With a yelp, Rad leapt into a crouch and stumbled backward in the dark. Something cool had touched her ankles. A moment later she realized what it was.

Water.

Impossible, she thought. The edge of the pool is—

The tide.

It came in, or went out, or did whatever the hell it does.

And if the water level rose enough to touch my ankles, then Jacky must be practically submerged—

Jacky cried out, a twisted, anguished screech. Rad saw, or thought she saw, a shifting of shadows. It was impossible to see anything for certain in the blackness.

But if the mermaid had returned, why can’t I see its head? Why isn’t its hair glowing like it did before?

There was no time to contemplate those questions. Jacky was screaming now, in what sounded like either unbearable pain or unadulterated fear.

“Stop it!” Rad shouted hysterically. “Let her go!” She felt frantically around on the ground for the pile of rocks she had gathered. She couldn’t find them…and decided it didn’t matter. She had no target to aim at. If she threw them blindly, she’d have just as much chance striking Jacky as she would the mermaid.

Jacky’s screams turned muffled and watery. A second later there was a splash and a breathless retch—what sounded uncannily like a final gasp for air—then silence.

“Jacky!” Rad charged into the water up to her knees. “Jacks!”

Nothing. Only Rad’s rapid breathing and her frantic thoughts: It got her. It pulled her under. She’s gone.

“Jacks!”

No reply.

“Jacks!” Rad wailed, sounding more animal than human. She was close to hyperventilating, a hard lump in her throat making it difficult to swallow or catch her breath. “Jacks…?” she managed, the single word little more than a strangled gasp.

She heard a new sound then, pitiful and mewling, and she realized she was crying.

Chapter 39

Chapter 39

JACKY

This is the worst way to die. My God, I'm being eaten. I'm being EATEN.

In her mind, Jacky had been in a safe place—the gymnasium of her elementary school. It was a weekday morning. She was in grade two, and her class had been paraded down to the gym to participate in the Western-inspired Halloween-themed bake sale. Numerous adults Jacky didn’t recognize—and some she did like Neja’s mom and Brittany’s mom and her own mom—stood behind small tables loaded with baked goods: witch-hat cookies, brownie spiders, boneyard cupcakes, Frankenstein marshmallows, gingerbread mummies, pumpkin Rice Krispy squares, and so many more. Jacky had three hundred rupees to spend, and she was going happily from one table to the next, filing her brown paper bag with the goodies when a terrible pain erupted inside her tummy. She screamed, but none of the adults seemed to notice. And then some part of her mind told her she wasn’t in her school’s gymnasium; she was in a dark and dangerous place.