Sometimes my waking thoughts are worse than my nightmares. I can’t breathe through the pain when I think like this.
By the time I wake on the ninth day, we haven’t seen a soul in at least a week, and it seems that Rian really is going to give me the space he promised. That’s good, because I don’t know how I’m ever going to face him again. At the same time, I know I’m eventually going to need him to get us back to Kandala.
I don’t want to see him. I’m not ready.
But Erik must be done with living like a ghost, because he finds me trailing my fingers in the cool sand at sunrise, and when I look up, I see he’s got fishing nets over one broad shoulder.
“Come on.” His voice is rough and quiet from disuse, because we don’t say much to each other. He’s just as trapped by grief and loss and uncertainty as I am. “Let’s see how much life the rowboats have in them.”
I peer up at him in the sunlight. “I don’t think you should be rowing yet.”
“Well.” He squints out at the pier. “Maybe I’ll just see what kindof shape they’re in then.” He gives me a nod, hoists the nets higher on his shoulder, then strides off.
Something in his voice tells me he’s going out on a rowboat whether I like it or not. I imagine him getting fatigued out in the middle of the ocean while the oars slip into the water. Then I’d really be alone.
I shove myself to my bare feet, brushing sand off my trousers. “At least let me take a look at your wound first.”
He looks at me over his shoulder. “It looks better this morning. Hardly aches at all.”
“Hmm.” I don’t believe that for aminute.
“I need to move, Miss Tessa.”
That makes me frown.
He looks back again. His brown eyes skip over my face and down my form. “You need to move, too.”
I don’t know how to say that I don’t want to leave the sand in case Corrick comes looking for me. It feels pathetic to eventhinkit. Corrick is never coming back.
I swallow the lump in my throat and follow him out onto the dock.
Both rowboats are covered with broadcloth tarps, though one is worn and threadbare. The second is larger, and the tarp is sun-bleached, the ropes tethering it to the dock looking like they might fall apart if we dare to touch them. Erik wordlessly starts untying the threadbare one, so I move to the other.
The knots are dry-rotted, so they don’t untie at all. They literally fall apart in my fingers.
I grimace and look at Erik. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. These have been tethered here forever. It’s a luckything they’re still floating. We’ll have to ask Rian for more broadcloth.”
“Youcan ask him.”
He nods. “I will.” Then he jerks back the threadbare tarp, and enough dust flies up that we both cough.
Erik winces and grabs his side after he does.
He sees me looking and drops his hand, but there’s still a pained look in his expression.Hardly aches at all, my foot.
But he looks between the boats and says, “This one looks solid. Just old. But no oars. How’s yours?”
That spurs me into motion, and I jerk the sun-bleached tarp free. Less dust, but a dozen spiders scatter in the sudden sunlight, and I shriek and drop the tarp in the water, scrambling back on the dock.
Erik smiles, but just a little—then he stares down into the boat and does a double take. “Oh! A sailboat. Look. Yours has a mast.”
I look, and he’s right. There are four small benches across the boat, but in the very center is a hole set into a plank at the bottom, and laid along the benches sits a beam that must be designed to set upright as a mast, plus a shorter one that must serve as a boom.
“No sail, though,” I say.
“I’ll check in the shed where I found the nets, but if there isn’t one, I’ll ask Rian for one of those, too,” he says.
