We crawl when we reach solid ground, elbows bumping, as Wally barks and runs in mad circles around us. Nolan looks over his shoulder at the waves and shudders. His face pales and I wonder if he’ll faint. Instead, he fumbles in the back pocket of his jeans before extricating his cell phone and flipping it open.

“It must be ruined,” I say, but the screen shines through the darkness like a tiny beacon, illuminating his face as he dials Alex’s number. God bless brick phones.

Nolan tells Alex to bring his truck and then hangs up and leans forward to where I lie flat on my stomach.

“You’re okay?” he asks. His hands are shaking. I reach up and hold the one on his knee. It’s cold from the water, but I don’t think that’s why he’s shivering.

“I’m okay,” I say. “Are you okay?”

He looks out over the water before he answers, but he doesn’t move his hand from beneath mine.

“You didn’t have to do that,” he says.

“I know,” I say.

“But you did.”

“I know.”

He hesitates. “How…”

When he looks down at me, I can tell he’s not a supernova like Jenna, an old star burning its way out of this galaxy and into the next. He’s brand new, a soul still learning how to navigate this odd world of whales and clever winds. Like me.

So I tell him the truth, even though it sounds crazy.

“I heard you.”

When Alex’s headlights flash through the sheets of rain, they highlight Nolan’s silhouette and nearly blind me, but neither of us is willing to move our eyes away, still taking each other’s measure.

Alex’s car door slams. “What are you guys doing? Get out of the rain! Let’s go!”

Nolan and I don’t move.

“That’s impossible,” Nolan tells me. “There’s no way.”

I chuckle dryly, looking away as Alex nears us. “I know. If you had put a scene like this into Orman, everyone would chalk it up to magic.”

His reply is too quick. “Magic isn’t real.”

I look hard at the boy who stood by the lake and saw flying whales, the same one who took an unspeakable horror that has left him terrified of water and made Orman. He fashioned his despair into something the world could hold and admire and feel comforted by, and he doesn’t believe in magic.

It’s absurd.

“If you think of another explanation, let me know,” I say, and then Alex is hoisting me up on one side and taking me to the car.

“Come on, guys. What are you doing out here?”