The frothing, angry waves grow bigger—one foot high, two—then they wash over the front of the kayak.
“Dad!” Tyrell yells over the screaming wind. The sea below swells, and the next wave is like a wall of steel rising up and then crashing down hard, flipping their boat.
Tyrell is under. He gasps, and the cold water rushes into his lungs. Air! He needs air!
He kicks out of the kayak. The icy water penetrates his wet suit to his skin, freezing his muscles.
At last he bobs to the surface and turns on his back, sputtering and coughing out saltwater. “Help!” he yells.
*****
Tyrell sits up. The attic is dark—a dull, late-October twilight. From the corner comes the hum of a small space heater.
“Tyrell?” his mom calls as she hurries up to the top of the narrow stairs, her face pale and drawn.
She sits on his bed, and her hands go to his cheeks. “Another dream?” she says.
Tyrell falls back, and she swipes the back of her hand over his slick forehead.
“It happened again,” Tyrell says. “The rogue wave—flipping us. I drowned all over again.”
“Shhh,” his mom says and squeezes his shoulders. “You’re safe now. You and Dad are safe. You didn’t drown.”
He takes a deep breath. Why didn’t I do something to steady the boat when I saw the wave? Once they flipped, he didn’t check on his dad or try to help him at all. Tyrell has recovered from the hypothermia without permanent injuries, but his dad is another story. “Did they say when he can come home?” he asks.
His mom shakes her head. “No, but he seems better. I think he’ll be home this week.” She blinks and leans her elbow on the bed, like she wishes she could lie down next to him and sleep. “I’ll go and make you some hot tea.”
Tyrell glances at the clock. It’s just after ten o’clock—he didn’t sleep long before the nightmare woke him. His mom leaves, and he looks up and counts the boards in the old cottage’s attic. There are two hundred and fifty-seven. Dad and I were rescued at the same time, he thinks. Why did I get to come home after one day in the hospital, but three days later Dad is still there? He stretches his arms above his head. All of his muscles ache, but the doctor said that should resolve in another day.
The doctor also said she’d seen cases where younger kids suffer no damage from cold-water submersion, but adults . . . well, she’d said it was harder for them to recover. Dad was an experienced kayaker. He’d done three of the five Great Lakes. The weather on the Sound that day was supposed to be calm, but they’d been caught in a sudden storm. They would have been safe, if only they’d been able to make it to Blake Island.
It was a good thing they’d had the beacon. Dad’s office friends had made fun of him, told him he wasted three hundred dollars, but that personal locator beacon had saved their lives. The Flauntleroy Ferry was close enough to hear the beacon’s signal and rescue them. Good thing those sailors knew what they were doing.
Dishes clink below in the tiny kitchen as his mom gets out the tea things. It will probably be that awful chamomile.
His eyes stop on the pile of homework on his desk. The dang civics report is due Friday. I can’t fail another major assignment—there’s no way I’m repeating that class!
“Here we go,” his mom says as she brings in a cup of steaming chamomile tea and a bottle of honey. The tea smells and tastes like weeds. He sits up, shivers, and squeezes a huge glob from the honey bear container into his mug.
“When can I see Dad?” He slurps a bit of the abominable liquid.
His mom gives him a weak smile. “Maybe tomorrow. We’ll see how you’re feeling. Looks like we’ll have snow by Halloween,” she says, gesturing out the window, which is thick and wavy with age. “Try to get some sleep.” She tucks in the thick down comforter along the edge of his bed and then pads back down the creaky steps. A few minutes later the light at the base of the steps goes out and his room is dark. The white moon shines in the window, and Tyrell counts the boards above him again: two hundred fifty-six, two hundred fifty-seven . . .
He slips out of bed and stands at the window, breathing a circle of fog onto the glass. The moonlight shimmers on the slate roof tiles of the Schneider mansion, which sits about a quarter mile down the incline and straight ahead. To the right is the acre of old woods that lines the peninsula they live on. Far to the left are two more cottages, empty now, but soon they too will be sold and people will move in. Tiny crystalline snowflakes dance down from the deep lavender sky. He can just make out the narrow lane and then the dark line of the footbridge across the creek that runs behind the mansion. Beyond, at the very tip of the peninsula, sits the old Schneider Wearables Factory, which has been abandoned for decades.
Tyrell’s back spasms, and he shifts his weight. A loose board below his foot moans and creaks.
His head is aching, probably because he’s been in bed all day. He sits at the old writing desk in the corner and opens his civics book. He just needs to read the chapter on workers’ rights and write a simple report. A folded test flutters to the floor from the back of the book, and the red F glares at him. Dang. I can bring my grade up if I finish the extra credit, but if Mom sees this I’m toast. I have to get rid of it. But where?
Maybe he can shove the test under that creaky floorboard. It came loose when his mom and dad took the thin 1940s carpet out last week, and when they re-carpet, it will be entombed forever. He crouches at the board, slips his finger underneath, and tugs. The foot-long plank comes up.
In the glow of the moon he can just make out something folded at the bottom of the space underneath—a sheet of yellowed paper. As he unfolds it a ten-dollar bill flutters to the floor. Ten bucks! He jabs the bill into his sweats pocket. The top of the page is printed with the red Schneider Wearables company logo, and scratchy cursive writing in blotchy, black ink covers the page. But the language is not English. The date in the corner is smudged, as if a drop of water has fallen on it. It reads “14 Sept 19 . . . ” He can’t read the year. Who would have hidden a letter and money under the floorboard and then not come back for it?