me. I took yet another big swallow. Clouds thickened in the sky above us, blotting out the blinding haze. The iron-dark water turned black. A brooding menace pressed down over the mangroves.
Light flashed in the sky. I glanced up. Thunder rumbled and folded into the faraway boom of surf. Wind stirred. It brought a fetid smell out of the forest. I was not seeing what Martin saw in this place. I did not see beauty. I could not imagine here what the brochures showed. A terrible fear rose inside me. I’d done something awful—made a big mistake.
“No worries, been thundering most afternoons lately,” Martin said. “Pressure systems building every day in this unseasonable hot spell. Should break and rain soon enough.”
He topped up my glass. I sipped more of the cold drink and ate a bit. I felt a little better. He put down the back seat and gave me a blanket to lie on, which I did, staring up at eucalyptus leaves. My eyes began to close, and I finally felt free to allow the fatigue to wash over me. The world began to fade with the gentle rock of the boat upon the turning of the tide.
I woke with a shock.
I was lying on the bottom of the boat. It was dusk. Massive bats swooped down on the boat and then back up into the tree above. More hung there, squabbling. Confusion flared through me. Then panic. I scrambled up onto my knees, pulled myself up onto my feet. Unsteady, I hung on to the boat’s awning support.
“Martin?” I called into the darkening mangrove shadows.
A scream sliced through the air. My heart beat fast. Some kind of bird. Prehistoric-sounding. I looked up. Beyond the twisted silhouette of the forest canopy, the sky was slashed with vermilion streaks and angry blades of orange. I dropped back to my knees. Limbs wouldn’t work. I retched over the side of boat, a dry heave. Bitter bile soured the back of my throat.
“Martin!” My voice was hoarse.
With a crashing sound, he appeared through the bushes at the end of the dock. He carried a flashlight and a stack of signboards. I read the words on the top placard as he clumped along the wooden dock toward the boat.
STOP AGNES MARINA! ACID WASH KILLS.
“Where have you been?” I demanded, trying to stand again. “Where did you go . . . where are those signs from?”
“Welcome back.” His voice was cool. Displeasure contorted his face. He climbed into the boat and dumped the signs with a clatter on the bottom of the boat.
I looked at them next to my bare feet. When had I taken my shoes off? The tops of my feet were red and swollen from mosquito bites. Next to my toes was an empty bottle of rosé. Hadn’t we been drinking white? A wine goblet lay on its side, rolling slightly back and forth with Martin’s movement on the boat. I touched my face. It was bitten and lumpy, too. Itchy. My lips were chapped.
“I wanted to show you the homestead,” he said brusquely as he climbed out of the boat to untie the yellow-and-blue ropes. “I wanted you to see the view over our land.” He angrily tossed in the ropes, climbed back into the boat, and positioned himself behind the wheel. The engine coughed to life. “You really shouldn’t drink so much wine on top of jet lag and the cider, Ellie.”
“What?” I pressed my hand to my damp brow. I couldn’t process. I couldn’t remember.
“Put your damn life jacket on.” He reversed away from the dock, bubbles churning up from the propeller. “A bottle and a half? You’re going to feel it in the morning. And look at you covered with bites. Not even sober enough to put on the repellent I gave you.”
“But I . . . didn’t drink—”
He reached down, snagged the rosé bottle up from the deck, held it up for me to see, wiggled it at my face. “Empty to the last drop.”
My mouth indeed tasted sour with old wine. I felt drunk. He stuck the empty bottle and goblet into a compartment along the side of the boat, right next to an aggressive-looking fishing gaff that had the name Abracadabra down the side. He angled the bow back into the channel. Martin increased speed, the dark water swelling into a V behind us. Trees reached out to grab us. Bats swirled and filled the vermilion sky. Shrieks and screams tore through the air.
My