A Star to Steer Her By

by Beth Anne Miller

  “To the lonely sea and the sky…”

  That was familiar. From where? Then I remembered. It was from the poem Tristan quoted to me the night when I first steered by the stars. “It’s called ‘Sea-Fever’…my mum’s favorite,” he’d said.

  I studied it closely, imagining his grief as the ship and poignant words were etched into his skin, a permanent tribute to his mother. The image shifted, and I looked up. He was gazing at me, his head propped up on his hand, seemingly unperturbed by the fact that I’d been hovering over him like a stalker.

  I sank back into my sleeping bag, my face flaming. “Um, hi.”

  “Hi.” He made no move to get up, just continued to watch me, his expression unreadable.

  “I…didn’t hear you set up your sleeping bag last night.” That might have been the lamest thing I’d said to him so far, which was saying a lot.

  “No. It was very late, and you were asleep. I just…didn’t want to be alone.” He paused. “That was a really creepy thing to do. I’m sorry.”

  “Well, I just spent the last five minutes watching you sleep, followed by studying your tattoo up close, so I’d say we’re even on the creeper scale.”

  “Fair enough,” he said with a small smile.

  “I had another nightmare.” He didn’t say anything, so I kept going. “It started out as my usual shark dream. But then it was different.”

  “Yeah? How?”

  “A hand reached out and pulled me to safety.” I touched his wrist. “Thank you. I’m glad I wasn’t alone, either.”

  He smiled. “Will you buddy up with me again for the dive today?”

  “Depends. Are you up for another potential panic attack?”

  He laid his hand over mine. “I think you’re going to do just fine this time. But if not, I’ll be there to help you, I promise.”

  “It’s what friends do, right?” I said, hoping I didn’t sound too bitter.

  “Ari—”

  “Ahem.” We looked up to see Kristy standing by the rail, staring at us over the top of her sunglasses. Tristan pulled back his hand. “Captain asked me to do wake-ups this morning. Breakfast is in fifteen minutes.”

  “Thanks, Kris,” said Tristan. She gave him a pointed look, then nodded once before heading aft to continue her wake-ups. I watched her carefully weave around the yawning, stretching, snoozing bodies of my shipmates, pausing here and there to give the lazy ones a nudge.

  “She definitely saw you holding my hand, Tristan.”

  “Don’t worry. She won’t say anything.” A zipper hissed, and then Tristan swung his legs out of the sleeping bag and stood up.

  I tried not to stare at his bronzed-by-the-sun, nearly bare body, or at the line of pale skin at his hips, revealed by his low-riding shorts. Really, I tried.

  A short while later, I grabbed my usual bagel and coffee from the salon and joined Kevin on a deck locker near the bow. “Where’s Jenny?”

  “She and Amanda went to the showers in the marina.”

  I stared at him. “Really? They’re showering before a dive? They know we’ll be in salt water, right?”

  “That’s what I asked. Apparently, since real showers are such a rarity for us, they wanted to make the most of them. Girls are weird.”

  “Truth. Listen, do you have a sec? I, um, wanted to tell you what happened to my leg.”

  I saw how grief and lack of communication were destroying Tristan and his father, and I realized last night that in order to really heal from my own trauma, I needed to be able to tell people what happened to me.

  Without hesitation, he pushed up his sunglasses and faced me. “Of course it’s a good time, Ari. I’m glad you’re ready to tell me about it.”

  Now that his attention was on me, though, I had no idea how to tell him. Maybe show instead of tell was the easiest way to do it.

  “So, it was a diving injury,” I began, toying with the hem of my knee-length shorts.

  “What, like you got it caught or something? Or was it the bends?”

  “Neither, actually.” I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and dragged the hem of my shorts all the way up my thigh.

  I heard his sudden, sharp intake of breath. “Oh, Ari,” he whispered. I opened my eyes. His hand hovered over the raised, garish scar, and tears were in his eyes. I smoothed my shorts leg back into place and told him the story.

  I was in tears as well by the time I finished, and he put an arm around my shoulders and drew me in close. “Does it hurt?” he asked, once I had myself under control.

  “The scar itself feels tight and sensitive. But the muscle still aches sometimes, and I get sharp pain if I overexert it. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you before. It’s just really hard for me to talk about it, you know? It brings it all back.”

  “I can’t even imagine. I’m glad you told me, but why now?”

  “We’re diving again today. It was a huge step for me to get back in the water on the first dive. But I have a long way to go. I think the next step is for me to face what happened instead of trying to hide it, and that means being able to talk about it. Which I’ve done twice now, and it’s starting to get a little easier. It also means being able to look at the scar—which isn’t any easier, but I’m hoping it will be.”

  I told him about the first dive, how I panicked and nearly drowned. “By not telling Tristan what I was afraid of, I put us both in danger on that dive. I don’t want to be a risk to others.”

  “I had no idea! How the hell did you keep that a secret?”

  “By the time everyone else was back on the boat, I was okay. Though, the day after is when I lashed out at you for bringing up my brother, so maybe I wasn’t really okay.”

  He squeezed my hand. “Thank you for telling me, Ari.”

  “You’re my friend, and I wanted you to know. Maybe you could mention it to Jenny, Amanda, and Steve? I don’t think I can tell the story again.”

  “I will, and I’ll do it after the dive so you don’t need to worry about it.”

  “Thanks, Kev,” I said, hugging him. I headed to the cabin to get ready for the dive, feeling like I’d taken a big step.

  Today was off to a pretty good start.

  Chapter Twenty

  Once again I stood on the deck of a dive boat, setting up my gear with shaking fingers. Once again I wondered if I’d be able to go through with the dive.

  And once again, Tristan stood beside me, setting up his own gear, bravely choosing to dive with the crazy girl. Maybe this time I wouldn’t freak out and nearly drown the two of us.

  Facing him, I unzipped my shorts and shimmied them down my hips. I looked up to see Tristan frozen in the middle of hooking up his regulator, staring at me with those laser eyes. My whole body grew hot under the weight of that unblinking gaze.

  “Tristan.”

  His eyes snapped up to my face.

  “Friends don’t look at each other like that, do they?”

  “Aye, well, sometimes they can’t help themselves,” he murmured, with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. He returned his attention to his gear, and I focused on my own. Would it get easier, the longing we had for each other?

  The engine throttled down, indicating that we were close to the dive site, sending thoughts of romance to the back of my mind. My heart started to pound.

  The boat stopped, and the captain turned off the engine. “All right, guys, listen up. This is a wall dive. The bottom is so far below that essentially there is no bottom. It’s not a problem, as long as you pay attention. You’ll swim for twenty minutes with the wall on your right at a depth of sixty feet. Then ascend to thirty feet and swim back for twenty minutes with the wall on your left. Make sure you’re with someone who has a dive watch, and don’t forget to do a three-minute safety stop at the end.”

  His expression grew stern. “You must watch your depth gauges religiously. Do not deviate from the dive profile. I don’t care if you see a mermaid riding a seahorse down there, you do not follow her.”

/>   I knew his dive briefing was important, especially for people who’d never done a wall dive, but all I could think about was getting through the dive without another incident. Chasing a mermaid was the least of my concerns.

  Just like the last time, we waited for everyone else to get in the water first. Unlike the last time, Kevin squeezed my shoulder encouragingly as he passed by. I smiled gratefully at the gesture. It was nicer than I thought it would be to have others know about my injury.

  Once everyone was in the water, I pulled on my mask and made my way to the dive platform. Tristan jumped in first. He bobbed to the surface and swam to the line. “Okay, you’re up,” he said with an encouraging smile.

  You can do this. You did it last time and were fine for half the dive. And for God’s sake, you were in the water with a bleeding whale and you didn’t have a problem. I stepped down to the platform and put my regulator in my mouth, took a breath to make sure it was working. Just take that first step into the water and everything will be fine.

  I tucked my arms in close to my chest, held my mask in place, and took a giant stride into the water.

  I popped up and joined Tristan at the line. “Are you ready?” he asked.

  I nodded, and we sank beneath the surface.

  We reached the sandy bottom beneath the boat and swam to the edge of the drop-off. I squinted into the distance. The visibility range only extended so far—maybe seventy feet at most—and beyond that range was just a blue void. There could be sharks out there, just out of my range of sight, waiting…

  Hiss-whoosh, hiss-whoosh. I pulled back from the edge, hyperventilating. Not again.

  Tristan placed his hands on my shoulders and guided me down so that I was on my knees in the sand at the top of the wall. He knelt before me, his gaze holding mine. He pointed to his regulator and then to me.

  Breathe.

  Staring into his eyes, I inhaled, the air flowing easily into my lungs, and let it out slowly. He nodded in approval and motioned for me to do it again.

  Breathe.

  We sat there for another minute or so, breathing together. I can do this. I flashed Tristan the “OK” sign. He flashed it back, took my hand, and we headed for the drop-off.

  When we were even with the top of the wall, Tristan faced me once more. As he did on our first dive, he stared into my eyes as we descended vertically along the wall. He checked his depth gauge frequently, and finally brought us to a halt. He added air to his BC in short bursts with his power inflator. I followed suit, watching my depth gauge to make sure we were holding at around sixty feet.

  Tristan got on my left side, between me and the dark water beyond, and we swam north along the wall. He tried to point things out to me, but I kept peering under his arm to squint into the blue, barely noticing the wall itself. With a roll of his eyes, he physically turned me to face the wall. I forced myself to look at the marine life.

  The creatures were generally the same ones we had in the Keys: red squirrelfish with big eyes lurking underneath an overhang; tiny purple-and-yellow fairy basslets darting in and out among the thin branches of a sea fan; a spotted moray eel poking its sinuous head out of a hole. These fish were familiar and comforting, and I felt myself unable to resist exploring. I borrowed Tristan’s flashlight and peered under a ledge, spotting the long, waving antennae and beady eyes of two spiny lobsters.

  I glanced over his shoulder…and my heart stopped.

  There was something out there, emerging from the blue into the very edge of sight. What was it? I squinted, trying to bring it into focus, but it was still too far away.

  A shape came toward me out of the murk. The figure resolved into the conical snout of a shark, just inches away. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t escape. Its bloody mouth gaped open, its black eyes vanished behind the white nictitating membrane. I could see every razor-sharp tooth as it drew closer…

  No! I pinched myself, hard, then clutched Tristan’s arm, trying to tamp down the panic welling up inside me. He took one look at me and then turned to see what I was staring at.

  I still couldn’t tell what it was, but I could tell that it was big. We had to get out of there. I grabbed Tristan’s hand and started back in the direction we’d come from, kicking hard. It had to have been close to twenty minutes, right? We needed to get back to the boat!

  Tristan tugged my arm, trying to slow me down. I knew he didn’t want me to panic, but it was too late. I looked over my shoulder.

  It was closer now. I could see its white underside.

  Another flash of white. Wait a minute. The white part appeared and disappeared as though it was moving up and down. Sharks didn’t move that way—they swished their tails from side to side. That weird undulating up and down motion was almost like the wings of a huge bird…

  Now I knew what it was.

  It was a giant manta ray. They were plankton eaters, not known to be dangerous. And they were high on the list of “charismatic megafauna” that I’d hoped to one day encounter while diving. I’d seen videos online of divers actually clinging to the backs of mantas and going for a ride. Would it let me do that?

  I had to have a closer look. I swam slowly toward it, not wanting to scare it off. But I didn’t have to worry—it seemed unaffected by my presence. And really, why would it be afraid? I’d read that their “wingspan” could reach as much as twenty-five feet, their weight over a ton. There wasn’t much that was big enough to pose a threat to it, other than fishing nets.

  Its black body seemed to fly through the water, its giant “wings” slowly, gracefully, pumping up and down. I was only twenty feet or so away from it now. Something grabbed my arm. My heart in my throat, I whipped around to see Tristan, an urgent look in his eyes. I’d been so captivated by the manta that I had let go of his hand. He was probably worried about me. I held my hand up to signal that I was OK, but he wasn’t looking at my hand. He thrust his depth gauge in front of my face.

  Ninety feet? Holy shit! I looked over his shoulder. We’d come so far that I couldn’t see the wall.

  I’d done exactly what the captain had told us not to do. It wasn’t a mermaid on a seahorse I’d chased, but it may as well have been. The good news was that I’d been so captivated by the giant fish that I’d forgotten my fear. The bad news was, we could get the bends and die. Let’s not get carried away. Just swim to the surface, nice and easy.

  Keeping a firm hold on my arm, Tristan brought us back to the wall on a gradual ascent. I peered at my depth gauge. Seventy feet. Still too deep.

  We swam with the wall to our left, heading in the direction of the boat. He kept us on a slow but steady ascent, taking care that we didn’t rise faster than our bubbles. Each time I checked my gauge, we were five feet shallower. We couldn’t simply rush to the surface, because that could result in decompression sickness.

  Decompression sickness, or “the bends,” was caused by the buildup of excess gases in the blood when moving too quickly from deeper, higher-pressure water to shallower, lower-pressure water. The gases formed bubbles, often in the joints, causing crippling pain. If you went deep and ascended too fast, it could be very bad, so you only did that in a life or death situation, in which case getting the bends is better than getting dead.

  I’d experienced enough crippling pain for a lifetime. I didn’t need any more now.

  The water got brighter and brighter as we neared the surface, and in another minute, we reached the top of the wall. I let all the air out of my BCD and I sank down onto the sand. My depth gauge read eighteen feet. Tristan flashed me the “OK” sign and I flashed it back. He pointed to his watch and then held up five fingers. Five minutes at eighteen feet, a longer safety stop than usual.

  The boat was a short distance away. I could see the dark shadow on the surface, as well as the bubbles from nearby divers. Tristan knelt in front of me with his arms crossed over his chest. His body was rigid with tension, and even through his mask, I could see the anger in his eyes.

  He w
as going to ream me out when we got back on the boat.

  And I deserved it. It was colossally stupid, taking off like that after the manta, one that could have resulted in serious problems for both of us. It was careless and irresponsible. Tristan was my dive buddy, and I was his, which meant we were responsible for each other. I couldn’t just go off after some “charismatic megafauna” and leave him behind, or worse, drag him with me into danger. It was…

  Oh God. A wave of horror rolled through me, followed by a clenching in my stomach that nearly doubled me over.

  It was exactly what Josh had always done. When he was diving and saw something cool, he was like a dog that spotted a squirrel—his attention was focused only on that one thing, and the hell with everything else.

  It was why I blamed him for the shark biting me—why I couldn’t forgive him. He’d gone off and left me—again—and I could have died.

  I’d always prided myself on being a by-the-book diver, the perfect dive buddy, and I’d felt so superior scolding Josh all those times he left me to chase after something. But nothing was ever as simple as it appeared to be. We’re curious creatures, especially in an alien world like the ocean. And when we see something intriguing, we want to get a closer look at it. It only takes a split second for that curiosity to turn deadly.

  I’d been so blinded by my own pain that I’d forgotten that.

  I’d felt awful for fifteen minutes during our ascent, knowing that going off after the manta had put Tristan and me in danger. For almost seven months, Josh must have felt a hundred times worse. He’d seen my leg torn open by a shark, been powerless to stop it, and then had to deal with my anger and cold treatment ever since, not knowing if I’d ever speak to him again, if I’d ever have the life I wanted.

  Tristan tapped my shoulder, jerking me from my thoughts. He pointed to the surface. I pumped some air into my BCD and followed him to the boat. He held on to the side of the ladder and gestured for me to precede him out of the water.

  I sank down on the bench and began removing my gear. He came over and I braced myself, waiting for him to yell at me. At least he couldn’t make me feel worse than I already did.