Authors: L. J. Smith

Tags: #Young Adult, #Fantasy, #Romance, #Vampires

Dark Visions (41 page)

BOOK: Dark Visions

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"Or Whiff and Spit or Wyvern's Bit," she said lightly, smiling back. Then she said, turning back toward Lydia, "And across from it is a cliff—although heaven knows how that can be, unless it's another little island. And on the cliff is a white house, and that's where we're going."

Lydia nodded. She wasn't stupid; she'd taken all of this in. Her eyes said "thank you" to Kait. "So where do we search today?"

"Flip a coin again," Lewis began, but Rob said, "Let Kaitlyn decide." When Kait looked at him, he added seriously, "Sometimes you have intuitions. And I trust… your instinct."

Kaitlyn's eyes stung. She understood; he trusted
her
.

"Let's go the other way today, west. The water didn't feel quite right yesterday. Not… enclosed…enough." She herself wasn't sure what she meant by that, but everyone else nodded, accepting it.

They skipped breakfast and started driving northwest.

The weather was lovely for a change, and Kaitlyn found herself pathetically grateful for sunshine. Huge puffy white clouds drifted overhead. The coastal road quickly narrowed to one lane and trees crowded around them.

"It's the rain forest," Anna said. To Kaitlyn it was an almost frightening display of plant life. The road seemed to cut through a
solid
swath of vegetation. It was like a puzzle shaped like a wall on either side of the road—the pieces were different colors for different plants, but they interlocked solidly to fill all the space between the ground and the sky.

"We can't even
see
the ocean," Lewis said. "How're we supposed to tell if we're near the place?"

He was right. Kaitlyn groaned inwardly; maybe west had been a bad idea after all. Rob just said, "We'll have to go down side roads every so often and check. And we'll ask people again."

The problem was that there were few side roads and fewer people to ask. The road simply went on and on, winding through the forest, allowing them only occasional glimpses of the coast.

Kaitlyn tried not to feel discouraged, but as they drove farther and farther, her head began to buzz and the emptiness in her middle to expand. She felt as if they'd been driving forever, through three states and a foreign country. And they were never going to find the white house—in fact, the white house probably didn't exist…

"Hey," Lewis said. "Food."

It was another of the kiosks, like the ones that had old daffodils in Oregon. But this sign said BREAD DAYS: FRIDAY, SATURDAY, SUNDAY.

"It's Sunday," Lewis said. "And I'm starving."

They took two loaves of multigrain bread—and hid for them, because Rob insisted. Kaitlyn hadn't realized how hungry she was until she took the first bite. The bread was dense and moist, cool from the cold air outside. It had a nutty, nourishing flavor, and Kait felt strength and optimism flowing back through.

"Let's stop
there
," she said as they passed a small building. A sign proclaimed it to be the SOOKE

MUSEUM. She didn't have much hope, first of all because the big museum in Victoria hadn't helped them, and second because this place looked closed, but she was in the mood to try anything.

It
was
closed, but a woman finally answered Rob's persistent knocking. There were piles of books on the floor inside, and a man with a pencil behind his ear, taking inventory.

"I'm sorry," the woman began, but Rob was already talking.

"We don't want to bother you, ma'am," he said, turning the southern charm on full force. "We just have one question—we're looking for a place that might be around here, and we thought you could maybe help us find it."

"What place?" the woman said with a harassed glance behind her, obviously impatient to get back to her work.

"Well, we don't exactly know the name. But it's like a little peninsula, and it's got these rock towers all up and down it."

Kaitlyn held up her drawing of the
inuk shuk
. Please, she was thinking. Oh, please…

The woman shook her head. Her look said she thought Kaitlyn and Rob were crazy. "No, I don't know where you'd find anything like that."

Kaitlyn's shoulders sagged. She and Rob glanced at each other in defeat. "Thank you," Rob said dully.

They both turned away and were actually leaving when the man inside the museum spoke up.

"Aren't there some of those things out at Whiffen Spit?"

Every cell in Kaitlyn's body turned into ice.

Whiffen Spit. Whiffen Spit, Whiffenspit,
Whiffenspit
… It was as if the whispering chorus of voices was once again in her mind.

Rob, fortunately, seemed able to move. He spun and got a foot in the door the woman was closing.

"What did you say?"

"Out at Whiffen Spit. I've got a map here somewhere. I don't know what the rocks are for, but they've been there as long as I can remember…"

He went on talking, but Kait couldn't hear him over the roaring in her own ears. She wanted to scream, to run around crazily, to turn cartwheels. Anna and Lewis were clutching each other, laughing and gasping, trying to maintain their composure in front of the museum people. The whole web was vibrating with pure joy.

We found it! We found it
! Kaitlyn told them. She had to tell someone.

Yeah, and it's Whiffenspit
, Lewis said, running it together into one word as Kaitlyn had.
Not Griffin's
Pit or Whippin' Bit—

Rob was closest
, Anna said.
Whiff and Spit was actually pretty good
.

Kaitlyn looked toward the car, where Lydia and Gabriel were standing as if declaring themselves both outsiders. Lydia was wide-eyed, watching with interest. Gabriel—

Gabriel, aren't you happy
? Kaitlyn asked.

I'll be happy when I see it.

"Well, you're
going
to see it, ol' buddy," Rob said, turning and calling with a reckless disregard for the museum people. "I've got a map here!" He waved it triumphantly, his grin nearly splitting his face.

"Well, don't just stand around talking!" Kait said. "Let's go!"

They left the museum people staring after them.

"I can't believe it's real," Kaitlyn kept whispering as they drove.

"Look at this," Lewis was saying excitedly over her. "This map shows why there are only waves coming from the right. It's in the mouth of a little bay, and on the right side is the ocean. The other side is Sooke Basin, and there wouldn't be any waves there."

Rob turned on a narrow side road, nearly invisible between the trees. When he parked at the end, Kaitlyn was almost afraid to get out.

"Come on," Rob said, extending his hand. "We'll see it together."

Slowly, as if under a spell, Kaitlyn walked with him to the edge of the trees and looked down.

Then her throat swelled and she just stared.

It was the place. It looked exactly as it had in her dreams, a little spit of land pointing like a crooked finger into the water. It was lined with the same boulders, many with
inuk shuk
piled on top of them.

They walked down the rocky beach and onto Whiffen Spit.

Gravel crunched under Kaitlyn's feet. Gulls wheeled in the air, crying. It was all so
familiar
…

"Don't," Rob whispered. "Oh, Kait." It was then that she realized she was crying.

"I'm just happy," she said. "Look." She pointed across the water. Far away, on a distant cliff covered with trees so green they were black, was a single white house.

"It's real," Rob said, and Kait knew he was feeling what she was. "It's really there."

Anna was kneeling by the edge of the spit, moving rocks. "Lewis, get that big one."

Lewis was showing Lydia around. "What are you doing?"

"Building an
inuk shuk
. I don't know why, but I think we should."

"Let's make it a good one," Rob said. He took hold of a large, flat rock, tried to lift it. "Kait—"

He didn't finish. Gabriel had taken hold of the other side.

The two of them looked at each other for a moment. Then Gabriel smiled, a thin smile touched with bitterness, but not with hatred.

Rob returned it with his own smile. Not as bright as usual, with something like apology behind it, and hope for the future.

Together, they lifted the stone and hauled it to Anna.

Everyone helped build the
inuk shuk
. It was a good big one, and sturdy. When they were done, Kait wiped wet dirt off her hands.

"Now it's time to find the white house," she said.

From the map they could see why there was land across the water. It was the other side of the mouth of Sooke Basin. They would have to drive back the way they'd come, and then all the way around the basin—or as far as the side roads would take them.

They drove for well over an hour, and then the road ran out.

"We'll have to walk from here," Rob said, looking into the dense mass of rain forest ahead.

"Let's just hope we don't get lost," Kait muttered.

It was cool and icy fresh in the forest. It smelled like Christmas trees and cedar and wetness. With every step Kaitlyn could hear her own feet squishing in the undergrowth and feel herself sinking—as if she were walking on cushions.

"It's sort of primeval, isn't it?" Lydia gasped, picking her way around a fallen log. "Makes you think of dinosaurs."

Kaitlyn knew what she meant. It was a place where people didn't belong, where the plant kingdom ruled. All around her things were growing on other things: ferns on trees, little seedlings on stumps, moss on everything.

"Did anybody ever see the movie
Babes in Toyland
?" Lewis asked in a muted voice. "Remember the Forest of No Return?"

They walked for several hours before they were certain they were lost.

"The problem is that we can't see the sun!" Rob said in exasperation. The sky had gone gray again, and between the clouds and the canopy of green above them, they had no way to get their bearings.

"The problem is that we shouldn't have just barged in here in the first place," Gabriel snapped back.

"How else are we supposed to get to the white house?"

"I don't know, but this is stupid."

Another argument, shaping up to be a classic.

Kaitlyn turned away, to find Anna staring fixedly at something on a branch. A bird, Kaitlyn saw, blue with a high pointed crest.

"What is it?"

Anna answered without looking at her. "A Steller's jay."

"Oh. Is it rare?"

"No, but it's smart," Anna murmured. "Smart enough to recognize a clearing with a house. And it can get above the trees."

Understanding crashed in on Kaitlyn, and she had to suppress a whoop. She said in a choked voice,

"You mean—"

"Yes. Hush." Anna went on staring at the bird. In the web, power thrummed around her, rose from her like waves of heat. The jay made a harsh noise like
shaaaack
and fluttered its wings.

Rob and Gabriel stopped arguing and turned to goggle.

"What's she
doing
?" Lydia hissed. Kait shushed her, but Anna answered.

"Seeing through its eyes," she murmured. "Giving it my vision—a white house." She continued to stare at the bird, her face rapt, her body swaying just slightly. Her fathomless owl's eyes were mystical, her long dark hair moved with her swaying.

She looks like a shaman, Kaitlyn thought. Some ancient priestess communing with nature, becoming part of it. Anna was the only one of them who really seemed to belong in the forest.

"It knows what to look for," Anna said at last. "Now—"

With a rapid-fire burst of noise like
shook, shook, shook
, the jay took off. It went straight up, into the canopy of branches—and disappeared.

"I know where it is," Anna said, her face still intent and trancelike. "Come on!"

They followed her, scrambling over mossy logs, splashing through shallow streams. It was rough going over steep ground, and Anna always seemed to be just on the verge of vanishing into the trees. They kept following until the light began to dim and Kaitlyn was ready to drop.

"We've got to take a rest," she gasped, stopping by a stream where huge fleshy yellow flowers grew.

"We can't stop now," Anna called back. "We're there."

Kaitlyn jumped up, feeling as if she could run a marathon. "Are you sure? Can you see it?"

"Come here," Anna said, standing with one hand on a moss-bedecked cedar. Kaitlyn looked over her shoulder.

"Oh…" she whispered.

The white house stood on a little knoll in a clearing. This close Kaitlyn could see it was not alone. There were several outbuildings around it, weathered and splintery. The house itself was bigger than Kaitlyn had thought.

"We made it," Rob whispered, behind her. Kaitlyn leaned against him, too full of emotion to speak, even in the web.

When they'd found Whiffen Spit, she'd felt like singing and shouting. They had all been rowdy in celebration. But, here, shouting would have been wrong. This was a deeper happiness, mixed with something like reverence. For a long while they all just stood and looked at the house from their visions.

Then a harsh, drawn-out
shaaaak
broke into their reverie. The jay was fluttering on a branch, scolding them.

Anna laughed and looked at it, and it swooped away. "I told it thank you," she said. "And that it could leave. So now we'd better go forward, because we'll never find our way back."

Kaitlyn felt awkward and self-conscious as she walked out of the shelter of the trees, down toward the house. What if they don't want us here? she thought helplessly. What if it's all a mistake… ?

"Do you see any people?" Lewis whispered as they came abreast of the first outbuilding.

"No," Kaitlyn began, and then she did.

BOOK: Dark Visions

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