She was right. There was a big question mark over this theory—and for such an ambitious undertaking, we were placing a lot of faith in the assumption that the birds were connected to the disappearance to our kids, and that they would be coming from the sea somewhere…
“It’s the only lead we have. We have to at least try,” I told them both.
“So what’s the plan?” Corrine asked.
Caleb showed where he’d marked out the likely co-ordinates on the map, and proposed splitting ourselves up to cover more ground.
“How many witches do we have?” Caleb asked.
“Ten, not including Mona and Corrine. It’s a good start. Mona will take one team, and I’ll head up the other. Although the North Atlantic is going to be the trickiest—there are fewer islands there, and it’s obviously much larger. The North Sea has plenty—especially up by Scotland.” Corrine studied the map intently. “We’ll travel to the Fair Isle in the North Sea, and Île Saint-Nicolas in the Atlantic.”
We divided up the teams, Caleb and I going with Corrine and three other witches, and Claudia, Yuri, Ashley and Landis going with Mona and seven other witches as the slightly larger team to take on the North Atlantic.
“The rest of the witches will be here in an hour,” Corrine said. “Suit up. Everyone take a headset.”
We all returned to our treehouses. After entering our apartment, Caleb and I hurried straight to the bedroom, where we changed into water-resistant uniforms. My entire body felt tense and anxious, and I fumbled with my zipper twice.
“Here,” Caleb said, taking over. He ran the zipper up my back, and the familiar feeling of my husband’s firm touch restored some of my sanity.
“I’m trying to treat it like any other case,” I murmured, “but it’s hard. Every time I look at Claudia or any of the other parents, I feel guilty. It was my decision to send the kids to that camp…”
“Don’t think like that,” Caleb reprimanded me. “How were you to know? None of us could have predicted this.”
I knew that he was right, but it didn’t stop me from feeling like a pretty crappy mom right now.
“Let’s leave,” I croaked.
We made our way back to the courtyard outside the Sanctuary, where the witches were waiting for us—along with Claudia and Yuri, and Ashley and Landis. We were ready to go.
“Anything?” I asked for what felt like the fifteen millionth time.
Corrine shook her head wearily, not even bothering to reply. I looked out on the endless ocean, its waters calm for the moment, the sun dancing about on the tops of the placid waves. There was nothing to be seen for miles, just an endless expanse of blue. We had taken a sea plane instead of a boat, hoping that we’d be able to cover more ground, but it hadn’t made much difference. We had to go slowly so the witches could get a sense of what was going on in the water, and then we paused every so often to refuel from the massive storage tank that we carried.
At each side of the plane, witches stood at the open doors, scanning the water—seeing if they could pick up on any surges or disruption that might indicate that a portal was close by.
“Claudia?” I called into my headset. “Anything?”
The line was really bad at such a long distance, but after a few seconds’ delay, she came in.
“Nothing. Not yet.”
Ugh. “Okay.”
I switched it off, and sighed. Caleb gave my knee a squeeze.
“We knew this would take some time,” he said.
I leaned back, trying to think positively, when the muttering of two witches made me look over to the right side of the plane. Corrine hastened over from her side, and they started talking animatedly. I looked at Caleb, hardly daring to hope…
“Corrine?”
She turned around, beckoning me to the side of the plane.
“Look at this!” she exclaimed.
Caleb and I rushed over to her, leaning out to look at the water. Up ahead we saw the waters rushing and swirling — creating huge ripples on the surface of the water and massive white-foam sprays that flew up noisily, and which were starting to affect the drift of the plane.
“Let’s get closer!”
We had taken one of the younger GASP members to man the plane, and he nodded, accelerating over to the source of the activity.
We flew higher, avoiding the now large waves that were being created by the swirl up ahead.
“I’m definitely getting something,” murmured one of the witches, her eyes closed as she tried to focus on the energy.
“It’s a portal,” Corrine acknowledged with a smile. “I can sense it.”
We passed right over the swirl. Looking down, we saw what looked like a small typhoon in the water—the ocean swirled downward for about a mile until a black disk hovered in the center of the swirl. It wasn’t like most of the portals I’d ever seen—that normally seemed to hint at another world behind it, like a galaxy of stars or blue skies. This surface was as thick as black tar, moving slowly and sluggishly as if it was alive.