I shot a glance back at the waves we’d come through. While we’d been powering through them, they’d appeared so monstrous. Deadly. Like Waimea. Like when they’d pummeled me down into the deep and snatched my baby right out of my hands.
Martin looked over his shoulder.
“El, you doing okay?”
“You did this to me on purpose, you idiot!” I screamed at him. “You knew this would happen.”
“What?”
“Are you trying to terrify me?” I yelled over the engine. “You’re mad, you know that! Totally mad. This is how your brother almost died!” Adrenaline fueled my anger, and it rode up into white-hot rage as I suddenly thought about Rabz, and what I’d realized back at the boat launch. “Do you have some fixation with your brother, with your father? Are you trying to repeat the accident? Just like you’re trying to develop Agnes to prove something to them?” Fury burned tears into my eyes. My knuckles were white as I clutched the sides of the boat. “What in the hell are you trying to do to me, Martin? You know I am afraid of powerful water. Is this who I married? Are you trying to kill me?”
He blinked in shock. He freed one hand from the controls and reached for me. “Ellie—”
“Don’t! Do not touch me.” I cringed backward in the boat.
“Just—” The radio crackled and he swore. We were nearing the orange cliffs. He glanced up at the massive rocks. Waves smashed and surged at the foot of the sheer walls. “I need to log in with marine rescue before we go into the lee of the cliffs. They block radio signal to marine rescue.”
He reached for the radio mouthpiece, keyed it.
“Calling Jarra Bay Marine Rescue, calling Jarra Bay Marine Rescue. Jarra Bay Marine Rescue. This is vessel AIS387 November, AIS387 November, this is AIS387 November. Do you copy?” He waited. Cliffs loomed closer. Waves heaved and sucked at the base. Skeins of foam ribbed the surface of the swells. We seemed to be getting pulled closer. He repeated his call, then said, “Come in, please, over.”
The radio crackled to life as a distant voice arrived in our boat.
“This is Jarra Bay Marine Rescue. Copy, AIS387 November. Can you go to channel sixteen?”
Martin switched channels. I watched his movements like a hawk. If something happened to Martin out here, I wanted to know how to call for help.
He keyed the radio. “This is AIS387 November. We’re heading out from Bonny Bay to fish the FAD. But if I hear that the fish are going off at the shelf, I’ll call in again before we head over that way. Over.”
I swallowed and looked out over the Tasman Sea. Clouds were gathering along the horizon to the east.
“Copy, AIS387 November. Estimated time of return?”
“About four p.m.”
“Righteo, sixteen hundred. How many on board?”
“Two adults on board.”
The boat lolled and was sucked on a massive backwash swell from the cliff. Water slapped at the hull. Martin steered our prow to face the direction of the swells so they wouldn’t hit us broadside. We entered the shadow cast by the cliff. The voice on the radio started breaking up.
Martin signed off. He eyed me. My heart pounded. I waited for him to say he was not trying to kill me, or terrify me to death. He didn’t. I didn’t provoke him further, either, because it struck me how alone we were out here. Nothing but sea in all directions. I was at his mercy. No one would know if I fell overboard or was pushed. I swallowed and looked away.
“Hold on,” he said.
Before I could register, he suddenly increased engine power, angling our prow into the incessant swells. Wind increased as we continued to gather speed. I held my ball cap down on my head. He engaged full steam ahead, and the bow rose and bashed forward against the swells, again and again and again, like they were made of concrete. The regular beat of the impacts jolted through my bones, through my jaw. Through my brain. I clenched my teeth and tried to brace my body in ways that would lessen the force as we thump, thump, thump, thumped for miles straight out into the ocean, each smack rattling my kidneys. Wind drew tears from my eyes.
I looked back. Jarrawarra Bay, the headlands, the orange cliffs, were all vanishing away into a pale blue haze over the landmass that was Australia. He saw me looking.
“See those hills north of Jarrawarra?” he yelled and pointed. “That’s the mouth of the Agnes River up there. Boaters can go all the way up the inlet to the sales office from here.”
Land vanished completely into the hazy mist. Then there was nothing but heaving swells ribbed with foam as the sea went from gray green to a deep cobalt.
A few terns wheeled up high, and an albatross began following our boat.
The boat lurched. I opened my eyes a crack. My lids were swollen. My lips thick with salt. I was on the bottom, lying on my side. Bottles—wine cooler empties—rolled around me.
I heard a yell again.
“Ellie!”
I blinked and tried to get up. I fell as the boat rocked. I was drunk. I was going to throw up. The bow was rising and falling dramatically on the passing sea.
“Ellie! Help me, for God’s sake!”
I turned my head, saw Martin. Shock slammed through me. He had his rod base rammed into the leather holder belted around his waist. The top of the rod was bent almost double as he fought a massive fish. The line screamed as the fish took line and dived in an effort to flee. I watched in a confused daze, trying
