Page 164 of The Island

The Toyota was still in pursuit.

They were two-thirds of the way across.

“Shark!” Olivia said, sitting up.

Heather opened up the penknife and held it in her mouth. She pitied the goddamn shark that was going to mess with her now.

Come on. Come on.

Water.

Land.

Water.

Come on. We’re flying! Under the crow’s wing. Under the sickle moon. We’re swimming. With the fishes and the—

No…we’re driving. The wheels were turning; they had hit sand.

“Do you feel that, kids?”

She drove through surf.

Something solid under all four tires. They were on the beach. The mainland!

She looked in the rearview.

The Toyota was just behind them, coming close for a last-ditch ram—

Nope.

The Toyota lost its grip, hit a wave, and flipped.

Heather turned on her iPhone. She had no idea that in Seattle, Carolyn had called Jenny, the conference rep, and the Victoria police had been looking for them where the Porsche’s GPS had last pinged. If she could get a signal on the phone, they would be rescued in minutes.

The phone came on.

The battery was at 3 percent.

She drove up the dunes onto a deserted beach road and discovered she had a full bar of bandwidth signal. There was a text from Carolyn about Star Trek: Voyager.

“Is the phone working?” Olivia asked.

“Yes!” she said and dialed 000.

50

It was a dream. It could not possibly have happened.

Tom had dreamed them to the far side of the world.

And she had dreamed them home again.

It was dark out. The kids were sleeping.

She put the hot chocolate mug back on the coffee table next to a Dunkin’ Donuts box, a Seattle Times, a meteor-iron penknife, and a long letter from Carolyn with song lyrics inside.

She got up and peeked through the curtains. No TV van there today. Yesterday KIRO 7 and before that CBS.

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