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“Laugh all you want, but there’s strange things going on. People are disappearing. Getting sick for no reason. Up in the hills, there are areas nobody will go because they’re poison. The island’s changing and giants are only one of the dangers. Never seen nothing like it before, and I know enough to understand none of it’s good.”
“Is that what people think about the bay, too? That it’s poison? Cursed?” Remi asked softly.
“I don’t know nothing about no bay.”
“What about stories from the old days. Anything about lost cities?”
Tom petted his skink and shook his head. “You talking nonsense now?”
“No, I just thought I’d heard something about a lost kingdom.”
“That’s a new one on me,” Tom said, but his tone sounded guarded.
After a few more minutes of stonewalling, Tom announced he was tired. Sam and Remi took the hint and made their way back to the car, the old man’s eyes boring through them as they walked.
Sam started the engine and turned to Remi. “Can you believe that?”
“What, the giants or not knowing about the bay?”
“Both. I watched his eyes. He knows more than he’s letting on. I think the giants were just to distract us.”
“It worked. It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. But he described them with a straight face.”
“I’m getting the sense that the national pastime here is BS’ing the tourists. There’s no such thing as giants.”
“I know, but he was awfully convincing about there being danger around every turn and people disappearing. What do you make of that?”
“I honestly have no idea. But what I do know is that it tells us nothing about the bay or why it’s cursed. More like he was trying to scare us away from asking any more questions.”
A rumble of thunder sounded from the west and their eyes met. “Not again,” Remi said.
“You up for another old-timer? Maybe he’s friendlier than Tom.”
“If it’s pouring down rain, it could get awfully messy on a muddy road.”
“I say we go for it.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Remi fluttered a hand. “Fine. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Fifteen minutes later, the blue sky turned to roiling anthracite and dark clouds pummeled the island with driving rain. The potholes made a terrible road even slower going, and when they ran out of pavement, it quickly became obvious that their willingness to forge ahead was no substitute for a sunny day. After a quarter mile, the water neared the running boards and Sam conceded defeat. He turned around and the SUV slipped and slid back to the road, the muddy track almost unrecognizable with the flood coursing down its middle, the ruts from their tires filling only seconds after passing.
The rain didn’t let up, and the trip back to the hotel took twice as long. When they finally reached the hotel lot, they exhaled in relief as they parked. Dripping, they entered the lobby, and the front desk clerk beckoned to them. Remi went to see what she wanted while Sam continued to the room. There were two messages: one from Leonid, saying he’d had his first classroom lesson and would be doing a shallow dive in the afternoon, and the second from Manchester, inviting them to dinner.
“You want to go?” Sam asked when she made it back to the room.
“Sure. Why not? We can see what he thinks about the giants.”
“I know what I think about them. Boogeyman stories to scare children.”
“Probably. But you have to admit the whole discussion with Tom was unsettling. He really sounded like he believed that stuff.”
“He’s at an age where he might not be able to tell the difference between reality and hallucinations, Remi. What did you make him as? Eighty? Older?”
“Hard to tell, but he seemed pretty sharp to me.”
They met Manchester at another seaside restaurant, this one a little tonier than the prior night’s. A glance at the empties on the table and the bottle in his hand showed that the big man was already through his second beer when they arrived. He motioned them over with his ever-present smirk.
“Sorry the weather didn?