The Secret Sea (11 page)

“He's zoning out again,” Khalid said, worried, as if Zak weren't there at all.

“I'm okay,” Zak said. His voice echoed weirdly in one ear but not in the other, as though he'd plugged one with cotton. He felt the rope from the ship slip through his hands, as it had once before. “I'm fine.”

“Are you sure?” Moira leaned in. “You look pale. You're sweating again.”

Khalid came closer, too, and started talking. Zak wished they would both shut up—it wasn't easy, maintaining this connection. On what he thought of as the “ship side,” a burly man, naked to the waist and bleeding from a gash along his shoulder, grabbed Zak by the elbow and shouted horrible curses at him, ending with “
… and get yer keister up there now, God blast ye!
”

Zak felt that half of himself stumbling along, then climbing a rope ladder. He went dizzy as that half looked up—the rope ladder swayed sickeningly, occasionally slapping against a mast that rose to scrape the bottoms of the thick gray clouds overhead. As Zak climbed higher on the ship side, he found it more and more difficult to maintain a connection, especially with Khalid's and Moira's chatter on the street side. He broke the coupling, staggering on the street side for a moment as if physically shoved.

Khalid and Moira caught him before he could stumble off the curb and into traffic.

Zak
, Tommy said, his voice clear.
This is it. You won't get another chance.

Too many police
, he told Tommy, eying the entrance to the subway. There were four cops loitering by the entrance and who knew how many more inside?

It's now or never. I need you, Zak. I can't come to you—you have to come to me.

“We have to go into the subway,” Zak said.

Khalid and Moira glanced nervously at the entrance. They could see what he saw, obviously.

“Right…,” Khalid said with a smidgen of doubt in his voice. “And this is a good idea because…?”

“I have to do it,” Zak said. “You don't have to come with me.”

Moira cleared her throat. “And that's exactly why we will.”

Zak's own throat needed some clearing. He clenched his jaw, willing the tears clustering at the corners of his eyes to go away, and succeeded for the most part. “Thanks,” he whispered.

“Let's go,” said Khalid.

They sauntered to the subway entrance as casually as they could, hoping that they were wrong, that these cops were there just because it was part of a normal patrol, not because they were on the lookout for three kids on the run. And they closed in quite a ways before one of the cops tilted his head and nudged his partner, the two of them scrutinizing the trio as they got even closer.

You can do this
, Tommy said, and his encouragement actually emboldened Zak and made him wish he could share it with Moira and Khalid.

A moment later, he realized he could—he took their hands in his own and squeezed reassuringly. His heart skipped a beat, then another, then settled back into a normal rhythm. For now.

The first cop nodded curtly and opened his mouth.

The ship side returned then, suddenly, wind howling and rain blowing.

“Run,” Zak said, and released his friends' hands and charged straight ahead as fast as he could.

 

FIFTEEN

It was like running through a museum with only two paintings, copies of which were hung next to each other in an endless gallery of repetition. With each step, Zak moved from street side to ship side and then back again. Hot August night and concrete underfoot became chilly, storm-ravaged afternoon with rickety boards beneath. And over and over again.

He pressed through it, ignored it, focused on charging straight ahead, darting between the cops before they could react. Moira and Khalid were right with him, but he didn't let himself think of them. He could only think of straight ahead, of the subway.

You're doing it!
Tommy yelled.
Keep going!

Zak needed no encouragement—the shouts of the cops behind him were enough to propel him forward at top speed. His heart thrummed in his ears, and he tried not to think of what was happening in his chest as he raced ahead. He scrambled down the stairs, leaping from the third-to-last step to the floor below. Clusters of annoyed commuters shouted in aggravation; Zak flailed wildly, knocking people away, shoving aside the ones who didn't recoil from his pinwheeling arms. Grumbles about “crazy kids” and barks of recrimination filled the air, but he didn't care.

The station was crowded, but Zak was small and wiry and able to slip between people. As he gained the turnstile, he spared an instant to check over his shoulder—the cops were far behind him, larger and having trouble getting through the crowd.

He ducked under the turnstile and felt a trill of exhilaration and guilt at the same time. Jumping the turnstile was
wrong
. But fun.
Oh, man, Dad's gonna kick my butt for this.

Ha! He had bigger problems. No time for that. They could fine him later, ground him for eternity. If he survived. He scooted along and emerged on the other side of the gate.

The platform!
Tommy urged.
Hurry! The police are getting closer!

He checked in both directions, saw the sign for the platform, the uptown E train. He charged in that direction, once again scattering passengers in his wake.

He caught a flicker from the ship side; there, he'd swung down from the rope ladder as the ship listed dangerously to port. (He didn't know how he knew port was the left side of the ship, but somehow he did.) On the street side, he stumbled to his left with the sway of the ship, then caught his balance and blasted down a flight of stairs two at a time. Rain started falling on the ship side; it was cold and needlelike on his skin, pelting him like tiny hailstones. He left wet footprints on the street side even though it was dry there.

Finally he emerged on the platform. Maybe a dozen people lingered, waiting for the next E to come along. Zak leaned against a column, catching his breath, his heart dashing along like a rabbit running from a Doberman. A man in a suit lifted an eyebrow and made a point of pulling his briefcase a little closer.

I don't want your briefcase, you tool. Tommy! Tommy!

Footsteps clattered behind him, and he dared a look over his shoulder, ready to take off again despite the dangerously rapid pounding in his chest. He would
not
let the cops catch him.

But it was Moira and Khalid, similarly out of breath, racing toward him. They almost collided with him but stopped just in time.

“Well?” Khalid demanded, heaving and wheezing. “Is this the place?”

“Is it?” Moira asked, also short of breath.

Zak didn't know what to tell them. He didn't want to disappoint them, but there was nothing here to indicate that he was in the right place. Whatever the
right place
might mean. He could still glimpse the ship side, where the pale boy whose eyes he saw through was now tugging at a hatch built into the deck of the ship. But that was all.

“I don't know,” he admitted. And the crowd clustered along the stairs shouted in outrage.

“Cops are coming,” Khalid said. “We gotta do something.” He looked down the length of the platform. There was another exit at that end.

“They'll be blocking that side,” Moira advised.

Tommy! Tommy!

You have the power, Zak. Not me.

What?

It has to be you. I've brought you this far. You have to come the rest of the way on your own.

Zak pondered for a moment. He'd always been
waiting
, passively receiving the visions and the voice. But was it true? Could he force it to happen? Could he push forward instead of merely standing his ground?

He imagined for a moment that he heard something else, something new—a far-off cry of anguish. No. It was a gull from ship-side, maybe. That's all.

I can do this. I can do it.

The cops were almost down the stairs, shoving out of the way those people who didn't move at their shouts. Zak grabbed Moira's and Khalid's hands.

“I need you guys.” He didn't know how he knew it or why it was true. Only that it
was
true.

“We're here,” Moira said, and squeezed his hand.

“Hurry,” Khalid muttered, gazing back at the stairs and the cops.

Zak didn't know if he
could
hurry. He wasn't sure exactly what he was trying to do in the first place, so he had no idea if it could be hurried. Maybe it was like baking a pie—you couldn't just turn up the heat to make it bake faster. You'd end up with a burned shell surrounding raw fruit paste.

But maybe … maybe it was like a fire hose, and you could open the nozzle wider and let the water fly.

He closed his eyes and envisioned ship-side. The sky was gone now; the version of Zak on that side had gone belowdecks. A barrel screeched as it strained its moorings, then snapped loose from the wall and rolled toward him. Zak dived out of the way; the barrel smashed against a column in the middle of the compartment. Zak had trouble making out the size of the compartment because the only light came from a flickering torch—

A torch that now dropped to the wooden floor. It rolled, guttering.

The ship had juddered, the entire thing shaking and grinding to a sudden halt, as though it had run aground in the middle of the water.

“Zak! They're surrounding us!” It was Khalid, heard as though through a bad cell connection. Somewhere, ghostly fingers tightened on his own.

The rolling torch fetched up against a pallet tied to the deck. A lick of flame lashed its length. Zak drew in a deep breath at the sudden eruption of light and heat in the enclosed space.

Zak knew what he had to do; he had to somehow marry ship side to street side. He could see into both of them, but he could be in only one. If he could make them intersect, then maybe—just maybe—he could cross over.…

He opened his eyes and staggered. Ahead of him was the trough beside the subway platform, along the bottom of which ran the tracks for the trains. But overlaying it was the belowdecks compartment on the ship, now ablaze with fire. Zak's heart double-timed, or maybe it was the sensation of his own heart beating alongside the ship-side person's.

Down in the tunnel, the clatter and clang of a train echoed.

“Step away from the platform!” a voice shouted. At the same time, someone yelled, “
Man overboard! Man overboard!
”

Zak's vision doubled as he stared at the overlap of the ship and the subway station. The train grew louder and louder, merging with the creak of the ship and the crackle of the flame until they became a single, pervasive chatter and rattle.

And—

There.

Zak's breath whooshed out of him, and he doubled over as though to vomit, but nothing came out. Khalid and Moira held him steady.

The train was gone. The ship was gone.

A massive wave of water was coming down the subway tunnel. Just like the one he'd seen the other day.

Hurry! Hurry, Zak! I can't wait much longer!

The last time he'd seen this, Tommy had told him to run.

Hurry!

Zak tossed looks over both shoulders. A cop crept closer, one hand on his nightstick, the other reaching out cautiously. Khalid and Moira, within reach, shrank back toward Zak. Nowhere to go. They were caught between the cops and the edge of the platform.

The water rushed at him, a liquid bullet throwing off wavelets, lapping at and overrunning the border of the platform.

Zak! Now!

Moira shrieked as a hand clamped on her. Khalid shouted.

Zaaaaaaak!

Zak took a deep breath and leaped into the water.

 

SIXTEEN

The water vanished. Zak's legs pumped in empty air above the subway track.

The train reappeared, bearing down on him.

 

SEVENTEEN

The water returned, bubbling and fizzing around him as he collided with it in midair.

Somehow, somewhere in there, the train hurtled along the track as if nothing was wrong, its headlight wavering and glowing under the water, like an angry, fluorescing lamprey. Zak opened his mouth to scream and swallowed salt water. The train hurtled toward him.

 

EIGHTEEN

The water was gone again. Zak fell toward the tracks, praying he wouldn't hit the electrified third rail.

 

NINETEEN

And the water came back. Zak, still choking on seawater, struggled against the flood, thrashing.

There was fire somewhere. Somewhere above. The ship. Part of it had caught fire.

He had to stop thinking of the ship. Of the train. He had to think
between
them. He had to focus.…

 

TWENTY

The world went silent. Zak hung suspended in something that was neither water nor air.

Between. Think
between
the ship and the train.

Something cracked open ahead of him, as though a hole had been torn through his line of sight. He could perceive the edges of it; they crackled and popped with strange energies.

Tommy? Tommy, can you hear me?

Faintly:
Zak! You—

Gone.

Then back, strong:
Go! Go now!

There was nothing to push against, nothing to use for propulsion, but Zak nevertheless found himself moving toward the hole. As he approached it, his scalp buzzed with static, and his skin crawled.

And then he was through and

 

TWENTY-ONE

flailing in the water, floundering and writhing. He was fully submerged and at first couldn't tell which direction was up. He struggled against the force of the water, ready for it to vanish again, figuring that if he could tread long enough, the subway station would return.