Keeping the coin tight in my fist, I kicked to the surface.
Louelle was slow, still at the bottom of her tank. Cormack was the quickest, already onto the second tank. I stepped out onto the ladder as Richard moved it across for me.
Taking the coin from me when I was halfway down, Richard ran across to tap on the glass in front of Louelle and show her where to go. Her face looked pale and strained under the water. I watched her grab her coin and swim frantically to the surface, willing her to go quickly.
Cormack splashed to the surface, flicking his coin out triumphantly.
Richard caught the coin and rushed it back to the hexagonal box.
Saul made gasping breaths as he broke the surface and tossed his coin out to the floor. Richard ran back to take it.
I glanced across at Kara’s tank. She was only halfway—why had it taken her that long? I realised then that she was struggling. Her challenge wristband had caught inside the link of a chain. She gave another couple of frantic tugs.
“Kara—she’s caught!” I sprinted over to the ladder in front of her tank and dashed up it.
Cormack hoisted himself out onto the second ladder, shouting at Richard. “Why weren’t you there to get her out?”
“I can’t do everything at once,” Richard protested. “I was checking the coins.”
Cormack was behind me in a flash. We entered the tank one after the other.
Desperately, I tried to see clearly enough in the haze. I held the heavy chain while Cormack worked on wriggling the wristband free.
Somewhere in the murky water, a small orange light sprang to life. I saw a face illuminated by the glow. She held a candle, her face terrified. Where? Then I realised, the glow wasn’t coming from inside the tank. It was coming from the outside. The other side. The tank that Kara was in must face the middle room of the monastery, the room that Brother Vito said had nothing in it. Then an arm reached out from the darkness behind the girl, extinguishing the light.
Was she one of us? It’d happened in a split second. Too quick.
Someone splashed into the pool above me.
Richard.
I thought he’d come to help, but he swam straight to the bottom of the tank and then straight up again.
I forgot about the girl with the candle.
Kara stopped struggling, her body going slack.
She was going to die.
Frantically, I pulled at Kara’s wristband.
Richard climbed over the top of the tank wall and down the ladder. Hurrying across to the shelf on the hexagonal box, he placed the last coin.
Far beyond Richard, a light blinked from red to green—the light beneath the clock on the wall. We’d won the challenge.
But in here, in the tank, we were losing everything.
I felt my head grow hazy, like pins and needles. My lungs screamed for air. Cormack’s movements were slowing. We were beginning to drown, just like Kara.
Hooking my fingers inside the bracelet, I tugged along with Cormack, my other hand still holding the chain.
Kara’s arm came free.
Gathering her in his arms, Cormack swam upward.
The door of the challenge room swung open.
21. I, Inside The Walls
ONCE YOU SEE ME, THE REAL me, it will be too late.
All the tiny things that worry you, they will all become like dust. Because you’ll see, for the first time, the real monastery.
I will kill them all, every one of them, before the others get to them.
Santiago, stop worrying, stop fussing. Don’t think.
None of this is our doing.
You can’t change the universe.
22. Gray
WHO WAS EVIE WITH AND WHAT was she doing?
I couldn’t turn my mind off.
Taking a beer from the fridge, I went out and sprawled on a chair on the back verandah, from which I had a prime view of three neighbours’ yards: a trampoline with half of the springs missing, a dented wading pool filled with dark water, and weedy vegetable patches. It was different in summer, here. Not any more classy, but people actually used their yards then, and it all looked a bit more hopeful.
The sky darkened to a featureless shade of grey. It’d been raining for hours, and the day was about to smudge into night.
What happened next with Evie and me?
Divorce papers. That was what happened next. Nothing to divide up but a few sticks of furniture. I’d be seeing my daughters on the weekends.
No, scratch that. I’d go to court and try for full custody of the girls. Who knew what Evie was getting up to? But what did getting custody of the girls mean for me? Me not working for the next three years until both Willow and Lilly were at school? And never being able to build a real career even after they started school?