Fathom L. Standage (books for 8th graders .TXT) 📖

“What’s he—?”

“Look!” Samantha hissed, pointing at the water. I squinted and stretched my neck farther. Then I saw them…

I gasped. Samantha swore underneath her hand covering her mouth.

It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be. It had to be the moonlight on the water, the way the currents played. The waves and the reflections and the late hour and the craziness of the day. Those people, out in the ocean—the ones the man had waved to—dove back beneath the surface. Did they...were those…no, they couldn’t have been. But they looked almost like lithe, shining fish tails flipping up behind them.

My breath came in sputtering gasps. I froze to the spot and gaped at the ocean, then at Eamon, Walter, and their new friend as they walked back to the house. But just as they came level with where we hid, the man stopped.

And looked right at us.

I should have ducked. I would have. But a knife suddenly appeared at my throat.

“Get up,” said a terse female voice in my ear. I got to my knees, but the blade kept me from moving any more. I turned my eyes toward Samantha without moving my head. She had a weapon poised at her jugular as well. Her mouth hung open with terror.

I looked down at the thin, pale hand holding the knife. I wanted to look behind me to see who our assaulters were, but the blade sat close enough to shave the fine hairs off my neck.

Eamon, Walter, and the third man approached.

The knife shifted but didn’t pierce my skin. “What are you doing here?” said the woman behind me.

“Let them go,” the man from the water said. The knives didn’t move. For a second, Eamon and Walter stared at us, aghast. Eamon stepped forward.

“They’re with us,” he said quickly. “They recovered the vessel.”

The knife came away from my throat. A hand shoved me into the sand. I couldn’t get up until someone grasped my arm and pulled me, trembling, to my feet. It was Walter. He held my arm in one hand and Samantha’s in the other. I curled my hands toward my chest and looked up in his face as though trying to ask, is this really happening?

He sighed and started walking, still clutching us both by the arm. I looked at the ocean—tranquil and empty. I turned to watch the people walking ahead of me. One was the man from the water. The other, a woman with a sheet of long, dark hair. She wore a towel tied around her waist, similar to her companion. Eamon walked a step behind them. Had the woman been the one holding a knife at Samantha’s throat as well as mine? A chill rankled me. Eamon turned and looked at us over his shoulder. By his expression, I knew we were in a lot of trouble.

But as Walter dragged us along, all I could do was stumble and try to breathe.

We arrived at the house’s back patio.

“Sit,” Eamon commanded as we came to the stairs leading to the house’s back door. Sam and I sat. Walter led the people from the ocean around the house and out of sight. Eamon stood in front of us, his arms folded.

“Explain yourselves.”

“I…I…” My mouth stopped working. Samantha’s mouth still hung open.

“What did you see?” he asked. I didn’t answer. I could only think of the image in my brain of the ocean, turned silver by a night sky. The things breaking the surface, apparitions from the verses of a fairytale, had taken shape and burst from the pages.

“Right then,” said Eamon when neither of us could find our tongues. “Up to your room and get some sleep. Tomorrow, we’ll talk.”

Sleep?

“But…” said Sam as she nervously rubbed her neck, “what about—”

“They won’t harm you. They’ve gone with Walter.” Eamon helped each of us to our feet. “Upstairs now.”

We hurried into the house and up to our room. Samantha shut and locked the bedroom door behind her, then leaned against it.

“What. Just. Happened?” she asked. Her eyes shone, glassy and round.

I sunk down to my air mattress.

“I think we know what the big secret is all about.”

She nodded, then gasped as though a new idea smacked her in the face.

“Olivia…these people—I think I know why they rescued you.”

“Why?”

“The photograph! They thought you were a…” She trailed off and the memory of the beings I saw in the ocean returned: their wet heads and their powerful shoulders as they emerged from the open water.

Sleep came and went in sporadic lulls. I kept having nightmares of fish people wielding knives, scaling the walls of the house, and leering at me through the window...

After my last bout of unproductive slumber, I awoke to pale light from outside and an ache in my hip and shoulder. I’d been sleeping on the ground. The air mattress must have had a hole in it.

I got out of bed and stood to look out the window, apprehensive from my lingering dreams. The fog lay thick on the steel gray ocean. It made me wonder if last night was just another wild dream—a result of trauma from my stupidity at the Oceana Adventure Park.

I looked over at Samantha. She slept on. A pang of helplessness, coupled with being homesick for freedom and familiarity, made me want to lie back down and cry for a while. My stomach grumbled. I hadn’t touched the food Eamon gave us last night. Maybe I could try to go back to sleep. I got back into my uncomfortable bed and stared at the wall.

Samantha stirred but didn’t wake. Temptation to wake her arose, just so I could have someone to talk to, but I ignored it. She was as tired, if not more, than I was.

I reached for her cell phone to check the time. Almost six o’clock. I sighed and lay down again. Whether it was my empty stomach, worry, or anticipation knowing Eamon was hours away from answering all my questions, I