Kelley Armstrong: The Calling

I’d estimated the strip of water to be about a kilometer. That’s just over three thousand feet. Not a short distance. Not an incredibly long one either, or so I kept telling myself as I paddled through the frigid water. It was half of the distance from my house to the park gates. One sixth the distance of the Run for the Mountain event I did in Nanaimo every year. One twentieth the distance of the Harbour City Half Marathon I ran last fall.

Easy. Except for the fact that I loved to walk and run, but hated swimming. Part of my skin-walker heritage, I guess. When I get in water deeper than a bathtub, there’s this part of my brain that screams at me to get out, and no amount of self-talk ever silences it.

But maybe this time that part of my brain realized, as a cougar would, that there was a difference between swimming for pleasure and swimming for survival. While I was cold and uncomfortable, I stayed relatively calm. Even managed something close to an actual breaststroke, which I’m sure made Nicole happy, stuck at my snail’s pace as the others pulled away.

Every now and then I could make out Daniel’s dark shape as he glanced back to check on us. No one said a word. Only the splash of hands and feet hitting water broke the eerie silence. I couldn’t see how much farther we had to go. Couldn’t see how far we’d come. Just fog everywhere, my friends dark blotches in the gray.

Sam was huffing off to the side. She liked to scrap, but she wasn’t an athlete, and she sounded winded. I was about to veer her way when she stopped puffing, as if she’d gotten her second wind. Or stopped swimming. I opened my mouth to call to Daniel to check on her.

Before I could speak, my foot brushed something. A fish I presumed, but then it wrapped around my ankle and yanked me down.

I didn’t fight at first. Something had my foot. Something was pulling me under. Just like a year ago, when Serena drowned. For a second, I thought, That’s it — I’m having a nightmare . Everything that had happened today—the fire, the crash, Rafe—was clearly just part of a bad dream. It had to be.

Then I began to choke and the survival instinct took over. I kicked. I flailed. But something kept dragging me under.

No, not something— someone .

When Serena drowned, I’d been so worried about her that I’d paid no attention to what had me. This time, I could feel warm fingers wrapped around my icy-cold ankle, and when I kicked, my toes brushed what was unmistakably hair.

I tried to grab whoever was holding me, but every time I moved, my attacker moved. I couldn’t see anything. My eyes stung and my lungs ached. But I knew it was a person holding me down. Just a person. I could fight that.

Only I couldn’t. I kicked and I writhed, but those fingers weren’t letting me go and I couldn’t breathe, and when nails dug into my ankle, I shrieked and my mouth and throat filled with more water, and I realized I was drowning.

Then the toes of my free foot touched rock. The bottom. I pushed myself down even as my brain screamed that I was going the wrong way. I bent in half and reached to feel not fingers, but vegetation wrapped around my ankle. Seaweed. I ripped it off, then shot toward the surface.

After a few strokes, I wasn’t sure I was still going up. All I could see was darkness. Then a scream sounded above me.

They were looking for me, yelling for me. I was going the right way. I was going to be fine, just fine. I put everything I had left into a few last strokes, propelling myself toward the surface, breaking through, then gasping for air too soon, water rushing in, choking me.

I went under again. I gave a tremendous kick, arms and legs flailing so hard that a cramp shot through my stomach and I screamed, swallowing more water.

I could hear Daniel shouting, then Corey. But no one was coming. Why wasn’t anyone coming?

I broke the surface again, and this time managed to get a breath. Then I heard Nicole screaming for help—that something had her, was pulling her down.

A fresh cramp shot through me and I went under again.

My muscles pleaded for relief, but I managed to break the surface again.

“Maya!” Daniel yelled. “Where’s Maya?”

Nicole shrieked and I wanted to shout to Daniel to forget me, save her before she drowned like Serena. That’s all I could think of. How he’d saved me when Serena drowned. I wouldn’t let that happen again. I couldn’t.

Nails scraped my arm and I panicked, then felt wet fur.

Kenjii. I wrapped my arms around her neck and lay my face against her back, flutter-kicking as best I could. Daniel reached me then.

“Nicole,” I said. “Get Nicole.”

He hesitated. I pushed him toward Nicole, getting more and more frantic until Corey called that he and Hayley had Nicole and she was fine.

“Sam?” I croaked.

“Sam!” Daniel yelled. “Where are you?”

“She’s—” Corey started. “Here she is. She’s fine.”

Daniel made me get on his back and we headed to shore, Kenjii swimming beside us.

WHEN WE MADE IT to shore, Daniel didn’t insist on getting to dry ground this time, just let us all collapse where we could, panting and shivering, Nicole crying softly, Hayley trying to comfort her, Sam hovering awkwardly.

We emptied the makeshift pack. It’d been on Corey, and he’d gone under in the search. We’d tied it as best we could, but there were openings. The clothing was wet. His pills had disintegrated. He said that was fine—he wasn’t likely to get a migraine soon and if he did, he could tough it out. Which was a lie, but there was nothing we could do about it.

Daniel made the others put on their clothing, coaxing gently but insistently. Theirs were almost as soaked as Daniel’s and mine, and they huddled there, shivering and sniffling.

The sky was so dark now it looked like night already. It smelled like rain, too. None for weeks and now it came and there was a small part of me that thought, It’ll put out the fires , but I couldn’t bring myself to care. My forest might be saved, and all I could think was that night was coming and the temperature was dropping and if it did rain and we couldn’t find shelter, get dry, and try to light a fire, hypothermia would kill us by morning.

We’d all be dead. Just like Rafe.

I pulled my legs up, wrapped my arms around them and shivered as I tried to get myself under control. Just beyond this rocky beach was the forest. I’d seen it earlier. I knew the forest. It was my home more than any house ever could be. I’d survive this. We’d all survive it.

But no matter how hard I stared to the west, I couldn’t see the trees. Just fog and shadows everywhere, the six of us lost in it, as if we’d already died, stumbled into the afterlife and—

“What happened out there?” Corey asked.

I looked up. He was pivoting slowly, shoulders tight, on guard against… Against anything. Everything. Whatever could be lurking in that rolling field of gray.

“Something pulled me under,” Nicole said. “It wrapped around my foot and I couldn’t get away.”

“That’s what happened to you, too, Maya, isn’t it?” Corey said.

I nodded. “It pulled me to the bottom, then let go.”

Nicole and I compared stories. She didn’t have much to tell. Something grabbed her leg and pulled her down. Did it feel like a bite? Seaweed? She didn’t know.

Finally Daniel turned to me. “Was it like what happened with Serena?”

I nodded.

“Serena?” Hayley said. “How would she know that? No offense, Maya. I mean, I know you were there and it was awful but—”

“Something dragged Maya under that time, too,” Corey said. “Daniel pulled her to safety.”