The Wild Beneath

Set along the Pacific Northwest coast of British Columbia, the novel opens with a catastrophic magnitude 9.0 earthquake along the Cascadia Subduction Zone, a fault line beneath the ocean floor. The resulting tsunami devastates coastal towns, destroying infrastructure and claiming countless lives.

Four days later, twenty-year-old Annie MacLeod digs for clams on a debris-strewn beach near Hale's Landing, a remote coastal town. She wears earplugs to block the waves, unable to face the ocean that likely killed her parents, Dr. Aiden MacLeod and Mara, who were aboard their sailboat Amphitrite when the wave struck. Annie lives with her grandmother Ruth, a nurse, in a cabin above the town. On the beach, she discovers a naked, unconscious young man with translucent skin, gray eyes, and an abnormally slow pulse. A mysterious rhythmic humming, audible only to Annie, emanates from the ground around him. She drags him to Ruth's cabin.

In flashback, Aiden, a doctor who abandoned medicine for the sea, and Mara, his mysterious, reclusive partner, lived aboard Amphitrite. Mara insisted on giving birth in the ocean, and by age three Annie was an extraordinary swimmer with a powerful connection to marine life.

Ruth examines the boy and notes anomalous vitals: a dangerously slow heartbeat and bluish blood. His calming presence allows Annie to sleep for the first time since the disaster. When he wakes, he swims in the frigid sea and returns without shivering. He barely speaks, and Annie names him Walker after the first word he says. His presence quiets the painful noise sensitivity that has plagued her.

Flashbacks reveal Annie's childhood. At six, she attended school for the first time and was overwhelmed by sensory overload. Evan Hale, a classmate, defended her when a bully called her a freak. The following summer, Evan, seven and grieving his mother Celeste's death from cancer, spent the summer aboard Amphitrite. His father, Isaac Hale, owns Hale Timber and is the most powerful figure in town. Annie and Evan became inseparable. When Annie was eight, a humpback whale died on the beach. Mara tried desperately to push it back into the sea, but locals arrived to butcher it. The whale's stomach was full of human garbage. Aiden carved three whalebone beads into a necklace for Annie. Mara stopped singing entirely, and something fundamental inside her went silent. The family began annual migrations to Baja, returning each summer, and Annie and Evan's bond deepened through adolescence. Ruth was diagnosed with chronic leukemia when Annie was eleven.

In the present, Walker works as a deckhand for Ruth's brother Henry, a commercial fisherman, on the sailboat Galene. When Walker is away, Annie's noise sensitivity returns; when he comes home, everything quiets. He tells Annie the humming sound is not his. When he holds her hand, she sees brief visions of the seafloor. Ruth reveals the truth about Mara: Annie had been told Mara came from an estranged family in the Aleutians, but Aiden actually found her unconscious on a beach. Mara was hospitalized and spoke of water gods and sea creatures.

In flashback, the summer Annie and Evan were eighteen, they became lovers. The following summer, the morning after a party where Annie was given wine laced with mushrooms, the sea receded dramatically. Ruth recognized the warning signs and dragged them up the mountain. They watched the tsunami consume Hale's Landing. Forty nautical miles out, the wave capsized Amphitrite, throwing Aiden and Mara into the sea. In the aftermath, Evan chooses to stay with Isaac rather than with Annie, devastating her.

Walker shows Annie a damaged sailboat called Polaris in the shipyard warehouse, and they begin repairing it together. Their attraction intensifies, but Annie is conflicted between Walker and Evan. When Evan returns from towing log booms and declares his love, she acknowledges loving him but pushes him away. That night, she and Walker make love aboard Polaris, and Annie experiences transcendent visions of underwater worlds.

Ruth's health deteriorates, and she travels with Evan for a blood transfusion. Evan asks Walker to deckhand on his next towing run. During the voyage, a storm strikes. Evan is thrown overboard; Walker dives in and saves him but is crushed against the cliffs when the tug scrapes the rock wall. He sinks to the ocean floor, where the sea's melody pulls him into a transformation, implying he reverts to a nonhuman form. Annie finds Amphitrite's broken helm washed ashore, confirming her parents are dead. Evan returns battered, reporting Walker is gone. He gives Annie her whalebone necklace, which Walker placed in Evan's backpack before going overboard.

Annie boards the evacuation ferry to Vancouver with Evan on October 1. She has a mental health crisis but slowly rebuilds, swimming at a public pool, suppressing memories of Walker, and entering an accelerated medical program after scoring in the 97th percentile on entrance exams. Ruth dies in the hospital. Annie and Evan reconnect, move in together, and build a life in the city. Annie becomes an emergency room doctor.

Six years later, during a coast guard rescue near Port Alice, Annie hears Walker's sound for the first time in years. It returns intermittently, growing stronger near water. She is diagnosed with iron-deficiency anemia and bradycardia, an abnormally slow heart rate. She begins swimming in the ocean again, and her health improves. Meanwhile, Evan learns that Isaac has died and secretly inherits Hale Timber. Annie tells Evan she believes Walker is alive because she can hear his sound. Evan reveals the full truth of Walker's sacrifice and his own guilt. He also reveals the inheritance. Annie tells him she must return north to understand what is happening inside her. In an agonizing farewell, they tell each other "I love you," and Annie boards a barge heading north.

In Hale's Landing, Annie finds Polaris gone from the warehouse. The objects she collected after the tsunami, including a sand dollar, are arranged in a circle on the workbench. Henry tells her Walker returned, repaired Polaris, and sailed out days ago. Annie sets out on Galene to follow. She falls overboard and floats for hours, hypothermic. A humpback whale surfaces beneath her, and Mara's voice reaches her through the water.

Annie wakes aboard Polaris. Walker tells her the sound she hears belongs to the sea. He explains that he and Mara are beings of the ocean who took human form but cannot remain on land indefinitely. Walker takes Annie diving with a whale, and underwater, Mara's voice guides her through a cascade of memories, including a vision of Mara's transformation during the tsunami, reverting to what she once was. When Annie surfaces, Walker is gone, returned to the sea, leaving Polaris for her.

Eight months later, Evan lives in Ruth's cabin, running a transformed Hale Timber. He has ended all clear-cutting, shifting to selective harvesting. Annie sails Polaris alone, navigating by the sea's sound. She follows an instinct into Jenny Inlet near Hale's Landing. Evan speeds out and finds Annie's whalebone necklace on the table, her belongings neatly arranged. Annie surfaces from the water, radiant and transformed. A humpback whale breaches beside the boat. Evan hears a faint melody through the water. Annie reaches for his hand, and together, they listen.