COLD.
Freezing cold.
The water hurt.
I broke the surface and gasped.
“You did it!” Colin shouted.
I tried to answer, but my lips were locked.
I turned back toward the yacht. I expected Mom or Dad to be watching. Furious.
But they weren’t there. Just a dozen or so party guests, who were too busy talking to pay attention to us.
Colin was treading water furiously, fingers pointing upward. “Thirty-seven, thirty-eight — you think — thirty-nine, forty — I can pass a lifeguard test?”
I lunged toward him, splashing water in his face. “N-n-nope.”
“Hbbbbb-hey!” he burbled.
I swam away — crawl, my fastest stroke.
I could hear him following.
He grabbed my feet. I went under.
As I broke the surface, coughing and gasping, I yelled out, “Some lifeguard!”
He sent a huge plume of water into my face. “Gotcha back!”
I chased him. He chased me.
And no one cared.
Up on board, they were all talking. Stocks and bonds and portfolios and pretty maids all in a row.
“Boring!” I shouted to them.
“Landlubbers!” Colin added.
This was fun.
Fun.
We were floating on our backs now, drifting away from the yacht. In the sharp-angled sun, the sky was a wash of colors, from pale amber to deep blue.
“Still scared?” he asked.
“No.”
It was the truth.
I wanted Mom and Dad to see us.
I imagined the shock on their faces.
I imagined waving good-bye and swimming to the horizon. Plunging into the clouds to find my dreamland, my castle —
Clouds.
I twisted my body around.
A wall of white faced me.
Close.
Extremely close.
How — ?
Colin was backstroking toward the cloud wall, smiling blissfully, eyes closed.
“COME BACK!” I shouted.
He didn’t hear me.
The sound.
A low hissing. A rumbling.
“Colin!”
Don’t yell. Go.
His head was disappearing into the mist … his shoulders and chest …
The clouds seemed to be reaching out.
Billowing toward us.
I couldn’t see him now. All I saw was
White.
A curtain of white.
Opening. Expanding. Beckoning.
Turn around.
I stopped swimming and looked behind me.
The yacht was small. Impossibly distant.
And then, in a rush of wind, it was gone.
I felt my hair rise up from its roots.
The sky was washed white.
All that was behind me and before me — white. I couldn’t even see the water.
Where is he?
“COL-I-I-IN!”
I heard him call my name back.
I swam toward the sound.
The water rose up to slap my face. I fought to keep from swallowing it. “WHERE ARE YOU?”
“Here!”
To my left.
I veered blindly.
A moment later, my arm hit something solid.
“Rachel! Hold on to me!”
I grabbed Colin’s arm. Now I could see him. Faintly, like an apparition. He was pulling me forward.
“You’re going the wrong way!” I cried, pulling against him.
“No!” he shouted back. “It’s this way!”
What’s he doing?
In the blankness, there was no telling direction at all. I tried to swim, holding on to Colin. Coughing up salt water. We hit a cold spot and my right leg seized up.
“DON’T FIGHT ME, RACHEL!”
“I HAVE A CRAMP!”
“WHERE?”
“RIGHT CALF!”
He was holding me now. Lifting me higher. Above the water. Turning me horizontal. Massaging my calf.
I saw him gulping water, floundering.
Swim.
Swim now or he’ll drown.
I flexed my foot. I kicked. My leg was usable again. “I’M OKAY!”
I took his arm and swam forward, but a wave welled up between us, and he slipped out of my grip.
“WHERE ARE YOU?” I yelled.
No answer.
I looked around frantically.
There.
Through a momentary break in the clouds.
He was swimming.
In the opposite direction.
“NO-O-O!”
My cry was swallowed up in the mist.
With each breath, water flooded my mouth. Seared my lungs.
Don’t drown.
I thrust my arms into the water. Pushing. Keeping my head up. Anything that worked.
But I was losing.
Losing oxygen.
Losing strength.
Losing the battle.
I turned my head upward and tried to gulp air.
And that was when I heard the roar.
It rose behind me like the sound of a caged beast. Only it wasn’t animal or human.
I felt something pulling me back. A force in the water.
Undertow.
I knew about undertows.
I knew you couldn’t resist them.
They took you wherever they wanted.
Usually to the bottom of the sea.
Fight it.
FIGHT IT, RACHEL.
I tried. But I felt myself falling into a hole.
A hole in the water.
The white was fading to black.
My tense muscles went limp. My thoughts — an entire life condensed into fast-forward images — eddied upward and out of my body.
And I knew I could fight no more.