We’ve always feared I’d be harmed out here. By my own body or the sea. I never considered Elle was the one to worry about.
She’s breathing, rough but deep. Good. Her eyes have opened, but she seems unaware of the surroundings. Her face is pale, blue spider veins spread under each eye. Her lips are cracked, and her teeth chatter. I read of putting leather in the mouth of someone convulsing, but there’s nothing within arm’s reach.
“Elle,” I say over and over, voice trembling. She wouldn’t be this weak if it were me shaking. She’d be decisive, a knife of a woman.
I pretend I’m that knife. I grip either side of her head, fighting with her to keep it steady.
I yell her name as I lean over her arm and torso to lessen the spasms. Her eyes focus, but not on me. Behind me. I look around the lightroom, searching for what she sees. The huge, lightless mirror still spins uselessly. A few feet behind me, beside the trapdoor, is a small cup of water. I grab the glass, instinct taking over, and throw it in her face.
She snaps her eyes to mine, spluttering and blinking away the water.
“What—Liney? Why are—what did you—”
“Relax.” What would she tell me? “You were convulsing, badly. You might’ve hit your head.”
Elle sits up. She rubs her eyes, then squints out one of the windows. “I had a nightmare.” Her voice is stronger already.
“Your eyes were wide open, but you couldn’t see me. What happened?”
Elle shakes her head and pulls her wool coat tighter. I fight off my own shivering and clench my teeth. She’s still pale, nearly blue-tinged, and her eyes are bloodshot.
“I need a moment.” She closes her eyes, and for once she looks her age. It’s easy to forget she’s not yet twenty-five. How have these watchful nights shaped her?
“Does this happen a lot?” I feign a casual tone and rub my arms to keep warm.
Elle snaps upright like a flame bursting to life. She shrugs out of her coat and hands it to me. “Are you in nightclothes? You’ll freeze! What possessed you to come up here?”
I had a fight with my imaginary friend, and she didn’t want me to see you, and I can’t take one more person, even myself, bossing me around, and I can’t tell what’s real or not anymore.
“The storm,” I say, fitting the part of scared little sister. I put the coaton. Much too big for me, but sweltering from Elle’s body heat. “Has it gotten that bad before?”
Elle shakes her head, then leans it back against the bench. The world is a constant churn of water behind her. Above, below, everywhere between. The pane shudders against a gust.
I kneel over the bench to secure the window tighter.
“You don’t have to do that.”
I ignore her. The latch had come loose. If I hadn’t come upstairs, would I have found Elle under a pile of broken glass and snow tomorrow? I press down on the mechanism to secure it. Then something draws my eye out to the roiling water. A distinct shape bobs, unlike the vague dark-on-dark sea and sleet.
A ship.
Its lights twinkle in and out like stars as it’s tossed by the waves. Nothing else would create a light out there. There’s half a world of water out that window until the European coastline.
I can’t tell how close the ship is. Too close. The harbor is so deep, the waves so engulfing, and the winds so wicked. They won’t make it on their own.
“Elle—Ship. A ship. We need to…”
I turn to her, but she’s no longer lying against the bench. She kneels, feet together and back to me, head lowered in prayer.
Elle isn’t the type to pray. I’ve never seen her pray save for Mass. Even then I’d hear her reciting songs or poems under her breath instead of appeals to God.
“Elle!” I turn back to the window. Is the ship closer? It must be. A second light flashes. They’re signaling for guidance.
I can’t hear her answer. I’ve never had to snap her out of reveries before. What has happened? Is she concussed?
“What’s wrong with our light?” I ask, tearing my gaze away from the ship. Looking at it won’t save their souls. Elle will.
She remains kneeling, head bowed.
