by Ginger Zee
“You must have been terrified when you heard those floodwaters coming!”
“Andy or your folks will keep you posted on how Lana’s doing, then?”
“And Sam—he just disappeared?”
Mia’s outrage had been fierce when Helicity mentioned Sam Levesque, a lean seventeen-year-old with spiky black hair and ice-blue eyes who shared Helicity’s fascination with the weather. Lana had introduced them after the tornado. Helicity had felt an electric jolt zing through her the first time he smiled at her. Felt it every time after, too. She fought her insane attraction, though. Told herself that Sam was too old for her. Too reckless. A typical bad boy, complete with snarky, attitude-laden demeanor.
But, oh. Those brilliant blue eyes and that killer smile. Who was she kidding? He was so bad he was good. Not just good. He was irresistible. To her, anyway.
She’d been over the moon when Lana invited them both to join her and a fellow meteorologist named Ray on a summer-long storm-chasing expedition. The flash flood had ended that expedition. It might have ended Sam’s life, too, if not for Helicity.
And mine, if Lana hadn’t plunged into the waves to save me…Helicity pushed the memories from her mind and went to find Mia and Suze.
Helicity and Mia’s bedroom was an enclosed second-story loft at the back of the house. It had its own tiny bathroom with a shower. Outside their door was a small landing with a half wall that overlooked a common room below. Like their loft, that wide-open space had a beachy theme—driftwood-gray-tiled floors, furniture in shades of white, blue, green, and tan, and decor that featured shells and sea glass. There were no guests at the bed-and-breakfast that day, so the common room was unoccupied, but she heard voices coming from the kitchen. She headed down the stairs, taking in the view of the Gulf through a large bank of picture windows.
She found Mia and Suze sitting at the kitchen island.
“’Morning, sleepyhead.” Suze pushed a blueberry muffin across the granite slab. “Eat up, and then Mia and I will give you the lowdown on what happens around here. Sound good?”
Mouth full of muffin, Helicity nodded. Her parents had worked out an arrangement with Suze. In exchange for room and board, Helicity would do chores at the bed-and-breakfast. She was more than willing to work—anything to keep her mind from flashing back into memories. Or rather, those nightmares.
After breakfast, she got the Beachside tour. Besides the kitchen, common room, and Suze’s master suite, there were three guest rooms on the first floor, each with two queen-size beds. One had a private bathroom; the other two shared a bath. Checkout time was no later than eleven in the morning and check-in was anytime after three.
“In between those hours,” Mia said, “we clean the rooms top to bottom. Luckily, most people don’t leave huge messes behind.” She waggled her eyebrows. “What they do leave are nice tips.” She gestured to a glass jar near the sink. “We can keep the money in there, then divvy it up before we go home, okay? Oh, and Tuesdays we have the day off because Suze doesn’t book guests on Mondays.”
“Otherwise,” Suze added, “when you’re done with your housekeeping duties, your time is your own.”
“I go treasure hunting on Crystal Beach most afternoons,” Mia said, referring to the twenty-seven miles of shoreline that stretched along Bolivar Peninsula’s south coast. “I want to find a shark tooth, but so far, all I’ve found is sea glass, shells, and a few crusty sea beans.”
“Sea beans?” Helicity queried.
“Seeds and pods that travel the ocean currents and wash onto our shore,” Suze explained. She pulled a map from a drawer and unfolded it on the kitchen island. It showed the Gulf of Mexico, a vast, misshapen oval of water almost entirely encircled with land. Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida curved around the top of the oval, with Mexico to the west and south, and the island nation of Cuba poking into the opening between Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula and the tip of Florida.
“A current of warm water flows up from South America, past Central America, through the Yucatán Channel, and into the Gulf.” Suze traced her finger along the current’s northward path. “Along the way, it picks up all kinds of stuff—trash, fishing nets, buoys, boat parts.” She gave a wry smile. “You would not believe what washes ashore here after a big storm.”
“But it also brings the sea beans,” Mia put in.
Suze nodded. “Sometimes they’re in the water so long, they get encrusted with barnacles or covered over with seaweed before the Bolivar Peninsula.” She tapped the map on the tiny slice of land she called home.
Helicity was intrigued by the sea bean story. But she knew the current did a lot more than convey interesting seeds from faraway places.
She’d learned about the Gulf of Mexico and its currents from Lana during the storm-chasing expedition. They had stopped to refuel Lana’s SUV and Ray’s tricked-out vehicle, Mo West—short for Mobile Weather Station. While Lana and Ray were pumping gas, Sam ran into the station’s convenience store. He emerged with snacks as well as a tiny bottle of something called N-R-Geee!
Lana made a face when she saw the bottle. “Do you know what’s in that stuff? Besides chemicals, I mean?”
“A boost of energy,” Sam said with a grin. “Or liquid giddy-yap, according to the commercials.”
“Yeah, like you need more giddy-yap,” Ray muttered, rolling his eyes.
“The contents of that little bottle will do to you,” Lana warned, “what a current eddy does to a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico.”
“What’s a current eddy?” Helicity asked.
Lana racked the gas nozzle and collected her receipt. “Hop in. I’ll explain on the way to the hotel.”
Sam punched Ray in the arm. “Guess that means I’m riding shotgun in Mo West!”
Ray swiped the N-R-Geee! out of Sam’s hand. “Not with this, you’re not.”
Sam pulled a second bottle from his pocket and dangled it just out of Ray’s reach. “Good thing I bought two.”
Lana jerked her head in their direction. “Let’s go before this gets ugly,” she said to Helicity.
“Too late,” Helicity responded.
In the SUV, Lana gave her a brief overview of the Gulf of Mexico’s currents, and then moved on to the eddies.
“Every six months or so,” she said, glancing over her shoulder before changing lanes, “a ring of warm, circulating water breaks away from the current, forming an eddy. The eddy meanders around the Gulf, happily spinning as it goes. Usually, it’s not a big problem. But if an eddy occurs during the Gulf’s hurricane season, it can spell trouble. Do you know why?”
Helicity remembered how Lana had compared Sam’s drink to the eddy. “That warm spinning water is a pocket of energy that could feed the storm,” she guessed, “making the hurricane way more powerful than it originally was.”
“Exactly,” Lana said with an approving nod. “The Gulf isn’t the only place current eddies occur. But with such a huge population so near its shorelines, eddies that form there can be real troublemakers if a hurricane hits.”
Helicity looked back at Mo West trailing behind them. “Poor Ray. He’s trapped with Hurricane Sam and his bottle of eddy.”
To herself, she added that she would love to be trapped in a car with Sam.
She never suspected that days later, she would be. Trapped in the SUV. The floodwater rushing in. Sam’s head bleeding. The life vests. The ropes. And the ambulance.
Then…silence. Sam had disappeared after the accident. Never checked on Lana, never cared to check on Helicity. The boy she had fallen in love with had vanished.
“Helicity? Hello? You still with us?”
Mia’s voice prodded Helicity from her memory. “Sorry,” she said. “Just thinking about sea beans.”
“cleaning rooms is way more fun with you here.”
Mia handed Helicity a stack of clean towels from the linen supply, grabbed a pile of fresh sheets, and led the way back to a guest room.
A week had pass
ed since Helicity arrived at the Beachside. She’d fallen easily into the daily routine—and just as easily into bed each night. “That’s thanks to the combination of hard work and fresh sea air,” Suze told her when she marveled about how soundly she’d been sleeping.
Helicity nodded, though she thought the truth lay elsewhere.
Mia had been right: she felt better being away from the stress back home. Her guilt over the danger Andy and Lana had put themselves in for her sake was still there, but it didn’t weigh on her quite so oppressively. As for another panic attack, so far, nothing she’d encountered had triggered one.
Her new journal was helping her sort through her feelings, too. She hadn’t planned to keep one. But her first afternoon in Texas, she, Mia, and Suze had taken the ferry from Bolivar Peninsula to Galveston Island. As the boat motored across the small channel that connected the Gulf of Mexico to Galveston Bay, a trio of bottlenose dolphins appeared. Their grace and agility, carefree abandon, and natural smiles sent a happy warmth through Helicity’s veins. She wanted to hold on to that glow. So, when she spotted a journal with a dolphin on the cover, she bought it. She’d written in it nearly every night since.
She’d been less consistent communicating with her family. Not because she didn’t miss them, but because the tension back home traveled right through the phone. Her town had been reduced to rubble by the tornado, her family home torn apart. Those losses were devastating, but it was Andy’s uncertain future that had them on edge. The injuries he’d sustained while searching for her during the tornado had put a lucrative football scholarship in jeopardy. Without those funds, their parents couldn’t afford to send him to college. Without college, his dream of playing professional football one day would die.
Their chores done, Helicity and Mia set off for the beach. Beneath the deck, Mia paused uncertainly next to the Boogie Boards. “You want to try these today?”
Back in Michigan, they had always been the first ones to jump in the pool or charge into the lake, even when the lake water felt as frigid as newly melted snow. But Helicity’s first night there, Mia made a confession.
“I’m afraid to swim in the Gulf because I saw a dead shark on the beach. It freaked me out. I mean, Lake Michigan might be cold, but it doesn’t have killer fish.”
Helicity had been secretly relieved. She hadn’t gone swimming since the flash flood. Whenever she got knee-deep in the waves, memories of other, more powerful ones sent her backpedaling to the safety of the sand. She didn’t even like taking baths anymore. They weren’t relaxing. Just the opposite, in fact: the water surrounding her was terrifying. She wanted to get past the phobia. But she wasn’t ready to face that beast. Not yet.
“Beachcombing is fine with me,” she said.
Beach buckets in hand, the girls headed down the dune path. The midafternoon sun beat down on them with the intensity of an open furnace as they searched for treasures along the shoreline. Suddenly, a commotion farther down the beach caught Helicity’s attention. “What’s going on?”
“One way to find out!”
Pails in hand, they hurried toward the tight group of people.
“We need to get help down here right away,” a man yelled, “or she’s going to die!”
Helicity’s step faltered. Was there a body on the beach? Even through all of the recent tragedies, she still hadn’t seen a dead body. She had seen Lana looking lifeless in the hospital bed, a tube down her throat breathing for her, and that was an image that would never leave her mind. Then the crowd parted, and she saw that “she” wasn’t a person, but a stranded dolphin.
“Oh, no!” she cried.
Patches of sand encrusted the dolphin’s smooth gray skin. The dorsal fin bore a distinctive mark—a white slash of a scar. It gave a weak beat of its tail flukes and puffed a gasp of breath from its blowhole. Helicity’s heart broke to see the beautiful animal in such distress.
Someone produced a phone and called for help. “Marine mammal rescue says to keep her skin wet and covered,” he instructed.
Helicity immediately emptied her bucket and charged into the surf. She ran back out with a pailful of seawater. When she neared the dolphin, she slowed and started murmuring in low, soothing tones. “You’ll be okay. It’s going to be okay. You’re a survivor.”
Please be a survivor, she added silently.
“Not so close!” a middle-aged woman fretted. “It might bite you!”
Mia stepped in front of her. “Dolphins don’t bite. At least…I don’t think they do.” She looked over her shoulder at Helicity. “Go on. You got this.”
Helicity eased closer to the dolphin. She tipped the bucket and trickled the water over its torso, taking care to avoid the blowhole.
The dolphin’s black eye rolled to look up at her. She stared into its liquid depths, her breath catching as she recognized the intelligence there.
“Hey. Here’s more.”
A teenage boy with deeply tanned skin, blond curls, and a slight southern lilt sidled up behind her with another pail of water. She started to move out of his way, but he stopped her. “Nuh-uh.” He handed her the bucket. “Like your friend said—you got this.”
Helicity glanced back. Mia and the others had formed a bucket brigade, passing empty containers to the water and sending them back full. Wet beach towels, too, which the boy helped her drape over the dolphin’s body.
Finally, the rescue unit arrived. She and the boy backed away to let the trained volunteers do their job.
“That was intense.” The boy smiled broadly. His brown-black eyes were almost as dark as the dolphin’s and even more intelligent. “I’m Trey, by the way.”
“Helicity.” She waited for the inevitable look of confusion, but Trey just nodded.
“Nice to meet you, Helicity.”
He was strikingly handsome, she noted with an unexpected quickening of her pulse. It wasn’t the zing she felt with Sam. This was different. This felt like she had known him for years. His easygoing demeanor, deep dimples, and slightly crooked, bright white smile created an aura of…joy. And she didn’t even know him.
He was about to say something else when Mia came up behind them, tossing their beach buckets in the sand. The three talked in low tones while the rescue crew carefully loaded the dolphin onto a special stretcher, then floated the stretcher out to their waiting boat. One volunteer broke away to thank them for their help.
“What will happen to her?” Helicity asked.
“He, actually,” the volunteer said. “We’re bringing him to our rehabilitation center in Galveston. Hopefully, we’ll figure out what’s wrong with him, then get him strong enough to go back in the wild. You can watch his progress on our Facebook page, if you want.” She excused herself to rejoin her crew.
“Facebook?” Mia chuckled. “Do people our age even use Facebook?”
Helicity shrugged. “I might sign up just to see the dolphin.”
“I will if you will,” Trey said, “and if we can be friends on it.”
The hopefulness in his tone caught Helicity off guard. Suddenly flustered, she murmured, “Oh, um. Sure. What about you, Mia?”
Mia snorted. “Forget it. I’ll just troll Suze’s account instead. Speaking of Suze…” She stood. “It’s almost time to start dinner.”
“Oh.” Trey sounded disappointed. “Well, see you.”
“Yeah. See you.” Mia waited a beat as if expecting Trey to do or say something more. When he didn’t, she grabbed Helicity’s hand and pulled her back toward home.
They’d just reached the dune path when Trey ran up behind them. He was taller than Helicity had realized. Broad-shouldered, too, with a sheen of sweat that made his skin gleam like polished bronze. Heat rose to her cheeks when she realized she was staring, and she quickly looked away.
“You forgot these.” He held out the buckets.
Helicity was embarrassed. Buckets. They seemed so childish. And she was growing into a woman. Or at least that’s how she wanted Trey to see her.
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br /> “Whoops, my bad,” Mia said, taking them. “Thanks.”
“No problem.” He shuffled awkwardly from foot to foot. “So, it was really awesome, the way you took charge back there, Helicity.”
“Oh,” she mumbled. “Thanks.”
“You wouldn’t want to hang out sometime, would you?” Trey suddenly blurted. “Not like a—a date or anything,” he added hurriedly. “You, too, Mia.”
Mia’s lips twitched as if she was trying to suppress a smile. “Why not? We’re staying up there, at the Beachside. And we’re free tomorrow. So, if it’s okay with Helicity…” She raised her eyebrows questioningly.
“I—um—yeah,” Helicity stammered, the heat in her cheeks now rivaling that from the sun.
Trey broke into a wide grin and backpedaled the way he’d come. “Beachside. Tomorrow. See you then!”
The girls crouched to retrieve their flip-flops. “So. He seemed nice,” Helicity commented casually.
“Definitely.” Mia bumped her shoulder. “Also, he’s into you.”
“What? No, he’s not!”
“Uh, yeah, he is! Which is why I left the buckets behind. Had to give him a reason to come after us. Or you, rather.” Mia held up her hands. “Don’t get me wrong. He’s cute, but so not my type.”
“What is your type?” Helicity wondered.
“Gingers with British accents. You know, the whole Ed Sheeran–Prince Harry–Ronald Weasley package. But do you ever see gorgeous redheaded guys on the beach? No. Because sunburn.” Mia heaved a woebegone sigh.
Just then, the Y-shaped crosspiece on Helicity’s flip-flop popped loose. As she knelt to fix it, Mia started tossing out ideas for the next day. “We could do the ferry again. Or head to North Jetty. Or—Huh. That’s weird.”
“What’s weird?”
“Someone’s waving to us from the Beachside deck.”
Helicity straightened and shaded her eyes. The setting sun cast the person in silhouette, making it impossible for her to see his face. Then he shouted.