Chapter 3
On the fifthday Beckett began their conversation with, “You good?”
“It was a long day. I paddled against the wind for most of it, trying to beat a southern storm to Otter Island.” Her voice broke up.
Beckett scanned the maps. “Did you say Otter Island or Outer Island?”
Luna kept talking, “. . . cut north for shelter . . . . . . an inlet . . . lay low . . .”
Beckett traced his pencil up and around the islands along the northern coast of the mainland, searching for any that matched her words. But his charts rarely matched her descriptions. He asked, “What are the coordinates?”
She rattled off numbers, but her voice broke. He asked again, she repeated them, with static through most of it. He asked a third time and marked the closest thing he could decipher.
She was somewhere inside a chain called the Sierra Islands. A location that caused Dan to go, “Wow, those islands are notorious for their insane weather, tell her to go fast.”
Well, she wasn’t going fast. Her mark had barely moved from yesterday’s. Here, Beckett was on a boat with a crew of people caring for his health and wellbeing, and what did Luna have?
Nothing. She was on her own, crossing the ocean. The rising ocean.
“I wish you had someone with you.”
“I couldn’t let Sky . . . . . . offered to but I couldn’t let them. To separate them from their group . . . . . . that’s their family. You . . .” Her voice trailed off.
Beckett, head in his hand, asked, “What?”
“Waterfolk can’t make it without their family.”
Beckett gulped. “Luna I’m sorry you have to. You found a family and now I made you leave them. And you’re alone again and if anything happens to you —”
“. . . static . . . didn’t mean it to make you feel guilty, I just . . . . . . somehow I am surviving . . . . . . glad when I don’t have to anymore.”
“Me too. I admire you that you’re so strong and brave.”
“I don’t feel strong . . . . . . this isn’t bravery, most of the time I’m kind of terrified . . . . . . I’m really tired . . . . . . Mr. Wind and I need to have a talk about his timing.”
“God, Luna I’m so sorry.”
“What I need right now . . . distractions . . . . . . grateful for this radio.”
“Describe where you are.”
“ . . . . . . inlet . . . a canopy of trees. The shore has some boulders. I pulled Steve and Boosy and Tree up out of the water and tied them . . . my tent . . . . . . higher ground. I can look out the door . . . ” There was a zipping sound. “I can see Tree, he looks good, which means Boosy and Steve are good.”
“What time did the storm start?”
“It started raining . . . . . . half hour ago . . . direction and size of the front . . . it will last all night.”
Beckett was drawing a spiral around her possible coordinates, darker and darker. “I thought you would be closer by now.”
There wasn’t any reply for a moment until Luna’s voice emerged, “. . . the weather and I’m alone,” faintly, “I wonder if—”
A roaring sound interrupted her. Beckett sat up and leaned in. “Is that the rain?”
There was no response until, “. . . I should go.”
The radio went dead.
“Luna, are you okay?”
Beckett stared at for a long moment, then he studied the charts, tracing a line from her coordinates, to his own, miles and leagues away.
