Raindrops
Quicksilvre
Again, sorry about waiting so long to write again–I haven't forgotten about this, I swear. I was hoping that I would upload at least two chapters during Spring break (this last week), but between my health, studying (AP tests are right around the corner), college stuff (finishing my FAFSA, visiting Rensselaer), and reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I haven't had the opportunity.
So, without further adieu, here we go.
)-)-)-)
When the wind began to pick up, carrying Summer away from the shore, she realized that she had no clue what she was doing. All she knew about sailing was what she had picked up from Cohen, watching him fool around with the ropes and pulleys the few times she had been on the Summer Breeze.
She wished she had been more attentive during life. Then again, there wasn't much that she could have learned.
"Cohen, what is with you noodling around with all those ropes–aggh." The wind made one cable whap into Summer's face.
"Sorry." Cohen took hold of the offending strand. "I have to adjust the sail."
"Can't you just let the wind blow us around?"
"Uh-uh. See, whenever the wind...whoa whoa WHOA!" Summer squeaked as Cohen fell into the water, splashing her and tilting the boat with a little wave.
She shook off the fantasy. Summer hoped that Cohen's bad footing didn't blow it for her. It wasn't as if she could have done too much anyway; the sun had been set for more than an hour. It was already pitch black. Almost, at least. There was a full moon out, but it was too bright, drowning out all of the dimmer stars it its light.
She looked up at it, trying to figure out which way she was going. She knew that the full moon rose at the time the sun set, in the same place. Therefore, she figured that it was probably in the eastern sky, maybe a little toward the southeastern. Feeling herself move along side and away from it by the steady wind, Summer guessed that the boat was moving north.
Now, all she had to do was figure out how to steer, and she was good to go. She took a hold of one of the ropes she saw and tugged. The sail it was attached to whipped around in the wind, shifting toward her suddenly and almost knocking her into the water. Cursing, Summer had to let go in order to grab hold of the side, to keep from plunging in.
Despite the wind pushing it, the sail shifted back into the position it was in before. "What?" Summer got back to where she was before and tried tugging at the rope; the sail refused to budge from its old position. A few more pulls, harder this time, confirmed that the rope wasn't going to be pulled from where it was for anything. Trying everything else, Summer found that everything used to steer the boat was locked fast.
No matter what Summer tried to override it, the Summer Breeze seemed to be on some sort of spiritual autopilot. After trying everything a second and then a third time, she gave up. She decided she wanted to go wherever the boat was taking her. Besides, it wasn't as if there was any place better she wanted to go.
A chill fell over the water, and Summer shivered. Above her, dark clouds shifted about, blotting out the moon. The Summer Breeze, seemingly in tune with the skies, took a wide turn and began to move in the same direction as the clouds. Hugging herself, Summer settled down on the bow. It looked as if it was going to be a long night.
)-)-)-)
She awoke as the morning sun began to warm her skin. Feeling herself bob around, Summer sat up and looked at her surroundings. Overnight, the wind had blown her to within swimming distance of an island–not a very large one; just a little tropical isle, not too different than the place she left behind. She figured that she couldn't have drifted too far. Still, the old coast was far out of sight.
The wind had died down, but the water was only a few feet deep, reaching only to Summer's chest when she jumped in. Tying one of the ropes from the mast around herself, she was able to walk the last few hundred feet to shore without any trouble. The water was refreshingly cool compared to the sun, and, unlike the coast in front of the Tongau Flats, wonderfully free from coral. Nothing was underfoot but assorted fish and tan, smooth sand, perfectly ridged by the gentle waves. She easily found a boulder to which she could tie the Summer Breeze and walked ashore.
There wasn't too much to see; while the sun sparkled over all of creation, "all of creation," from her vantage point, were a few coconut palms, some rocks, lots of sand, the Summer Breeze, and herself.
Slim pickings.
Carrying a sack of cobbled-together supplies with her, she went up onto the beach. There was no food to speak of other than the coconuts, and these, she knew, would be too tough to break open. She brought together a load of sticks, whatever kindling she could find, and pulled a flint from her bag. After a few unsuccessful tries, she was able to set the pile ablaze. Picking around the beach for a bit, she found what she needed–a long stick, straight and not too wide. She picked around in her bag again and this time pulled out a knife. Summer carefully hemmed away at the end of the stick, creating an ever-sharper edge while tossing the shavings into the fire. By the time she had finished her spear and darkened its tip in the fire, it seemed to be well past noon. It was very convenient; there was no point to go out hunting if she wasn't hungry.
)-)-)-)
Finding the Summer Breeze's anchor made Summer feel a little better about not being able to steer the ship. It was good to know that there was one thing she knew how to operate on the damn thing. That anchor became handy when Summer towed the boat back out to the water, her spear on its deck. She knew that she would have to leave lunch somewhere after she caught it.
After she found a good place to drop the anchor, Summer took her weapon and dove under the water. For a second the salt water stung her eyes, but a few moments and blinks later, they refocused and looked out at what was before her. It was the kind of prefect, idyllic scene that reminded her of her biology textbook. Seaweed wafted in gentle currents as colorful fish darted about. She swam around, exploring her setting a bit, before going up, gathering another big breath of air, and diving back down.
It was after this second dive that Summer saw the shark. It was no small thing–it was hard to tell how long it was from her vantage point, but she figured it had to be as long as she was. It was sliding through the water in a way that made it seem, at least to her, very ill-mannered. If it was going to be lunch, she would need to be very careful.
First, Summer went up, got as much fresh air as she could, adjusted the spear in her hand, and went back down. As soon as she got underwater, she realized that she wasn't the only one thinking about food. The shark had spotted her while she was above water and was now charging her like a bull elephant. She froze; the first thing she thought about doing to rectify the situation was swimming the other way, very very quickly. After deciding she couldn't possibly make it back to the Summer Breeze before losing at least an arm and a leg, she simply gulped and took hold of the spear with both hands.
The first clash between them was not successful for either one of them. The shark missed as Summer swam out of its way, only managing to scrape its rough skin by hers. Summer was only able to inflict a shallow scratch along the shark's side. After swimming away from each other for a moment, they turned around and faced each other. For a bit Summer wondered whether the shark would charge again; the answer came quickly, in the form of her adversary shooting at her as if from a bullet.
She was only able to get out of the shark's path at the very last second. Diving out of the way, she inadvertently ran one hand across the shark's back. For a moment she could only see the water and bubbles around her, but suddenly, as the feeling of the shark's sandpaper skin faded from her palm, she found herself back in Orange County.
Summer found herself when she was four years old, in her room. Though she couldn't understand all the words Mommy and Daddy were screaming at each other, a lot of them sounded really bad. Then, she could hear them in the driveway. She went over to the window and peeked down, just in time to see her mother drive away.
She found herself when she was twelve and in the cafeteria of her middle school, carrying a tray back to her seat. She didn't see the slippery spot on the floor until it was too late; her pizza, chocolate milk and ice cream flew high into the air, scraped the ceiling, and went back down, all over her. Then, she found herself in the guidance office, her clothes streaked with red and brown, screaming and sobbing at the principal and her flustered dad as she begged to be transferred out.
She found herself when she was fifteen, at someone's beach-house party. She didn't know who was the host, or even necessarily where she was. Holly had driven Summer there, and had given her the flask of whiskey that she had been emptying when she'd met the guy from USC. The rest of that memory was a series of disjointed snapshots–her giggling drunkenly as he led her into a bathroom; her bursting out of it; screaming and punching; her running out of the house and onto the sand, into the night.
Summer snapped back into reality as she realized the shark was behind her. She turned to face it and, seeing it charge, charged in turn, thrusting the spear into its throat.
)-)-)-)
Summer rolled the lifeless body of the shark from the deck of the Summer Breeze onto the beach. The broken spear, covered in blood, still stick out of its mouth grotesquely. Indentations along the shark's body showed where Summer had bashed it with the part that had broken off in her hands. After she was satisfied that it would not roll back down, she went back to the boat, plucked a bunch of mussels that she found in the sand on the way back, and tossed them next to the shark before tying the boat up again.
She got to work bringing the fire, now only barely smoldering, to a state that would be best for cooking. Having decided that it would be too hard to carve the shark up, Summer tossed some of the mussels onto the woody coals and let them poach in the shells. As they popped open, one by one, she took her half of the shattered stick and carefully removed them first from the fire, then, after they cooled, out of their shells and into her mouth.
Once she was finished, Summer went back over to the shark. With a knife, she sawed above and below its mouth, cutting through first its skin, then muscle, and then tendon, reaching the jawbone. An hour of sawing, pulling, and twisting made the top half of the jaw pop out of place, allowing Summer to pull it out–carefully, as the teeth were still attached. A few more minutes of work yielded its bottom half. After washing both halves in the sea, Summer cut out some of the stringy tendons, tied them around the ends of the jaws, and carefully lowered the construction onto her head. It formed a giant, deadly necklace, with sharp rows of nasty teeth pointing out away from her, arching over her chest and her back. It was a bit heavy, but Summer managed to adjust the straps so they settled just right on her shoulders, in a way that held up the necklace in the safest and most comfortable way.
It was about the time that Summer looked up and noticed a tiny column of smoke, off in the distance. At first she looked quizzically at it, then looked reflectively at what was left of the shark.
It was a big one, at least one hundred pounds. Well, maybe not that heavy, but certainly too big to carry. Definitely too big for her to eat on her own.
She rolled the shark back into the water, tied one of the boat's ropes around it, and another back around her waist. She had another journey ahead. Adjusting her necklace one last time, she waded off into the distance.