Читать книгу Forbidden Area онлайн

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He wanted to protest. He wanted to say that this would be their last chance for a long time. But he saw that she was gone from him, her mind on something else entirely. He rose to his feet and turned his face to the sea.

"Now don't look," she said.

"You'll never get hurt by a look," Henry said. Nevertheless he did not look. It was their ritual.

Soon she said, "Okay, you can look now."

He didn't turn or answer. He was witness to an astonishing sight. Where there had been only water before, there was now a black hump in the sea. It lay less than a mile offshore, solid as a reef.

"What's the matter?" Nina asked.

"We've got a visitor," he said, and pointed.

She stepped beyond him up the slope of their hollow until she could see over the rim. "Where did it come from?" she asked.

"I don't know. All of a sudden it was just there." He felt uneasy. He didn't want to say that it had popped straight up out of the sea, but now that he thought of it, that's what must have happened.

"Maybe it's a whale," she said. "A dead whale."