Chapter 16: The Lake

Cora's POV

"She isn't with me," Torin said, and I heard him start to run.

I was standing in my grandmother's kitchen with the back door open.

Hazel's bike was gone from the yard.

On the table lay a page torn from her school notebook, in her round, serious hand.

Jasper called on the tablet. He's scared. He says his mom is taking him on a boat. I'm going to get him. Don't be mad.

Beside the note sat the tablet, still playing the message in a small, shaking voice.

"Hazel? Mom says we're going on a surprise. Please come. I don't like it."

"The marina," I told Torin. "She's gone to the marina."

"The launch is fueled," he said. "Don't wait for me."

I didn't.

I drove the forty minutes in twenty-six, and I don't remember a single turn.

He was already on the pier when I got there, with the engine rumbling under him and a coil of line in his fist.

The harbor master stood beside him, gray in the face.

"I thought she was taking the kids fishing," he said. "That boat's engine has been coughing for years."

"Get in," said Torin.

The launch cleared the breakwater, and the lake opened out in front of us, flat and slate-colored.

At the far end the sky was black.

A wall of cloud stood on the water, and under it the surface had begun to wrinkle and heave.

I stood in the bow and held the rail with both hands.

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