My right foot clutches at its line, and I teeter, trying to keep from falling.
Quickly, I bring my left foot to join the right, levering my arms.
Skeleton loses his grip on the rope. With a wail that rattles my soles, the ocean snatches him away.
I don’t spare another thought for the man’s wretched fate.
But then my right rope begins to slacken, and I feel myself fall.
An outstretched hand grabs me. “Gotcha, miss!” says the man, hauling me onto the overturned boat. “Though I scarcely believe me eyes.”
“Thank you,” I gasp, breathing so hard, the air must be punching holes through my chest.
Seven or eight men have managed to clamber onto the collapsible’s hull, sitting, standing, or crouching as if undecided either way.
The ropes tighten again, and Jamie starts down the tracks.
I balance on the hull, focusing all my attention on my brother. “Come on, Jamie.”
His feet move quicker than mine, bouncing from rope to rope with the confidence of theTitanic’s cellist plucking his strings. The water has risen so much that it almost looks like he’s walking on water.
“He’s doing it, too, just like her. They’re cracked as eggs.”
“Work of the devil. Bet they’re Catholics.”
“You mean Protestants, you fish friar.”
He’s halfway there.Come on, Jamie, just a few paces more.I envision for him a clear and easy brick road that even a toddler could walk.
A loud screech like twisting metal lifts my head. Something shifts behind Jamie, a piece of scenery moving out of place. My horrified eyes take in the first smokestack as it sways off its base. The tethers holding the tower break, whipping and cracking, and setting off a chorus of screams. Then, like a giant tree at the fatal chop of the ax, the smokestack begins to fall toward us.
“Jamie, watch out!” I scream.
42
The smokestack belly flops in a cloud of sparks and soot just to the right of us, sending powerful waves that wash me right off the collapsible. And, oh, that murky has teeth! The cold sets deep into the bones. It chills the blood and makes everything sluggish, even thoughts.
I flail, trying to keep my head above the water. “Jamie!”
Another wave crashes over me, tossing me around like a piece of flotsam.
The waves eventually lose their anger, and I pop up, right next to a white tub. It’s the crow’s nest. Grabbing on to the lip, I hike one leg over, then the other. Water floods the nest to knee level, but at least it’s a port in the storm while I dig through the dark for Jamie.
He surfaces with a loud gasp, forty feet to starboard.
“Jamie!” I cry, trying not to sob. “Jamie!”
The ocean sweeps my voice away. He looks around, disoriented.
One of the cables attached to the foremast drifts loosely around the crow’s nest. But to my relief, unlike the smokestack, the foremast still feels securely planted, even with its cables snapped.
“Jamie!” I wave an arm.
He’s drifting farther away. I lean out as far as I can, but something hard knocks against my ear. The lookout bell.
You ninny goat!Quickly, I grab the clapper and ring it.
Clang-clang! Clang-clang!
