Chapter Fifty-Five

Netted

The scream froze in my throat. A fishing boat pierced through a bank of fog, racing toward me.

My survival instincts took over, stark and clean. I dove straight down. If they couldn’t see me, they couldn’t catch me. With luck, they’d follow the seals instead.

The water pulsed and pounded with the motor’s unearthly roar. A dark shape passed overhead like a gigantic shark. Another moment and I’d be safe.

Something snagged my hand.

I tried to jerk it back, but now the thing was wrapping around the rest of my body. Tentacles pressed into my flesh. Except it wasn’t tentacles, it was rope, twisting together in hundreds of little gaping mouths—a net. The more I struggled, the tighter it held me. My lungs were bursting—

And then there was nothing. Only silence. Perfect, dark, and still.

Through closed lids I saw light. A beautiful, silvery light. My body hung limp, a deadweight, and yet somehow I was rising through the water toward the Moon.

The water fell away. The light was a red stab of sun.

Rough hands grabbed me, pulled me up, laid me down. The deck shook under my back. The motor pounded through my skin and into my blood until there was nothing but that relentless beat. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t open my eyes.

Bodies crouched and crowded around me. Voices barked.

“Can’t find a pulse—”

“Get on the radio and—”

Fingers tightened on my wrist. A pause, and then a different kind of voice, slow and sad: “It’s too late.”

The rigging rattled, metal on metal. The wind whipped my skin. I was cold, so cold—me, who’d never been cold in my life. I needed the waves to warm me. Why couldn’t I hear the waves?

“Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!” cried a voice behind me. “This is Nancy Belle, Nancy Belle, Nancy Belle. We’ve picked up a—”

A gentle warmth brushed over my face. Breath. “It’s not too late,” said a determined voice. Hands pressed down on my chest. Air forced its way into my lungs. A shudder ran through me and my eyes flew open—a blinding light—and then I was coughing and gasping and spitting up water. Hands clutched me from every side.

Men were crouched around me in a tight circle, chests heaving, eyes wide.

A hand curved around my shoulder. “Can you talk?”

But I wouldn’t speak. I wasn’t one of them. I wouldn’t be.

A distant voice crackled, “Vessel Nancy Belle, this is the Coast Guard station.”

Now they were all talking at once. “What happened to—”

“How’d you get way out here? Did your boat—”

“Who are you?”

The railing glinted in the distance, taunting me. I couldn’t even hold up my head, let alone break free and dive over.

“That’s strange,” said a man. “Look at his eyes. One’s brown and one’s blue. I never saw that before.”

“Let me see!” A man with white whiskers leaned over. His eyes stared right into mine. Then he sat back with a brisk nod. “It’s him, all right.”

“Him?”

“The boy from Spindle Island. The one they were searching for. The one they never found.”