Page 78 of The Wild Beneath

Over the next three hours, battalions of cumulus clouds build on the horizon. The sun sets and rain advances in sheets.

Walker and Evan stand together in the console, both silent.

Rough water breaks hard against the hull. One boom has already split apart, logs strewn in the channel behind them. They’re thrown against the rocky cliffs and splinter into shards.

It’s getting close to midnight.

Evan swears under his breath. “We’re going to lose the other one.” A larger wave throws itself over the bow.

Walker goes out on deck to check. “We’ve got water coming on board!” he shouts over the wind.

“Take the helm!” Evan yells back. He looks down at his self-inflating life jacket, clips it on, and cinches the strap tight. “And make a mayday call!”

The current catches the stern of the tug and swings them toward the rocks. Water pours aboard, pooling on deck, refusing to relent. The hydraulic pump must be giving out. Evan retrieves the manual pump and throws the hose off the side. Wet wind slicks over his face, water splashing into his mouth.

Evan will have to pump fast enough until the weather passes or help arrives.

A huge wave throws them toward the side of the channel again. The bow scrapes along rocks, until the current catches them and swings them in the other direction.

Evan pumps harder, his palms raw, his shoulders burning. Water creeps up past his ankles. He tries to stay upright in the wind and the water, crests of salt spray whipping across his face in the driving rain.

Walker keeps a firm hold on the helm, using all his strength to keep them off the cliffs.

A melody rises from the sea.

Evan can’t hear it over the swoosh of the pump and the rain in his ears. But Walker does. He can always hear it, in all its different intensities and tones, making shape, making time, even inside these icy, stiff waves breaching the deck of the tug.

Walker knows: The sea has decided what she wants. She doesn’t give the story all at once, but here is a piece of it.

Between the thwack of the wipers, he trains his eyes on Evan through the window. He unclasps Annie’s necklace from his wrist and places it inside the inner pocket of Evan’s backpack. The tug rises higher on a swell of waves. The song gets louder, along the rocks and white shell beaches.

The land does not begrudge the sea her storm. It allows her to extend her boundaries. Even if it means trees will be blown down, the trees do not complain. The sand will reshuffle itself.

Walker closes his eyes.

The sea rises, higher and higher. It batters the rocks. They lose the remainder of the booms, a seething mass of logs dispersing in the waves behind them.

Walker can hear all of it, this inevitable unfolding. He opens his eyes to the flood of grey-blue water on deck.

Evan is no longer there.

Annie wakes sometime after midnight, when a maple tree—­heavy with licorice fern and moss—­is uprooted in the wind and crashes beside the cabin.

She throws on clothes and boots and heads outside. On the porch, the rain pelts her face. Branches hurtle off trees and cartwheel to the ground. The roots of the downed maple are exposed—­an octopus, black earth clinging to its legs.

Annie thinks immediately of the tug. The weather isn’t supposed to be this bad, and not this soon.

It’s illogical to go down to the beach, closer to the wild water, but Annie can’t help herself; she’s already moving down the rope ladder, her body swaying in a surge of wind.

The ocean is the colour of gunpowder underneath the foamy waves. The wind picks up from the southeast, blowing her hair across her face, plastering it to her cheeks. An off-pitch tone arcs itself through the crashing waves. She detects it only briefly. Her focus is on one thing: Evan and Walker are somewhere in the middle of this storm.

The ocean stares back without answer, only her grey and liquid eyes.

For a flickering moment, the full moon shines through a break in the clouds. But a sweep of wind hits Annie, the entire force of the Pacific behind it. It picks her up in its teeth and shakes her.

Annie screams back into the wind. And the wind carries her voice out over the water until the sea swallows it up.

Chapter 28