The Fires Beneath the Sea (A Novel)

Chapter 3

Far.

Nearer.

VERY NEAR.

If Jax was seeing things, so was she.

“So,” he was saying to their dad and Max when she came in the back door, standing at the kitchen island holding his glass of orange juice, “no one went out onto the porch this morning?”

“Nah,” said Max, “why?”

“Oh, I—I think I dropped my stylus out there.”

“It’s probably right where you left it,” said their dad soothingly. “Two pancakes or three?”

“Three,” said Jax and Cara together.

“Three more for me too,” said Max.

“I’ve raised a herd of feral hogs,” said their dad.

Ω

After they loaded the dishes into the dishwasher Cara and Jax held a council in his room, which was good for privacy since both her dad and Max were reluctant to set foot inside due to snail, frog and crab hazards.

“So why did you think—how did you know there was something wrong with the water?”

“I don’t know for sure, but we have to be careful, is all,” said Jax. “That puddle could easily have been tainted. He can control water, Car. You know how both times we’ve seen him it’s been in the rain? Or with water just—like streaming down off him?”

“Uh huh,” said Cara.

She got it. He was the pouring man.

“It’s his element. As in, ancient Greek element? Air, earth, water or fire? Not as in the Periodic Table.”

She wasn’t certain what he meant, but nodded anyway. If you stopped Jax every time you weren’t quite sure what he was talking about, you’d never finish a conversation.

“Water is his element and night’s his best time, probably because it tends to be more humid then. Who knows what he can do with water? A lot, I suspect. And we don’t want any part of him in our house, that’s for sure. Water is his power and his constraint.”

“Talk normally.”

“His limit. He can only move freely where there’s a certain amount of water present, and it’s easier for him at night. It’s how he is.”

“But if there’s no signal to read, how do you know all this?”

“That’s actually a good question,” said Jax in a know-it-all way, as though he was her teacher.

As he talked, he was lifting a frog out of his terrarium, one finger on each of its sides, its thin back legs dangling.

“He sends me messages, right? Last night, he wanted us to see him. He wanted us to hear the question. The question Where is she. And if we’d known the answer, trust me, he’d know it now, too. So it’s just as well that we didn’t.”

“Wait. You mean he can know what we’re thinking? Like—he can ping us?”

Jax opened his window and set the frog out on the roof, where it hopped away toward a tree branch.

“Is that a tree frog?” asked Cara. “Because—”

“He can read me, at least,” said Jax, turning back to her. “I’m not sure if he can read you or not.”