Wrecked Page 3

  “Let’s go,” Miranda added, snatching the keys out of Fletch’s hand. “I’m driving,” she added.

  “Thanks, Mom!” Fletch teased.

  “Shut up! If you’re not careful, I’ll throw you overboard so the sea witch will eat you,” Miranda joked halfheartedly. She loved her friends, but they could be exhausting. She’d drop everyone off, she’d make out with Fletch on deck, and then she’d get back home in plenty of time to sleep before the game.

  Miranda grabbed Fletch’s hand, walked up the wobbly dock, and stepped on to the shaky deck of Star Gazer. It was the first time she’d been on it all summer. Between epic hangouts right on the beach and driving over to the ferry to get to the mainland, it didn’t make sense. Now, she felt a tug of regret that she didn’t use the boat more often, especially when it was right there.

  Alan, Darcy, Gray, Gen, Lydia, Alexa, and Jeremiah tumbled in behind her. Jeremiah’s guitar was slung over his shoulder, and Alexa was carrying the cooler in one hand as she sipped from a beer can in the other. They all squeezed on the polished oak benches flanking the two sides of the boat as Miranda slipped behind the wheel and turned on the navigation system. Fletch slid into the seat beside her and squeezed her knee.

  This little lady can drive herself, as her grandmother’s driver Roger had said during her first lesson. It was true. All you needed to do was enter your coordinates on the console, then steer if the water became too choppy or if you discovered an obstacle in your path. It was easy.

  Miranda turned the wheel and pulled away from the dock, relaxing as she did so. She always felt at home on the water—felt like everything, even Fletcher, made a little more sense to her than on land. It made her feel closer to her parents. Even though her parents’ car had ended up in the ocean the night of the accident, she didn’t think of the water as an enemy. Instead, the wild, untamed waves reminded her of her mother, while the almost-still times in between tides reminded her of her father. She felt like they were there, somewhere, just ever so slightly out of reach.

  “Hate to break up the love fest,” Genevieve said, glancing at Fletch as the boat jolted onto the waves. She was tipsy, Miranda could tell, and when Genevieve got drunk, she often got depressed. And her creepy tarot cards couldn’t have helped her mood. Miranda felt her heart go out to her friend.

  “Nah, the more the merrier,” Fletch said, leaning back and putting his Sperry topsider-clad feet on top of the dashboard. “Just enjoying the night with my favorite ladies.”

  “You’re so cheesy,” Genevieve wrinkled her nose, but Miranda could tell how much she was enjoying Fletch’s attention. She wasn’t jealous. It was kind of cute how flirty Fletch could be.

  “Please,” Fletch said theatrically. “I’m not cheesy, I’m crabby.” He said, picking up a tiny crab from a red plastic bucket that Alan had inexplicably decided to bring on board.

  “Gross,” Miranda groaned and pushed his hand away. “I’m trying to concentrate. It’s not easy driving the party boat.” Miranda shook her head as she bypassed a blinking green-light channel marker, a sign that the route to Bloody Point was clear to pass. Darcy and Lydia were engaged in an intense conversation in the stern of the boat, Alan was double-fisting beers, and Alexa and Jeremiah were practically having sex on top of the cooler.

  “Fletch, listen. Your girlfriend is laying down the claw,” Genevieve quipped, pressing her finger into Fletch’s bicep. Miranda giggled, despite herself. One of the things she’d noticed was that whenever Genevieve and Fletch were together around her, each seemed to try to compete for her attention, getting more silly, ridiculous, and straight-up absurd by the instant. It was kind of nice to be the center of two people’s universes, especially when her grandmother barely knew she existed.

  “Seriously, if you don’t stop it, I’m going to raise some shell.” Miranda attempted her own lame joke. But before Genevieve and Fletch could react, the boat lurched forward. The crab flew out of Fletch’s hand and skittered across the floor and underneath the wheel hatch. Miranda yelped.

  Miranda yanked the wheel, but it was stuck, unable to move backward or forward.

  “What’s happening?” Genevieve screamed, grabbing Miranda’s shoulder.

  “I think we hit a channel marker,” Fletch said, jumping to his feet. He reached over Miranda’s lap, frantically pushing the buttons on the console. The boat was rocking side to side. The thunder was rumbling closer, and bolts of lightning lit up the night sky.

  “What happened?” Miranda asked shakily. The boat seemed fine, just stationary. The console was blinking, but the map wasn’t showing up, and she had no idea where in the sound they were.

  “Were you watching the water?” Fletch asked accusingly.

  “Yes,” Miranda said, locking eyes with Genevieve. Was I? She’d been joking about the crab, but even then, she’d been glancing at the console. There hadn’t been any sign they were going to hit anything.

  Miranda felt a drop on her arm, then another. She looked up at the sky, which was covered with gray clouds. Thunder sounded again, much closer than just minutes previously.

  “We have to go!” Genevieve said urgently, as another crack of thunder sounded. A bolt of lightning lit up the night sky, illuminating Fletch and Genevieve’s faces. They appeared terrified. Miranda’s heart was thumping in her chest, but she had no idea what she was supposed to do. Nothing like this had ever happened before. Roger had never given any lessons for what to do if everything stopped working. She hit the console a few more times. Nothing. Suddenly, rain began pouring from the sky.

  “What the fuck? Guys?” Alan called from the back of the ship.

  “Everything’s fine!” Miranda yelled. Suddenly, another clap of thunder sounded and Miranda heard a noise that sounded like fabric tearing. She whirled around to see a small plume of flames coming from the stern.

  “Fire!” she shrieked. Her flip-flopped foot slid on the floor, which was filling with water. “Help!” Shrieks were coming from the back of the boat, but the downpour made it impossible to focus on who was screaming. Miranda knew she needed to get out, but where. And how?

  “We’ve gotta swim!” Fletch yelled. “Guys, we’ve got to get out. Jump!” He yelled as he grabbed Miranda’s waist and picked her up. “You’ve gotta go,” he said roughly, trying to throw her overboard.

  “No!” Miranda protested, terrified of the wild, churning water below. But Fletch didn’t listen, and hurled her over the edge. She landed with a splash just a few feet away from the boat. She could feel the heat from the flames. She thrashed and kicked as though she was drowning, even though she knew how to swim.

  “Swim!” Fletch yelled, seeing Miranda’s distress. His hands were on Genevieve’s waist, about to toss her in as well. Genevieve was sobbing and Miranda wanted more than anything to just climb on the boat and do something.

  “Go!” Fletch yelled, locking eyes with Miranda.

  A wave rolled up and knocked Miranda away from the boat. She kicked and stroked, then surfaced and looked back.

  She thought she could hear Darcy and Lydia shrieking, but the only thing she could see clearly was the fire, that only seemed to be getting larger and larger. Fletch was still on board, scrambling toward the back of the boat.

  “Fletch!” she shrieked, but her scream was muffled as an enormous wall of water hit her.

  And then water was everywhere. Underneath her, over her, inside her, drowning her from the inside out. She knew she was screaming, but knew no one could hear her.

  Finally, she kicked herself to the surface. She gasped for breath, inhaling a mouthful of salt water. The boat was bobbing several body lengths away, its hull devoured in flames that seemed to dance on the ocean’s surface. She needed to get away. She kicked again, but this time, her foot seemed stuck, bound under the waves by an invisible force. The more she thrashed, the more her leg throbbed, and she realized that she was somehow tangling herself in the cables that anchored the channel marker below the surface of the water.

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nbsp; She was going to die. She was going to die, and Gen was going to die, and Fletch was going to die. She bobbed under a wave, but didn’t see any light at the end of the tunnel or any flashbacks of her life, or her parents waiting for her in heaven or somewhere. All she felt was panic, and sadness, and wishing more than anything that she had strong arms around her to comfort her and carry her to safety.

  All of a sudden, she felt hands firmly grasp her hips. She kicked helplessly, and squirmed to find herself face to face with a boy. A sparkly-skinned boy with dark hair and wide-set blue eyes. Miranda reached for him, her head dropping against his warm shoulder. She had to be dead. This had to be an angel, or some type of escort to heaven or maybe even some weird sign that her brain wasn’t producing oxygen.

  “Am I dead?” The words sounded fuzzy in her ears. “Did I die?” she asked again.

  “Shhh,” he said, his voice sounding like it was coming from inside her brain and from the water all at once. “Shhh,” he said again, a hushed-lullaby sound that calmed Miranda. Suddenly, it didn’t matter whether or not she was dying. Suddenly, she didn’t feel the urge to fight her way to land. Compared to the last five minutes, death seemed simple.

  “You’re safe,” he said. Miranda shook her head and clawed at her neck. Her mother’s heart necklace, engraved with Miranda and Teddy’s initials, felt as if it were choking her. Then unseen hands reached around her neck and smoothed the pendant. Miranda shivered, then relaxed as the boy carried her out of the water and laid her gently on the sand.

  “Who are you?” she sputtered, expecting to hear that he was an angel, or a devil, or someone who was taking her to the world of the dead. But then, before she could say anything else, sleep enveloped her. And instead of fighting, she succumbed to it, her face turned up to the sky, wondering if her soul was already among the stars that were blinking above her.

  HE SHOULDN’T HAVE DONE THIS. HE KNEW THAT, AS HE pulled her body across the water, noticing a pale glowing trail following her. He wasn’t sure if that was a reflection of the stars or simply coming from him, a reminder of the fact he wasn’t of the surface, and that it was because of him that all of this had happened. Because something had changed the closer he got to the boat. It had started rocking, slowly at first, and then faster, and then had been engulfed in a brilliant yellowish orange haze. Somehow, he knew the boat was being pulled, puppet-like by some force Down Below.

  He took another stroke as the girl fell back against his arm. This was wrong. He could simply release her into the ocean. And yet . . .

  “Fletch,” the girl murmured, her voice cutting through Christian’s heart and into his soul.

  “Shhh,” he repeated again, the sound reminding him of the way the waves whooshed around the coral back home. He wasn’t sure what else to say, but the noises he made seemed to calm the girl. Her eyelids fluttered closed, and Christian continued to swim. He had to take gulps of air, which hurt his lungs. The surface wasn’t an easy place to exist.

  The water was still, and all around, Christian could hear the watery sighs of the other victims of the shipwreck. Already, their souls were floating beneath the surface, and toward the ocean floor, where they’d join the legions of other souls savaged by the tides.

  And if he hadn’t saved her, she would be going down as well.

  As if she’d read his mind, the girl’s eyes fluttered open again. The whites were bloodshot, and the irises were so dark they were almost black. Her skin was pale and her tangled brown hair was sticking to her cheeks. She was the first human Christian had ever seen up close. And she was beautiful. Christian stopped swimming for a moment to glance at the way the curve of her cheek lay against his shoulder, the way her lips parted ever so slightly to reveal small, white teeth. These were the creatures they’d been taught to loathe and pity? It was almost laughable, if it weren’t so tragic.

  The girl coughed a few times and turned her face toward the moon, her mouth opening into a surprised O.

  “Who are you?” she gasped, digging her nails into his chest before pushing him away. She was surprisingly strong.

  “Shhh,” he repeated, more urgently than he had before. Everything he’d done so far was forbidden, but actually communicating with the girl was fraught with peril. There were many rules for exploring Up Above, along with punishments if they were broken, but actual mingling with humans was the one rule that didn’t have a punishment attached to it. It was as if even discussing the possibility—even as a warning, and even if the punishment was banishment—might encourage the citizens of Down Below to do it.

  Back in the time before now, Down Below and Up Above weren’t separated, and all beings could easily flit between land, sea, and sky. And then came the race of Gods who decided to divide the kingdoms they ruled, who determined which beings could exist in which kingdom. Now, the world of Down Below was cobbled together, made up of loosely connected tribes and kingdoms of sprites, devas, nereids, betwixtmen, and mermaids. Some were more connected to the air than others; those were the ones that cooperated with the faery kingdom and could choose where to live. Others were dark and desperate, living in treacherous waters and delighting in stirring up storms for unsuspecting humans. But all of them were under the rule of Sephie, a benevolent dictator who had only one rule: That the world of Down Below didn’t interfere with the world of Up Above unless she decreed it.

  It was more orderly and caused fewer problems than the lawless period prior to Sephie’s rule, when mermaids would rise to the surface and tease sailors until they went mad with desire. Mermen would sometimes help ships in a storm, and occasionally, a Merman and a woman—or a man and a mermaid or a betwixtman and a human girl—would find each other. But it never went well. Not in the history books, not in the songs, not in any stories that Christian’s father, or father’s father, or father’s father’s father had ever heard.

  Christian continued to swim, clumsily pulling with one arm as he made sure the girl’s head was above the surface of the water. That was the thing with humans: They looked so similar to the races beneath the sea, but the similarities were deceiving. They had a different language, a different way of breathing. Different hearts.

  Finally, Christian spotted a landmass beyond the crest of a wave. It was a craggy piece of land that used to be inhabited by devas, the spirits that could effortlessly move between the land and the sea. And then it was discovered by humans. The devas had disappeared, the humans had multiplied, and now, it was an island governed by Sephie’s sea, with subjects that didn’t know how much their existence was owed to an unseen ruler.

  Christian sighed, his heart heavy. Why had he had to find himself in the midst of such an impossible situation on the day of his Surfacing? It was supposed to have been the best day of his life: His eighteenth birthday, the day that marked the change from boys to men, when all mermen were allowed to take part in the affairs of Down Below. Christian had been looking forward to his Surfacing more than most. After all, he was a betwixtman, an ancient race from before the separation between Up Above and Down Below, when creatures were free to love and live as they chose. Betwixtmen had human blood in their veins, and legs instead of fins. Some viewed betwixt-men with envy, but Sephie viewed them suspiciously, as if they might feel loyalty to Up Above rather than Down Below.

  At one point, according to legend, there’d been talk of banning betwixtmen from Surfacing, ever. It wasn’t only because they could pass as humans, with two legs instead of fish-like tails, but because Sephie was afraid that even a drop of human blood would make them somehow susceptible to falling in love with humans. The legend was, if that happened, the entire world of Down Below would be compromised. That was why the penalties for breaking the rules were severe—ranging from banishment—which, in a place like Down Below, surrounded on all sides by sharks and fearsome creatures of the deep, was akin to immediate death—to death by Sephie’s hand. Christian knew that. And yet, he couldn’t let go of the girl. He’d already interfered. He might as well follow through
.

  “Fletch?” The girl called. Her voice was hoarse and sputtery. “Fletch?” She clawed at her shoulder, panic in her high-pitched voice.

  “Shhh,” he said, stealing a glance behind him. Fletch must have been one of the bodies. He or she wasn’t there anymore. Instead, the ocean was ghostly silent; the flash storm already much further out to sea.

  Hastily, he dragged her onto the white sand that enveloped the island. In the distance, a siren wailed. Christian recognized the sound meant the humans knew something was amiss. Particles matted in the girl’s dark brown hair and she flailed from side to side, reminding Christian so much of a dolphin in a net that his heart froze. He didn’t want to leave her, but he couldn’t be found here. There was only a matter of time before he’d begin to transform, and the transformation only meant he would no longer be able to breathe on land. Already, he felt a tightening in his chest.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered roughly, allowing his lips to brush against the pinkish blush of her cheeks. While her hands and shoulders had been freezing, her face felt surprisingly warm underneath his hands. How could she feel so good when everything he’d ever learned had taught him she was bad? He reluctantly yanked his hand away, but otherwise stayed still, watching the rise and fall of her chest. A heart-shaped engraved necklace was clasped around her neck. He leaned closer, wanting to read what it said, in case it provided any clues about who she could possibly be.

  He heard another round of sirens; the screech of wheels on gravel. At the far end of the island, off the dock, boats with floodlights were entering the water like a flotilla. He had to go. He knew he shouldn’t, but he gently unclasped the necklace and cupped it in his palm. He needed something to remind him of her.

  “I tried,” he whispered again, knowing as he said it that nothing, not Sephie’s law, not an entire ocean, could keep him away, as he turned away from land, walked into the water and swam, deeper and deeper, past the shipwrecks, past the great coral reefs, until he got to the part of the ocean that was too dark and cold for anything but the hardiest and ugliest creatures to live. Now, in the dark in between that was neither here nor there, he felt safe. Sephie couldn’t have seen, he reminded himself. Down Below, she was all powerful. But here, how would she have known about a tiny boat capsizing? And even if she did, she wouldn’t have seen him. She’d have been too distracted greedily counting her acquisitions, in the form of the souls that had fluttered to the bottom of the sea.