Kaitlyn whirled to see the most unlikely person imaginable. Lydia. Looking fragile and wistful, her blue-black hair a liquidy mass under the streetlight's soft illumination.
"You!" Kaitlyn said. "Where have you been? Why did you leave the room?"
Lydia hesitated, then shrugged. "I saw Gabriel leave. I wondered where he was going in the middle of the night, so I followed him to the wharf. And then I saw you come - "
"You spied on us!" It must have been Lydia she'd heard going out the door, Kaitlyn realized. Gabriel had already left.
"Yes," Lydia said, half miserably, half defiantly. "I spied on you. But it's a good thing I did!" She looked at Rob. "Kaitlyn kept saying she wanted to tell you. And she was only doing it because otherwise Gabriel would hurt people, maybe kill them. I don't understand exactly what it's all about, but I know she wasn't messing around with him."
Rob's whole body had relaxed - uncrumpling, Kaitlyn thought. And her own heartbeat was easing.
Some of the nightmare feeling of unreality was fading away.
She looked at Rob and he looked at her. For a moment even communication in the web was unnecessary. Kait could see his love, and his longing.
Then, without quite knowing how she'd gotten there, she was in his arms.
"I'm sorry," Rob whispered. And then: I'm so sorry, Kait. I thought... But I could understand why you might want to be with him. You're the only one he cares about...
It's my fault, Kaitlyn thought back, clinging to him as if she could make them into one body, fuse them together permanently. I should have told you before, and I'm sorry. But -
But we won't talk about it any more, Rob said, holding her more tightly. We'll forget it ever happened.
Yes. In that moment it seemed to Kaitlyn that she could forget. "But we have to make sure Gabriel's all right," she said aloud. "I left him by the wharf..."
Slowly and reluctantly Rob let go of her. "We'll go now," he said. His face still bore the marks of recent emotion; there were shadows under his eyes and his mouth was not quite steady. But Kaitlyn could feel the quiet purpose in him. He wanted to help. "I'll explain to him that I didn't understand. All that talk about psychic vampires - I didn't know."
"I'll go, too," Lydia said. She had been watching them with open curiosity. For once, Kaitlyn didn't mind, and she gave Lydia a look of gratitude as they started walking. The girl might be nosy, she might be sneaky, and she might have a father who belonged in a horror movie - but she'd done Kaitlyn a good turn tonight. Kaitlyn wouldn't forget that.
Gabriel wasn't at the wharf.
"Hunting?" Rob said, looking at Kait with concern.
"I don't think so. He took enough from me - " Kaitlyn broke off as Rob's arm around her tightened. Rob was shaking his head.
"He can't do that anymore," he muttered. "It could hurt you. We'll have to figure something out..."He shook his head again, preoccupied.
Kaitlyn said nothing. Her happiness was dimming a bit. She was all right with Rob again - but Gabriel was in bad trouble, worse even than Rob knew. She couldn't tell Rob what she'd seen in Gabriel's mind.
But she was dead certain Gabriel wasn't going to accept help from Rob - or from her, ever again.
The next morning Gabriel was back. Kaitlyn was surprised. She and Rob had returned to the hotel the night before to find Anna and Lewis still sitting up. Rob had awakened them both when he found Kait, Gabriel, and Lydia missing.
At Rob's insistence Kait had explained as best she could about Gabriel's condition. Anna and Lewis had been shocked and sorry - and had promised to do anything they could to help.
But Gabriel didn't want help. The next morning he wouldn't talk to anyone and would barely glance at Kait. There was a strange, glittering look in his eyes, and all Kait could sense from him was determination.
He's hoping that the people in the white house can help him, she guessed. And other than that, he doesn't care about anything.
"We're in deep trouble financially," Anna was saying. "There's enough for gas and breakfast, maybe lunch, and then..."
"We'll just have to find the place today," Rob said, with typical Rob-ish optimism. But Kaitlyn knew what he left unspoken. They found the place today or they had to quit, resort to robbery, or use Lydia's credit cards and risk being traced.
"Let's go over what we're looking for," she said. What she really meant was that it was time to tell Lydia. I think we can trust her, she added, and Rob nodded. Lewis, of course, agreed wholeheartedly.
Kaitlyn was getting a little worried about him - it was clear that he was more than infatuated with Lydia, but Lydia seemed to be the type to play the field.
Gabriel was the only one who might have objected, and he was sitting by the window, ignoring them all.
"A little peninsula thing with rocks on it," Lewis said promptly with a grin at Lydia.
"With inuk shuk," Anna said. "Lining both sides. And the shore behind it is rocky, and behind that is a bank with trees. Spruce and fir, I think. And maybe some scotch broom."
"And the ocean is cold and clean and the waves only come from the right," Kaitlyn put in.
"And it's called something like Griffin's Pit," Rob finished and smiled at her. There was still something of apology, of regret, about his slow smile this morning. Kait felt a twinge in her chest.
"Or Whiff and Spit or Wyvern's Bit," she said lightly, smiling back. Then she said, turning back toward Lydia, "And across from it is a cliff - although heaven knows how that can be, unless it's another little island. And on the cliff is a white house, and that's where we're going."
Lydia nodded. She wasn't stupid; she'd taken all of this in. Her eyes said "thank you" to Kait. "So where do we search today?"
"Flip a coin again," Lewis began, but Rob said, "Let Kaitlyn decide." When Kait looked at him, he added seriously, "Sometimes you have intuitions. And I trust... your instinct."
Kaitlyn's eyes stung. She understood; he trusted her.
"Let's go the other way today, west. The water didn't feel quite right yesterday. Not... enclosed...
enough." She herself wasn't sure what she meant by that, but everyone else nodded, accepting it.
They skipped breakfast and started driving northwest.
The weather was lovely for a change, and Kaitlyn found herself pathetically grateful for sunshine. Huge puffy white clouds drifted overhead. The coastal road quickly narrowed to one lane and trees crowded around them.
"It's the rain forest," Anna said. To Kaitlyn it was an almost frightening display of plant life. The road seemed to cut through a solid swath of vegetation. It was like a puzzle shaped like a wall on either side of the road - the pieces were different colors for different plants, but they interlocked solidly to fill all the space between the ground and the sky.
"We can't even see the ocean," Lewis said. "How're we supposed to tell if we're near the place?"
He was right. Kaitlyn groaned inwardly; maybe west had been a bad idea after all. Rob just said, "We'll have to go down side roads every so often and check. And we'll ask people again."
The problem was that there were few side roads and fewer people to ask. The road simply went on and on, winding through the forest, allowing them only occasional glimpses of the coast.
Kaitlyn tried not to feel discouraged, but as they drove farther and farther, her head began to buzz and the emptiness in her middle to expand. She felt as if they'd been driving forever, through three states and a foreign country. And they were never going to find the white house - in fact, the white house probably didn't exist...
"Hey," Lewis said. "Food."
It was another of the kiosks, like the ones that had old daffodils in Oregon. But this sign said BREAD
DAYS: FRIDAY, SATURDAY, SUNDAY.
"It's Sunday," Lewis said. "And I'm starving."
They took two loaves of multigrain bread - and hid for them, because Rob insisted. Kaitlyn hadn't realized how hungry she was until she took the first bite. The bread was dense and moist, cool from the cold air outside. It had a nutty, nourishing flavor, and Kait felt strength and optimism flowing back through.
"Let's stop there," she said as they passed a small building. A sign proclaimed it to be the SOOKE
MUSEUM. She didn't have much hope, first of all because the big museum in Victoria hadn't helped them, and second because this place looked closed, but she was in the mood to try anything.
It was closed, but a woman finally answered Rob's persistent knocking. There were piles of books on the floor inside, and a man with a pencil behind his ear, taking inventory.
"I'm sorry," the woman began, but Rob was already talking.
"We don't want to bother you, ma'am," he said, turning the southern charm on full force. "We just have one question - we're looking for a place that might be around here, and we thought you could maybe help us find it."
"What place?" the woman said with a harassed glance behind her, obviously impatient to get back to her work.
"Well, we don't exactly know the name. But it's like a little peninsula, and it's got these rock towers all up and down it."
Kaitlyn held up her drawing of the inuk shuk. Please, she was thinking. Oh, please...
The woman shook her head. Her look said she thought Kaitlyn and Rob were crazy. "No, I don't know where you'd find anything like that."
Kaitlyn's shoulders sagged. She and Rob glanced at each other in defeat. "Thank you," Rob said dully.
They both turned away and were actually leaving when the man inside the museum spoke up.
"Aren't there some of those things out at Whiffen Spit?"
Every cell in Kaitlyn's body turned into ice.
Whiffen Spit. Whiffen Spit, Whiffenspit, Whiffenspit ... It was as if the whispering chorus of voices was once again in her mind.
Rob, fortunately, seemed able to move. He spun and got a foot in the door the woman was closing.
"What did you say?"
"Out at Whiffen Spit. I've got a map here somewhere. I don't know what the rocks are for, but they've been there as long as I can remember..."
He went on talking, but Kait couldn't hear him over the roaring in her own ears. She wanted to scream, to run around crazily, to turn cartwheels. Anna and Lewis were clutching each other, laughing and gasping, trying to maintain their composure in front of the museum people. The whole web was vibrating with pure joy.
We found it! We found it! Kaitlyn told them. She had to tell someone.
Yeah, and it's Whiffenspit, Lewis said, running it together into one word as Kaitlyn had. Not Griffin's Pit or Whippin' Bit -
Rob was closest, Anna said. Whiff and Spit was actually pretty good.
Kaitlyn looked toward the car, where Lydia and Gabriel were standing as if declaring themselves both outsiders. Lydia was wide-eyed, watching with interest. Gabriel -
Gabriel, aren't you happy? Kaitlyn asked.
I'll be happy when I see it.