Baz sighed and got up. “I swear, I can’t even get five minutes alone.”
He went over and opened the door. Lexie stood outside with her jacket over her head. Rain continued to pour down.
“Oh good,” she said. “You are here.” She glanced past him into the cabin, a quick curious look that settled on Arden. “Hi, Arden!”
“Hi,” Arden said weakly, giving her a little wave.
“Yes, I’m here, and so are you,” Baz said pointedly. “Whyare you here?”
Lexie turned her gaze back to him, and he knew immediately from the look on her face that it was something serious.
“I’m so sorry to bother you,” she said. “I really am. But we can’t find Fern. I don’t know where she is, Baz. We can’t find her anywhere.”
ARDEN
Arden liked Lexie in general,but she had never resented anyone like she resented Lexie in that moment. Baz had beenright there, warm and supportive—his hand almost touching hers, his voice low and serious, about to answer all her questions. Arden was dying to know what he was about to say to her. Since Lexie didn’t look like she was going away anytime soon, Arden jumped off the bunk and went to take the water off the fire.
“Why is this an emergency?” Arden asked. Sometimes it seemed to her that everyone treated Fern as if she was somehow simpleminded. “Fern is an adult. I think she knows the town better than any of you, because she’s always out exploring. That’s probably what she’s doing right now.”
“I know it sounds like I’m worrying over nothing. Uh, can I come in?” Lexie hesitated just long enough for Arden’s reluctant nod, then ducked through the door, dripping all over the floorboards. “You’re right that she’s probably fine. But she was supposed to meet up with me and Declan at his place because she wanted to charge some devices while the generator was running. When she didn’t, I went over to her house and she’snot there. If you don’t know where she is either, she might have gotten into some kind of trouble.”
“Actually, I’m with Arden on this one, Lex,” Baz said, and Arden looked at him in surprise. She had fully expected Baz to side with his cousin. “Fern can take care of herself, and she reallydoesknow the town better than any of us. Even in the rain, she might have lost track of time picking flowers. You know what she’s like.”
“I do know what she’s like, and I wouldn’t worry so much if the town wasn’t flooding.”
That did get Arden’s attention, and Baz’s too. “Flooding?” he asked. “Worse than before?”
“Okay, not badly, but when I was walking around looking for her, I noticed the low areas around Silver Creek are already underwater. It’sreallyhigh. And you must have noticed there’s water flowing down the middle of Main Street.”
“There’swhat?” Arden asked. She looked at her floor, halfway expecting to see water welling up between the floorboards.
“That’s not flooding, that’s just because there’s no gutter and nowhere else for the water to go.”
“What do you think causes flooding? If Fern was somewhere on the other side of the creek before the rain started, she might not be able to get back. And we know the wild clans are out there, and we also know they don’t like us being here.”
Baz nodded. He turned to Arden and placed his hand on her arm. His touch was light, strong, and warm. “I’m sorry. I need to figure out where my cousin’s gone. I’ll be back for that cocoa afterwards.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m coming with you.” Arden reached for her rain poncho. “Fern is my friend too.” In fact, she didn’t add, Fern was probably the only real friend she had here, other than Baz. The idea of Fern being in trouble made her heart hurt.
Baz grabbed his jacket from beside the stove. “Show me where you’ve already searched, Lex.”
Arden followed them out into the rain, settling her pink-flowered rain poncho over her inside clothes. She couldn’t help noticing that out of all of them, she was the only one who seemed to have rainwear at all, though her shoes were immediately soaked as soon as she stepped outside.
She realized once she was out of the cabin that she could hear a strange new sound, a deep roar, distant but somehow ominous.
“Is that the creek?” she asked in disbelief.
“I’m afraid so,” Lexie said. Her freckled face was as serious as Arden had ever seen it. “I wouldn’t try wading it right now. I don’t think it’s too deep, but it’s really muddy and fast.”
“Stay with me,” Baz told Arden. She didn’t need to be told twice. She could tell this was no weather to go wandering off in. What had Fern been thinking?
But Arden could guess. The weather had been much nicer earlier, and although it had been evident that it was going to start raining at some point, there had been no warning of anything like this.
They turned the corner onto the main street, and Arden gasped aloud when she saw that the entire width of it was a shallow muddy flow of water.
“It wasn’t this bad earlier!” Baz exclaimed. They picked their way through puddles and mud to the boardwalk. “Where is this all coming from?”
“We’re on a mountain,” Lexie pointed out. “It’s probably all channeled this way if it doesn’t run off in one of those little ravines. It must be going somewhere, and the fact that the whole town isn’t washed away means that it probably doesn’t get too bad. But we’re gonna have to think about drainage.”
