Dr. Sidris insists on helping my father barbecue our dinner, and Dr. Pendle is busy making sure that he doesn’t set anything on fire. So Ondine, Robbo and I are talking about the whirlpool.

“If it’s a portal like the waterfall then Rufus must be waiting there for you, to take you through.”

“Maybe. But he spoke to me that day I passed out. I wasn’t expecting a portal.”

“I think we have to get to that island. Not in the dark though – we could go first thing in the morning.”

We're talking to Robbo about what happened in Ballaig, about Jenny communicating with Ondine.

“Jenny didn’t attempt to communicate with you before the portal incident, did she?” Robbo asks.

“She did. I have a book that was hers, and she used it to communicate.”

“But you were actually able to have a conversation with her when you went through the portal?”

“Yes – just like I’m talking to you right now. She was a real, physical, living and breathing person.”

“Even if that should be impossible.”

“Even if.”

Ondine looks at me, frowning. “I have to say that you don’t seem very happy, Thom, for someone who will likely have the chance to spend time with your friend soon.”

She’s right. I don’t know why I feel this way, but I have the feeling the whirlpool didn’t appear as a way for me to get to Rufus. “My instinct tells me Rufus will come for me in the last place I saw him. My plan was to sit in the garden at his parents’ house and wait for him.”

Ondine’s eyebrows shoot up. “But don’t his parents hate you? They’ll just chase you off.”

“I was planning to sit there at night.”

Robbo nods once. “We’ll go tonight. I’ll sit with you.”

“I’m not going to be left out – if you’re both going, I’m coming too.”

“When I picture it in my mind, I’m alone.”

“Thom whatever is happening in that lake, it’s not good. And besides, Rufus came to you the last time when we were all there with you, so it's not like it will put him off or anything. Robbo and I are coming with you.”

*

We have to slip out of the house after Dr. Sidris has gone to bed, because he’s so excitable here in Juniperville that we know he’d want to come with us. And there’s no chance we could sneak into Rufus’s yard with him there. I feel guilty about not telling my father we’re going out, but I have no idea how to explain to him what we’re about to do.

We don’t speak as we walk through the quiet streets that spiral down towards the lake. The strong smell of sulfur assaults our nostrils as we get close to Rufus’s house.

“Here we are, entering the gates of hell,” Ondine whispers.

“I doubt even hell smells this terrible,” Robbo whispers back.

We do a walk-past of Rufus’s house, which looks just the same as I remember it. My heart twinges with memories of all of the times I spent in the house over the years.

“Security lights,” Robbo whispers. “On the front and sides of the house. No security gate at the front, but one from the driveway to the back garden.”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

The house three doors down used to - and maybe still does - belong to the Yeatmans, an elderly couple. It isn't exactly decrepit, but it isn’t in as pristine condition as the other houses on the street. “No security lights,” I say to Robbo. “We can access Rufus’s yard from theirs.”

“Makes a bit of mockery of home security, doesn’t it?” Robbo asks.

“The trail around the perimeter of The Wash has to be accessible at all times,” I tell him. “You can access the bottom of anyone's garden from the lake, unless they've built a high fence."

It’s just past midnight, and all of the houses on this part of the street are in darkness. It’s deathly quiet, and still, until we’ve reached the bottom of the Yeatmans’ sloped yard. The stench of the water is so strong that we all cover our noses. Ondine coughs a few times.

“The water’s bubbling,” Robbo says, leaning over it more than I’d like him to. “And there’s hot steam coming up off it.”

“Demons’ brew,” Ondine says.

“Smells like it,” Robbo agrees. “What the hell could possibly be happening in there?”

“Did you see that?” Ondine asks, just as I spot a dim green glow a short distance from the water’s edge. “Maybe something is coming to say hello.”

Robbo stretches his arms out – one on either side – like he’s trying to protect Ondine and I from whatever might come flying out of the water. We all take a step back, but nothing happens. The green glow passes like an arrow through the water, staying parallel to the shore.

“Rude,” Ondine says, but I think I hear relief in her voice.

We walk along the path until we’re standing at the bottom of Rufus’s yard. I look up at the dark kitchen window, picturing him there, waving at me as he made yet another snack-run.

“It must be strange, being back here,” Ondine says softly.

“It’s kind of terrible and kind of wonderful at the same time.”

“So what happens now?” she asks. “Do we just stand here and wait for Rufus to come to you? Or is there any way of, I don’t know, summoning him or something?”

I’m weighing up the pros and cons of trying to shift the water to see underneath the surface when Robbo says, “I would advise against manipulating the water tonight.”

“Why’s that?” Ondine asks him.

“It’s already volatile – stinking and bubbling like that. This is no Loch Dunvegan. I think we just wait and let him come to us. To Thom, I mean.”

We stand there in silence until our leg muscles grow so tired that we sit down on the dirt path. “I don’t really like this,” Ondine says unhappily. “I feel more vulnerable when I’m sitting down.”

“I doubt a huge kraken is going to come out of the water after us, but I suppose you never know,” Robbo says. “Anything seems possible here.”

What he’s just said is at the same time highly inappropriate, given what happened to Rufus on these very shores, and also ridiculous enough that I start laughing and can’t stop.

“Must be jet lag,” I sputter by way of an apology.

“Well if a huge kraken does come for us I probably won’t have time to say ‘I told you so, Robbo’, but I’ll be thinking it,” Ondine says.

And then it hits all of us – the jet lag, the noxious fumes, the craziness of sitting by this awful place waiting for my friend to come and talk to me – that we all start laughing. Robbo has an unfortunate tendency to snort after every second laugh, which is so unlike his usual demeanour that tears stream down my face.

After a while the laughs turn into yawns. “Why don’t you try to get some sleep?” I say to Ondine. “You can use my jacket as a pillow.”

“Wake me up if anything exciting happens,” she says, curling up like a cat on the other side of Robbo.

“You must be tired too, Robbo. Why don’t you rest for a bit too? If Rufus does come, it’s only me he’ll want to speak to.”

“No thanks, mate – I’m fine. Anyway, I don’t think I could sleep with this smell. It’s acting like a smoke alarm – telling my brain that something’s wrong and I’m in danger.”

“Yep,” I agree. “It’s awful.” After a minute I say, “Have you ever heard of swamp gas?”

“Swamp gas – aye, I have. Saw it in an old film I think. Do you think that’s what this is?”

“I mean, I’ve never known The Wash to be like this. It always had a bad smell, but the bubbling and the steam are new.”

“What causes it – methane?”

“Yeah, mostly. That could be what we’re smelling.”

“Ondine’s right - demons’ brew.”

“You’ve never experienced anything like this before?”

“No I haven’t. Smells aren’t unusual, especially where there’s sea beast activity. One theory is it’s them that smell, another is that their size and rapid movements churn up sediment and bacteria that causes odor when it hits the air. But this level of smell – and the steam – is something I haven’t seen before.”

We’re both quiet for a few minutes, during which time another faint green glow passes parallel to where we’re sitting.

“I mean, I’ve never been here before so I’ve nothing to compare it to apart from Scottish lochs,” Robbo says. “But this has the feel of something about to blow, like a pressure cooker that’s going to blow its own lid off.”

“Oh man.”

“I hope your friend comes to talk to you soon.”

“You mean so we can get out of here before it happens?”

“Aye, that as well. But what I meant was so he can explain what the hell is really going on here, and what we’re supposed to do about it.”