Not because you’re feeling better. You still feel terrible, but it’s like he read your mind.
“What bags?” Fran says.
“Yeah,” says Will. “What bags?”
Silas adjusts his snapback.
“I’ll be honest with you guys. Case saw me going through some bags last night.”
“What?” says Fran. “Why?!”
Silas takes a moment. He looks at all of you.
“Because we need to watch out for one another,” he says.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Will says. “By spying on each other like a bunch of creeps?”
Silas runs a hand over the one-day stubble on his neck.
“Look. We’re not going to make it through this alone,” he says. “We need to see one another. And if something’s wrong, if someone’s off, we need to be honest and talk about it. Do you understand?”
“No,” says Fran. “I don’t. Why were you going through our shit?”
Nobody says anything for a minute; then Silas turns to Diana, who is avoiding eye contact. The buzzing in your ears continues.
“Diana, do you want to tell Case why I was going through your bag or should I?”
Diana, in turn, is silent, her lips sealed tight. When Silas speaks again, it’s calm, seemingly without judgment.
“I thought I smelled something strange, so I was checking it out. Sure enough, I found some alcohol in Diana’s bag. Which, as you all know, is against policy.”
Everyone is looking at Diana now. It’s hard to tell what they’re thinking, but in case there’s any judgment, she heads that off at the first pass.
“It was an airplane bottle!” she says finally. “That’s, like, one shot. For sleep. Like that’s so different from Ambien, you hypocrites.”
Silas finally seems to notice that you’re on the ground, and he extends a hand. You’re trying to put all this new informationtogether, but it’s hard in this state. You’re not thinking about anything clearly.
“Thanks for speaking up about the bags, Case,” says Silas. “I’m sure that wasn’t easy.”
You look at Diana, but she’s no longer meeting your gaze. Your mouth is so dry, which always happens after an attack, but the idea of fumbling in your pack for a drink of water right now is unimaginable. You feel yourself calming a little. And then, because you don’t know what else to do, you finally take Silas’s hand and he pulls you to your feet, looking you right in the eye.
“All right,” he says. “Everyone in the boats!”
NINE
It should come as no surprise that no one in your group knows how to paddle a canoe. Still, it’s kind of astonishing what a disaster it is. People going forward. People headed bass-ackward toward the shore. People spinning in slow circles like upended beetles. It would be hilarious if you didn’t need to accomplish this to get food, and if you weren’t one of the worst offenders.
You’re in a boat with Fran, who sits in front of you just holding her paddle across her body like a lap bar on a roller coaster. Her hood is finally down, revealing pink hair that looks much brighter in the sun. Fran, as it turns out, does not like being bad at things, and in the face of this current humiliation, she has gone completely silent and immobile—“dorsal,” your therapist once called it. This leaves you to thrash around, trying to point your vessel toward the open water. You look for Diana, and you see her in a canoe with Troy.
Something is still bothering you about Silas’s revelation, and you’re not completely sure what it is. Maybe it’s just that Diana was desperate enough to bring booze on a therapy trip, which seems like a layer of not-okay you didn’t sense from her until now. But there’s something else too, something that you can’t put your finger on. You look around for Silas, and see him paddling behind you.
“STOP!” he shouts suddenly. “Everybody, stop!”
And for the first time, you see him laugh. It’s a full-throated one, and you’re pretty sure it’satyou rather thanwithyou, though it doesn’t seem cruel. More like a pharaoh watching in amusement as his servants try to build a pyramid out of old busted rocks. His face remains calm, and he paddles by, barking out orders in a cheerful tone. Will sits quietly behind him.
“Okay, listen up, people! You need to rotate your torso! Don’t paddle with your arms! Look at me, Troy! Use your whole upper body like this! Keep the paddle in your field of vision! Synchronize with your partner! Diana, that means you!”
Silas keeps at it, but as he drifts farther from your boat, it gets harder to hear him. And all you pick up is:
