Cody and Uncle Dock and I went on watch at about one in the morning. It seemed as if the weather had started to let up, and we were hoping that by the end of our watch, we’d be able to turn The Wanderer over to Uncle Mo and Brian and Uncle Stew in calmer seas.
“‘Smite the sounding furrows!’” Uncle Dock yelled.
“More poetry?” I said.
“Yep,” he said.
We’d been on watch about an hour when Cody shouted to me: “Sierra-Oscar! Your Highness—where is it?”
My head was so numb. My ears were plugged. What was he saying?
He shouted again, tugging at his belt. “Your Highness!”
I tapped my head, as if there were a crown there, and curtsied. I thought he was playing some kind of game.
He left his post and dashed below deck, and when he came up, he was holding my safety harness. Oh. He’d been saying harness. I felt so stupid. Cody fastened it for me and said, “You’ve got to wear this, Sophie. You’ve got to.”
“Aw,” I said, “weather’s letting up; we’re okay.”
“We’re not okay, Sophie. Wear this.”
But the seas did seem to settle for an hour or so, and the wind eased. I watched Cody as he moved about the deck. One minute he was trimming a sail; the next minute he was fastening a line, scooping up a loose cushion, stowing it, returning to the sails. Dock was doing the same things on the other side of the deck. They moved with seeming ease in those choppy seas, and it seemed as if this were a play and their movements were gracefully choreographed.
Around three thirty in the morning, about a half hour before the end of our watch, the wind and waves picked up again. Uncle Dock was in the cockpit, Cody was at the wheel, and I was sitting next to the hatch that covers the cabin, watching the waves coming up behind us, in order to warn Cody and Dock when a big one was on its way.
As each wave started to build, it made me weak and queasy, not so much from the motion, but from the fear that this wave would be too big, that this one would roll us over. Off in the distance, I saw a wave that looked different from all the others. It was much bigger, at least fifty feet high it seemed, and not dark like the others. It was white—all white—and the entire wave was foam, as if it had just broken. I stared at it for a couple of seconds, trying to figure out what was up with it, and by that time it was right behind us, growing bigger and bigger, still covered with foam.
I shouted a warning to Cody: “Cody! Look behind—”
He turned, looked quickly, and then turned back around, crouched down, and braced himself.
Most of the waves that break behind us roll under the stern, the foam sometimes coming up over the sides of the cockpit. But this wave was unlike any other. It had a curl, a distinct high curl. I watched it growing up behind us, higher and higher, and then it curled over The Wanderer, thousands of gallons of water, white and lashing.
“Cody! Dock!” I yelled.
And then I saw it hit Cody like a million bricks on his head and shoulders. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and covered my head.
I was inside the wave, floating, spinning, thrown this way and that. I remember thinking Hold that breath, Sophie, and then wondering if my breath would last. Such intense force was pushing me; it didn’t seem like it could possibly be water—soft, gentle water—that was doing this.
I couldn’t remember about the harness. I didn’t feel attached to anything. Was it on or not?
I was going overboard; I was sure of it. Underwater forever, twisting and turning, scrunched in a little ball. Was this the ocean? Was I over the side and in the sea? Was I four years old? In my head, a child’s voice was screaming, “Mommy! Daddy!”
And then I heard, “Sophie!”
I think I will be sick now, writing about it.