then
Lana,” Kitty whispered, opening the cabin door a crack and peering in. “There’s land! We can see land!”
Lana woke, disorientated, to find herself lying on the top bunk, dressed, a paperback bent beneath her arm. She must have fallen asleep. She propped herself up a little and, rubbing a hand over her eyes, gazed through the porthole.
At first she thought she was seeing only a cloud bank—a hazy mass on the horizon—but as her eyes began to focus, she could make out the texture of an island in the distance.
“Where are we?” she asked, shaking her head. “Palau?”
“No. It’s that island on the charts. D’you remember? Aaron showed us.”
When they were still in the Philippines, Aaron had been studying the charts and told them that it looked as though there was a tiny fleck of an island a day or two’s sail from Palau. It had looked so small and isolated that he’d wondered if it were a mistake.
“How far away are we?”
“A couple of hours. Come and see it from up on deck. We’re all up there.”
Lana hesitated. She’d avoided being with the rest of the group, feeling isolated by the split in their decision over Joseph. But she was grateful to Kitty for coming to fetch her.
“I’ll meet you up there.” It took Lana a few minutes to shake off the lethargy that swamped her after sleeping during the day. She went to the bathroom and splashed a little cool water on her face, then retied her headscarf and smoothed down her top. She’d barely looked in the mirror since they’d been on the passage, and she didn’t recognize the face looking back at her; her cheeks were gaunt, and her skin had darkened with windburn. She looked older somehow. Changed.
She glanced out of the porthole in the bathroom and saw the welcome contours of the island as it grew nearer—somewhere she could at least set foot on and remind herself that there was life beyond this boat.
When they got to Palau—tomorrow, the next day?—she wondered what would happen then. Could she continue sailing on The Blue? Or was the only option to leave? But if she left, what about Kitty? What about Denny? And the others, too—they were her friends, weren’t they? Her head swam with confusion.
When she finally went up on deck, she saw that the clouds had parted and everyone was standing together in the early-afternoon sun. She paused for a moment, looking at the crew. The sea was calm, The Blue cutting smoothly through the water. She thought how beautiful the image was, how much she wanted to capture it. She could see the details she’d draw—Kitty’s fingers holding an empty beer bottle loosely by her side; Denny standing alone facing the island, his lips pursed thoughtfully; Aaron’s mouth pulled to one side in a slight smile as he talked to Heinrich; Shell sitting cross-legged on the deck, her face turned to the sun.
Kitty threw back her head and laughed, the sun catching in her dark hair. Lana wanted her to turn, to see her standing there, and to grab her by the hand and bring her to the others—the way she used to do when they were kids.
As Lana approached, it was Denny who took a beer from the cool box, snapped the lid off, and handed it to her. The others looked around then, noticing her. No one said anything and she felt an awful coolness creep over her skin. She sought out Kitty, who smiled. “Hey, you came.” But her gaze was glassy, vacant—the look she got when she’d been drinking.
Lana glanced at the cool box and saw that almost all of the beer bottles were empty. How long had they been drinking and celebrating together as they sailed nearer to land? Only Kitty had thought to fetch her—and not until now. Lana wrapped her hand around the neck of the beer, noticing that her fingernails were bitten down to the flesh.
• • •
A couple of hours later they were anchoring at the edge of a coral cay, no longer than two hundred or three hundred feet. Running along the spine of the island was a cluster of spindly palm trees and scrubby foliage amid the desert-white sand. After nine days with only the sea to look at, this tiny stretch of land seemed an almost miraculous sight.
Heinrich and Shell, who appeared to have put their troubles behind them, wasted no time getting the dinghy into the water, and the rest of the crew squeezed in to join them.
“You coming?” Kitty called from the dinghy.
Lana shook her head. “I’ll keep an eye on things here.” While she yearned to feel solid ground beneath her feet again, her need to be alone was even stronger.
Kitty opened her hands and began to say something more, but it was lost beneath the sound of Aaron pulling the start cord of the outboard.
She watched as the dinghy motored over the shallow reef towards the island. Lana took several long, deep breaths, rolling her shoulders back, then stretched her neck from side to side. It felt like the first time in days that she could breathe properly. She opened another beer and sat on the bow seat, letting her legs dangle towards the water as the sea lapped against the hull.
There was a time when she’d have sat on the yacht like this—beer in hand, the sun on her face—thinking that there was nowhere else in the world she’d rather be. But now she thought of Joseph, sitting on this seat with his notebook in hand, writing a soliloquy of apologies.
“What happened to you?” she said desperately, the weight of her questions growing the closer they got to Palau. It felt as though the others were moving on, putting it behind them—but Lana couldn’t. Somewhere in this ocean was his body. She wondered whether it would sink over time, or whether the gases produced as he decomposed would make him rise to the surface, and he’d just drift and drift, until the flesh had been leached from him and only bones remained.
• • •
Sometime later, Lana heard the outboard motor. She looked up and watched as the dinghy cut across the water. She picked up a pair of binoculars, squinting through the two circles of glass.
As the shapes and features of the crew became clearer, Lana wondered what she’d think of each of them if she were seeing them for the first time. She’d notice Aaron’s firm, tanned hand gripping the tiller, his eyes staring ahead at the water; she’d see the dark sheen of Kitty’s hair as she turned towards Denny, smiling at something he was telling her; she’d admire the ladder of colorful bangles climbing Shell’s wrists; and she’d notice Heinrich’s clear, even tan. She’d think they were a group of travelers, young and carefree.
What she wouldn’t know was that several days earlier, one of their crew members had disappeared at sea. She wouldn’t be able to tell by looking at their bronzed, relaxed faces that all but Denny had decided to bury this information, make a secret of it so that they weren’t implicated. She moved the focus of the binoculars to each person in turn. One of them knew more about Joseph’s death than he or she was letting on. But who?
She pushed the binoculars aside and, as the dinghy motored closer, she caught a drift of words. “Reef,” “trigger fish,” “beer.” She heard laughter—Heinrich’s or Aaron’s perhaps—and wondered what was funny. Was this how Joseph had felt sitting alone in the bow seat, hearing the rest of them having fun together?
“Missed a beautiful snorkel,” Kitty said, climbing onto the deck, a towel wrapped around her hips, wet hair dripping down one shoulder. “Amazing coral. Completely untouched. Heinrich saw a sea snake.”
“It was over a meter long,” he said, measuring the air with his hands.
“We’re anchoring here tonight,” Aaron said. “We all fancied the break from night watches. Gonna set off for Palau at first light.”
Lana felt her muscles tighten. She wanted to keep going, reach Palau. Arriving there had become a beacon, the goal. It was the place where this terrible passage finally ended—where she could be among other people, feel the sweep of normality again. She didn’t want to wait around, anchored near a half island. “Are you sure? I just want to get there.”
Everyone turned to look at her.
“We all do,” Aaron said, “but I think everyone deserves a break.”
Kitty wrung the water from her hair over the side of the boat. “I’ve been in the sun too long,” she said, disappearing belowdecks.
“Beer?” Heinrich asked Denny.
“Sure.”
“Let’s have a look over those charts, too,” Aaron said.
The men went belowdecks, and Shell disappeared to change.
Lana remained on deck, agitation burrowing under her skin. She looked towards the island, which was about a kilometer away. She wasn’t in the right frame of mind to draw or read—her thoughts skittering and jumping too much to focus on a page. Maybe she should swim, burn off some anxious energy.
She stood at the stern and looked down at the sea. They were anchored in about thirty feet of water. The seabed shelved off deeply, the depth finder reading over one hundred feet a little farther out. There was something daunting, a primeval fear, about diving into the unknown, where sharks or other predators could be lurking. Without giving herself time to hesitate or delay, she unhooked her dress, tied it around the lifeline to keep it from blowing away, and dived in.
The water felt against her skin as she cut through it, her fingers and toes in a point. She opened her eyes underwater, and blurry blue light filtered around her.
She let herself gradually float to the surface, the sea carrying her gently upwards. Then she began to swim, her arms slicing through the calm water with smooth, steady strokes. It was surprisingly wonderful to be moving—not just within the constricted space of the yacht—but freely, fluidly.
She swam away from the yacht in the direction of the island. There seemed to be no current or wind, but she hovered for a few moments, setting her gaze on a fixed point on the island as Denny had taught her so that she could check whether a current or tide was pulling in a certain direction. After a minute, she had barely moved, so she swam on, feeling the pleasing ache building in her arm muscles. It was a relief to be doing something physical, and she felt immediately better for it.
The water beneath her grew shallower as she swam over the reef, coral waving in and out of view. She should have brought the mask and snorkel. She dived under and stopped kicking, hovering there in the still blue.
She wasn’t breathing, wasn’t thinking, wasn’t swimming—just gliding through layers of ocean and salt water. As her lungs began to tingle, she heard a rumbling sound. Her thoughts drifted around the familiar shape of the noise, wondering what it could be out here in the empty ocean. Sounds underwater travel five times faster than in air, so Lana knew that whatever it was must be farther away than it appeared.
Suddenly her eyes flashed open to the salt sting of the sea as she recognized the noise: it was the sound of the engine starting up.
She kicked hard, splashing to the surface and taking in a gulp of air. The Blue was still positioned as it had been before—about five hundred meters away—but she could see the shape of someone standing at the bow bringing in the anchor. Perhaps it was dragging and they’d decided to reanchor.
It was eerie to know the anchor was being pulled when she was this far from the yacht. She chided herself for swimming such a distance. Deciding to head back, she swam in front crawl, keeping the rhythm steady.
The engine noise increased, a throbbing sound that bubbled through the otherwise still air. As she watched the yacht, she became aware of the bow turning away from her, pointing in the opposite direction—out towards the horizon.
She guessed they were reanchoring, but it was unnerving to see the yacht turning away from her. She swam harder, thrusting her arms through the water.
She kept expecting the yacht to turn back, to see its bow swinging towards her as it found a new spot to anchor—but oddly it kept its course, heading towards the open ocean, the dinghy tied to its stern.
Surely they wouldn’t anchor far from the original spot where Lana was swimming. They must just be making a wide turn. She swam after it, her arms beginning to tire—but the yacht didn’t swing around. It was getting farther away from her.
“Hey!” she shouted. “Wait!” She could see some of the crew on deck—just silhouettes where the sun was behind them—but no one turned. No one heard.
She was exhausted, panting from the burst of front crawl, and she had to tread water for a moment while she caught her breath. It was hard to judge distances or speeds without landmarks, but it seemed that the yacht was already two hundred, maybe three hundred, meters from where it had been anchored. She waited, still believing that the yacht was going to turn back—but a minute passed, and then another. The Blue didn’t turn.
Then she realized: the position the yacht was now in was too deep to put down the anchor. The crew weren’t finding a new spot to anchor—they were leaving.
• • •
“Wait! Stop! Stop!” she cried, the pleas scratching at her throat.
With a sickening sense of dread, she remembered that she hadn’t told anyone she was swimming.
Her dress was tied to the lifeline—surely one of them would see it and realize?
With ragged breathing, she trod water, watching as the boat motored farther away into the distance. Come on! Notice the dress. Notice I’m missing!
A rogue thought ratcheted up her fear: it had been hours before anyone realized Joseph was missing. For the first time, she felt the full horror of what he must have experienced—seeing The Blue slipping from view as it was now, being left alone in the endless sea.
Lana spun around, arms cutting through the water. Panic sparked and thickened, a thousand fear-spiked thoughts cutting into her mind: What now—do I try and swim to the island? But it’s too far! I’ll never make it. I can’t drown. I can’t drown out here!
“Why the fuck aren’t you checking I’m on board?” she screamed across the empty ocean.
Then a shot of fear pierced her thoughts.
What if they had?
• • •
She shook herself into action. Kick your legs. Move. Swim. Come on, Lana!
She fixed her vision on the island, focusing on two palm trees that bowed towards each other, forming the shape of a heart. A palm tree heart, she told herself. Be positive. You’ll reach the island. There’s no current. You can just take your time. You’re a strong swimmer, Lana. Just relax.
She swam forwards in front crawl, trying to keep her rhythm steady, but she was surprised by how quickly she tired. She’d already been swimming for at least fifteen minutes before the yacht left; her mouth was dry from panting, and she was beginning to shiver.
She paused, treading water to catch her breath, and glanced back over her shoulder. The Blue had sailed so far into the distance that it was only a speck. Losing concentration, she slipped beneath the surface, the sea covering her with impersonal ease. She fought her way back up, spitting salt water from her mouth. Panic made her limbs heavy, her mind loose and hot. Keep your head, Lana. Breathe and kick, that’s all you need to do.
She fixed her gaze on the island again. She could not look back at the vast blue emptiness behind, and she wouldn’t look down into the unknown depths beneath her legs. There was only the island and the rhythm of her strokes, the sound of her breath. Anxious thoughts dived around her like hunting seabirds, but she tried to ignore them, focusing only on putting one arm in front of the other.
When cramp edged into the inner arches of her feet and tightened the muscles of her calves, she had no choice but to turn over and swim in backstroke. But seeing only empty sky above unnerved her further, and she swung around onto her front again, gritted her teeth against the cramp, and set her gaze on the heart-shaped palm trees.
Time had no measure. Sight was her only guide, and gradually, gradually, she saw that the island was growing closer, becoming richer in detail. She told herself she could smell the bark of the palms, the scent of the sand, feel the firmness of solid ground.
Eventually the water grew shallower and her toes brushed the scalloped seabed. She looked down to see clouds of sand moving around her feet. She staggered through the shallows, chest heaving, legs trembling, and hauled herself towards the beach, where she collapsed, panting. The damp sand smelled chalky and salty. She closed her eyes and dug her fingers deep into the sand, where the footsteps of her friends were already beginning to fade.
When she had the energy, she lifted her head and stared out towards the shrinking shape of The Blue thinking, Now what?