He assessed my offer. “Come i
n. I can only hang for a second. I’m hitting the beach.”

“Okay.” I slipped past
Jordan, keeping as much distance between us as I could.

The place hadn’t changed much in the past two years. It still smelled like sunblock and sand. Water-stained couches were shoved against lime-green walls, a beanbag chair sat in the corner near the door, and a surfboard rack hung above the couches. Definitely a home decorated by two surfers.

Jordan lived here with his older brother, Greg. Their parents were semi-retired singers who’d written a few hit songs in the seventies and now traveled the country in a motor home. They had decided Jordan’s life would be infinitely more stable here than on the road.              

Jordan plopped onto one of the gray couches, and I sat on the bean-bag chair across from him. He opened the bag and took out a cookie. As he bit into it, my gaze drifted to his lips, and then back up to his eyes, which were watching me thoughtfully.

“Chandler, why are you here?” he asked.

“I wanted to apologize.” I paused. “And I wanted to ask you about something.”

Jordan nodded, as if he already knew.

“Do you remember a report of yours from last year?” I asked. “One of the slides had a wheel with green spokes and a blue rim and bright center.”

Jordan’s eyes widened. “That shark slayer story?”

“You remember?” I leaned forward. “Will you tell me about it?”

“Sure.” Jordan settled back against the couch, and I noticed how much of the cushion he took up. He’d definitely filled out in the last couple years.

“Remember when we surfed in New Smyrna?” he asked. I nodded.

“The town started in the 1700s,” he continued. “A doctor named Turnbull brought a ton of people over from Greece and Italy, places like that. He had all these agricultural plans.”

“Did you just use the word ‘agricultural’?’”

Jordan raised an eyebrow. “Impressed?”

“Surprised.”

“Well, there’s a story that some Greeks sailed south from New Smyrna to an island near here. They could swim as fast as dolphins and hunt like sharks. I think the people are called
Aletheians
.”

A thrill shot down my spine.
Aletheian. That’s what Ari had to be.

M

Y
hands were trembling, so I squeezed them together in a double fist. I needed to act calm. Composed.

“So the island is near Fort Lauderdale?” I asked in a pinched voice.

Jordan nodded. “Pretty much all the sightings happened around here. But there haven’t been any in like two hundred years.”

“So where’s the island?”

“Nobody knows.” He hummed the
Twilight Zone
tune.

“What do you mean? All the islands off the coast are charted, aren’t they?”

“This island’s… different. It vanished.”

“How does an island vanish?”

“Don’t know.”
Jordan took another bite of his cookie. “I found all this stuff on a website created by some Aletheian fanatic. You should just check out the site.”

“What’s the address?”

“I think it’s Aletheianinfo.com. You’ll see. The guy’s totally obsessed.”

I typed that address into my phone, but it said the web page wasn’t available.

“Sure that’s the right address?” I asked.

“Pretty sure,” Jordan said.

I tried searching just “Aletheian” but nothing came up relating to the legend.

“The site’s been taken down,” I said.

Another dead end. Seriously? Why did it have to be this difficult?

“You okay, Chandler?” Jordan asked, leaning forward.

“I’m fine,” I said, jumping to my feet. “I’ll let you get to surfing, Jordan. Thanks again for everything. You’re awesome. Really.”

“Sure. No problem.” He stood too. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

I nodded. “Thanks.”

I hurried out the door,
down the sidewalk and onto my bike. I jumped on the seat and peddled, faster and faster, away from Jordan and his house and the way he looked at me.

I wasn’t sorry I’d gone, though. My insides might be a mess, but I had apologized to
Jordan in person—he deserved that. And I’d learned about Aletheians.

One
site had been taken down, but I would find another. I had the right keyword now. I’d just keep searching until I found something on these Greek shark slayers. They kind of reminded me of the Spartans.

Mr. Whit had told us a little about
Sparta. It was an ancient Greek city-state known for producing ferocious warriors. The Aletheians seemed like a weird Florida version of that.

Gran was waiting for me in the kitchen when I got home. Her knife hovered over a carrot on the cutting board.

“Edie Dickenson’s daughter saw you leaving the Lanes’ house,” she said.

Of course. I should have realized a busybody like Gran would discover my visit to
Jordan’s.
Gran was the gossip-rumor-chatter queen in this town. And all the nosy women in a ten-mile radius served as her informants.

“Is it true?” Gran pressed.

“Jordan and I have been friends for forever,” I said, inching toward the living room. If I could just get to my room, I could start searching.

Gran laid her knife down and walked around the kitchen island toward me. Her small TV was faithfully blaring The Weather Channel.

“I don’t like you spending time over there, love,” she said.

I blinked. “Why
not?”

“There’s no supervision.”

“Gran, my parents let me hang out at Jordan’s all the time.”

“That was before he lived there alone with his brother.” Gran lowered her voice. “What if he pressured you,
Chandler?”

“To do what?”

“Well...” Gran held out her hands to gesture something, then dropped them. “Well, physically.”

I stepped back, tightening my grip on my backpack. Oh no. No way would I have this talk with her.

“We so don’t need to talk about this,” I said.

“But this is the sort of thing girls are supposed to talk about with their mothers.
Now, I know I’m not your mother—”

“
No, you definitely aren’t,” I snapped. “So you can quit trying.”

Gran’s eyes widened.

I swallowed. “I didn’t mean it like that, Gran,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“I know exactly what you meant,” Gran said quietly. Her voice was hard. She turned her back to me, returned to her cutting board, and slapped her knife in staccato strikes.

Guilt crept in as I watched. But Gran had pushed way too far. And maybe it would be better if we quit trying so hard—we wouldn’t have to be so painfully polite to each other. We could live together without all the pressure of closeness.

I backed out of the kitchen and headed upstairs to my bedroom, still feeling
horrible. I opened my laptop and tried to shove thoughts of Gran away. I needed to focus on Aletheians.             

After nearly an hour of searching, I
didn’t discover a single website relating to the legend. Not one. How could that be? It was such a cool story. And how weird that Jordan had found the one and only site.

I slumped in my chair, feeling my stomach sink, but then I realized that Jordan had given me some leverage. If I could talk with Ari again, I’d have the upper hand. What would Ari’s face look like when I casually dropped
Aletheian into the conversation? Maybe that would rattle him enough to drop his guard. It could work. It really could.

Thinking of Ari made my legs itch to surf. I glanced at my closed door, wondering if I could still catch a few waves before dinner.
But I didn’t feel like facing Gran again if I could help it. I decided to stay in the safety of my room and finish my Pre-Calc and Physics homework. But it was really, really hard to focus—especially with Jordan texting me.

Jordan:
              U ok?

Chandler
:              Yeah thanks. Sorry 4 all the drama

Jordan:
              Its ok. Ur always dramatic.

Chandler
:               What!!! Not true.

Jordan:
              U just used 3 !!!

Chandler
:               I was making a point.

Jordan:
              Point made. Ur dramatic.

Chandler
:               Ur not? U talked in an accent for a month after Harry Potter.

Jordan:
              Dont hate on Harry.

Chandler
:               I would never!!!

Jordan:
              !!!

Chandler
:               Harrys awesome.

Jordan:
              So are u.

Chandler
:               Ur ok I guess ;)

~~~

The next morning, I sprinted across the cool cement of the parking lot at Laney Pier. Jordan’s yellow truck wasn’t there yet, and I felt a rush of disappointment. I shook my head and kept going. I seriously had to get a grip if I got upset over whether or not I’d see Jordan.

Thunder rumbled in the distance, but the brewing storm didn’t deter me. The charged air matched my mood. On the beach, I spotted Ari right away. He was carving a knee-high wave down shore, away from the handful of surfers by the pier.

I attached my leash and dove onto my board. Water sprayed my face, tasting salty on my tongue. I paddled forward, devouring the space between my board and Ari’s.

Unlike yesterday, Ari made no move to leave. He wore a resigned expression,
like he knew this meeting was inevitable. He sat up on his board in one powerful motion as I neared. All of his muscles definitely fit with my Aletheian hunch.

I met Ari’s stern gaze and felt prickles race down my back.

“We need to talk about my dad,” I said, sitting up.

He nodded.

“I didn’t dream what you said.”

“I know,” he replied.

I blinked. “So you admit you knew Dad?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. How did you meet him?”

“At the Bahia Mar Marina. We talked about fishing—our favorite wreck spots, what was biting on the reefs…” Ari’s lips pressed into a small smile. “I’m something of a fisherman, too.”

I bet he was.

“How long ago did you meet him?” I asked.

“About six months before he died,” Ari said. “I saw Captain Tye at the marina weekly. He was an easy man to talk to.”

I could easily picture Dad befriending Ari. That was so something he would have done. How many times had he invited strangers from his charters to dinner at our house? Mom had always brought extra food home from the crab shack, just in case.

I searched Ari’s gray eyes and imagined Dad looking into the same face. I was surprised I had never seen Ari at the marina. I had hung out there on the weekends a lot. Dad and I had sat in lawn chairs and talked about surfing, sailing, anything really
.

The memory made my chest throb. Of course.

“What else do you know about my dad?” I asked.

“That is all.”

“What about his death? You said that someone murdered my parents.”

“Someone did,” he said. “The driver of the other car.”

“Do you know the driver?”

Ari dropped to his stomach, his hands inching toward the water.

I grabbed the nose of his board. “Why won’t you be honest with me?” I asked.

“I have told you everything I can, Chandler.” He pried my hand off his board and
began paddling away.

“
Aletheian,” I called.

Ari glanced over his shoulders. His gray eyes flashed.

“I haven’t told anyone,” I said quickly. “And I won’t. So please, just tell me the truth.”

Ari watched me for a long moment. His eyes lost their steely glint. “
Yia sou
,” he said, so softly I doubted he meant for me to hear.

He
paddled toward the beach, and I had the strongest sense that he was leaving for good.

“Ari,” I called after him. But he continued forward in strong strokes.

I dropped to my stomach and paddled after him. He couldn’t leave now. Not with my mind reeling and my chest aching.

Up ahead, Ari was out of the water and heading toward the parking lot.

My arm muscles burned. My lungs strained. My every thought was fixed on catching him.

But when I finally reached the shore, Ari had vanished. I ripped off my leash and abandoned my board, sprinting across the parking lot and into the street. I
looked both ways but saw only cement and palms.

No
. My knees buckled. I hunched over my legs and panted. This couldn’t be happening. Ari couldn’t just stir up all of these questions and then abandon me. Who did that?

Balmy air met my wet skin, brushing against my face and stroking my hair. I stifled a sob and welcomed a red rush of anger. It focused my thoughts.

I had to finish my conversation with Ari. I’d research and research, and eventually I’d find a way to his island. Research was supposed to build bridges between worlds, right? That’s what Mr. Whit had said.

I inhaled sharply. Mr. Whit. The guy who was always reading books with old Florida maps. He might know about the
Aletheian legend. He seriously might.

I glanced at my watch. If I hurried, I could get to school early enough to talk to Mr. Whit before class. Unlike Ari, my teacher wouldn’t
keep secrets from me. I’d learn everything he knew and then I’d build a bridge to Ari’s world.