Cass ran up to the Mercantile as soon as they returned to the harbor, but Jason had already left for the day. He'd left a note for her on the Andiamo, though, which Jen delivered with raised eyebrows.
Can you come with us to Remembrance tomorrow? We're starting work at noon. –Jason
"From your boy?" Jen asked. She leaned against the Andiamo's rail, hands clasped behind her.
"Yes." Cass hesitated, not sure why she didn't want to tell Jen about him. It felt like talking about him might jinx things. She was as bad as Jen. "You know Joe, the guy who runs the mercantile? That's his grandson."
"And?"
"And I like him. A lot."
"I could tell that much."
"He has a band with a couple of other kids. I'm going to sing with them at the Solstice concert this weekend." She poured the words out in a rush, before she could change her mind. "They're going over to Remembrance tomorrow to work on the stage. Jason wants to know if I can help."
Jen frowned. "What time?"
"Noon until they're done, I guess."
"So you could come help me at the research station in the morning?"
Cass nodded. "We're supposed to practice tomorrow night, after we finish with the stage. That's where I was last night," she added. "At practice, and then Jason biked back with me because it was so late."
"So I noticed." Jen sighed. "I'm not comfortable with the two of you out so late together, by yourselves. Are you having sex?"
Cass flushed. "Jen!"
"Well, are you?"
"Of course not!"
"There's no "of course not". I know some kids your age are sexually active, but it's not a good idea."
Wow, Cass thought. Was she about to tell her about the birds and the bees? "Jen, I'm fifteen."
"Not just because of the pregnancy risk," Jen went on. "Not just because of STDs, either, although that's an important point. When you have sex someday, you need to use protection."
Cass covered her ears with both hands. "Jen! Are you seriously going to give me a whole life's worth of sex ed in one afternoon? I know this stuff. We learned it in middle school."
"But there are good reasons to wait," Jen persisted. She was determined, Cass had to give her credit for that, anyway. "Studies show...."
"Did you and Dan have sex?" Cass interrupted.
Jen blinked at her. "That's kind of a personal question, don't you think?"
"No more personal than you asking me!"
Jen ducked her head. "Not after he met your mother. After that, it was as if I—we—had never happened."
It felt strange not to head over to Jason's house that evening, but Cass borrowed Jen's phone to let him know she could help the next day. "We'll do more than just fix the stage," he told her. "We need to clean up the beach, collect driftwood for the bonfire, all that sort of thing. It'll be fun, though. Evie's bringing snacks, Reis is in charge of tunes, and I'll have a cooler with soda and lemonade and stuff."
Cass cradled the phone to her cheek with a smile. "Should I bring anything?"
"Just yourself."
His voice trailed off; Cass wished she could see his face, so she would know if he looked as worn and tired as the day before. "Last night," she began, hesitant, "did she..."
"Yeah." Weight dragged at Jason's words. "I think she's testing me, somehow, only I don't know what to do to get it right. I feel like that Greek guy, Sisyphus, doing the same thing over and over and over again."
"You have to tell your grandfather! Maybe he can help."
His breath blew into the phone. "You really think so? You've felt what she does to your head. What makes you think anyone could help?"
"Then hide," she said. There had to be something he could do. "Run away. Get away from here."
"I tried your idea of sleeping somewhere else. I took a sleeping bag out to the boat house but it didn't matter. I'm starting to wonder if she planted something in my head to make me go find her every night. If that's the case, it wouldn't matter where I went."
Cass had no answer.
#
The next morning, she rose early to go with Jen to the research station. The plan was that Jen would motor her over to Remembrance after noon to join the others—but when they reached the Piper Center, the cove looked oddly empty. Jen cut back the engine and drifted closer toward shore. "Where the hell is the buoy? It had a $500 monitor attached to it."
"Maybe the line got caught in someone's propeller," Cass said, but her mind was piecing together a different answer even as she spoke. Selena hadn't liked the research station. Would she have ripped out the buoy? Could she have ripped out the buoy?
Jen circled the whale boat back to open water. "The buoy wouldn't sink even if it somehow broke free. Maybe we can spot it. Get your binoculars, will you?"
Cass dug binoculars from her pack and started to scan the waves for a speck of white. It would be nearly impossible to find if it had floated any distance at all.
As they made their way along the coast, they discovered three more missing buoys. Jen's jaw clenched tighter with each one. "This wasn't accidental. Someone deliberately sabotaged them."
Selena, Cass thought. Worry knotted her stomach. This was why she hadn't wanted Jen to go to the research station by herself, why she hated leaving Jason at the end of the evening. It seemed like if she was there, she could protect them.
Slowly, she lowered her binoculars. Could she protect them? Selena had ordered her to stay away from Jason and it obviously didn't take; her grandmother had ordered her to dive and not come up, but somehow she'd snapped out of it. Cass must have some power to fight them.
Jen finally turned the whaler back toward the harbor, her face grim and shoulders taut. "About this afternoon—I know I said you could go help your friends, but I could really use your help. If Joe has the supplies, I want to replace the buoys as soon as possible, this time with something that will be harder to remove. I have a couple spare receivers we could deploy if we can figure out some way to secure them. And I've got to get the police out here, too, so I can file a report."
Cass felt a weight settle in her stomach. She didn't want to help Jen; she wanted to go hang out on Remembrance with the others and collect driftwood and haul two by fours for the stage and be a part of something outside the little world she usually lived in, the one inhabited only by her and Jen. But Jason would be with Reis and Evie. He should be safe. Jen would be alone.
"Let me borrow your phone," she said. "I'll let Jason know I can't come." At least she'd see him that night.
She spent the afternoon helping Jen take depth measurements and check tide tables to figure out what length line they would need for new buoys; then, back at the station, they tackled the problem of how they could keep someone from just dragging them off again. The missing buoys had only been anchored with cement blocks; theoretically, someone could have hauled them up into their boat if they'd wanted, although it was more likely that they'd simply cut the lines.
Afternoon slid into evening; Jen showed no sign of slowing down. It was a relief when the two policemen showed up to talk with her, taking notes and filling out paperwork. One of them had brought a camera. What did he plan to photograph, she wondered, the water where the buoy used to be?
She'd just decided she would walk to Jason's straight from the Piper Center—they were on the same side of the island—when Jen's phone rang.
"For you," she said.
It was Jason. "Things are taking longer here than we expected," he told her. "We won't finish in time to get together tonight. We're going to have a longer practice tomorrow, if everyone can come a little early."
Cass pressed her eyes shut. "Bummer. I was looking forward to tonight."
"Yeah, me too. I miss you."
He missed her. Her heart lifted a fraction.
She heard Reis yell something in the background. "Shut up," Jason yelled. His voice was distant, as if he'd pulled the phone away. "I gotta go. See you tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow."