Chapter 27
Luna looked pensive. She had been quiet during dinner and now she kept looking at the door Sarah, Rebecca, and Dr Mags all disappeared through headed for their bunks. Beckett said, trying to sound upbeat. “I guess the Zodiac is out of the question.”
Luna distractedly said, “Oh yeah, I guess so.” The rain was growing louder. The ship beginning to storm-pitch.
“How about we stay here?” He got the deck of cards and flipped through them. “You know how to play war?”
Luna nodded. She was the quietest he had ever seen her. No easy smile or sparkling mood. Beckett took a turn and then Luna. She said, looking at her cards, “It’s not even a big storm, nothing I haven’t weathered before.”
Beckett placed down a card. “I’m sure.”
The ship rocked to the right causing Luna to slide into Beckett. “I mean — is it my turn? It’s just we Waterfolk have ways of dealing with storms, that make it easier…” she placed a card down matching Beckett’s, and they played out a battle sequence that Beckett won. He took all the cards. Luna seemed not to notice. She had five cards left in her hand.
He asked, “Tell me how Waterfolk deal with storms.” The ship pitched left and Luna braced her foot to keep from sliding off the seat.
“I don’t know, um, we—” He placed a card, she placed a card. “Go bird. That’s one thing, try to hunker down and turn off your brain and get through.” The boat pitched forward and free fell causing Beckett and Luna to fly up and crash back to the seat. Beckett’s stomach lurched. Luna screamed. Dan in the kitchen yelled, “Hey!” and a pile of something crashed.
He sat sideways on the booth, leaned against the wall, and pulled Luna to his chest. “Come here. This is nothing, right? A minor storm. That was just a big wave and Lenny is probably driving.” The boat pitched to the left again. Beckett tightened his hold around Luna.
She said, “It surprised me that’s all.” He peeked at her eyes, they were closed tight. She was curled in his arms.
The boat pitched forward again and in one quick move Luna dove up under the front of Beckett’s shirt.
Beckett chuckled down at the big lump on his front that was Luna’s head and shoulders. “Better?”
“Much better.” Then she said, “I’m sorry I’m stretching out your shirt.”
“No worries.”
“It’s not that I’m scared. It’s—”
“I think I’ll join you.” He pulled his arms in the sleeves and wiggled his head down into the neck of the shirt, stretching it up and out. Yep, his shirt would be ruined, but he was completely okay with that. He whispered, “So how do you ‘Go Bird’?”
Luna lifted her chin and looked up at him. The green of his t-shirt shadowed her face. “Kind of like this. You wrap your wings around your head. The hard part is you’re supposed to stop thinking.”
He asked, “How are you supposed to do that?”
She said, “I never really figured it out.”
He said, “Maybe you have to distract your—”
Dan’s voice interrupted them as he came around the corner from the kitchen, “Man, that was — um, Army, whatcha doing?”
Beckett said, from inside the shirt. “I’m going bird Dan, what does it look like I’m doing?”
Dan chuckled. The ship pitched right. “I’m not going to be able to get anything done with this maniac driving the ship, so Jeffrey and I are headed to the bunks. Luna do you need anything?”
Luna’s face was pressed into Beckett’s chest, under the cloth. She said quietly, “I can’t think of anything.”
“All right birdies, want the lights off?”
Beckett said, “No, keep them on.”
Jeffrey came around the corner, putting on his raincoat to make it from the door of the galley to the door of the bunk room. “Want to share my raincoat to the bunk room?”
Beckett said, “I think we’ll stay in here tonight.”
Dan said, “If you get bored, the cutlery needs to get packed.”
After they left, Beckett began to sing, low and slow, not well, but softly.
Luna asked, “Is that the song we danced to on the Outpost?”
“One of them.” He continued, “Oooh, sad to say, that is the way, we gotta play…”
Luna said, “I like that, it’s nice, can you keep doing that?”
Beckett nodded and kept singing.
