2 Degrees
Page 28
But that fucking gorilla. It pounded on her chest, not letting her go to sleep. It danced and hopped on top of her, relentlessly. Her chest burned and ached.
Please. She heard Inu’s voice in her head. Something tugged at her. Come back to us. Lips touched her cheek. She breathed in the scent of Eve. A dog barked. Erik. Nausea bubbled in her belly. She bolted upright, throwing up sea water in between gasps.
“Welcome back, amiga.” Federico smiled. His wet hair and clothing clung to him. “We got you and Eve in the nick of time.”
“I’m not dead.” Sharon wiped her mouth with her sleeve and let her eyes adjust. She lay inside a closed launch room aboard the Bird of Paradise. Eve, Limmy, and Federico knelt at her side.
“No.” Federico grinned. “You most certainly are not. We only had forty-five seconds to spare. But we got you, amiga. We’re all safe now. Woody put the ship into a deep dive. Down here in the Milwaukee Depth, the Extinction Wave can’t touch us.” He nodded at Limmy. “He brought you back with CPR.”
“You were the gorilla on my chest.” She laughed at the irony. “Thank you.”
“It’s the least I could do.” Limmy moved aside, making room for Eve.
Eve bent and put her lips to Sharon’s. “I love you.”
Sharon felt reborn with her wife’s perfect kiss. “And I love you.” She wrapped her arms tight around Eve.
“Woody, Woody, Woody,” Federico spoke into an acupalmtell. “We got them both. Safe and sound.”
“Great news!” Woody’s voice beamed through the acupalmtell. “Tell Sharon and Eve their family can’t wait to see them. JJ, Inu, Annie, Erik, and me, especially.”
Sharon inhaled the scent of Eve. Such a subtle, unmistakable fragrance: like sassafras, clean and slightly resinous.
Epilogue
Sharon maneuvered the black sea devil through the narrow, craggy passage of Neptune’s Bellows into Port Foster. The watery caldera of Deception Island was calm. With summer temperatures on the Antarctic Peninsula and the South Shetland Islands averaging 20⁰ C, only a tuft of snow remained atop Mount Pond.
“This was the perfect place to try to grow an apple tree outside of the Bird of Paradise.” Eve put a hand to Sharon’s back. “Assuming the nutrient compound I put together works. Even if it doesn’t, I love our time in this little hideaway.”
“Me too. Hell, I love all of Antarctica. The last unspoiled place on Earth.” Sharon smiled and drove the vessel up onto the sandy shore below the rise of Mount Kirkwood. “I think our little tree will too. It’s the most protected place near the peninsula.” She powered down the black sea devil and opened its hatch. Sunlight poured in.
Inu flipped up his seat restraint. “Come, Erik.” He scrambled through the open hatch.
The dog barked and chased after him, his tail wagging in circles.
Sharon stood and held out her hands to Eve, pulling her up. “They’ve only been in each other’s lives for less than a year. Now our son and dog are inseparable.” She wrapped her arms around her wife. “You were right all along.”
“About what?” Eve put her hands to Sharon’s face. “That I have impeccable taste in wives?”
“Besides that.” Sharon smiled.
“Tell me.”
“Just before the Strelitzia took you from me that day in Boston.” Sharon pressed her hands to Eve’s. “You told me we’d be okay. Deep down I didn’t believe it. But here we are in this safe and beautiful place with a family of our own. We belong to a group of people who are the best hope for humanity’s survival. We’re more than okay.”
“Yes, we are, my darling. Because we’re in this together.” Eve kissed Sharon. “All of us.”
About the Author
Bev’s road to the place she calls home has been long and winding. Born in the mountains of the West, raised in the Midwest, and educated in the South, she’s been a sergeant in the United States Air Force, a scientist, and an environmental lawyer. She’s traveled to the Arctic, Antarctica, and lots of places in between. But home is writing stories at the edge of a meadow in Maine where she shares her life with her spouse of twenty-seven years, a clever calico cat, and a couple of honeybee colonies.
Acknowledgments
I started the research for 2⁰ while on a trip to Antarctica in December, 2013. Dirty Bird is the name we gave to a scrappy little chinstrap penguin hell-bent on building its nest in a terrible location. Instead of a dry spot free from snow or ice in springtime, Dirty Bird was relegated to the muddy outer edges of the nesting colony. The penguin’s otherwise white belly was covered in brown muck. The ornithologist on our expedition explained that rising temperatures on the Antarctic Peninsula were bringing more snowfall, thereby decreasing suitable nesting locations for a variety of penguins. Dirty Bird was undeterred. Like that gutsy penguin, those of us who care about making a difference in the fight to protect Earth as we know it should also be undeterred. 2⁰ is for Dirty Bird and all of Earth’s wild ones. Thanks for inspiring me to write this story, and to be a better human.
Much thanks also goes to those friends and family who encourage and support my writing journeys. Thanks to Martha for teaching me about submarines. Thanks to Elizabeth Sims for making me a better writer. For Amy, Tracy, Claudia and Phil, thanks for always being interested in whatever is my latest writing project. Thanks to Quark Expeditions for the awesome trip to Antarctica. I’m grateful to those readers who spare me their time and resources to take a chance on my stories. It humbles me. A huge thanks to Bywater Books for giving 2⁰ a home. I’m honored to join the family.
Finally, to KC and Lilliput, you bring me the greatest joy—thanks for loving me.
Bywater Books
Copyright © 2018 Bev Prescott
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
Print ISBN: 978-1-61294-135-6
Bywater Books First Edition: September 2018
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper.
Cover Designer: Ann McMan, TreeHouse Studio
eBook ISBN: 978-1-61294-136-3
By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Bywater Books.
Bywater Books
PO Box 3671
Ann Arbor MI 48106-3671
www.bywater.com
This novel is a work of fiction. All characters and events described by the author are fictitious. No resemblance to real persons, dead or alive, is intended.
At Bywater Books we love good books about lesbians just like you do, and we’re committed to bringing the best of contemporary lesbian writing to our avid readers. Our editorial team is dedicated to finding and developing outstanding writers who create books you won’t want to put down.
We sponsor the Bywater Prize for Fiction to help with this quest. Each prizewinner receives $1,000 and publication of their novel. We have already discovered amazing writers like Jill Malone, Sally Bellerose, and Hilary Sloin through the Bywater Prize. Which exciting new writer will we find next?
For more information about Bywater Books and the annual Bywater Prize for Fiction, please visit our website.
www.bywaterbooks.com
ilter: grayscale(100%); filter: grayscale(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share