“Whoa.” Emma turned on her phone light and aimed it at the steps.
Tyler had stopped a quarter turn down and seemed to be listening.
“This must be where they keep the good stuff!” Emma hopped onto the steps.
“Wait.” Tyler held out an arm to stop her. “Should we make sure it’s safe first?”
“That’s what I’m doing.” Emma sidled past him down the stairs. “Safety check.”
Nico darted past Opal, getting the jump on her as he joined Tyler on the steps. Single-file, they descended after Emma. Atthe bottom, a diffuse glow illuminated a chamber half the size of the room above.
“Where’s that light coming from?” Opal asked. Nico shrugged.
“Are weunderwaterright now?” Tyler’s foot was tapping out of control.
“We must be,” Opal replied. “The ceiling’s ten feet above our heads.”
There was no more arguing about who should be there. Not here, in a place where it felt like none of them should be.
Opal spotted a shadow in the room’s center. A circle of black in the floorboards.
Emma aimed her light. They all moved close, stopping shoulder to shoulder at its edge.
“It looks like … water,” Tyler whispered.
“Like a well,” Nico murmured. “Or pool.”
In a hole in the bottom of the houseboat, black liquid spun slowly, as if stirred by unseen hands. The inky water rolled against a low wooden lip built around the opening, but it never flowed into the room.
The pool simply … swirled. Ceaselessly. Relentlessly.
A million questions turned in Opal’s mind. Was this part of the pond? The cove? Why did the water swirl? What kept it from surging out and flooding the chamber? Was it even water at all?
She knew only two things for certain.
The pool was the darkest thing she’d ever seen.
And it went deep.
7
NICO
“Noneof these came out,” Emma grumbled, chomping on a Dorito.
She shoved her phone toward Nico across the cafeteria table. He squinted down at the photos. It was true—all of the shots Emma had taken of the pool were blurry. It was like the water didn’t want its picture taken, though Nico knew that was crazy.
How crazy? You felt that thing. Not as much as Opal, but still.
They’d stood above the hole in silence, marveling at the whirling black liquid. Then Opal had jerked around and hurried up the stairs. Tyler was behind her in a blink, and suddenly Nico hadn’t wanted to be down there, either.
Only Emma resisted, snapping a series of shots before reluctantly following the others. Climbing the steps, Nico had felt eyes on his back that didn’t belong to his friend,something he knew was impossible but was equally impossible to shake.
Opal had gone straight through the showroom and foyer, bolting out the front door and across the stepping-stones. Only when completely off the pond did she stop, hands on her knees, a sheen of sweat dampening her forehead.
It would’ve been comical if Nico hadn’t felt the same way. A weird sort of panic had gripped him, down there in the dark. He’d felt … small. Vulnerable. Like a rabbit sensing a cat, and knowing it had strayed too far from its hole.
“The light was bad,” Tyler said, fidgeting with his ear. “That must explain the pictures. I wonder how far down that well goes.”
