The Secret Sea (9 page)

“Whoa!” Khalid exclaimed. “You
are
life-sized! I was starting to think you'd been shrunk down to fit in a video chat screen.”

Khalid grinned broadly, his eyes no doubt dancing behind the sunglasses he wore. He'd recently started wearing them every time he left the house, no matter where he was. Even in movie theaters. He insisted it was the coolest thing in the world, and that even if it wasn't, “I'll
make
it cool.” He came close and clasped, then reclasped, Zak's hand in a complicated ritual that was more a dance move than a handshake.

Moira rolled her eyes, whether at Khalid's comment, his sunglasses, or his handshake, Zak couldn't tell. Probably all three. Her hair had been cut recently, right around her ears, with sleek, shiny strands of it flying away every time she bobbed her head. She wore a pair of heavy-framed glasses and a painfully bright T-shirt with the words
100% GEEK
and
100% GIRL
inscribed across it, as well as a cluster of overlapping pins on her right shoulder that looked like the beginning of a growth of multicolored plate-armor. One of the larger buttons was a new one that Zak hadn't seen before. It read
I like you ironically
.

“How did you guys get in here?” Zak asked as Moira came closer. She wasn't much for shows of affection, but she did brush a stray hair from his forehead.

“We used the door,” Khalid said in a tone of overwrought concern, pointing. “Did they operate on your
brain
, man?”

Moira sniffed. “As usual, Khalid's being a moron. We basically threw fits until our parents let us come to see you. The doctors didn't want to let us in, but we guilt-tripped your parents.”

“And
then
we used the door,” Khalid reminded them. “The door was important to the plan, and I don't understand why you're downplaying it. Without the door, we literally would not be here.”

Moira sighed in aggravation and awkwardly crossed her arms over her chest. “How are you, Zak? Really.”

“I'm okay. The doctors say I'm going to be fine.”

Khalid perched with one hip on Zak's bed. “Did you seriously have a heart attack?”

“I think so. Or maybe not. They called it a ‘cardiac event.'”

Khalid tilted his shades down and looked out over the top. “That sounds fun.”

“Totally. Want to try one?”

“Maybe later.”

“Is this connected to your sleepwalking?” Moira asked abruptly.

Zak startled, and his heart monitor emitted a sharp bleat. He'd almost forgotten that Moira was there. When she wanted to, she could be so quiet and still that it was easy to overlook her, especially amid Khalid's antics. But she stood right next to him, gazing down at him with concern.

“What makes you think—”

“It's a weird coincidence,” she interrupted, “that an otherwise normal, healthy person would suddenly have two medical crises in a row. Maybe there's a connection.”

“Science Girl rides … again!” Khalid sang.

Moira ignored him and touched Zak on his shoulder, where Dad had hours before. This time, Zak didn't mind so much. “What are they saying? Have they told you anything?”

Zak drew in a deep breath.
An otherwise normal, healthy person
, Moira had said. But she didn't know.

“Don't tell.”

That was fine advice for ghosts. But Zak was alive and had friends.

“I need to tell you guys something,” he said. “Something big and serious.”

“I live for big and serious,” Khalid said, leaning forward eagerly.

Zak started to talk.

*   *   *

He told them everything.

Every. Thing.

He was tempted to hold back some of the details, some of the crazier things. But it was all connected—his brother, the World Trade Center, the ship, the sleepwalking, the “cardiac event,” the voice, the dreams. The flooded subway that suddenly wasn't. Trying to talk about one part of it without talking about the rest of it would be like walking on a single stilt—good luck keeping your balance. And your perspective.

As Zak spoke, Khalid paced, never taking off his sunglasses—he was deeply committed to the weird experimental theater of his own life. But Zak could tell from his cheeks and eyebrows that his eyes were growing wider and wider as the story went on. Moira stood completely still the whole time, staring through her thick lenses at Zak, her arms folded uncomfortably over her chest.
I like you ironically
kept flashing at Zak.

“That … is … crazy,” Khalid said when Zak finished, and Moira immediately and quite seriously slapped the back of his head. Hard. Khalid yelped.

“Don't call Zak crazy,” she remonstrated.

“I didn't call
him
crazy! I called his
story
crazy.”

“Either way.”

“It's okay,” Zak said quietly. “I know how it sounds. And I wouldn't blame you guys if you didn't believe me, but don't tell my parents, okay?”

“We believe you,” Moira said. “Well, I do.”

“You don't think I'm nuts?”

“Of course not,” Moira said. “How could you have opened the safe without knowing the combination? A ghost actually makes sense. And besides—the boat was right where you said it would be.”

“I just believe you 'cause I'll always believe you,” Khalid said. And then he intoned solemnly, “Three Basketeers.” When they'd been younger, one of them—probably Khalid—had misheard the title of the famous novel and thought it was about basketball. They'd declared themselves the Three Basketeers, and merely invoking that phrase was like making a promise unto death.

It had been years since they'd described themselves so, one more piece of jetsam heaved over the side of the ship as they raced toward teendom.

Still, the sound of those words instantly sent Zak back to the overseriousness of childhood, the wallowing in personal importance. Moira nodded gravely and said, “Three Basketeers.”

“Three Basketeers,” Zak answered, completing the circuit. Done.

“Now what?” Khalid asked. He was always eager for action—oftentimes incredibly stupid action, but action nonetheless. He rubbed his hands together. “Do we need one of those, you know—” He held his hands out flat, mimed scrubbing something along a surface.

“A Ouija board?” Moira asked. She'd grabbed Zak's chart from the end of his bed and was flipping through it. “Grow up.”

“I don't know what to do next,” Zak confessed as Moira fiddled with her phone. “But I know it can't be done here.”

“No kidding.” Khalid pulled a chair over and plopped down next to Zak. “But how do we get you out of here?”

“And where do we go once I'm out?”

“We get you out of here first,” Khalid argued, “and
then
we figure out what to do.”

“That doesn't make any sense.”

“It makes perfect sense.”

“Dude, we have to know where we're going first.”

“We're going
out
—that's where we're going.” Khalid hopped up from his chair and dashed to the window, dodging around Moira, who was studying Zak's heart monitor intently. “I bet this window … Yeah! Check it—there's a roof right down there.” He jabbed a finger at the glass excitedly. “I bet we could jump it, easy.”

“Jump it!” Zak's heart sent him a warning jolt.

“Or maybe we could make a rope out of bedsheets and anchor it with your IV pole and climb down.”

“You're nuts. I'm not doing that. Especially without a destination in mind.” He tried to sit up in bed, but Moira was suddenly looming over him, tugging gently at the wires connected to his heart monitor, then poking at the oxygen tube running into his nose.

Zak tried to brush her back. Khalid turned from the window in a huff. “Fine. What's
your
suggestion, genius?”

“I think we need to find a way to contact Tommy. And it seems like he speaks to me best when I'm asleep.”

Khalid snapped his fingers and pointed. “Quick! Fall asleep!”

“Right,” Zak said drolly. “I'm just wondering: Maybe tonight when I sleep, I can try to sort of … control the dream. It's called lucid dreaming. My dad told me about it once. Because I was having nightmares. And he said that there's a way you can take control of your dreams and change them around.”

“So maybe you can actually talk to the voice!” Khalid said excitedly. “And figure out your next step!”

“Yeah.” Zak turned to Moira, who by now had moved to the other side of the bed and was staring at her phone. “Moira? Care to join us here on planet Earth for a minute and tell us what you—”

He broke off as Moira, with no warning, dropped to the floor. A moment later, she popped back up with a plastic sack that she tossed at Zak. It landed heavily on his gut. Inside were his clothes.

“Get dressed,” she said. “Your cardiac enzymes are back down to normal levels, your blood pressure is good, and your heart rate is fine. You're mobile. We can get you out of here.”

“Like I said—through the window!” Khalid exclaimed.

“The windows don't open,” Moira said witheringly.

“I can't just go,” Zak said. But the weight of the bag—his clothes, his shoes—tempted him. “I'm on a heart monitor. An alarm will go off.”

“I already turned off the alarm. I Googled the manual.”

“But where do we go once we're out of here?”

Moira stared. It was the same look she always gave them when they were all doing math homework together and Zak and Khalid just. Didn't. Get it.

“We have to go to the subway,” she said. “Preferably close to the Freedom Tower, but it probably doesn't matter, since you had a vision at the Canal Street stop.”

Zak and Khalid looked at each other, then looked at Moira.

“Go on,” Khalid prompted. “For the dummies in the room.”

“It's obvious—the voice is stronger when you're asleep, yes, but we can't force you to sleep. So we do the next best thing. The voice and the visions are also strong when you're underground. Probably because that gets you closer to where the ship was buried. So we have to take you down into the subway. Duh,” she finished for good measure.

“That's amazing,” Khalid said in awe. Zak nodded in agreement as Moira began unhooking the various wires from him.

“Puh-lease.” Moira sniffed. “Anyone who's ever read a comic book would have figured it out.”

Zak nodded slowly and said, “All right, guys. Turn around.”

“Why?” Moira asked, annoyed.

“Because in order to get dressed,” Zak said with a grin, “first I have to get naked.”

Moira's eyebrows shot up, and her face flamed almost as red as her hair. She quickly turned away as Zak peeled back the sheet.

 

THIRTEEN

Unsteady on his feet for the first time in days, Zak weaved a little. Khalid and Moira persuaded him to try a few practice laps around his room before they would open the door. After three or four turns, he felt confident.

His heart seemed to throb more noticeably than usual. Was it an aftereffect of the “cardiac event”? Or was he just paying more attention to it because it had failed him?

“You getting the hang of this walking thing?” Khalid asked.

“I'm fine,” Zak lied. “Let's go.”

He anticipated guards shouting and nurses sounding alarms as soon as he left the room, but nothing happened. No one spared a look for the three kids casually strolling down the corridor. Zak suffered a pang of terror as they rounded the first corner, wondering if he might walk into his parents or his doctor or Dr. Campbell. He hissed in a breath and forced himself not to squeeze Moira's hand, which she insisted he hold. But the new hallway was empty, save for an orderly mopping the floor, and they pushed into a stairwell. Soon they were out on the street.

Zak tilted his face to the sun. It was late in the day, but it was summer and the sun, low in the sky, still emitted warm light. After days of air-conditioning, the humidity outside wrapped around him like a living blanket trying to smother him. He breathed through the initial surprise, focused on the heat from the sun, silently ordered his heart to behave.

“Subway's this way,” Khalid said. Zak scarcely paid attention. He let them lead him along the sidewalks, enfolded in the damp air that smelled of car exhaust, barbecued chicken kebabs from a nearby food cart, half-melted road tar, and the tang of his own sudden sweat. Buses belched; the sidewalks vibrated with a million footfalls; ten languages spoken at top volume assaulted his ears.

Through it, past it, beyond it, he sought
the
voice, Tommy, his twin.
Come back
, he pleaded.
I didn't know who you were. I'm sorry I let you get away. If you come back, I'll never let you go again. Just come back.

“Here we go.…” Khalid and Moira helped him down the steps into the subway. Zak realized that he didn't have his MetroCard, but Khalid swiped him in, and soon they stood on the platform. Zak gazed around. It was just a subway platform in Brooklyn. Nothing exciting or exceptional about it—rusted overhead steel, trash-strewn tracks, bored commuters loitering. A darting shadow in the distance that his experienced eyes knew—without even seeing it totally—to be a rat, scavenging in the wasteland of the tracks.

Where are you, Tommy? How can you still speak to me?

He stared down at the tracks. A fork lay there. Not a plastic fork dropped from a takeout bag or tossed aside after being used—that would make sense. No, this was a shiny silver fork, clean and new, sitting on the track.

For a moment he forgot why he was here. What on
earth
was a perfectly good fork doing on the subway tracks?