“Majesty!” Captain Felix yells. “A bearing!”
The tug is stronger than ever. I point, to port this time, as lightning flashes a portrait of the sky.
I am pointing directly at the tornado, which is nearly upon us.
The captain gapes at me, frozen with shock. His beard is plastered to his face, and it seems as though I stare down a darker, wilder version of Hector. He starts to protest, but a deckhand plunges across the deck to the wheel. “Bilge is to the third mark,” he yells. “We cannot bail fast enough.”
Felix’s features soften as he nods acknowledgment, and the deckhand disappears as quickly as he came. The captain closes his eyes, caresses a spoke of the wheel. His lips move with prayer, and I know he is preparing to die.
One arm still wrapped around Hector, I put my free hand to my stomach. The rope at my waist is in the way. I wrestle it downward to reveal my Godstone, and the effort scrapes my skin through my saltwater-soaked blouse.
I place my fingertips to the stone. What am I supposed to do? I know I should have faith, but this, God, this is impossible.
The boat is suddenly steady, though spray comes at us from all sides. It’s the tornado, more powerful than even the waves, forcing calm to the nearby water before sucking it up.
Hector shifts so that I sit between his legs. He wraps one arm around the railing, the other around me, as if he can protect me from the monster bearing down on us.
I lean back and lift my lips toward his ear. “Pray with me,” I say.
“I have been.”
I find his hand, guide it toward my navel, press his fingertips over my blouse to my Godstone. I hold it there as I intone, “Blessed is he who walks the path of God. He shall stray neither to the left nor the right, for the righteous right hand guides him for all his days.”
Hector is muttering too, urgently, though I can’t make out the words. There’s power in this, something about the two of us praying together; it builds inside me.
“The champion must not waver,” I say, as warmth floods me until my body sings with it, until I am a goblet about to overflow. “The champion must stay the course. Yea, though he pass through the shadows of darkness he shall not fear, for God’s righteous—”
A crack, even louder than the storm. I open my eyes to see that the tornado has snapped the bowsprit in two. Needles of water sting my cheeks and eyes. In moments, we’ll be ripped apart and washed away.
Hector’s hand slips beneath my soaked blouse, his fingers slide across my skin, find the Godstone. He presses down gently. I cover his hand with my own. “The champion must not waver,” he says in my ear. “Yea, though she pass through the shadow of darkness, she shall not fear, for God’s righteous right hand shall sustain her and give her new life triumphant.”
The warmth inside me becomes an inferno. My body blazes with heat, with desire, with desperation. The Godstone is riotous with it, pulsing with unused power. God, I want to live. I want all of us to live. What should I do? Why did you lead us here?
Another snap, a sail ripped asunder. The ship begins to pivot.
And then I sense it, tiny tendrils curling into me. I can’t see them, but I feel them, like will-o’-the-wisps on the wind, coming from every direction. I know them well, for I’ve been living with them my whole life.
Prayers.
Everyone on this ship is praying right now, I’m sure of it. And their broken, desperate thoughts flit toward me and feed my stone with even more power.
The tornado rips into the side of the ship. Planking and splinters fly everywhere.
Hector’s prayer falters. His grip on me freezes for an instant before tightening, even more fiercely than before. Then his cold, wet lips press against my cheek, just in front of my earlobe.
He says, “I love you, Elisa.”
Something breaks inside me. The world flashes brighter than daylight for the briefest moment—debris from the ship spins in the air, and beyond it, the largest wave I’ve ever known looms wicked and black—and then there is nothing but darkness and calm and a stillness like death.
I can’t see. I can’t feel my limbs. I can’t hear. It’s as though I’ve ceased to exist, save for my thoughts in a vast emptiness.
And then a heartbeat, true and steady. No, it’s two heartbeats, mine and Hector’s, beating almost as one.
And then nothing at all.
Chapter 25
I’M lying on my side, my cheek mashed into the planking. Hector’s body curls protectively around me.
Everything is still and bright, so bright that I blink against the pain of it. A soft breeze caresses my face, bringing the scent of hibiscus. A gull cries, a slide of sound from low to high.