Kiss River by Diane Chamberlain Page B

then waved as she walked toward a path leading into the vegetation near the beach.
    “You, too,” Gina said.
    She watched the woman disappear into the trees, then turned and headed back toward Kiss River.
    She walked along the beach, her feet slapping in and out of the shallow waves, feeling alone. When she reached the lighthouse again, she stood in knee-high water, staring out at the sea. She thought of that woman on the beach, walking out of the water. Gina could swim, but she had never before been in the ocean. The Pacific off the coast of Washington was far too cold to swim in. Her eyes searched the water in front of her. What if the lens was just below the surface? Maybe it would not even need to be raised to suit her purpose.
    She’d brought no bathing suit with her, since swimming had certainly not been part of her plan when she drove east from Washington. But she had on shorts and a T-shirt and no one was around to see her make a fool of herself. Slowly, she started walking into the water. It was nearly high tide, probably not the best time for a search, but the sea was rarely this calm. She would do this methodically, she told herself. She’d walk in an arc around the ocean side of the lighthouse, expanding the arc each time she changed direction. The idea suddenly seemed amazingly simple. The lens weighed three tons. Even if it had broken apart when it fell into the sea, the pieces should still be large enough for her to find.
    She walked quickly at first, whisking her hands through the water in all directions, hoping to feel something hard and smooth. Then she had to slow down as the water grew deeper. Occasionally, her feet stumbled over chunks of brick and mortar, but nothing resembling glass. Finally, she was deep enough that she was half swimming, half treading water, trying not to think about sharks and riptides. She’d never experienced either of them, but had certainly heard enough about both hazards. A couple of times, she held her breath and dipped her head below the surface of the water, opening her eyes to look around her, but she couldn’t see more than a couple of feet away from her in any direction and the salt burned her eyes.
    She’d been in the water a long time when she turned to look behind her and was stunned to see how small the lighthouse had become. A little jolt of fear shot through her. She was far out into the sea, but still, it was not that deep here, perhaps only a couple of feet above her head, and she calmed herself with that thought as she swam toward shore, a heavy aching in her chest. She had covered a lot of territory out here. She had touched every speck of the sea bottom with her feet and found nothing. The lens, with its tie to both her past and her future, had simply disappeared.

CHAPTER 10
    Thursday March 19, 1942
    T he most shocking and horrible thing happened to me today. I am not even sure I can write about it because words just can’t tell how awful it was, but I think it might make me feel better if I write it down, so I will try. It’s midnight now and I can’t sleep, anyway. I’m afraid if I go to sleep, I’ll have nightmares.
    I like to climb trees. I always have. Mama scolds me about it, saying that I think I’m so grown-up and all, but I am still just a little kid who climbs trees. Well, I don’t know if I’ll ever outgrow that, or even if I want to. I plan to climb trees with my own children someday. Anyhow, I like sitting up in the trees above the beach just south of Kiss River. There is a wonderful tree there, not very tall, with its branches spread out almost like a platform about ten feet above the ground, and I usually sit up there after school, eating an apple or something and sometimes reading. And to tell the truth, I sometimes sneak out of the house and sit up there at night, because that is the stretch of beach that Jimmy Brown patrols and I like watching him. I would die if he everknew I was there, but the trees are thick and I am sure he