A Star to Steer Her By

by Beth Anne Miller

  “He taught me how to play.”

  He started to twirl me, but a cramp tore down my leg, and I stumbled against him, catching myself with one hand against his chest. He caught my waist to steady me. I looked up, opening my mouth to apologize, but his face was so close to mine, his eyes reflecting the light from the lanterns, and I froze. We stared at each other, the music and other dancers fading into the background. After the longest two seconds of my life, he set me on my feet.

  “You okay, Red?” He looked concerned, and I wondered if I’d imagined that intense look in his eyes.

  “I…hurt my leg a few months ago, and sometimes it doesn’t cooperate.”

  “Do you want to try again?”

  I nodded, steeling myself against the ache. His hand tightened on mine and he slowly twirled me. This time I stayed on my feet, and was rewarded with a quick grin and a flash of dimples, before he handed me off to Kevin and moved on to Jenny.

  “I’m done,” I said to Kevin, who squeezed my hand and turned to dance with Amanda. Massaging my thigh, I sat in the shadows near the foremast and looked up through the rigging at the stars, sparkling like tiny diamonds in the black velvet sky.

  We were setting sail right after breakfast. After so many months of planning and anticipation, and then more months of fear and doubt, the day was almost here. I looked out at the dark water and shuddered. The captain had told us we would be different people at the end of this voyage than we were now. I hoped he was right, because the weak, fearful girl I was right now was not the one I wanted to be.

  Chapter Three

  I could barely see two feet in front of me in the murky sea. Something wasn’t right. Every nerve in my body was humming, every instinct I had told me to get the hell out of there.

  But where was Josh? He was by my side just a moment ago. I pivoted in a slow circle, searching for his bubbles in the gloom. I swiveled around and stopped short.

  The water was blood red.

  CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

  “All hands on deck!”

  I jolted awake, blinking in the dim light, shaking off the nightmare that had plagued me for the past six months.

  CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

  The ship’s bell was the worst alarm clock ever. I untangled the sheet from around my legs. While still in my bunk with the curtain closed, I awkwardly dressed in a tank top and knee-length shorts.

  There was, obviously, a line for the head. Amanda rolled her eyes at me. “Jenny’s in there. We’re taking bets on how long she’ll be.”

  I snorted. “This should be amusing.”

  We chatted for a minute, until we were interrupted by another clang of the bell.

  “Well, to be fair, we’re all trying to get ready at one time,” Amanda said.

  “Yeah, but one person should not be taking forever, either.” I pounded on the door. “Come on, Jenny! What are you doing in there? There’s barely even a toilet!”

  The door swung open and Jenny emerged, her hair pulled back in a sleek ponytail, her newly applied eyeliner enhancing her glaring eyes. Oh, right. There was also a tiny mirror.

  She gave me a once-over, her pink-glossed lips twisting in a smirk. “Unlike some people, I like to look presentable,” she said, sidling past me.

  We were on a sailboat. With wind. And salt spray. Why bother with anything other than a ponytail or braid? And makeup, why? Who was she trying to impress? An image of Tristan flashed by. Oh.

  After a quick turn in the head, I hurried up the ladder. I stepped out into the silvery light of dawn and joined my shipmates. To take my mind off my nerves, I re-braided my hair while surreptitiously looking for Tristan. There he was, leaning against the port rail, his hands wrapped around a steaming mug like it held the elixir of life.

  He was in cargo shorts and a faded green T-shirt, and his feet were again bare. His hair was tousled around his face, as though he’d just crawled out of bed. Which, obviously, he had. He turned, one hand pushing his hair out of his face. Our eyes met, and I quickly glanced away.

  The bell rang again. I was beginning to hate that sound, and it was only Day Two. The captain hopped up on a locker. “Everyone go grab some food down in the salon. We’ll be getting underway as soon as you guys have eaten. And don’t worry, after this morning, we won’t be using the bell to wake you unless it’s an emergency,” he added with a grin.

  Thank goodness for that.

  We went down the ladder near the stern of the ship. Past the chartroom on the right and galley on the left was the salon, where food was laid out on the two long tables. Juice, coffee, bagels, fruit. I smeared peanut butter on a cinnamon raisin bagel, grabbed a cup of coffee, and headed up on deck.

  There was an aura of excitement among the students and crew. It seemed that the very boards beneath my feet were humming, as if the ship itself was aware that it would soon be heading out to sea. My eagerness to set sail combined with worry over whether my leg was up to the task, leaving me with a vaguely sick feeling in my stomach.

  I joined Kevin, who was sitting on the deck by the starboard rail. “Hey, Ari,” he said when I eased down beside him, “did you sleep?”

  “A little. The mattress wasn’t bad, but it’s hotter than hell down there.”

  “Yeah, I hear you. Davey said that when we’re at anchor or docked, we can usually sleep on deck to get air.”

  “That would be wonderful,” I said. “Are you nervous about setting sail?”

  He grinned. “Nah. My brother did this program a few years ago. He had an amazing time, and I’ve been dying to go ever since.”

  The captain whistled for our attention. “Okay, everyone. Let’s get cleaned up so we can get underway.”

  A few minutes later, my watch group joined Davey and Tristan at the mainmast.

  “Before we raise the mainsail, we have to ease the sheet so the sail will face into the wind,” said Davey. “Jenny, can you do that?”

  The mainsail sheet controlled the movement of the sail from side to side. Once the sail was raised, it would fill with wind and the boom would swing out. Thankfully, it was high enough off the deck that no one would be nailed in the head when it swung.

  We followed Jenny to the stern of the ship. She went unerringly to a cleat on the deck and looked over at Davey, her eyebrows raised. Davey nodded once, and she unwound the line from the cleat so it was slack. As was my jaw, from shock that Jenny actually knew something. She’d seemed more concerned with her appearance than with the various lines on the ship.

  Next, we stepped up onto the roof of the salon and undid the ties that held the furled sail.

  Then we moved to the port side of the ship. “A Watch, you’re on the peak halyard, which raises the end of the sail farthest from the mast,” said Davey, gesturing for us to line up behind the heavy line that came down from above, ran through a pulley bolted to the deck, and was secured to a pin on the rail. “C Watch will take the throat halyard, which raises the end of the sail closest to the mast.”

  We lined up along the rail. Kevin took the first position, followed by me, Jenny, Amanda, and Steve.

  Tristan stood by the pin, which looked like the top half of a bowling pin resting in a hole in the lower rail, the slender bottom part hanging down beneath. “Kevin, go ahead and undo the line from the pin.” Kevin did so and passed the excess rope back to us.

  “We want to raise both halyards simultaneously, which will be easy enough at the start, but as the sail goes up, there will be more of a burden on the line, making it heavier and harder to raise. Always watch that your hands aren’t too close to the pin or the block—we don’t want you to get hurt.”

  He turned his face into the wind, and all thought of raising sails flew right out of my head as he reached up and briskly ran his hands through his nearly shoulder-length hair, pulling it into a ponytail and securing it with a hair tie he’d worn on his wrist. My fingers twitched on the line as I wondered what it would be like to touch that hair.

  He turned back around. Wow.
He’d looked hot with his hair all tousled around his face, but with his hair out of the way his chiseled features stood out even more, as did those bottomless blue eyes…

  “Hey, Ari! Stop gaping at Tristan and pay attention.” Jenny’s mocking words snapped me out of my trance.

  “What?” I whipped my head around to glare at her.

  She held up her hand. “Don’t look at me. Tristan called your name like twice while you were staring at him.”

  My face burning, I slowly turned back around. Tristan’s face was expressionless, but I could see a hint of his dimples, so he was probably trying not to smile. Dammit. I met his gaze as confidently as I could. “Sorry, what did you say?”

  He grinned, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “I asked if you were ready.”

  “Oh. Yeah, I’m ready.”

  “Good.” He took his position at the front of our group, where the line went down into the block, and I focused my attention on the line in my hands. This was the moment I’d anticipated the most—raising the sails for the first time.

  “Haul away together!” shouted Davey from his position in front of the mast.

  We started hauling on the line, our bodies naturally falling into rhythm. Left, right, left, right. The rings attached to the sail slid up the mast with a metallic shing, shing, like the sound made by the metal rings of a shower curtain sliding along the rod. I took up the slack as quickly as I could, the rope’s rough fibers scratching my hands. It was easy enough at first, but just as Tristan had said, as the sail got closer to the top of the mast, it became harder to haul on the line.

  “Hold.” We froze. Tristan stood with his feet braced against the deck, his hands gripping the vertical part of the halyard, the tendons in his forearms standing out from the tension. “Okay, when I say heave, you pull. Two, six, heave!” He threw his weight down, and together we took up the slack. “Two, six, heave!” Again.

  I planted my feet, ignoring the ache in my thigh as best I could.

  “Make fast the throat!” Davey yelled to the starboard side of the ship.

  “We still have a bit more to do on our side, so hang in there,” said Tristan.

  There was a ton of strain on the line now. I felt it in every part of my body. I held my breath, clenching my teeth as I focused all my attention on holding that rope.

  “All fast on the throat!” came the shout from the starboard side.

  Those who had been hauling on the throat halyard ran over to our side. The students jumped on the line behind us, and Kristy and Nick joined Tristan. Together, they swung the vertical part of the line toward the rail, then back, then threw their body weight down to the deck, giving us some more slack to take up. Petite, slender Kristy looked as if she was being crushed by Nick and Tristan, and yet she’d jumped in there with no fear at all. By the end of this voyage, I wanted to be like her: strong, confident, and fearless.

  “Again!”

  Twice more they “sweated” the line, using their combined body weight to give us tiny bits of slack so we could raise the peak of the sail just a little more.

  “That’s well on the peak!” Davey finally shouted. Everyone holding the line with me breathed a sigh of relief.

  We weren’t done yet. We had to hold the strain on the line for what seemed like ages. I dug in as best as I could, but the muscles in my right thigh felt as if a knife was ripping into them. I didn’t know how much longer I could hold this position before my leg just gave out. I gritted my teeth, blinking hard against the tears that filled my eyes. This was only the first day and I was already in agony. Would I be able to handle more than two months of this?

  Finally, we got the order to take a few careful steps forward to give Kevin enough slack to quickly whip the line around the top and bottom of the pin in a figure eight.

  “All fast on the peak!” Tristan called.

  Davey came over, a huge smile on his face. “Excellent job, guys!”

  I massaged my aching thigh. It didn’t help—it never really did—and I knew I’d need to get some ibuprofen as soon as possible—which also probably wouldn’t help. I looked up to see the mainsail reaching into the blue sky, the off-white canvas stretched taut and proud. It had taken the combined efforts of a bunch of people to raise that sail, but we’d done it.

  B Watch was up at the bow, raising the anchor. I stood off to the side and watched as two guys manned the windlass, the large winch the anchor chain was wrapped around. There was a chink, chink, chink as the chain slowly emerged from the water.

  Justin, the second mate, supervised the chain coming up, occasionally telling them to stop or asking for more slack. One guy guided the chain as it came onto the deck, others laid out the chain in a huge wooden box, their hands covered with black grease.

  Once the anchor was up and secured on the port side of the ship, the rest of the sails were raised. B and C Watches raised the foresail, and I watched it go up. Little by little, the sail climbed up the mast, slowly unfurling from the boom like the wing of a giant swan, billowing as it caught the wind, then snapping taut as it neared the top of the mast.

  It was breathtaking to watch, and for a moment I forgot the ache in my thigh, my fears, my anger at Josh, everything. It was as if all my worries were swept away from me as that sail went up. I was really here, on board the Meg, about to begin the journey I’d begun planning over a year ago.

  “Hands to the peak!” The shout snapped me out of my reverie, and I scooped up the trailing end of the line to help raise the peak halyard those last few feet.

  After all the sails were raised, I sat down on a locker and examined my hands. My palms throbbed, and I had blisters forming, one of which was starting to bleed. I prodded it gingerly, wincing at the burn.

  “Let me see that.” Tristan sat beside me and reached for my hand. He dabbed at the blood with a scrap of napkin he pulled from his pocket. I’d noticed the day before that his hands were covered in nicks and scars, and now I had the excuse to study them more closely. They were strong and gentle at the same time, and the scars made them look like a work of art. Unlike mine.

  “Don’t worry, your hands won’t look like mine.”

  I looked up at him. “What?”

  “You were staring at my hands. I know they’re not a pretty sight. You’ll get a few calluses, but that’ll be it. It’s taken years for my hands to look like this.”

  “That’s not what I was thinking at all.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “No? What, then?”

  I forgot what I was going to say as he stared at me with those laser eyes. Oh, right—his hands. “Um, I was thinking that your hands have character. They tell a story.” I cringed, feeling the heat rise in my face. It would have been less mortifying to just tell him he was hot.

  He cocked his head to the side. “What kind of story?”

  It was too late to turn back now. “Well, your hands show that you’ve worked hard as a sailor and as a fiddler, and you’re not afraid to throw a punch or two when necessary.” I grinned. “And maybe also when it’s not necessary?”

  He laughed. “You’re not wrong there. What else?” It had been a long time—over six months—since I had a guy focus on me like this, and even though Tristan was off-limits, it was still nice to have that attention.

  I wanted to say, “Your hands are beautiful, not despite your scars, but because of them.” But I’d known the guy for like a day. No way could I say that out loud. Instead I said, “You should be proud of your scars. They’re part of who you are.”

  You should take your own advice, said a little voice inside me. Shut up, it’s different, I mentally retorted.

  Tristan held my gaze for a moment, then dropped my hand and stood. “Your hands will be sore for a day or two. Then you’ll form calluses and you’ll be good to go.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  “Anytime.” He was gone almost before he finished talking, leaving me to stare at his back. So doomed.

  The captain called us over. “Great
job, guys, we’re officially underway! Everyone worked as a team, and I’m really proud of you.” He glanced at his watch. “Okay, it’s 0830 now. A Watch, you have the deck ’til noon. Those of you on galley duty for today should report to Peggy to see what she will require of you and when. The rest of you are free until lunch, but I strongly suggest you continue to familiarize yourself with the ship. That’s all.”

  Davey joined us at midships. “All right, A Watch. Welcome to your first shift.” We followed him to the stern and gathered around the helm, which was currently being steered by Justin, the second mate, who looked really badass in dark sunglasses and a bandanna, the diamond stud in his ear glinting in the sun.

  Davey turned to me. “Ari, I’d like you to relieve Justin.”

  A rush of excitement ran through me, followed immediately by a pang of fear. What if I messed up?

  Davey chuckled. “Don’t look so worried, Ari. We won’t leave you alone at the helm on your first day. Ask the helmsman for the course ordered, and then ask permission of the watch officer to relieve the helm at the ordered course. Okay, you’re up.”

  My heart raced and my palms were sweaty. I nervously approached Justin. “What is your course ordered?”

  “Course ordered is two-seven-zero.”

  I turned to Davey. “Permission to—”

  “No, I’m not the watch officer yet. You ask the outgoing officer, in this case, Justin.”

  I turned back to him. “Um, permission to relieve the helm at two-seven-zero.”

  “Permission granted,” he said with a smile, stepping aside.

  I mimicked Justin’s position, standing on the starboard side, sort of behind the wheel, with my left hand on an upper spoke, and my right on a spoke in front of my chest. I splayed my legs slightly for balance.

  “Steering a ship is like steering a car, in the sense that you turn the wheel in the direction you want the ship to go, but what you need to remember is that she doesn’t respond like a car. Ari, you’re at two-seven-zero?”

  I squinted at the compass that was mounted in a brass housing about two feet in front of me. “Yes.”