Prologue

Grady walked along the beachline in silence, listening to his companions argue about the upcoming swim meet. Normally he would have chimed in, but there was a strange heaviness on him tonight. He didn’t want to talk. He didn’t even want to be out here, really. But Tobey had insisted, and Grady had hoped the sea air would clear his head.

He’d had no such luck.

Something was coming. He could feel it in the stormy air, the grey clouds looming above. The fog was twisting into strange shapes, pulling away from him as if it didn’t want to touch him. As if he was already marked out for some other fate.

“Grady?” Tobey said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Grady? I asked if you were excited about the swim meet. With a girl like Sea, we might have a chance this year, don’t you think?”

Grady shook his head. “Sorry,” he said. “Just lost in thought, I guess.”

“That’s unlike you.” Zale snorted. “Since when do you enjoy thinking?”

“Since now.” Grady glared at him. “There’s something going on. Can’t you feel it in the air? Haar…isn’t safe. You know it’s not.”

“You’re letting the weather get to you.” Tobey shoved him playfully. “The storm’ll clear up, and then you’ll laugh about your strange sense of foreboding.”

Grady bit his lip. “No, I don’t think so,” he said.

Kicking off his sandals, he wandered into the shallow water. The waves pushed gently against his legs, shining with the electric blue light of the firefish. Tobey suddenly looked nervous. “The ocean can be dangerous at night,” he said, taking a step toward Grady. “Mrs. Zaki says we should stay out of the water after dark.”

Grady squinted. “Do you see that? Out past the seawall?”

Tobey took another step toward him. Zale stayed back, watching them with a strange look in his eyes. “See what?” Tobey asked.

“There! It’s gone now.” Grady watched the water, his sense of foreboding growing by the second. “Maybe you’re right, Tobs. I think we should get out of here.”

But it was far too late. Grady knew that, even as he scrambled backwards in an attempt at escape.

The water rose up like a furious monster of the deep. Grady screamed. Tobey was already screaming. Grady slipped in the shallow water, and felt the waves tugging him deeper.

Tobey’s screams stopped abruptly, as he disappeared under the water.

Grady caught Zale’s eyes, the younger boy still standing on the beach. “Help!” he yelled. He could feel something grasping his leg, with a deadly tight grip. “Help us!”

But Zale didn’t move. Frozen by fear or by some other motive, it didn’t matter.

Grady was dragged underwater, and his world went black.