OSCAR WOKE EARLY THE next morning, and the first thing he did was detach the savers from his bedroom window to check the state of things.

The rain was still crashing down, but Oscar was relieved to find it wasn’t a blanderwheel.¹¹⁵ He wasn’t even convinced it was still an alfer; it might have downgraded to a heller,¹¹⁶ but it was hard to tell those two apart. He’d really have to be outside, to feel the rain, to decide what it was. Sometimes rain was just like that. It insisted that you touch it, smell it, taste it. There was a rain called silk, which felt exactly like silk. There was a rain called grit, which was dirty and coarse between your fingertips. There was a rain called lemon, which tasted and smelled exactly like lemons. There was even a rain that somehow fell quite hard but didn’t carry any moisture, so nothing actually got wet.¹¹⁷

You could live an entire lifetime in Roan and still not know all there was to know about rain.

But Oscar had a feeling he knew more than most people.

He found Bilius soundly asleep on the couch downstairs, and because he didn’t know how long his father would stay asleep, he decided that it was now or never. He needed to leave.

He dressed quickly, in long pants and a long-sleeved shirt and a waterproof utility jacket and thigh-high rubber rain boots that were pristine and basically brand new.¹¹⁸ Then he grabbed a few things he thought might come in handy—including a heavy, waterproof flashlight and a roll of waterproof duct tape—and quietly left the apartment. He was immediately glad he had worn the boots, because when he stepped out of the stairway and into the lobby of Dove, he found it flooded with three or four inches of dirty water.

But that was nothing new.

The lobby had certainly flooded before, and if you looked carefully at the walls, you could see the stained lines that marked the height of each previous deluge. Someone had even helpfully dated them. It was Dove’s own little museum of rain. All the buildings of the Alley were made to withstand rain and flooding and wind, and a little bit of water on the floors was hardly something to be alarmed about, so Oscar took a deep breath and splashed his way across the lobby, then pushed out into the heller.

He knew it was a heller as soon as he felt the first drops on his face.

That was a good sign.

Still, the streets were gushing with shin-high water.

Which was a bad sign.

He doubted the bus to Bleak Beach would be running in this. A few inches of water on the ground and sure, they’d keep the service going, but this was about six inches or so, and Oscar wasn’t so confident.

But still.

At least he could make it to East Market on foot.

He started in that direction now and passed just a few people on his way. Some people grunted greetings as they went or waved their hands without looking at him, but one young father with a toddler on his shoulders paused and smiled widely.

“What a morning, huh?” he said. “I have to admit—I love a good flooding. Always have!”

Oscar actually smiled at that. “Yeah,” he said. “Honestly, me too.”

And he did.

It was fun to splash through the streets of the Alley, pretending he was a giant navigating a great, roaring river, but he realized after a few minutes of this that Saige wouldn’t have nearly as easy a time as he was having. Although her wheelchair was of course designed to withstand a tremendous amount of water, he wasn’t sure it would move easily in this at all.

And it seemed like the water was only getting higher.

By the time he reached East Market, it was almost up to his knees, and it was slightly less fun to trudge through it.

Most of the stalls at the market were shuttered and empty, but he did find one open. Mr. Glizzard, an impossibly old white man who Oscar suspected might actually live in his market stall, was there, bright-eyed and selling his customary hot coffee and sticky buns.

“Oy! You there!” Mr. Glizzard called when he saw Oscar.

“It’s Oscar, sir,” Oscar said politely. “Oscar Buckle.”

“Ah, Bilius’s kid. Knew you looked familiar. What are you doing out on a day like this?”

“What are you doing out on a day like this?” Oscar countered.

Mr. Glizzard laughed uproariously. “Touché, son,” he said. “Come here and let me warm you up with a mug of something hot.”

Mr. Glizzard poured Oscar a cup of coffee and handed over two enormous sticky buns. He waved away Oscar’s money when he tried to pay.

“Thank you,” Oscar said.

“We have to stick together,” Mr. Glizzard said with a wink. “We who weather the storm, you know.”

Oscar smiled and thanked him again, and then went to wait in Neko’s empty booth for Saige, because of course she would come there, if she was able to.

The coffee was piping hot and the sticky buns were warm and gooey and soft, and Oscar inhaled everything in about three minutes flat.

Then he waited.

And waited.

He didn’t actually know what time it was, and it was impossible to guess, because, of course, he couldn’t see the sun. The sky was like an artist’s palette of only grays, every shade of gray imaginable, from washed stone to smoke to steel to pewter to ash. There were probably as many names for all the shades of gray as there were for rain. They went hand in hand, Oscar thought. At least in Roan.

He waited some more.

He got up and paced around, then sat again, then stretched, then sat, then attempted a series of jumping jacks, which ended with him becoming considerably wetter than he’d been a few moments previous.

He sat again.

He waited again.

And then he heard an interesting splashing noise that seemed to be getting closer and closer. Finally he saw Saige turn a corner and paddle her way toward him.

Paddle her way toward him…

Oscar wasn’t sure exactly what he was seeing.

Saige was sitting in Dot, but the wheelchair was… floating on the water?

Oscar leapt to his feet and met her halfway down the aisle.

“Wow!” he exclaimed. “This is genius!”

Covering each wheel of the chair were flotation devices, which caused the entire thing to glide easily across the surface of the water. There were weights and counterweights hanging from the front and back of the chair to keep Saige balanced, and she held a short paddle in her hand that she used to push through the water. Her Spillen umbrella was, as usual, open and attached to Dot, keeping everything nice and dry.

“Thanks!” she said, beaming. “I made it!”

“You made this?”

“Yup! I drew up the plans last week. They were actually kind of easy to make.” She fell quiet, biting her lip before continuing. “Look, Oscar… When you told me what you found… About the weather machine. I didn’t even listen to you.”

“Saige, I totally get it. He’s your dad. I should have found a better way to tell you, or gotten more proof first, or—”

“I know he’s my dad,” she said. “And I didn’t want to hear anything you were saying. But the truth is… sometimes I feel like I don’t even know who he is. He’s always worked so much, you know? And when he’s home, even before we moved, he’s always busy and distracted and… it feels like he likes being at work more than he likes being with us.”

“Saige—”

“But I should have listened to you. Even though he’s my dad, and I do love him, of course I do, I had this feeling…” She looked up at him then, and her eyes were red and shining. “I had this feeling like… I knew you were telling the truth. It’s been really hard for me to accept that. And I’m sorry. I wasn’t ready to hear any of it.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Oscar said firmly. “Not for anything. I’m the one who should be apologizing.”

“It seems like we’re both doing a lot of apologizing lately, huh?”

“A lot’s been happening.”

“Yeah,” Saige agreed. “And that’s why I broke into my father’s study myself, when both of my parents were out at the market. I found the secret drawer you told me about. And I think you’re right. I think there’s a weather machine in Gray Lighthouse. And I think we need to go there and figure out how to dismantle it, and then we need to tell everybody the truth about Brawn Industries.”

“Even though your father works for them?”

“Especially because my father works for them,” Saige said. “I know it’s a long shot but… Maybe there’s a chance he doesn’t even know? Or he doesn’t think it’s real? Or he doesn’t know the whole truth? I don’t know, Oscar. I don’t know what to think. But I do know we have to get to that lighthouse. Here—I brought some supplies…” She gestured to a very stuffed backpack that was hanging from the back of her wheelchair. “I thought we could check out that abandoned boatyard. Maybe I can fix up one of the boats enough so that we can take it out there.”

“Actually,” Oscar said, “I have a better idea.”

And he told her all about his visit to the factories, his conversation with Frederika, and, most importantly, the existence of an underwater tunnel that led right to the lighthouse.

When he was done talking, he realized that Saige had gone quite pale.

“What?” he said.

“I don’t super love the idea of an underwater tunnel,” she admitted.

“Do you super love the idea of capsizing in the middle of the Gray Sea?” Oscar asked. Saige laughed. “Nope. Tunnel it is!”

“Should we go now?”

“No time like the present!”

“I doubt the bus is running.”

“Me too. That’s why I added this to my design.”

Saige turned Dot to the side, revealing a little platform at the back that looked like it was meant for someone to stand on. She adjusted some of the weights, moving more to the front of the wheelchair, and gestured for Oscar to hop on.

“Are you sure you can paddle both of us?” Oscar asked.

“Oh, definitely not,” Saige said.

Then she pulled a small prop motor from under her rain jacket.

“Are you kidding me!” Oscar squeaked, totally impressed. “Did you make this, too?!”

“Yeah,” Saige said, blushing a little. “I’ve had a lot of time on my hands lately. Just attach it to that hook right underneath the platform, then press that red button. And hold on. It won’t go fast, so I can steer up front with the paddle.”

Oscar hopped on the platform and waited as Saige adjusted the weights again to make sure everything was perfectly balanced. Then he attached the prop to the hook, pressed the red button, straightened up, and held on.

Dot took off at a respectable pace, and Saige stuck the oar in the water in front of her, using it as a makeshift rudder.¹¹⁹

It took her a minute to get the hang of steering, and they bumped into quite a few things as they made their way out of the market, but then it was pretty smooth sailing. The wheelchair boat probably only went about four or five miles an hour, but riding it was so much fun.

“Usually rudders go in the back of the boat,” Saige called over her shoulder. “But this isn’t really a boat, anyway, and since we’re going so slow, I thought it would work. And it does!”

“How did you make it to the Toe, anyway? Did you take this all the way from Roan Piers?”

“Nope,” Saige replied. “I didn’t have to. There aren’t any floods north of the Wall.”

“Right,” Oscar said bitterly. “Of course not.”

“I took the bus to Central Market. They have these massive storm drains just south of the Wall. All the water goes pouring into them. I’d never really noticed them before; they must be able to cover and uncover them when they need to. Basically, I was able to pass the Wall and then inflate my wheel wraps.”

“Saige, I think you might be the smartest person I’ve ever met,” Oscar said.

She flashed Oscar a bright smile.

It took the better portion of an hour to reach Bleak Beach, and their progress slowed considerably the closer they got to the shore. And the water deepened considerably the closer they got to the shore. And the rain increased considerably the closer they got to the shore. By the time Bleak Beach came into view, it was alfering again and the water was at least two feet deep.

Then, the prop motor gave a sick kind of cough, sputtered, and died completely.

“Out of gas. That actually lasted about fifteen minutes longer than my calculations suggested,” Saige said. “But no worries. I can paddle the rest of the way.”

Oscar hopped down from the wheelchair’s platform and gasped at the sudden chill of the water. It came up to just under his waist, and it poured into his rain boots, rendering them completely useless (and very heavy). Luckily he’d worn his sneakers underneath, so he wasn’t completely barefoot when he slid off the boots and abandoned them on a park bench.

“Where’s the tunnel entrance?” Saige asked, shouting now to be heard over the roar of the storm.

“This way!” Oscar said.

They figured out that the fastest way to forge onward was for Oscar to hold Dot’s handles and push as hard as he could while Saige manned the oar, rowing as hard as she could. Still, it was hard and tiresome work, and they were both out of breath and exhausted by the time they reached the old, boarded-up entrance to the old, boarded-up aquarium.

“In here?” Saige asked incredulously.

“Yup,” Oscar said.

“Creepy.”

“Yup.”

“Hand me my backpack, please.”

Oscar removed the backpack from the handles of the wheelchair.

“Geez, what’s in this thing?” he asked as he handed it over.

Then he burst out laughing when Saige pulled out…

A crowbar.¹²⁰

“I came prepared,” she said.

“Clearly.”

Saige fit the crowbar behind one of the many planks of wood that covered the front door. It took a few good wrenches, but she managed to detach one side of a plank, then the other. She did two more boards, then handed the crowbar to Oscar.

“Can you get those taller ones?” she asked.

Oscar removed a few more planks, and after several minutes they’d managed to uncover a section big enough to squeeze through. The door had once been glass but was now mostly shattered, and they made sure to be careful not to cut themselves on any of its jagged edges.

And then they were inside.

The space was big and open, and there was a fair amount of light filtering in through high windows all around them, in places where wooden planks had become unstuck over the years.

In fact there was just enough light to see the massive shark that was swimming through the air, on its way to eat them both!

Footnotes

¹¹⁵ Yet.

¹¹⁶ The main difference between a heller and an alfer is that a heller is accompanied by slightly less rain and the rain itself is slightly thinner and slightly warmer, which lends itself to a quicker evaporation rate.

¹¹⁷ This is probably the rarest rain of all, and it is called sike.

¹¹⁸ Because, of course, he usually refused to wear them.

¹¹⁹ Which is something that is usually used to steer a boat, not a floating wheelchair.

¹²⁰ In our world, a crowbar is mostly used to pry things apart or open—like a wooden crate, or two boards that have been nailed together. In Oscar’s world, the average citizen of Roan owns a crowbar to assist in weather-related tasks, such as pulling a window saver off if a storm was expected to be so bad that you decided to nail it in place.