by Leslie Lutz
Felix’s eyes went wide. “What’s that?”
“It’s why our electronics are dead.”
Felix swallowed and his mouth fell into a frown, the one that precedes a bout of crying. “Dead?”
I gave Felix a side hug. “It’s all a big myth. Like mermaids and Santa Claus.”
“But Mom said Santa Claus is real.”
Oh crap. “Yeah, you’re right. He is.”
“Maybe the triangle is real too then,” he whispered.
Another voice spoke up, a girl with a bubblegum-pink streak in her hair who had been hovering around Teague. “USS Cyclops. Left Barbados in 1918, went into the triangle, and was never. Seen. Again.”
“A history lesson isn’t gonna fix our boat.” I nudged Felix. “Screwdriver, please.”
That snapped him out of it. He dug around the toolbox and handed me a Phillips.
“What about the Mary Celeste?” Teague said, because he obviously couldn’t take a hint. Or a break. “Went into the triangle in 1892. When they found the ship, the entire crew was gone. Disappeared.” Teague made a poof! with his fingers. Felix scooted closer to me. I was about ready to throw Teague overboard.
“Enough with the theories, guys,” I said.
“That’s gotta be aliens,” the girl with the pink streak said.
And the pressure that had been building in me all morning blew. I threw the screwdriver back into Phil’s ratty toolbox. “Is this what you do in your stupid science club? Scare little kids?”
The chatter on the boat died instantly. Teague looked both affronted and pleased. Bubblegum-streak girl just looked confused.
“I’m only passing the time.” He gave me a smug look.
“Pass it somewhere else.”
“I’m not little,” Felix said.
I put my hand on his shoulder. “I didn’t mean it like that—not like little, little, just young.”
My brother got up from his spot beside me, stepped around the tarp to get to the ladder, and disappeared onto the roof deck.
Teague clicked his tongue a few times. “See what you did?”
“What I did? What good is it to come up with impossible theories about aliens and wormholes and electro-magno whatever when—”
“Electro-magno?”
“—when what we need is to stay calm, conserve water, and wait for the Coast Guard without scaring”—I lowered my voice—“little kids half to death.”
Felix’s small head appeared over the railing above. “Shut up, T.”
A titter of a laughter moved through the boat.
My mother’s low tones floated down from the roof deck. “Tasia.”
No follow-up. I was supposed to understand everything Mom wanted me to do from that one word. And I did. Be the good daughter. Keep everyone calm. Stop antagonizing your brother. Don’t lose your cool.
Matt’s voice drifted across the water. “Okay, everybody. Let’s sing it again.”
So I did. I sang along and hoped to God that Matt was right.
By nightfall, most of us stopped talking about how weird it was, everything dying at once like that. Strange how a crowd gets used to a new normal. They keep thinking everything will be okay. But hope, even when it’s based on fantasy, is valuable.
At least that’s what I’d learn later.
By the time the sun dipped low on the horizon, Teague had disappeared to find a better audience, leaving his snobby notebook behind for my brother to steal and doodle in. Serves him right. And Candy, the pink-streak girl, became my new best friend. She spent the next hour beside the engine, handing me tools and french braiding my hair. I started to relax, sure we’d be home by sunrise.
That’s when the guy from the roof deck, the one who’d met my eyes earlier, came down the ladder and introduced himself.
Ben, with the warm eyes and low, honey voice. Ben, looking like a young Lenny Kravitz, his white T-shirt stark against his deep-brown skin. I forgot all about the engine, the warnings, Mr. Marshall. And suddenly I was all thumbs. Navigating reefs and fixing scuba equipment? Check. Talking to cute guys? Not so much. While he and Candy poked around and talked circuits, I alternated between wishing I were up on the roof deck with Felix and imagining what Ben and I would look like in our prom picture.
After all his electrical talk with Candy dried up, he asked me a lot of questions about the engine and why our captain was off drinking himself stupid. All I could manage was a string of one-word answers.
Finally, Ben sighed and tossed the needle-nose pliers onto a bench. “You know what I’m going to do when I get to shore?”
“Leave us a really bad Yelp review?”
“After that.”
For one foolish second, I hoped his next words had something to do with the two of us going to a concert. Or sharing a picnic on the beach. But that couldn’t be it. “I’m guessing you’re going to learn how to actually repair a boat engine,” I said.
“You got it.” He leaned back against the bench and closed his eyes.
I knew it was super awkward before I opened my mouth, but somehow the words tumbled out anyway. “After we get to shore, maybe we could . . . I don’t know . . . Maybe Blue Dolphin Charters can take you snorkeling at one of the reefs. And your family, of course. You know. Gratis. For free. On the house.”
Ben must have heard something in my voice, because when he opened his eyes, some of the frustration had melted away. “You want to take me snorkeling?”
I mumbled through an incoherent response—something about how it wasn’t me taking him, but the charter, although I would be there. Thank God Captain Phil wandered over, stinking of alcohol. For once in my life, I was happy to see him.
He handed Candy a bottle of water. “Share.”
“You think they’ll send a plane for us at night?” she asked him.
“Nope,” Phil said.
“In the morning then?”
“Could be.” And he disappeared.
Candy watched him go. “Your captain talks like words cost money.”
The sun had sunk too low to do much but cast shadows, so Candy fished a Bic lighter out of her pack of cigarettes and held it above the engine while she and Ben gave it one more try. I sat nearby, on a beach towel, and wondered what I would have been like if I hadn’t been homeschooled.
I glanced up at the roof deck to check on Felix. Mom had stationed herself at the railing, like one of those sea captains from a hundred years ago watching for ships or storms. You only see her for thirty minutes a week through bulletproof glass, but she’s still got the muscle tone that comes from lifting tanks and equipment every day. Makes her look young and athletic and nowhere near fifty. She held an unused flare in one hand, her gaze set landward. Her arm was slung around Felix, who’d forgotten he wasn’t “little” and was leaning into her. One hand gripped the edge of her rash guard as if afraid she’d disappear if he let go.
Praying for boat lights, both of them.
The faint glow of the Bic disappeared. “Ugh,” Candy said. “My fingers hurt. That’s it. I’m done.” She pulled out a cigarette and lit it. “Do you mind?”
I shook my head and closed the engine hatch.
Candy lay on her back by the engine hatch and smoked, and Ben and I sat across from each other on the benches. We kept the silence for a while, listening to the waves and the murmur of conversation drifting over from the Ruby Pelican. It held at least two-thirds of the crew and passengers now. Turns out nothing clears a boat like a dead body.
“The Coast Guard will find us in the morning,” Ben said suddenly, but I got the feeling he was saying it more to reassure himself than me. “I mean, we’re only ten miles off shore. It’s not like we’re in the middle of nowhere.”
“Oh, yeah. Of course.”
“And we’re smart people.” He tapped the hard edge of the bench frenetically. “Put our brain power together, we can find a way home.”
“Sure,” Candy said, leaning against the far side of the boat, taking a deep drag
. “I am soooo glad I didn’t use up my lighter.”
“This ever happen before?” Ben asked.
“Not to me,” I said.
Candy flicked ash into the waves. “I mean, it would suck to be trapped out here with a pack of cigs and no fire.”
We watched the sun slip below the waterline, its orange glow lighting up the horizon in usual, spectacular Florida Keys fashion. Ben had become nothing but a white T-shirt now, his dark skin and hair blending into the shadows.
Even though I see a Keys sunset every day, it still knocks the breath out of me, and in a wonderful way. And any other night, watching this would’ve had my heart racing with excitement, because sunset on the water means the same thing to me that it does to you.
“Night dive,” I said, mostly because the silence was getting to me. “It’s what I’d be doing on a normal night. Watch the sun set. Help Mom play tour guide.”
Candy threw the last of her cigarette over the side. “Isn’t that scary? Diving in the dark?”
“Nah, the night shift is the best,” I said, the scuba talk taking the edge off my shyness.
“Why?” Ben asked.
“You know, the day shift’s clocked out—the snapper and yellow tail, the barracuda that hang above the reef,” I said. “In come the lobsters and the other night creatures. A completely different dive. So awesome.”
“Sharks, eels, and more sharks,” Candy said. “That sounds really fun. Girl, are you nuts?”
“It’s not dangerous. Not really.”
Candy shivered a little. “No freakin’ way. Couldn’t do it.”
I lay back on the bench and looked up at the stars, so bright the Milky Way was a clear band across the sky. “It’s like floating in space.”
“You going to study marine biology or something when you get to college?” Ben asked.
“Not going,” I said, twirling the end of my braid between my thumb and index finger.
The shocked silence that came back at me was no surprise. I’d heard it before.
“What are you going to do, then?” Candy asked, trying to keep her tone neutral and failing.
“I’m going to run a charter with my family. But not here. In Fiji.”
“Fiji, huh?” Candy seemed impressed.
“Yeah, Fiji. But I have to wait until Dad gets paroled.”
More shocked silence. I don’t know why I told them about you, because it always cools off a conversation. I guess pretending isn’t comfortable for me. Or for you. Mom has the corner on that.
“Oh, okay,” Ben finally said. “Cool. Family business.”
I watched his profile for a bit, wishing I could rewind and start over, not bring you up at all. The best I could do was change the subject. “Why aren’t you two over there with Teague and the others? Doesn’t the blue tarp”—I pointed to the shadow under the sunshade—“freak you out?” I had stopped thinking of him as Mr. Marshall a few hours ago. Now he was just “the blue tarp,” which somehow made it easier.
“Not really,” Ben said. “I can’t handle crowds. I’m claustrophobic.”
Candy huffed a laugh. “No, you’re not.”
Ben gave her a loaded look. I gave him a questioning one. Then he sighed. “Fine. My ex-girlfriend is over there.”
It was my turn to laugh, but I cut it off when Ben gave me a sharp glance.
“That bad, huh?” I asked.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
A voice floated over the water from the Ruby Pelican. “I can hear you, Ben.”
Candy stifled her giggle.
“You’d really rather be around the blue tarp than your ex-girlfriend?” I asked.
“Yep.”
Candy fished another cigarette out of her pack. “His parents own a funeral home. He sees dead people all the time.”
Somehow that surprised me more than our electrical equipment going out all at once. I’d never met anyone whose parents buried people. Or burned them to ash to put them into an urn. “You’re kidding,” I said, and then realized I sounded like a jerk, as if what his parents did was creepy—which it was—but I knew, even with my homeschooled social skills, that I had no business saying so.
“That wouldn’t be a very funny joke,” he said. Not defensive. Matter-of-fact, as if he’d gotten tired of digs at his parents’ chosen careers long ago.
I lay back on the bench, watching the stars and thinking about funeral homes and the blue tarp while Candy finished her cigarette. I wondered what that was like for Ben, having death woven into your workday, wondered if it seeped into your shut-eye. Half my dreams were about coral reefs and the inside of sunken ships.
I searched for a topic of conversation, something a cool girl would say. I came up with zip. So instead I put my foot in my mouth.
“Do you help your parents sometimes?” I asked.
“You mean, in the office?”
“No.”
“Then where?”
He knew where, but he was going to make me say it. “In the basement, where the bodies are.”
“We don’t have a basement. And yes, I help out sometimes.”
I sat up and leaned against the side of the Last Chance and looked out over the water. The moon hung high above us, its light caught on the tips of the waves for miles until the sea gave way to sky. The weird stink that had hung over the boat earlier was gone, and the world smelled good and clean, like salt and brine.
“Does it bother you?” I asked.
“Does what bother me?”
“You know, does it seem weird sometimes, doing your homework and then being called downstairs for ‘chores.’” I made air quotes he couldn’t see.
“You know what’s weird?” he said, his gaze still on the sky. “Pretending we’re not going to end up in an undertaker’s office once day.”
“Good point, I guess.”
“You ever wonder about it?”
“Death?”
“No. Wonder who will put you in the last dress you’ll ever wear.”
A voice came floating over the water from Matt’s boat. “Enough, Ben.” It sounded like a teacher’s voice. “You’re freaking everybody out. Things are bad enough without—”
“All right, all right,” Ben said, raising his voice. In a lower tone, he said, “That’s Mrs. Barnes, our teacher. She’s a little sensitive.”
Mrs. Barnes spoke again. “The Coast Guard will be here in the morning. Just get some sleep. No more death talk!”
After I’d gotten ready to sleep as best I could—rinsing my mouth out with seawater instead of brushing my teeth, rubbing a beach towel over my face to “wash” the sunscreen off, and undoing the tie to my bikini top so the knot didn’t bite into my neck all night, I lay flat on my back. Like a body in the morgue. I turned onto my side, even though it was uncomfortable on my hip.
The clogged drain smell returned, drifting on the ocean breeze. Candy groaned and pinched her nose closed. I tried breathing shallow and through my mouth, but then I could taste it. All those particles clinging to my tongue. The blue tarp, which the darkness made worse, lay only five feet away. So I kept my focus on the east and the moon that had appeared just after sunset, hovering far out to sea. I imagined all the people in the Bahamas, who were lying under the same moon, and wondered if they’d gotten any of the messages Matt had been sending out all day. I wondered about you, if you could see the moon through the little window in your cell.
I closed my eyes. I wouldn’t choose a flowered dress for my last outfit, which is exactly what Mom would pick for me. When I die, I want to be buried in neoprene, the O’Brien wetsuit you got me for Christmas.
I guess even then a part of me knew I wouldn’t be coming home. That something was happening to me, that I hadn’t come out of the USS Andrews the same as I had gone in.
ENTRY 6
I’VE BEEN AVOIDING THIS PART, because it’s so hard to write. But I promised you a full account. The nightmare I saw in the ship, the horrible thing that killed Marshall, the
creature that now defines who I am and what I want in the darkest corners of myself . . .
It came for us at sunrise.
I woke from a half sleep, a few fragments of a dream about you and me and Grandmother still floating through my mind. Your faces faded, gave way to the sound of girls talking, voices drifting over from Matt’s charter. They were whispering about water. How much can we have? Should we say anything?
I lay on my back on the hard bench, trying not to listen and failing.
Are you thirsty? I’m thirsty. Do you want your ration?
Someone near the captain’s chair of Matt’s boat said she could have his if she shut up and let him sleep.
I watched the sky gray and tried to think of something happy. Family beach barbeques, like the time you cooked an entire freakin’ lamb on a spit and we shared it with half of Key Largo. Or the day the seas were too rough for the tourists, and Mom and I blew off cleaning equipment and hit the dollar theater. Or, even better, weekends with Grandmother in her little apartment back in Tarpon Springs, when we’d drink tea and watch the sailors unload the sponges from their boats.
But my head kept going dark.
Yiayia and me, sitting by her front window, waiting for the sunset. When she told me a secret, about what it was like when she was little, during the war. How all of Greece went to hell and stayed there for a while. How everyone on her little island got along at first. They shared. Gave each other comfort. Then the bombs kept falling, and the food ran out. My grandmother told me once that humans were great actors, putting on their civilization suits for everyday wear in the cities and for church functions. Put them under God’s thumb for a bit, and watch those suits come off.
She never gave me the same details she gave you. I mean, I was nine when she told me how the Germans took over Kalymnos, how the Allies bombed it for months and months, and I think she skipped the worst bits. But there was this look. A shiny sort of fear in her eyes, as if she’d pulled a big, ugly seed out of her brain, and it was sprouting in her as I watched, as it had been for the last sixty-four years.
So I thought of Yiayia’s stories about water and food and civilization suits. Oh God, I thought. Twenty-five people on our two boats. Enough water to last until noon. And no Coast Guard in sight. For a good five seconds, I thought about hiding a bottle or two for me and Felix and Mom. A hot wave of shame followed.