reeds in the distance.
“Still mad at me?” he asked.
She didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t want to talk about anything that might scratch her brittle surface and expose every secret she held inside.
“Is that Marsh Island?” She knew it was. The barrier island kept the heavier waves from breaking in the bay. “We should stay to the north of it. Right?”
Brooks patted the broad wooden wheel. “You don’t think
Eureka breathed in a gust of briny air, certain she could see whitecaps beyond the island. “It’s rough out there. It might be too much for the twins.”
“We want to go out
“I do this all the time.” Brooks moved the wheel slightly east so they’d be able to slide around the edge of the approaching island.
“We didn’t go out that far in May.” It was the last time they’d sailed together. She remembered because she’d counted the four circles they’d made around the bay.
“Sure we did.” Brooks stared past her at the water. “You’ve got to admit your memory has become disorganized since—”
“Don’t do that,” Eureka snapped. She looked back in the direction they’d come. Gray clouds had joined the softer pink clouds near the horizon. She watched the sun slip behind one, its rays frisking the cloud’s dark coat. She wanted to turn back. “I don’t want to go out there, Brooks. This shouldn’t be a fight.”
The boat swayed and they stepped on each other’s feet. She closed her eyes and let the rocking slow her breathing.
“Let’s take it easy,” he said. “This is an important day.”
Her eyes flashed open. “Why?”
“Because I can’t have you mad at me. I messed up. I let your sadness scare me and I lashed out when I should have supported you. It doesn’t change how I feel. I’m here for you. Even if more bad things happen, even if you get sadder.”
Eureka shrugged his hands away. “Rhoda doesn’t know I brought the twins. If anything happens …”
She heard Rhoda’s voice:
Brooks rubbed his jaw, clearly annoyed. He cranked one of the levers on the mainsail. He was going past Marsh Island. “Don’t be paranoid,” he said harshly. “Life is one long surprise.”
“Some surprises can be avoided.”
“Everybody’s mother dies, Eureka.”
“That’s very supportive, thank you.”
“Look, maybe you’re special. Maybe nothing bad will ever happen to you or anyone you love again,” he said, which made Eureka laugh bitterly. “All I meant was I’m sorry. I broke your trust last week. I’m here to earn it back.”
He was waiting for her forgiveness, but she turned and gazed at the waves, which were the color of another pair of eyes. She thought about Ander asking her to trust him. She still didn’t know if she did. Could a dry thunderstone open a portal to trust as quickly as Brooks had closed one? Did it even matter? She hadn’t seen or heard from Ander since that rainy night’s experiment. She didn’t even know how to look for him.
“Eureka, please,” Brooks whispered. “Say you trust me.”
“You’re my oldest friend.” Her voice was rough. She didn’t look at him. “I trust that we’ll get over this.”
“Good.” She heard a smile in his voice.
The sky dimmed. The sun had gone behind a cloud shaped strangely like an eye. A beam of light shot through its center, illuminating a circle of sea in front of the boat. Somber clouds rolled toward them like smoke.
They had sailed past Marsh Island. The waves were rolling in quick succession. One rocked the boat so violently that Eureka stumbled. The kids rolled around on the deck, shrieking with laughter, not scared at all.
Glancing at the sky, Brooks helped Eureka up. “You were right. I guess we should turn back.”
She hadn’t expected that, but she agreed.
“Take the wheel?” He crossed the deck to tack the sails to turn the boat around. The blue sky had succumbed to advancing dark clouds. The wind grew fierce and the temperature dropped.
When Brooks returned to the wheel, Eureka covered the twins with beach towels. “Let’s go down to the galley.”
“We want to stay up here and watch the big waves,” Claire said.
“Eureka, I need you to hold the wheel again.” Brooks handled the sails, trying to get the bow of the boat to face the waves head on, which would be safer, but the swells slammed the starboard side.
Eureka made William and Claire stand next to her so she could keep an arm around them. They’d stopped laughing. The waves had grown too rough.
A powerful surge crested before the boat as if it had been rising from the bottom of the sea for eternity.
She’d hit her head, but she struggled to her feet. She shielded her face from the bursts of white water flung across the deck. She was five feet from the kids, but she could barely move for the ship’s rocking. Suddenly the boat turned against the force of another wave, which crested over the deck and swamped it with water.
Eureka heard a scream. Her body froze as she saw William and Claire swept up in the flow of water and carried toward the stern. Eureka couldn’t reach them. Everything was rocking too hard.
The wind shifted. A gust slam-jibed the boat, causing the mainsail to violently switch sides. The boom slid starboard with a creak. Eureka watched it swing toward where the twins were struggling to stand on a bench in the cockpit, away from the swirling water.
“Look out!” Eureka screamed too late. The side of the boom hit Claire and William in their chests. In one horrifically simple motion, it flung their bodies overboard, as if they were weightless as feathers.
She threw herself against the rail of the ship and searched for the twins among the waves. It only took a second, but it felt like an eternity: orange lifejackets bobbed to the surface and tiny arms flailed in the air.
“William! Claire!” she shouted, but before she could jump in, Brooks’s arm shot across her chest to hold her back. He held one of the life preservers in his other hand, its rope looped over his wrist.
“Stay here!” he shouted.
He dove into the water. He tossed the life ring toward the twins as his strong strokes brought him to them. Brooks would save them. Of course he would.
Another wave crested over their heads—and Eureka didn’t see them anymore. She shouted. She ran up and down the deck. She waited three, maybe four seconds, certain they’d reappear at any moment. The sea was black and churning. There was no sign of the twins or Brooks.
She struggled onto the bench and dove into the roiling sea, saying the shortest prayer she knew as her body tumbled down.
In midair she remembered: she should have dropped the anchor before she left the boat.
As her body broke the surface, Eureka braced for the shock—but she didn’t feel anything. Not wet, not cold, not even that she was underwater. She opened her eyes. She was holding on to her necklace, the locket and the thunderstone.
Just as it had done in the bayou behind her house, the mysterious stone had cast some sort of impenetrable water-resistant balloon—this time around Eureka’s entire body. She tested its boundaries. They were pliant. She could stretch without feeling cramped. It was like a kind of wetsuit, shielding her from the elements. It was a bubble-shaped thunderstone shield.
Free from gravity, she levitated inside the shield. She could breathe. She could move by making normal swimming strokes. She could see the sea around her as well as if she were wearing a scuba mask.
Under any other circumstances, Eureka would not have believed this was happening. But she didn’t have
