Chapter 1
Waffles and Cane Syrup
EveryresidentinMysticWater, Georgia, suffered beneath a relentless humidity uncommon for an April spring. Townsfolk complained and decided it must be July. Even the post office snatched three months off the wall calendar, swearing the town had somehow leaped into the blazing melt of summer.
Air-conditioning units shuddered and spluttered, ice melted in freezers, and parents dressed their children in snorkels and goggles, sending them off to school looking like lost travelers, saying the air was more water than oxygen.
Young’s General Store sold out of handheld fans, even the atrocious psychedelic ones that people swore they wouldn’t be caught dead using. Ladies flapped their fans so wildly to get relief that dogwood blooms ripped from their branches, and Mystic Water looked like a town trapped in a snow globe full of swirling white petals.
People started praying for rain just to ease the swelter. The air was so wet that mold grew on moving car tires. The books in Mystic Water’s library swelled on their shelves and dropped like mayflies, littering the hallways and spilling down the stairs. Little Johnny Stone nearly broke his leg trying to kick down the elementary school’s flagpole. He said he wanted to poke a hole in the sky to let out the water.
Within a week, townsfolk began boycotting clothing. They didn’t want to go outside in anything more than a bathing suit, which made for awkward grocery-store conversations. Nobody knew exactly where to look when Ned Lincoln wore his Speedo to the council meeting. Two days later, the sky burst open like a slit in a water balloon. Rain fell in fast gray sheets, and the storm didn’t stop for twenty-six hours, forty-four minutes, and two seconds.
Sunday mornings were Tessa Andrews’s favorite. She drank mocha-flavored instant coffee and devoured a cheesy romance novel in bed until her stomach growled. Then she pulled on her most comfortable clothes and drove across the bridge to Scrambled, Mystic Water’s diner serving breakfast from five in the morning until three in the afternoon. Nothing bad ever happened to Tessa on Sunday mornings. Not until the Sunday morning the rain stopped.
Tessa woke to a chorus of ducks quacking and a persistent bullfrog croaking out a bass line.Why do they sound so loud?she wondered. She opened her eyes and stared into the two shiny black eyes of a portly, knobby bullfrog sitting beside her on the bed. Its wide mouth seemed to be grinning at her. It opened its gaping maw and croaked a good morning. Tessa inhaled so sharply that all the air in the room funneled toward her, bringing the bullfrog so close that she could smell its pond-water breath. She screamed, sat up like someone who’d been jolted by lightning, and jerked the covers toward her chin. The sudden tautness of the duvet launched the bullfrog into the air as though it had been bounced from a trampoline. It sailed through the spinning blades of the ceiling fan, croaking a question, and landed with a splash into the water surrounding her bed.
Tessa’s eyes widened like chocolate malt balls. At least two feet of muddy water swirled in from the hallway and into her bedroom, soaking the edges of her once-white duvet, now spotted with pond scum. A family of colorful wood ducks circled around the bedroom, trying to find ways onto the dry land of her bed. For an entire minute, all Tessa could do was stare. A bottle of lotion floated past as though it were a pink rose-scented boat, carrying three ladybug passengers on a voyage. Waterlogged daisies in an overturned vase drifted into a wall, one red flip-flop bobbed out her bedroom door, and the SOLO cup she’d used as a wine glass the night before rocked back and forth like a buoy.
Shock held her immobile for a few seconds, and then she flipped back the covers. Her beautiful condo was drowning. She tested the water with a big toe. It was the same temperature as Jordan Pond in the summer. Tessa inhaled a deep breath, gathering her courage. Then she slipped off the bed into the murk. The wave created by her movements caused two gray tennis shoes to surf out of her closet and crash into her legs.
She waded through the water, picking up sopping-wet items and cradling them in her arms as she moved down the short hallway into the combination living room, dining room, and kitchen. The front door was a victim of the rising water. The door had bulged and cracked away from its frame, allowing gallons of water to fill her home. The coffee table knocked into her knee as it floated in the living room. She glanced down and saw that her cell phone and notebook were still on the table. She’d missed fifteen calls. Tessa unloaded the wet items in her arms onto the floating table and grabbed her phone. She scrolled through the missed calls from clients, her mama, and Lily Connelly, her best friend.
Tessa dialed Lily’s number. Before she could say a word, Lily launched into a conversation. “Where have you been?” Lily demanded. “I’ve been calling for hours. Jakob told me he saw on the seven o’clock morning news that Jordan Pond rose ten feet overnight and that all of Oak Bend is flooded. And I asked him, ‘Why does Oak Bend sound so familiar?’ You know how distracted I’ve been lately, and he said, ‘Doesn’t Tessa live in Oak Bend right off the pond?’ And I freaked out. I’ve been calling and calling—”
Tessa released a pitiful sob. She yanked open her front door the rest of the way and more water flowed in. She couldn’t distinguish Jordan Pond from her front porch or front yard or even fifty yards in any direction. She was now living in the pond. Something scaly and quick flitted past her bare leg, and she screamed into the phone, dancing around like a drunken ballerina.
Lily shouted, “Tessa! What is going on?”
Tessa pressed herself against the nearest wall and stared at the murky water. She blubbered, “There are ducks in my bedroom. I slept with a bullfrog.”
“You slept with who? Don’t tell me you let Petey sweet talk you into staying over last night. You know he’s totally wrong for you. Weren’t you just telling me that he bored you to death? Those were your exact words. ‘He bores me to death, Lily. I fell asleep the other day during a conversation—’”
“Lily!” Tessa said. “My condo . . . it’s under water.”
“Are you serious?” Lily asked.
Tessa nodded even though she knew Lily couldn’t see her head bobbing or the tears rolling down her cheeks. “I’m standing in the living room in my pajamas, and I think there are fish in the kitchen. You remember in the sixth grade when Bobby Fletcher told everybody there were gators living in Jordan Pond? You think he was lying, don’t you?” She felt a full-blown panic attack building inside her, and she struggled to maintain control of it.
“Tessa, you hold on, okay? I’ll be right there.”
By the time Tessa heard Lily’s voice calling out to her, she had packed a couple of small bags with clothes and miscellaneous personal items she didn’t want to leave unattended in her wrecked condo. She had also changed into a pair of shorts and a gray Eeyore T-shirt. When Tessa sloshed toward the front door, she saw Lily sitting in a rowboat wearing a bright-orange life jacket that clashed horribly with the pale-pink shirt she wore. Her long, curly blond hair was pulled into a loose bun on the top of her head. A white-haired older man sat at the stern. The rowboat floated outside her condo where there used to be a sidewalk and the azaleas she’d planted. She thought,Don’t park there. You’ll kill the bushes. Which were drowning at least five feet under the water. A laughing sob bubbled up her throat.
She and Lily locked eyes, and her bottom lip trembled. Lily reached out to her. “Be careful.” Lily took the bags from Tessa. “We’ve seen all sorts of debris floating on top of the water. There’s no telling what’s underneath.”
Underneath? Like my condo, my car, my life.
The man handed Tessa a life jacket and said, “I know it’s not that deep here, but it’s a lot deeper in other places. Better safe than sorry.”
Tessa nodded, slipped the jacket that smelled like last year’s mildew over her head, and secured it around her chest and waist. He motioned for her to approach him at the rear of the boat, and while keeping the weight in the boat balanced, he pulled Tessa over the stern.
Tessa slid into the boat like an uncoordinated baby seal, belly first with arms trapped beneath her body weight. She flopped onto her back and stared up at the man with his head haloed by white marshmallow clouds drifting across a faded blue sky.
“Thank you,” she said as he pulled her into a sitting position. She crawled over a bench seat toward Lily and sat. Then she exhaled, trying hard not to start crying again. She tugged off her pink rain boots and dangled them over the side of the boat as water poured out. Then she wrangled them back on her wet feet.
“This is Harold Spencer,” Lily said. “He’s one of the men who volunteered to help those who are stranded today.” Lily lifted her oar and paddled in rhythm with Harold.
Tessa hugged her arms around her middle even though the rising sun warmed her cheeks. Soggy air clung to her skin like heated syrup. “How’s the rest of town? Are there a lot of people who need help?”
