“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.
Hail Mary, full of grace …
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.
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 time to not believe. Her faith would be the twins’ salvation. And so she surrendered to her new, dreamlike reality. She searched the undulating ocean for her siblings and for Brooks.
When she saw the kick of a little leg fifty feet in front of her, she whimpered with relief. She swam harder than she’d ever done anything, propelling her arms and her legs forward in a desperate crawl. As she grew closer, she could see that it was William. He was kicking violently—and his hand was clasping Claire’s.
Eureka strained with the strange effort of swimming inside her shield. She reached out—she was so close—but her hand wouldn’t break the surface of the bubble.
She jabbed at William senselessly, but he couldn’t see her. The twins’ heads kept ducking underwater. A dark shadow behind them might have been Brooks—but the shape never came into focus.
William’s kicks grew weaker. Eureka was screaming with futility when suddenly Claire’s hand swooped down and accidentally penetrated the shield. It didn’t matter how Claire did it. Eureka grabbed her sister hard and pulled her in. The drenched little girl gasped for air when her face broke through. Eureka prayed that William’s hand would stay in Claire’s so she could pull him into the shield, too. His grip seemed to be loosening. From lack of oxygen? For fear of what his sister was being drawn into?
“William, hold on!” Eureka shouted as loudly as she could, not knowing whether he could hear. She only heard the slosh of water against the surface of the shield.
His tiny fist broke through the barrier. Eureka pulled the rest of him in with a single heave, the way she’d once seen a calf being born. The twins gagged and coughed—and levitated with Eureka in the shield.
She swept both of them into a hug. Her chest shuddered and she almost lost control of her emotions. But she couldn’t, not yet.
“Where’s Brooks?” She looked beyond the shield. She didn’t see him.
“Where are we?” Claire asked.
“This is scary,” William said.