“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. Ariel rode up the face of the wave, higher and higher, until it slammed down and struck the surface of the water with a boom that shuddered hard up to the deck. It knocked Eureka away from the twins, against the mast.
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.