"What?"
"A letter. From your parents or something, I guess. Telling who you are and how long you're going to be there."
"Oh, terrific." Kaitlyn looked at Rob, who shrugged.
"What can we do? We'll just hope they don't ask for one."
"I'm eighteen, anyway," Lydia said. "I'll drive and maybe the rest of you can fake it."
An hour later they cruised into Victoria Harbor. Kaitlyn's breath caught. The sun had come out, and the harbor was a picture begging to be painted. There were lots of little sailboats and lots of clean-looking pink and white buildings.
But she couldn't keep staring; they had to go downstairs again and get in the car. They waited in another line at the customs checkpoint while the knot in Kaitlyn's stomach wound tighter and tighter.
"Where do you live?" a sunglassed customs officer asked Lydia.
Lydia's fingers barely tightened on the wheel. "In California," she said, smiling.
The customs officer didn't smile back. He asked to see Lydia's driver's license. He asked where they were going in Canada and how long they'd be staying. Lydia answered everything in a careless, sophisticated murmur. Then the officer bent a little at the waist to examine the inside of the car.
Look old, Kaitlyn told the others. They all sat up straight and tried to look mature and bored.
The customs officer didn't change expression. He glanced at each of them, then straightened.
"Any of you under eighteen?" he asked Lydia.
Kaitlyn's stomach gave a final sickening twist. Their driver's licenses would show the rest of them were all under eighteen. And then he'd ask for a letter…
Lydia hesitated imperceptibly. Then she said "Oh, no." She said it lightly, with something like a toss of her head. Kaitlyn admired that. Although Lydia was slight, her manner was sophisticated and assured.
The customs officer hesitated. He was looking at Lewis—the one of them who looked youngest. Lydia glanced back at Lewis, too, and although her face was calm, her gaze was almost desperate. Pleading. Lewis's jaw set, and Kaitlyn felt a ripple in the web.
The customs officer had something hanging at his belt, a pager or walkie-talkie or something. Suddenly it began to shriek.
Not beep. Wail. It went off with a sound like an air-raid siren, a vibrating sound that put Kaitlyn's teeth on edge. People turned to look.
The customs officer was shaking the walkie-talkie, pressing buttons. The shrieking only went up in volume.
The officer looked from the device to the car as if hesitating. Then he grimaced, trying to muffle the electronic shrilling. With an impatient hand, he waved Lydia on.
"Go, go," Lewis whispered excitedly.
Lydia put the car in gear, and they glided off at a majestic five miles an hour. When they reached a main street, Kaitlyn let out her breath. They'd made it!
"Easier than I thought," Rob said.
In the back seat Lewis was chortling. "How about that? One for the home team!"
Kaitlyn turned on him. That ripple she'd felt in the web just before the shrieking began… "Lewis—did you?"
Lewis's grin widened, his eyes sparkling. "I figured if those creeps could sabotage us with long distance PK, I could handle a walkie-talkie. I just made a few little adjustments to give it some feedback."
Lydia glanced back at him again, and for the first time there was something like appreciation in her gray-green eyes. "Thanks," she said. "You saved my you-know-what." Lewis beamed.
Even Gabriel seemed grudgingly impressed. But he asked Lydia smoothly, "Who are those creeps, by the way? The ones who've been trying to kill us with psychic attacks."
"I don't know. Truly, I don't. I know my father has been doing something with the crystal—and he may have people helping him. But I don't know who."
"I wonder if they've stopped," Anna said suddenly. "I mean, there wasn't an attack last night. Maybe they've lost track of us."
"And maybe they're relying on somebody else to keep track," Gabriel said, with a meaningful look at Lydia. She gave something very much like a flounce without interfering with her driving.
"Where am I supposed to go now?" she asked.
There was a pause. Then Rob said, "We're not sure."
"You came here without knowing where you're going?"
"We don't know exactly. We're looking for—"
"Something," Gabriel said, interrupting Rob. Lewis frowned and Kaitlyn gave Gabriel an impatient look.
We decided to trust her. And she's going to find out anyway, as soon as we find it…
"Then let her wait until we find it," Gabriel said aloud. "Why trust any further than we have to?"
Lydia's lips tightened, but she didn't say anything, and she didn't flounce again.
"I figure we have two choices," Rob said. "We can drive up and down the coast blindly, or we can ask people around here if they know where the—" He changed for an instant to silent speech: the rock towers are. "If Anna's mom recognized them, people on the island should know them."
"Can't you remember anything, Anna?" Lewis asked. "Your mom said you were on that trip, too."
"I was five," Anna said.
They decided to ask around. A man at a tourist shop sold them a map and directed them to the Royal British Columbia Museum. But although the museum people recognized Kaitlyn's sketch of an inuk shuk, they had no idea where any might be found on the island. Neither did anyone at the camera shop, or the bookstore, or the British imports store, or the native crafts shop. Neither did the librarians at the Victoria Library.
"Is it time to start driving around blindly?" Gabriel asked.
Lewis pulled out the map.
"We can drive either northeast or northwest," he said. "This island's sort of like a big oval and we're at the bottom. And before you ask, nothing on here looks like our Griffin's Pit. There're thousands of little peninsulas and things all over the coast, and no way to tell any of them apart."
"It's probably too small to be on the map, anyway," Rob said. "Flip a coin: Heads we go east, tails we go west."
Kaitlyn flipped a coin and it came up heads.
They drove northeast, following the coastline, stopping to check the ocean every few miles. They drove until it was dark, but they found nothing resembling the place in their dream.