Charlie St. Cloud Page 0,70

broken their promise.

Then Sam was struck with an amazing notion. He had never really thought about moving on before. Life in between—making mischief in Marblehead and playing catch at sundown—had always suited him and Oscar just fine. But Charlie knew best—“Trust me,” he liked to say—and if his big brother was willing to risk everything to venture out into the world, then maybe Sam should do the same.

And so, without trumpets or fanfare—without a blinding flash of light or chorus of angels—he had simply crossed over to the next level. The transition was as smooth and effortless as his fastball.

His granddad Pop-Pop was there to greet him, along with Barnaby Sweetland, the old caretaker of Waterside, and Florio Ferrente, who delivered a powerful hug and profound apologies for not having saved him in the first place. “Whom the gods love die young,” he had said. “Muor giovane coluiche al cielo è caro.”

From that moment forward, everything had changed for Sam. Gone were a twelve-year-old’s preoccupations with kissing girls and playing video games. Vanished were the hurts and pains of a stolen adolescence. Instead, he was filled with the wisdom of the ages and all the knowledge and experience that had eluded him when his life was cut short. With this new perspective, more than ever, Sam wanted to comfort his brother and make sure that everything would be okay.

So he morphed again, this time turning into the giant nimbus formation above the boat. If Charlie had bothered to look up, he would have recognized his brother’s face as it emerged in the puffs and curls of the cloud.

Sam could see that his brother was drowned in grief. How could he get him to steer in a new direction? Joe and Tink? Nope, they, too, were locked away—Joe in a wild orgy of spending from a fantasy lottery win, Tink struggling to figure out what he would say to Tess’s mother. Sad souls, all of them, Sam thought.

Somehow, someway, Sam knew he had to make Charlie take notice. So he mustered all his strength and shifted shapes once more.

Out of nowhere, a northeasterly wind tousled his bangs, flopping them in his eyes, then back over his head. Abruptly, the air suddenly changed to the southwest, pushing the whitecaps in a new direction. Gulls began to caw. Absorbed in his thoughts, Charlie paid no heed, until a bracing splash of spindrift hit him in the face.

Through stinging eyes, he recognized the sea was in turmoil and the wind was gusting. He jumped to his feet and sprang up the ladder into the tower, where Joe was struggling to stay on course and Tink was studying the charts.

“Need some help?” Charlie offered eagerly.

“Sure,” Joe said, “how about driving while I take a leak?”

“No problem.”

Charlie seized the wheel and fastened his sight on the white tufts of the waves and their spray, adjusting his steering to every subtle change in the wind’s direction. Soon a jagged shape, small and shrouded in gray fog, began to take form in the distance. What was it? A boat? An island?

Suddenly it became clear.

It was an outcropping in the water. Charlie checked the charts. Four hundred yards southeast of Duck Island was Mingo Rock. Through binoculars, he could see its eroded slopes and surface spotted with seaweed and guano. The boat was bouncing now, and he fought to keep his focus on the crag. For an instant, before the boat careened off a wave, he thought he spotted a fleck of color. Doggedly, he repositioned the lenses.

Then he saw something truly extraordinary: a glimpse of orange, the unmistakable color of an ocean survival suit. His heart leaped.

“Look!” he shouted, handing over the binoculars.

“No way,” Tink said.

“Holy Mother of God,” said Joe, who had just returned to the bridge.

Then Charlie opened the throttle to full speed, the boat roared toward the rock, and three words came to his mouth.

“Don’t let go. . . .”

The howling rotors from the Coast Guard Jayhawk blasted Mingo Rock with wind and spray. An aviation survivalman dropped down in a sling on a cable to the ledge where Charlie cradled Tess’s head in his lap, her face covered with his jacket to protect her from the downwash. She was still bundled in her survival suit and lashed with a rope to a banged-up watertight aluminum storage container. Her makeshift raft, he guessed: She had probably floated on it until she had found this crag and somehow pulled herself onto it.

His exhilaration had been eviscerated