brother.”
“Hi, Sam,” she said. They were the two sweetest words ever. Charlie had never imagined he would hear a woman greet his brother that way.
“Hi,” Sam said. “Shame you got here so late. It’s too dark to play catch.” He turned to Charlie. “She says she doesn’t throw like a girl! You believe her?”
“Now’s not the time,” Charlie said. He looked at Tess. She was just standing there—as real as anyone he had ever known. There wasn’t a single sign that she was fading away. And yet, in his brain he knew she was. He wondered how much she understood. He decided to start with a simple question. “How are you doing?”
“I was fine until I couldn’t see my reflection in the water,” she said. “Now I’m just confused. Tell me what’s going on, Charlie.”
She obviously didn’t know what had happened, and he knew he would have to be the one to break the news.
“Come on,” she said. “I’m a big girl. I can handle it.” She was obviously trying to be brave, but her tremulous voice gave her away. He had seen this before as spirits passed through Waterside. He ached over what she was going through—the confusion, the fear, the sadness.
“I’m not sure where to start,” Charlie said.
“How about the beginning?”
“All right,” he said. “Querencia has been missing for forty-eight hours. The whole town is worried sick. The fleet went out to search.”
“Missing for forty-eight hours?” She stomped the ground. “Damn, that’s a long time. . . .”
“A fisherman found a piece of your hull off Halibut Point. Tink and I found your life raft in Sandy Bay.”
“Where?”
“Sandy Bay, off Rockport.”
“That’s strange. I wasn’t anywhere near Rockport. Must’ve been the wind and the current.” She walked over to the swing and sat down on the wood plank.
“Do you remember what happened?” Sam asked.
“Not really,” she said.
Charlie watched her carefully. He hadn’t missed any obvious clues. There were no telltale signs. She wasn’t fading at the edges. There was no heavenly glow around her. She just seemed like herself, radiant as ever. She kicked her legs in the air, and the swing began to sway.
“You’ve got to try to remember,” Charlie said. “We need to know where you were when it happened.”
Tess jumped down from the swing. “Look, I know exactly what happened. The storm was Force 10, and I spent the night upside down on the water. It was freezing. A damn bottle of salad dressing shattered in the galley. It stank up the whole joint. I can still smell it on me.”
“Then what?”
“Next thing, I was at Dad’s grave.”
“Do you remember coming back to port?”
“Not exactly.”
“Do you know how you got to the cemetery?”
“No, Chas. It’s a blur.”
“That’s okay,” he said. “Sometimes when it happens suddenly, you don’t even realize what’s going on. It takes time to sink in.” He watched her carefully, weighing the impact of his words.
She seemed dazed at first, then she said, “Dear God, what’s going to happen to me?”
“Everything will feel better soon,” he said, his voice choking on the words, “and you’ll realize you’re going home where you belong.”
“Home? What are you talking about? Home is on Lookout Court with Bobo. Home is with my mother and friends.” There were tears in her emerald eyes now. She brushed them away and tried to force a smile, but it came off a little crooked. Then she said, “And I was even beginning to think home might be with you.”
TWENTY-TWO
TESS WASN’T A SUPERSTITIOUS SAILOR. SHE NEVER CARED if her crew said “pig,” a word most mariners dreaded because of an obscure belief that swine could somehow see the wind and mentioning them could whip up gales. She even dared to whistle while she worked—another taboo on the water—and she never hesitated to set sail on Fridays, which for centuries had portended disaster. She often stepped onto her boat with her left foot first, and she insisted that Querencia be painted blue, a color associated with tragedy at sea.
Now, incredibly, she wondered if it had been stupid to keep testing her luck. She had brought flowers aboard her boat, even though seamen insisted they be reserved for funerals. She had always looked back to port after sailing out, another violation of the code. Yes, she had broken the rules a thousand times or more, and Tess couldn’t help thinking: Maybe this was her fault.
Night was falling on the forest. The moon was up, the stars were out, and Tess sat with Charlie and Sam