It came from the east, and was sudden and directional, not the erratic surge of a normal sea breeze but the kind of wind that had intention behind it. The canopy above them responded immediately, the moss swinging, and the thinner branches snapping upright, then whipping sideways. Several of the teenagers got startled, but Willa was already moving.
“Stay close,” she said, her voice calm but carrying authority that wasn’t to be questioned. “Let’s walk in a single file, back toward camp, and move as fast as we can.”
Nobody argued. She had built enough of a foundation over the afternoon that the wordnowin that particular tone registered not as alarm but as instruction, and there was a difference, and the difference mattered enormously in the next few minutes.
The wind came again, harder, and this time it didn’t let up. It stayed, pressing through the tree line with a low, steady intensity that made the air feel different against the skin. The temperature had also dropped. Not dramatically, but just enough that Willa could feel it on her forearms and at the back of her neck.
Ace was already moving the last two teenagers into the line before Willa needed to say anything to him.
They came out of the tree line into the camp clearing, and the full force of the change hit her at once. The sky to the east had gone the color of a bruise. The cloud that had been sitting low and heavy over the water had moved with a speed she hadn’t expected, and the light had thinned to something flat and strange that made the colors of everything around them lookwrong. The tarpaulin they had rigged between the trees was snapping and straining. One of the tent pegs had already pulled loose, and the corner of the fabric was billowing.
The sound of the water was no longer what Willa would call subtle, as it had started to roar.
“Quick,” Willa said. “Take your emergency packs only. Leave the tents. Leave the cooking gear and everything else. We need to move to the dock.”
She watched the group respond and felt a hard, clean pride in all of them. Grace had her emergency pack over her shoulder, and Tyler’s in her other hand, before Willa had finished speaking. Tyler took it from her without breaking stride and slung it on. Andy had already grabbed Katey’s and his own. The others moved with the focused, slightly wide-eyed efficiency of people who had been told something frightening and had decided that listening carefully was the best response.
They moved in the direction Willa had led them.
The wind made it harder going than Willa wanted. It came in bursts now, each one stronger than the last, driving fine sand against any exposed skin and flattening the sea grass in long, shuddering sweeps. A branch came down from the cluster of oaks near the trail’s edge, not close, but close enough that two of the teenagers flinched hard.
“Keep moving,” Ace said from behind them. “Keep your eyes forward.”
Willa reached the dock first and stopped.
The water had risen. Not catastrophically, not yet, but noticeably, visibly. The kind of rise that in ordinarycircumstances would be an interesting observation and in these circumstances was simply additional information she needed to factor immediately. The dock shifted under the surge, a slow, rolling movement that was not the solid stillness she had tested when they’d tied off. The speedboat was still secured, but the rope on the seaward side was taut, indicating significant strain, and even as she watched, the boat swung on its line as a wave hit the dock’s outer edge.
The dinghy was pulling hard at its secondary tie.
“Can we go?” Grace was beside her, reading the water the way her daughter had always read things, with attention and without panic.
“Not in this,” Willa said. She kept her voice level. “The water’s too rough to cross with this group. We’d be fighting the current the whole way, and the visibility is dropping.”
“Mom…” Grace’s eyes widened. “What are we going to do?”
“Sweetheart, I need you to get back off the dock,” Willa told her daughter.
Grace backed up. “You need to get off it, too, Mom.”
Willa gave her daughter an encouraging smile and turned to Ace.
“Get them back,” Willa called to him. “We can’t take the boat in this.” She glanced at the sea. “You need to take the teens and head back to the old camp, grab what we can, sleeping bags, and some supplies, then head up toward the cave. You know where it is. The one you and Shaun always took the kids to.”
“Okay.” Ace’s voice was quiet and direct. “But what are you going to do?”
“I have one of the emergency phones,” Willa explained. “I need to call this in and let the emergency service know where we are heading.”
Ace looked at the dock. Then at the water. Then at her.
“You take the teens, and I’ll call it,” he offered.
“Grace has the other phone, and the best signal is right here where I am.” Willa held his eyes. “I don’t think the dock will hold your weight right now. So, go. I’ll follow the moment I get through and log a call.”
Ace stared at her for a few moments and looked like he was about to argue.
“Ace, you’re wasting valuable time. Go,” Willa demanded, taking out the phone and putting through the call.
“Watch your footing,” Ace said. “The dock’s moving a lot.”
