I nearly drop to my knees. A fucking boat. Relief and shock and disbelief thunder through me. A real, not imagined, boat. As if the gods of the sea have thrust this little life raft onto our shores just for me. As if they’ve taken pity on me:Here ya go, Ellie, you deserve a break. Sorry for all the bad luck.
My escape.
My way out of here.
“Storm must’ve brought it in,” Clay comments, coming up beside me.
I stand up straight, pull in another breath, and without a word, I start down the steep slope. Every rock is slick from the storm, but I reach the water’s edge and wade in up to my ankles. A short, frayed rope sags in the water, the other end attached to a metal cleat along the starboard side. I manage to grasp it, heaving the boat up over the first few boulders. But the rope snaps—too sun-bleached and sea-soaked—and I fall back against the rocks, my hip lancing with pain, and the boat slides down into the sea.
My temples throb and my body still feels like it’s turned inside out—the whiskey pumping back through my veins from the effort. But I turn and see Clay maneuvering easily down the rocks above, stopping to blink down at me like I’m a lost, clumsy puppy. He reaches down and hoists me up to my feet in one swift motion. I close my eyes to steady myself, to keep from vomiting, and when I open them, he’s already dragging the boat up over the rocks to the grassy embankment.
I scramble up behind him, peering down at the tiny boat, surveying its insides like someone buying a used car.
I notice something along the top edge, where the gunwale must have sustained damage at one point but was repaired. A piece of wood has been carefully fitted over the split boards, nailed in place and sanded down. The repair seems recent, the wood still pale and soft. Someonemended the small boat shortly before they lost it at sea. Maybe they went overboard. Drowned somewhere out there.
Clay seems less excited about the discovery, his expression dubious. Skeptical. As if it were a Trojan horse.
“This is what I’ve been waiting for,” I say, breath ragged, head still pounding.
“Been waiting for land, not a boat. This thing’ll get ye nowhere.” Clay shoves it with the toe of his boot, and it teeters slightly, looking tiny in comparison to him.
“It stayed afloat long enough to reach the island,” I point out.
“Even if she kept afloat, ye dinnae know where we are. Could be in the middle of the Atlantic, days from the mainland. Ye could paddle in the wrong direction, against the current. Into a storm. No telling.”
I frown at him. “I can’t stay here any longer.”
He nods softly to himself, then turns toward the house.
I need another oar, maybe a sail. But I don’t even know how to sail, so constructing one would be pointless. I’m hoping that we haven’t drifted far from the Faroes, maybe just a few miles, and we’ve simply been bobbing in circles for months. If I could row my way a few miles to the west, toward the setting sun, the edge of the Faroes will appear just above the horizon.
I convince myself this is true.
Because it’s the closest I’ve come to being rescued.
For the rest of the day, Clay does his chores around the island, ignoring my attempts at finding another oar—or something that could substitute as one. I search the barn, the tool shed, the drying shed, and the root cellar. I find a flat board that could work, but it’s heavy and much too long. When I ask Clay if I can use the handsaw to cut it smaller, he grunts and says that he needs the board. He can’t part with it.
Irritated, I drop the board at his feet, then spend an hour scanning every inch of the boat, looking for broken boards, holes that could sinkme once I was out at sea, but aside from the small repair, the little rowboat is in good shape.
The rain picks up, and evening settles over the island. I boil carrots and leeks, then fry several eggs for dinner. A nervous energy buzzes through me. Anticipation that is marred by a twinge of fear. If Clay is right, and we’re much too far from the mainland, I’ll die out there. Starvation, thirst, ripped apart by deep-sea sharks just as the fog of delirium takes hold. What if the boat sinks and I drown?
What if I choose to leave the safety of the island, only to find a much worse death out there?
But what if I stay?
If time has slowed since arriving on the island, then years may have already passed on the mainland. The longer I stay, the more time is scudding away behind me. Unable to ever get it back. My life moving on without me. James… moving on without me.
I decide that if the weather holds up, I’ll leave tomorrow, with one oar.
And if I’m lucky, maybe the same fate that brought me the boat will reveal land only a short distance away, and I’ll be rowing up onto a beach by tomorrow afternoon. Or rescued by a ship out searching for me. I’ll be sipping a latte in a warm hotel room by tomorrow night, electric lights buzzing overhead, my cell phone ringing, Nana on the other end. Booking a flight back to Seattle, James waiting to pick me up, where he’ll scoop me into his arms, kiss me, and I’ll tell him I want to get married right away. Why wait?
I’ll resume my life in earnest. No more fear, no more doubt.
I’ll do it better this time. I’ll live my life like I almost lost it—because I nearly did.
I can feel the hope expanding in my chest, my mind cycling over all the things I will do differently. All the ways I will be different.
The boat is my salvation—not just from this island, but from a thought pricking me like a needle. A temptation I may not be able to resist for much longer.
