Before she started the car, Dr. Appledore-Smith turned and looked at each of the children: Brynn, Ephraim, Price, and Mallory. She made sure they were all buckled in. Then she sighed and put the car in reverse.
Brynn had a book to read. Price retrieved a tennis ball from the glove compartment and began to squeeze it. Mallory and Ephraim looked out opposite windows at the trees and cars passing by. The truth was bursting inside of her, and she wanted to lay it all out for Ephraim, to make him understand and believe, but she knew he wouldn’t, not right now.
“A set of stairs from the basement, you say? The first thing we’re going to have to do is have your dad come over and take a look, Mallory. I didn’t even know there was a basement.”
“I’m sure he’ll come,” Mallory replied.
“All that matters is that you are okay. Each one of you.”
Okay. It was a little word and, Mallory realized, all relative. Three of them had drunk the water: Ephraim, his father, and now Will. It saved Will and Ephraim but it certainly didn’t make them okay. What would the water do to them? How long would they live? And how would they live? It’s not like they could just keep going to sixth grade forever.
She was starting to realize how little she knew. She’d always heard about the water, but the details from the stories were hazy to her. Her mother said people had to keep drinking the water or its effects would wear off. But how much and how often? Did they need to drink every day or every year? Did it make a difference that Will had drunk nearly a whole bottle?
All the questions awed her. She wasn’t sure she could make the choice to drink even if she had all the answers. It would mean she could see so much more of the world outside of tiny Crystal Springs. She certainly wouldn’t be able call her life boring if she were immortal.
Mallory still had the key around her neck and she tugged it back and forth on its chain. The necklace pulled into the back of her neck, a tiny little weight. When her parents had told her the stories, they had been full of magic and wonder. She hadn’t realized how heavy and complex the reality could be.
She thought about how Will had never wanted the stories to be true because then it would mean his father had been right. But he’d gone along with them, steady as a ship on flat sea, to find out the truth. He would keep on being steady, she knew, keep working to find out all of the secrets of the water no matter how scared he was.
She didn’t think she could be so calm. She didn’t think she could make the choice to drink the water. Will hadn’t had a choice. That seemed impossibly unfair to Mallory since Will was someone who liked to have choices and to know all the facts before he made his decisions.
She would keep his secret. That much she could do for him. It was her job now, she realized. Maybe it had been all along. Maybe her family wasn’t just the caretakers of the house, but of the water, from E. Darling, who never told what Orlando had found, right down the line to her. She glanced at Ephraim. He would keep the secret, too, once he believed. Their families were all knotted together still, as they had been for generations.
Orlando … what had ever become of him? Was he still drinking the water? He could be living among them. Or perhaps he had left Crystal Springs far behind, moving from one place to another as he grew tired of each, a vagabond for eternity.
She turned to Ephraim. “I’m going to give the book to Will,” she told him.
“That’s a good idea,” Dr. Appledore-Smith interjected. “It will keep his mind occupied. I’ve found that bodies heal more quickly when the mind is being exercised as well.”
Ephraim, though, shook his head. “I think we can get him some books from the library. Ms. Little will know what he likes.”
Mallory chewed on her lip. “I just think that Will is the kind of person who likes to understand things and to make up his own mind.”
“Except that sometimes it’s easy to get confused and it’s hard to tell the difference between what’s real and what you wish would happen,” Ephraim told her.
Mallory glanced toward the rearview mirror and saw Dr. Appledore-Smith’s gaze shifting away from them. “Yes,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to find out.” It was all Mallory had wanted. This whole time they had been searching for the water, what she really wanted was the truth. Now she had it. The whole truth, not just the pretty version her parents had told her. The facts were there. They had to finish what they started: they had to make sense of it. She couldn’t understand why Ephraim would want to back away when they’d come this far.
She knew Will would want to see the book, to study the water. If anyone could figure out the whole mystery, and maybe even how the water could be used to help other people, it was him. She wasn’t going to just let this go. “Maybe we can get together later. I’d like to finish our project.”
“Oh, I’m sure Mr. Wright will give you an extension,” Ephraim’s mom assured them.
“Once Will is feeling better,” Ephraim told Mallory. “Maybe we can have a group meeting. Maybe.”
As Ephraim’s mother turned down the driveway of Mallory’s house, Mallory wanted to drag Ephraim from the car, to sit him down and explain it as best she could. She would explain and explain and explain until believed. He had to believe. Then she caught sight of the Volkswagen Rabbit out front. It was both familiar and strange, and Mallory felt her heart beating faster. As they drove closer, Mallory saw the silhouette of her mother sitting out on the old porch swing, rocking back and forth.
Did her mother know what she had found out? Mallory wondered. Was she there to help make sense of it all? Maybe her parents didn’t really know the whole story. Maybe they had heard the tales passed down from parent to child, too. If that was the case, Mallory wasn’t sure how much she should tell them.
“Do you want me to go in with you? I can explain what happened to your dad,” Ephraim’s mom said.
“No, thank you.”
“Are you sure?”
“Really.”
“I should go in. He’s going to have a lot of questions.”
Mallory fumbled with her seat belt. “Really, it’s fine. I can explain it to him. I have a lot to explain.”
Ephraim’s mom looked up to the porch and saw Mallory’s mom on the swing. “Oh,” she said. “Well, if you’re sure, I would like to get Ephraim home and into bed.”
“Mom,” Ephraim said. “I’m fine.”
Mallory looked at him, and he just as quickly looked away, knowing what she was thinking.
“You tell your parents to call me if they have any questions. They have the number.”
“Thanks for the ride,” Mallory said, her fingers hooked onto the door handle, and she pushed it open.
She told herself to walk, but she found herself running with a hitch in her throat toward the porch. Her mother stood and came down the steps where they met, Mallory nearly crashing into her mother and knocking her down. Her mother put her hand on the back of Mallory’s head, pulling her close, just as she always had.
“Ephraim’s mom called us,” her mom said. “She said she’d bring you home, but your dad went there anyway, and I waited here just in case. Are you okay?”
“Yes,” Mallory sobbed. “It was Will and Ephraim. We found these stairs from the lab and they were climbing.”
“From the lab in the tunnels?” Her mom touched the space on her neck where the key used to be.
Mallory blinked. Her mother had never mentioned the lab or the tunnels before. She knew. She knew about the lab, but she hadn’t told Mallory about it. Why? Just how much did she understand about the water?
“Are they okay?”
“They fell all the way down, but they’re fine,” she said, watching her mother’s reaction. “They both—” She was going to tell her mom that both of her friends had drunk the water, but she stopped herself. She still wasn’t sure she could trust her mother, after she had left—and all the secrets she had kept when she’d been around. Mallory wanted to know what her mother knew before she revealed her own hand.
“If everyone is okay, why are you crying?”
Mallory wiped her eyes. “I wasn’t until I saw you.” The words came out wrong. It wasn’t sadness she had felt upon seeing her mother; it was relief.
Her mother, though, just smiled. “Some days, some moments are like that.”
Mallory pulled back. “I thought you were going to Alaska.”
Her mom leaned against the porch railing. “I decided to wait until the summer. Alaska’s supposed to be beautiful then. Imagine, twenty-four hours of daylight.”
Mallory frowned at the dried leaves on the ground. “It’s overrun with mosquitoes in the summer.”
“Then I guess we’ll have to bring bug stuff.”
Mallory lifted her eyes. “We?”
“Oh, Mallory.” Her mom sighed. “I messed up. Your father and I, we need some time apart. We’ve always been this way. But you—as soon as I started planning that trip, I knew I couldn’t go without you.”
Mallory was crying again, and embarrassed. So she wrapped her arms around her mother. She knew her mom couldn’t fix everything. Mallory had so many questions about the water and what her parents knew, but she was too tired and overwhelmed to put them into words. There would be time for that later, anyway, once she and Will and, hopefully, Ephraim could talk about what they wanted to do. For now, though, Mallory’s mother could hold her and tell her that whatever it was, it was going to be okay. In that moment, that was enough.