JAMES POTTER AND THE VAULT OF DESTINIES

life and people and the noise of living. Here, there's no distractions from the dream. Here, the dream is just as real as reality. There's nothing I can do to shut it off.'

       James was becoming frightened, both by the storm and by Petra's strange words. 'Let's go down below- decks, Petra,' he said, touching the girl's elbow. 'We can talk about it more down there. You can tell me what really happened on the night you took Izzy out to the lake. All right?'

       Petra looked at him again, her eyes bright, searching. She sighed deeply. 'Izzy lived. That's what happened. That's what I remember, at least. And it has to be true, doesn't it? Like you said, Izzy is here with us, alive and well. She lived. My mother fell back into the water when I brought Izzy back up out of the lake, carried in the sunken gazebo. I betrayed the resurrection of my mother to save my sister, and I'm glad I did. It was the right thing to do and I'll never struggle with that horrible, awful bargain again. But I did sacrifice somebody to the lake. Hardly anyone knows it. Damien, and Sabrina, and Ted. They saw what happened. What they don't know, though, is that we did it together, Izzy and me. We sacrificed Phyllis, Izzy's own mother, to the lake. We sent the Wishing Tree after her, made it carry her into the water, Izzy and I together, because Phyllis didn't deserve to live, not after what she had done to Izzy. Not after… Grandfather Warren…'

       James frowned at Petra and shook his head. 'I don't understand!' he called. The storm caught his words and bowled them away into the waves. 'That can't be true, either! Izzy isn't even a witch! She's a Muggle, Petra! She can't do magic.'

       Petra shook her head slowly, distractedly. 'She isn't a Muggle. She's a Muddle. She's caught right in the middle. Just like me.'

       James took Petra by the arm now, tugging her toward the stairs. 'Tell me down below-decks, okay? You're going to be fine. Everything's going to be fine. Just come on with me, all right?'

       Petra was still shaking her head. 'Everything isn't going to be fine,' she said, her voice rising in pitch, wavering. James was dismayed to realize the she was afraid, nearly to the point of tears. 'Everything isn't going to be fine at all. Don't you see? I didn't change the bargain. I just changed the conditions. I didn't sacrifice Lily, or Izzy. I sacrificed Phyllis, with Izzy's help. Because of that, I didn't get my mother back. But I got something. I sense it. Something… someone… came up out of the lake. I thought I could escape her, but I can't. The dream is coming from her, like slow poison. I caused her to be, and now… and now…'

       'Petra!' James said, shaking her and making her look at him. 'We have to get below now! The storm! We can talk about this later, all right? I don't understand what you are saying, but it doesn't matter right now. You have to come down and be with Izzy! She needs you!'

       That seemed to get Petra's attention. She blinked at him, as if coming out of a mild trance. She nodded. 'You're right, James. Of course. I'm sorry. Let's go.'

       James nodded with relief. Taking Petra's hand, he turned and began to lead her back toward the mid-ship stairs.

A crack of thunder cleaved the sky overhead and a bolt of blinding lightning struck the aft mast, splitting it in two. Lashing burst loose with a series of high twangs and the mast began to topple, groaning and swinging sideways. James watched with horror, ducking and pulling Petra with him, but there was nothing he could do. The mast spun unpredictably, still trapped in the rigging, and fell to the deck with a shuddering crash. One of the mast's arms swept over James' head, brushing his hair. A split second later, Petra's hand was wrenched from his.

       'Petra!' he shouted, scrambling backwards, his eyes wild. The angle of the mast arm had scooped Petra clean off the deck. James' heart leapt into his throat and he threw himself toward the stern railing, his feet slipping on the wet deck. The mast had crushed part of the railing as it fell on it. Now, half of the broken mast jutted out over the waves, caught in a web of torn sail and rigging. Petra clung to the outside of the railing, tangled in the mast's rigging. Slowly, the weight of the mast pulled her away from the railing and she began to lose her grip.

       James leapt forward and grabbed Petra's arm just as she slipped loose. She clutched his wrist as she fell away, yanking him forward so that he nearly went over the edge himself. He struggled to hold onto the railing with one hand while Petra dangled from the other.

       'Petra!' he cried down to her. 'I can't hold on much longer! Climb up!'

       'I'm caught!' she called back, and James saw it. The rigging was still tangled around her ankle, binding her to the broken mast. Behind James, horribly, a huge splintering crackle sounded. The mast dipped precipitously as it broke further away from the ship. Ropes twanged as they snapped, and the tip of the mast speared the waves, bowing under their weight.

       'Use your wand!' James hollered down, his voice thin in the pounding wind. 'Break the ropes with your wand!'

       Petra hung from one wet hand, slipping slowly as the mast dragged her toward the mountainous waves. 'I don't have a wand,' she said, almost to herself. She looked down, examining the stormy ocean below, and then, suddenly, she gasped. 'My brooch!' she cried out. She patted at her cape frantically with her free hand, searching. 'My father's brooch! Where did it go? Oh no!'

       'Petra!' James yelled, raising his voice as loudly as he could. 'You have to use your powers! The ones you used in the dream story! Break the ropes with your mind! Do it now! Quickly!'

       Petra didn't seem to hear him. The ship rolled horribly as the waves towered over it, crashing now over the decks. The sky loomed and swayed overhead. It had begun to rain.

       'Let me go, James,' Petra said, raising her eyes to him. They were calm and dark in the stormlight.

       'What!?' James called back, redoubling his grip on her wrist. She was slipping away, and James realized that she was loosening her grasp on him.

       She shook her head faintly. Her pale face looked earnestly up at him. 'Let me go. This is how it is supposed to end. This will fix everything, balance it all back out again. This will send the dreams back into the water, where they belong. Let me go join my father's brooch. It's the only way. Let me go.'

'I can't do that!' James cried, struggling desperately to maintain his grip on Petra's wrist. 'I have to save you! I can't just let you go! I can't!'

       'You can,' Petra said. It was a request. 'James, if you care about me, you can. You can let go.'

       'No!' James screamed, but it was going to happen whether he wanted it to or not. The rigging tangled around Petra's ankle was pulling her down, towed by the broken mast as it sank into the waves. An ominous creak sounded behind James as the mast began to tear away, taking part of the deck with it. There was no fighting the force of the storm. It wanted Petra, and it meant to have her.

       Petra's fingers began to uncurl from James' wrist.

       'NO!' James cried again, leaning forward, fighting to hold her, panic ripping through him. 'Petra! No!'

       She let go, and his fingers slipped, collapsed onto nothing as she dropped away, still looking up at him, her face calm in the raging darkness.

       'UGH!' James cried out involuntarily as something deep inside him tugged, horribly and suddenly, nearly yanking him over the railing once more. His eyes clamped shut at the pain of it, even as he braced himself against the railing. Something was pulling him from the inside, as if a cord ran straight through him and ended in his gut, anchored there by some powerful, unshakable force. It hurt. 'Ugh!' he cried out again, and finally opened his eyes.

       Petra was still dangling below him, but much further down now, so that waves roared up over her legs and