27. Tides of Anger

27

TIDES OF ANGER

TERESA

D awn stands in the doorway to the basement, her hair matted with cobwebs, dirt across her face, Slugger in her arms, and the biggest, happiest grin on her face.

"Oh good, we're all here—ah. Even Mr. Hot Dog."

Pacari looks at me. I try to hide my giggle. The others don't make the effort.

"Well, I guess I'm the one with the dog now. So he's just Hottie-With-the-Dress."

"He wears it well!" Anelisa whoops.

Distractingly well. The dress shows off his calves and is low cut enough on him it shows off his chest straight down to his belly button. I get distracted for a minute thinking about him wearing it while shifted to his yacunayi form .

"I don't mean to be rude, but may I have my dog back?" Pacari interjects.

"Wait, I have a big reveal! You won't believe what I found!"

"Another hottie with a bigger dog?" Taara tries.

"Lots of spiders," Zephyr grumbles.

"Narnia!" Anelisa cheers.

Pacari and I share another glance, both of us growing a little frustrated with my friends. "What'd you find, Dawn?"

Maybe if we humor her, we'll get Slugger back faster.

"I found… the Lighthouse," she says with great drama.

The others respond in kind, letting out a collective, "oooooh!"

"Where?" Zephyr asks first.

"Do you want to see it?" Dawn asks, barely able to control her excitement.

"Dawn, you're gonna kill us, but we really need to grab the dog and go," I say. "I'm so sorry. Can we see it when we get back?"

"It's real quick! C'mon, I've been working on this all week! Don't ruin my fun," she says, joking but also very serious.

"Dawn, it's super important," I say, stepping forward .

She looks really pissed. I feel incredibly bad. She must be extra mad at me because I didn't tell her much about the smuggler caves, but there are some pretty high stakes going on, so she's going to have to wait.

"Teresa," Anelisa nudges. "It's not like whatever you're doing is life or death. Just humor her."

I try not to scream, it is, though!

Pacari looks at me, shakes his head. Looking back at Dawn, she looks like she's about to cry. I let out a huge sigh.

"Okay, yes, real quick," I grumble.

"Yay! Okay, can someone hold this dog, I need both my hands," Dawn says quickly.

Pacari and I both reach for Slugger, but I get him first.

"Let's go," Pacari whispers.

"Let her just do her thing real quick," I whisper back, a little pit forming because I feel so stuck between my friend and my lover.

Staring into my eyes, he sighs and nods. "Okay. Real quick."

"Thank you," I whisper back and give him a peck on the lips.

We linger a little too long. Following the back of the pack as everyone else went through the basement door ahead of us, I'm thrown off by how cold it is as soon as we get down the stairs .

"I didn't even know buildings with basements existed in California," Taara says from the front.

"Aren't they illegal?" I ask.

"If you're running a speakeasy, I don't think you care about laws," Anelisa points out.

"There's actually clear guidelines in the foundational code," Dawn says. "So it's not illegal. During the post-war housing boom, builders just cut down time on laying down houses by skipping the basement. And it's a little more complex to build a basement cause of the frost line and San Andreas."

"How do you just know this stuff?" Taara asks, shocked. "That's so niche."

"…I looked it up when I found out this place had a basement, because I also thought basements just didn't exist in California."

Taara laughs, then Anelisa laughs at Taara thinking Dawn is just this big encyclopedia.

"Did I make a joke?" Dawn asks.

"No, Taara is just convinced you're wikipedia. She laughed cause she was embarrassed and I laughed because I think my friends are cute," Anelisa explains.

"I never questioned the basement since I grew up with it," Zephyr mumbles. "Not that I was allowed down here. I think a couple of times I would open the door and stare down, but the lights were always off and one time a spider landed on me. I freaked out so bad I never tried it again."

"Well, today's the day!" Dawn cheers.

It is pretty dusty down here. There's a little bit of a mildew smell that has to be great for our lungs. As soon as we get to the bottom of the staircase, there it is.

A dusty wooden bar extends across the room. Old bottles litter the shelves behind the bar. A mirror stretching across the wall reflects our own curious faces back at us. Portions of traditional Mexican tiles below our feet are cracked, some of them gone entirely to reveal the cold, packed dirt underneath. Chairs pile up against the walls, littered with cobwebs.

For a brief moment, I forget everything else. My body is pulled to the dance floor where I can imagine hundreds of Nina Martinez's fancy celebrity friends cutting a rug. There's a small stage for a band as well.

"Look at the ceiling!" Zephyr squeals.

We all do, and a gasp of admiration fills the room. A beautifully illustrated night sky fills the ceiling, even if much of the paint is peeled. A row of stars shines brightest, though one is brighter than all the rest.

"I can't believe all of this was down here the whole time," Zephyr breathes. "Who were you, Abuela Martinez?"

Zephyr looks like they're in shock, but with everyone else looking out for them, I think they're in good hands. I'm about to leave, when my eyes fall on a picture that's fallen to the floor. We're all in Mystery Machine mode here, so I grab it, thinking it can be my final contribution to this discovery.

It's a picture of Nina Martinez cuddled up to a man in a peacoat right outside of a lighthouse. She holds her scarf to her head, sunglasses on, as she pulls him by the tie for a smooch.

Slugger barks suddenly, disturbing the silence.

"You're probably right," I say, "it's time. Just give me a second."

I hear Pacari sigh behind me, but we're on our way now.

"Hey Dawn, this is such a cool find. And Zeph, I love this for you. There's probably a bunch of stuff down here for you to find out about her. I just found this."

I hand the picture over to Zephyr.

Then the ground shakes.

"Nope!" Anelisa and Zephyr shout in unison.

They both bolt for the stairs.

"Stop, guys! You're supposed to stay put," Dawn says as she takes a more stable stance.

"And let the whole house crush us?"

"This is probably one of the safest places in the whole house, look how well kept it is," Dawn argues through the earthquake. "Try to stay calm."

"I've never been in a basement during an earthquake before, it's a new, scary experience!" Anelisa huffs out.

This whole time, a strange look falls over Pacari.

"We might be too late," he says weakly.

"It's just an earthquake," I argue. "They happen all the time."

He shakes his head. "This doesn't feel like a normal earthquake."

A chill falls over me. Immediate, overwhelming regret falls over me for pushing for us to stay just a few seconds more.

Zephyr & Anelisa make it to the top of the stairs and out of the door. As soon as they do, we hear more screaming.

"Holy shit, of course I inherit a beach house and there's immediately a tsunami," Zephyr shouts.

"Excuse me?!" I call back up.

Fuck the earthquake, I start making my way to the stairs. Pacari follows.

"Teresa! Lover boy!" Taara calls out. "It's safer to stay put."

Pacari outpaces me, running up the stairs. My hips hit the wall as I lose my footing a couple of times. We rush to the window to see a raging sea before us.

"That's not a tsunami," I point out, my heart rate calming a little.

"No, but it isn't natural," Pacari says. "Can you feel it? It's angry . "

A shiver trickles down my back, all the way down to my toes. He looks to me wide-eyed, as if some awful realization has come over him.

"Give me the dog," he says.

"Um, okay," I say, following orders.

"And… I need your necklace too. It was meant for him," he adds, a desperate look in his eyes.

"Okay…" I say again, trying to figure out what's going on.

He takes the nautilus shell necklace and places it over Slugger's head. The shell is as big as his face—it's kind of hilarious to imagine it was ‘meant for him.' Pacari's hands shake as he looks at me.

"I love you," he says with an air of finality that terrifies me.

A kiss.

Then he bolts for the back door.

"What are you doing?" I yell, chasing after him.

As soon as we're out the door, the wind is unbearable. It was a little overcast earlier, but this storm seems like it's come out of nowhere. The tide is so high, most of the beach below is underwater.

"I think this might be her," he shouts behind him. "She was so angry about the nudibranch being on land, all I can think to do is bring him back below. She wants her eyes back."

"You can't go alone!" I protest. "She would have killed you if you were last time. "

He pulls off the dress with one arm, running down the trail as fast as he can as. It gets caught on his arm and the dog. As I watch him struggle to get rid of it, I rip off my dress angrily, ready to join him.

"Let me come with you!" I insist.

He turns around to face me, pulling the dress off Slugger's paw. Lines of green, transformed from the rough ocean spray, scatter across his body. He's crying.

"Your necklace was meant for him. Without it, he won't be able to breathe," he says. "I'm not trying to keep you away. I want you by my side always."

We stare at each other, both of us naked and panting. Everything feels twisted up with anxiety and hope. Our future hangs in the balance, our chance at a lifetime together. If he goes, there's no telling what will happen. And if he doesn't, and he's right about the Lantern Witch, I don't want to imagine how much worse things could get.

"I'd like that, too," I say weakly.

Then we're kissing. Pacari holds Slugger protectively, so he won't get squished underneath our desperation. We aren't kissing long—just enough for a short goodbye. Well, maybe a little longer—maybe the taste of him, the knowledge that he'll be alone with the witch again—maybe I'm trying to memorize all of him in case it's the last time I see him.

Slugger starts barking madly, and we pull away reluctantly.

"Please be safe," I beg him.

He presses one last chaste kiss to my lips.

"I'm coming back for you," he promises.

And with that, he dives into the ocean, the tide having risen so much it's just a foot from the trail. He pops up back above the water for me, smiling. I do everything I can to memorize his true form one last time before he disappears below the water.