CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

A chill ripples through me. I forget about Evelyn. I forget about Jasmine and the officers outside. I forget about Victor and Lisa and Sean. In my terror, I even forget about Annie.

I rush down the stairs, ignoring the people calling my name above me. I shout for Celeste as I scramble onto the basement floor and onto the deck. I lean over the railing and look for her, but I don’t see her.

“Celeste! Wait! Don’t do this!”

There’s no answer.

I jump over the ledge, and for the second time that day, I rush down the path that leads to Fairy Cove, the magical place where only a few short days ago, I took the first steps to breaking through Celeste’s depression and leading her to a better future.

“Celeste!”

I reach the cove and still don’t see her. The tide is low, but if she’s going where I think she is, then it won’t matter. I rush into the water and sprint out to sea. “Celeste! Where are you?”

There’s no answer. The slope is gradual, but the fairy treasure is only forty yards from the shore. The inlet stretches for hundreds of yards beyond that.

When I am one hundred yards from shore, the water is up to my shoulders. I swim, my eyes stinging from my tears as well as the saltwater. The water is clear in the calm of low tide, but I see no sign of her.

My arms start to burn, and water stings my injured scalp, but I don’t stop. I swim all of the way to the vanishing point, ignoring the fatigue that threatens to be my undoing. When I reach the row of rocks that protect the inlet from the might of the Pacific, I grab on and look for Celeste.

I don’t see her. Not out to sea and not in the waters of the inlet. She couldn’t have made it out here so fast, could she? I wasn’t that far behind her.

It occurs to me that I might be wrong about the vanishing point. This is the point the newspaper labels as the vanishing point, but Celeste may never have seen that article. It was written over a decade before she was born.

She might know about her father's hidden cove, though. She might have followed him there. Hell, she knows about the quartz and amethyst geode near the tunnel. She might have found it by accident.

I swim back. I am a good swimmer, but I rarely indulge, and the distance I have to swim is grueling. It’s only my fear for Celeste that moves me forward, and by the time I can walk, I am utterly spent. I see figures on the shore and recognize Evelyn, Jasmine and the officers. Jasmine cups her voice and calls for me to come back, but I ignore her.

I stumble toward the tunnel and pray that the tide will hold.

I move through the tunnel, calling her name. “Celeste! Please wait! Don’t do this!”

There’s no answer. When I burst into the cave, I see no sign of her. For a sickening moment, I think she’s gone to sea already, but then I look at the sand. It is still moist from the recently receded tide. It’s comforting to know that the water won’t rise anytime soon, but I don’t feel any relief. I walk onto the cave-sheltered beach and the sand molds to my feet, leaving perfect footprints behind.

There are no footprints here but mine. Celeste didn’t come this way.

I collapse to the sand and bury my head in my hands. I’ve lost her. She’s vanished, just like Victor. Just like Lisa. Just like Annie.

I force myself to my feet and back through the tunnel. I know if I stop for long, my muscles will cramp. Already, I can feel them starting to seize. I rub my arms and roll my ankles as I walk to try to stifle the inevitable stiffening. I need to reach shore first.

When I reach the shore, I see the officers rushing down the path towards me. I think they’re arresting me at first, but they are gentle, and when I collapse onto the sand, one of them asks with genuine concern if I’m all right.

“I’m all right,” I assure him. “I’m just exhausted.”

“Yeah, I’d say so,” the second officer says, looking at the vanishing point at the mouth of the inlet. “You must have swum close to a mile. I don’t think I could do that.”

It was probably less than half that distance, but it certainly felt like a mile. My legs and arms are spasming, and I have to lie on the sand and submit to the indignity of letting the officers massage them to soothe the pain.

That indignity pales in comparison to the smugness on Jasmine’s face. “If you’d just let me take her, this wouldn’t have happened.”

I don’t give her the satisfaction of a response. I stand by my actions regardless of what’s happened. Celeste made a poor choice that I should probably have foreseen, but there is no world where going to estranged family far from her home is beneficial to her right now.

Still, she would be safe. I don’t even know if she’s alive now.

And where could she have gone? I’ve found the vanishing point, and I’ve found the portal she’s dreamed about. Where did she go? What “vanishing point” did she travel to this time?”

Maybe the portal is different too. I realize that I've made the same mistake I made earlier. I assume the vanishing point is the one labeled by the article, the mouth of the inlet that feeds Victor's private cove. Then I assume it's the hidden cove, the haven that Victor writes about in her journal.

But I’m not looking for Victor. I’m looking for Celeste.

Inspiration strikes me. Victor recorded his vanishing point. Perhaps Celeste recorded hers.

I get to my feet, grimacing as a final few spasms run through my legs. Evelyn comes quickly to me. “You should rest, Mary. It’s hours until high tide, and if your leg cramps on the way up, you might fall.”

I start climbing anyway. “We need to look in Celeste’s room,” I say. “She might have drawn something that can tell us where she is.”

Jasmine’s been on the phone since scolding me, but when she hears that, she says, “Hold on,” then looks up at me. “You’re saying she might have told us where her destination is?”

“It’s possible,” I admit. I have no love lost for the woman, but now’s not the time to fight. She has access to resources that can find Celeste safe and sound.

They follow me upstairs, and we head to Celeste’s room.

The room is a mess, but not the way Victor's studio is when he leaves or is taken. It's just covered with different artwork, all in various stages of completion.

The drawings are mostly abstract, like Victor’s work but somehow even less representational. Instead of vaguely humanoid shapes engaged in exaggerated but readily identifiable activities, there are just shapes and colors arranged in patterns I can’t understand.

A few are less abstract, and it’s those that draw my eye. In these drawings, a tall, thin silhouette steps for a bright blue light with yellow rays surrounding it. In some drawings, the light is circular, in others rectangular. In one, the light fills the entire page, and the silhouette is a small, dim shadow near the center.

This is the portal her father steps through, but I have no idea what it means. I’m sure it means something, but I won’t find out what that is anytime soon. Certainly not soon enough to find Celeste.

There’s a loud knock on the door, and I jump. A moment later, one of the officer’s radio chirps. “Four-five-four, what’s your twenty?”

The officer answers, “We’re in the subject’s bedroom inside the house. The tutor believes there might be evidence here.”

“I was wrong,” I say. “There’s no evidence.”

“Negative on that evidence, two-two-three. Is that you at the front door?”

“Affirmative. We have four units, and we’re canvassing right now.”

“Ten-four. Are we ten-fifty-three for this call?”

“Negative. Subject is on foot, so we’re assuming no ten-fifty-three.”

“Roger that. We’re heading downstairs.”

When we make it outside, I expect to see Detective Reyes. Instead, the officer in command is a sergeant I recognize as one of the subordinates who searched the house when Victor went missing. Jasmine stalks toward him, her chin lifted. She points her finger at me and says, “Sergeant, this woman interfered with a lawful order to remove this child from the premises and place her into the care of her maternal grandparents. I’d like formal charges to be filed against her for interfering with a lawful court order.”

“And I will follow through on every threat I made, Miss Jasmine. You neglected all of your responsibilities in this case. It’s not acceptable that you—”

"I don't give a shit," the sergeant snaps. "No one's leaving the premises right now. We're going to tear the neighborhood apart for the second time this week, looking for another missing person from this house. If we arrest people, it'll happen when I'm ready for it. Don't talk to me again."

Jasmine turns to me with a haughty smile. She thinks she’s won, I suppose. “I’ll be heading to my superior to report the exact reason why the girl under my care is now missing instead of safely with her grandparents."

I meet her eyes and feel a disturbingly cold sensation run through me. At the same time, I decide I will ruin her. I will have Sean discover every law she’s ever broken and every policy she’s ever flouted. I will tell her superiors, the news media, social media and the police. She doesn’t give a damn about Celeste. She’s just an arrogant little bitch who wants to prove that she’s the biggest fish in the small pond of Monterey, California’s Child Protective Services. I’ll—

“Mary.”

I start, and Evelyn pulls away. She looks at me warily. “Are you all right?”

I sigh. “No. Not even close.”

“Come sit down.”

“I can’t sit. I need to help look for her.”

“You’re shaking. Your legs are spasming again too. You need to rest. You’re not a young woman anymore.”

When she says that, I feel the pain in my legs again. Pins and needles accompany that pain. She’s right. I’m not a young woman, and I’ve exerted myself physically more than I have in perhaps my entire life.

I let her lead me inside. As my anger toward Jasmine fades, my guilt increases. I’ve failed. I’ve lost Celeste. I feel another flash of anger, this time toward whoever took Victor. This girl needed me, maybe more than anyone has before. And I was helping her. I was going to bring her out of her shell. Instead, she’s had a mental break and now she may be lost for good.

I hate people sometimes. I know it’s not kind to say, and I know it’s not helpful to feel this way, but I do. People are selfish and cruel, and those that aren’t selfish and cruel are crushed and beaten by those that are until they break.

Someone broke Celeste. I will find whoever that was, and I will break them in return.

I only wish that I was confident in my ability to do that.