The storm blows us on, throws waves at our backs, each wave sloshing a little more water and foam into the boat behind us, so I reckon whoever’s in there’s prolly gonna drown, if the boat don’t sink before we get to our bay.
Soon the rain joins the waves sloshing at us and the lightning kicks and stomps all around the sea beside us, kicking up the waves like it’s mad at us for stealing that boat from it.
The Valley of the Sun boat picks up a little speed, so Ma hoists the sail on Licorice again, but we don’t seem to get moving any faster.
‘It’s slowing us down!’ Ma yells. ‘We might have to cut her loose.’
‘No!’ I say. Imagine that. Imagine the sea stealing this mystery from us. Imagine going my whole life wondering if I really saw a hand or a fish down there in the bottom of the boat. So we keep pushing through the storm, relying on the Ockery Islands around us to keep the smashing waves down. Licorice creaks as she’s torn two ways, pushed on by the punches of wind in her sail and held back by the siblings’ boat.
Cottage Hill’s jus’ ahead, with Rusty Bus halfway down the hill already tied down tight with tarps, and the scattering of huts around it, all of it sitting in the long yellow grass made bright by the earth turning away from the sun, the lower half of the sky dark from the storm, the upper sky pale pink. In that weird early evening light, home looks to me like a shiny perfect place. I can’t wait to get in there, turn into the bay, tie up Licorice safe, and find out what’s going on in the siblings’ boat.
But when we drop sail and dock, Ma tells me to run for Marta if my legs still work after what I’ve put them through. Jag she tells to tie off Licorice Stix with lots of bumpers, hard against the jetty, then tie down the sails.
I run for Marta’s cottage. ‘Marta! Come quick!’ I yell. My ankles really do hurt when I run that hard.
Marta comes out to the porch of her cottage. The porch’s got extra ropes tying it down, and she stands, hanging on to one like the wind and rain will blow her away.
‘It’s the siblings’ boat!’ I yell. ‘We found it drifting, and someone’s in it!’
Marta don’t even grab a raincoat when she hears, she jus’ tucks down her head and runs through the stinging rain towards the jetty. I chase after her, but when I get there, Ma yells, ‘You help Jag tie down Licky Stix and go get dry in Rusty Bus. We don’t know if these siblings got some disease!’
‘Ma!’ I yell, coz ain’t I the one who knows about the mystery at Jacob’s Reach? Ain’t I the one who went with Marta to try to find out what’s up with these siblings and their machinery? I gotta be here to find out clues.
‘Neoma! I will tell you anything I find out!’ Ma yells like she knows that I gotta find stuff out. ‘Now help Jag or get to Rusty Bus and try to fix up whatever bruises and blisters you did to yourself today!’
‘Ma!’ I say, but she’s right.
I can’t hardly tie things down on Licorice properly in the driving rain with my blistered hands, but I keep starting knots and calling Jag over to finish tightening them for me. Anything to stay near the jetty to see what happens.
They haul in the siblings’ boat and tie it off with bumpers hard against the other side of the jetty. All our fishing boats is already tied out in the bay to permanent anchors where they can rise and fall with the sea and swing about without hitting each other. Much safer than being anywhere near land, with the waves smashing in. Even our little dinghies is pulled high up above the tide line, almost to the shacks and tied down.
Marta’s in the boat as soon as it’s tied, shoving under the tarp, shouting things that the wind and rain drown out, then she has Ma and Dizzy dragging one of the siblings, one of the women, up onto the jetty by her arms and the three of them grab limbs and run with her up to Marta’s cottage.
Me and Jag ditch the ropes we’re pretending to tie, even though every bit of Licorice Stix is already tied down, and scramble across the jetty to look into the boat. Lying in the bottom of the boat is the other sister sibling, her eyes open and staring up at the tarp roof.
She’s pale like I never seen. Skin of patchy marble like those benchtops in the apartment buildings of the sunken surf coast. It’s like she’s made of rock, not flesh no more.
Jag pulls me back. ‘She’s dead!’ he shouts. His eyes is so round and his face so white the truth of it hits me like a cold-handed slap to the face.
I look once more on her marble skin, and this time the sight of her dead and crooked sets my heart pounding and my sore scalp tingling. ‘Stone-cold dead,’ I whisper.
Both of us run screaming through the wind and stinging rain all the way to Rusty Bus.
