Two and Twenty Dark Tales (35 page)

Still, he had a gentleness to him. Some girl might want to save him from that not-quite-white and wrinkled shirt. She might find his exterior appealing because she loved his genius and wanted to free him from common concerns like fashion. Geniuses ought to have companions with average IQs and tons of common sense. She hoped Blakie would find one, but he had to get rid of that nickname. No girl would sleep with someone named Blakie.

On the fourth day, when Ned passed the bottle to her, she said she’d wait. They all voted to wait after that. Without saying so, they’d agreed to give themselves one extra day; they’d give the heavens more time to send them fresh water. But that night, thirst overcame them, and they drank their portions under the clear sky and the full moon. There was no rain the next day, either, and the moon flooded the ocean with brightness, taunting them day and night with water they couldn’t drink.

“Eskimos wish on the moon to bring them back to life.” Winker, who never said much of anything, sat and stared up, his cheek still for a change.

Miranda drew in her knees and rested her chin on them. “Eskimos make wishes like that?” “Prayers, maybe,” Winker said. “I can’t remember exactly. I read about it when I did an eighth grade social studies report on Alaska.”

“What happens when it’s dark of the moon? How do they wish…pray for it to bring them back then?”

Winker’s tic kicked into high gear, and he stammered, “Uh…don’t…know. But when it’s not up there,” he pointed skyward, “it’s…supposed to be…gathering the dead souls…taking them to earth again.”

She pulled the blanket over her head, shutting out the moon and trying not to listen to the ruffling of the waves against the boat. When she felt a tug on her blanket, she stuck her head out and stared at Winker.

“S…sorry I said…that.”

His eyes, shaped like teardrops, made him look as if he suffered from perpetual melancholy, and Miranda had an urge to touch his cheek. She thought maybe she could smooth the nervous tic away with her fingers, but she held back. Touching seemed too intimate for someone she barely knew; besides, he didn’t invite it. He was distant, tucked inside his quiet sadness. This was their first real talk.

“I’m not hiding because of what you said, Winker.” But that wasn’t true. The minute he’d told her the myth, something caught inside her chest, and she didn’t want to see the moon. She didn’t want the temptation to wish on it or pray to it to bring her back from death. If she did, she was afraid it would be like she was giving up on any hope of rescue and life. She couldn’t do that. Ever.

She shivered in the sudden wind that seemed colder than what they’d had since they’d started this survival journey.

Ned took out the compass, then dug the oars into the sea with more force than usual. When he pulled them into the boat after half an hour, he didn’t look in their direction, even though all eyes were on him, asking if there was a problem.

“Look,” he finally said, “it’s getting colder, so we should move closer together, especially at night.” He scooted next to Miranda and Winker. “Come on Blakie, let’s sleep in a pile like Wild Things.” He laughed, but it had a dryness to it.

So that night they huddled under the tarp, combining their blankets, their body heat, and not a little fear. During the night, Miranda felt Ned’s arm come around her shoulder and pull her into him. At first she held back, but she was tired and cold and the sound of his heart comforted her with its steady beat. She liked the feel of his hand in hers.

When the sun found them, her head rested on the bottom of the boat. She pushed the tarp away, blinking into the brightness of morning and staring at Ned across from her, drawing the oars in steady strokes through the water.

After an hour, he traded off with Blakie, then Blakie traded off with Winker. Miranda took her turn, too.

After another hour, Ned checked his compass, then told her to stop, and she leaned back to stare at the cloudless sky.

Blakie still moved his lips, solving math problems in his head, hiding in a place where numbers added up to perfection and the messy reality of being stranded in a lifeboat didn’t exist. This aimlessly floating island had nothing to do with the logical beauty of math. Miranda wished she had an inner place like that to distract herself. She was sick of huddling under that tarp to escape.

“We all better cover up.” Ned looked around at Blakie and Winker, who sat together. “Less sun, less water loss.” Ned tried for a smile. “You’ll have to wait for that suntan until you get back home, Miranda.”

Back Home. The place she’d wanted to escape for the past two years because her mother had turned into such a bitch. Her father had simply turned and run. The divorce was definitely going to be ugly and she didn’t want any part of it. She’d already had enough of the nightly fights with the screaming and breakage of family glass. This trip with her senior class had come at exactly the right time. She’d withdrawn enough money from her college savings to make it, and she’d relished every moment away from Back Home. Every moment until she’d landed in the sea and all of her friends, along with hundreds of others on that overcrowded ferry, had been sucked underwater…forever.

“Where’s Back Home for you?” she asked, directing the question to any of the three, trying to erase the images of her drowned classmates.

Ned answered. “Northern California. A beach town. We’ve surfed together since we could hop on a board. You?”

“Iowa. Corn-fed and Midwestern, through and through.” For a moment, the taste of hot-buttered corn on the cob filled her mouth, but it vanished almost as quickly as it had come. She licked her lips and found they were sore. Her head ached too, so she burrowed under the tarp and slept, dreaming of water, dreaming of butter and corn and the farm—the real Back Home.

When she’d been little it had been a perfect place. A tire swing at the side of the house. Mom pushing her high, so she could tap the tree branches with her toes. Dad in the kitchen every midday for dinner, his face streaked by sweat and plowed earth, earth that had belonged to the Langlies for three generations. That lifestyle had vanished along with the farm. Poor crops for three years running. Dad sold the land before he lost it to the bank. Then they’d moved to the city where none of them—

“Blakie!” Ned’s voice shattered her restless sleep, and she scooted from under the tarp.

Ned knelt over Blakie, first pressing Blakie’s wrist between his hands, then shaking his shoulder, then pushing hard on his chest. Again. Again. “Wake up, damn you!”

Winker looked at Ned, then down at Blakie and the knife lying next to his body. Then Winker fell back against the side of the boat and buried his face in his arms.

A thin red line trickled from Blakie’s wrist and across to where Miranda sat. She threw the blanket over it and watched as the red soaked through.

Ned pulled Blakie onto his lap, holding him against his chest, swaying back and forth. “You idiot. You effin’ idiot.”

As the sun settled low, hovering just above the line between sky and sea, Ned finally released the body of his friend and set him on the bottom of the boat. “Give me that blanket.” Ned held out his hand to Miranda, and she pushed the blanket toward him with her foot, not wanting to touch it with all of Blakie’s life soaked into its fibers.

“Winker, help me.” Ned was taking charge again, giving orders.

Winker spread the blanket and Ned rolled Blakie inside. “Miranda, take one leg. Winker, take the other one.”

“Wait!” Miranda stayed where she was. “You have to say something. I mean, you have to say some words.”

When her grandmother died, the priest had said lots of words. Long life. Going to a better place. Take time for grieving, but move on to rejoice and celebrate your loved one.

“Okay. Say something.” Ned let Blakie rest on the bottom of the boat again and waited.

She didn’t have any words. Her mouth was sticky, and when she tried to focus on Ned, he blurred.

“Where are you going…and what do you wish?” Winker whispered, but his words took to the wind and sounded as if they’d been said loudly, maybe in a church sepulcher. His cheek twitched and he brushed at his eyes, but they were dry. He had no tears to wipe away. “The old moon asked the three.”

“What in the hell is that?” Ned snapped.

“Something my mom used to read to me,” Winker said. “It’s all I can think…think to say.”

The only sound was the slapping of water against the side of the boat. Then Ned lifted Blakie by his arms. Winker took one leg and Miranda the other, and they laid the body along the thick band of rubber that separated them from the sea. It was Winker who pushed Blakie over the edge. He slipped away without a splash and disappeared beneath the surface.

Winker stared at the spot as if he didn’t want to lose sight of the place that had swallowed Blakie. “Never…afraid are we. As we sail into the sea of dew.” He cleared his throat. “I’m talking to the moon tonight, Blakie. I’m asking for it to bring you back.”

So whether it was a wish or a prayer or just a conversation between human beings and the ancient moon, that night Winker knelt and Ned knelt with him. “Please,” Winker said, “find Blakie. Bring him home.”

Miranda sought out the darkness under the tarp to avoid the cool white light from overhead, to avoid hearing the entreaties for the dead Blakie, to avoid giving up on life.

That night, as the air chilled, the pile of three slept under the tarp, but not well. Winker bolted upright two times, screaming about the moon. Ned turned first to face away from her, and then to curl around her back. When he pulled her close to him, Miranda found his hand again and held it. This hand had saved her once; she prayed it would save her again. And finally, before the sun arrived, she slept, believing that it would. Believing that Ned Parker would find that shipping lane and that the three of them would soon be on a ship, safe.

Rain didn’t come the next day, but a thick mist did. Together they made a catch basin from the tarp, spreading it across the end of the boat and funneling one end into the empty plastic container. By noon they had half a cup of water and they each took one small capful onto their tongues, holding it in their mouths, not wanting to swallow.

It wasn’t enough to stop Miranda’s head from throbbing or her lips from cracking and bleeding. When she looked at Winker, he looked back at her with sunken eyes that didn’t seem to register her presence. His cheek hadn’t twitched since the day he’d sent Blakie into the sea, but now it began again.

“When did this start?” Miranda stroked his cheek as if it were something she had always done. Now, touching him seemed okay. It seemed right. The way he looked at her with his teardrop-shaped eyes, he seemed to invite her to do it.

Winker didn’t pull back, but he took his time before answering. “After my mom died.” He drew his tongue over his teeth. “My dad took it hard. Spent lots of days drunk.” He tried to swallow, then swiped his hand over his face. “I read and surfed…the rest of the time.” Winker looked at Ned. “He and Blakie…they got me through.”

The rest of that day they slept. Woke with starts. Slept again.

After that, Miranda lost count of the days. Now, she only counted the drops of water that Ned placed on her tongue with the exactness of a priest. It gave her comfort to watch how he held the cap. How he measured the water, then presented it to her and then to Winker before recapping the plastic container and returning it to the supply box. This ritual helped her forget that the half cup of water was nearly gone.

Miranda thought about those first days together on the boat and realized she missed them because of all those rituals that Ned didn’t perform anymore. He didn’t paddle or check the compass or talk about keeping them headed south. He didn’t net herring and serve her small slivers of them. She realized that she didn’t miss eating anymore. Her focus was on drinking.

Since Blakie had gone, there was nothing to distract them from the slowness of time, and it was as if Winker was sinking into himself a bit more each time she looked at him. All any of them did was sleep, and hopelessness spread like a contagion.

Then, on one of the days after they’d taken water and the sun had disappeared, Ned didn’t roll over, cover his head, and sleep. “We should set up a watch,” he said that night when the sky had cast a silver net of stars overhead. “We’re sleeping at the same time, and if a ship comes near we won’t see it.”

Miranda felt relieved to have Ned making plans again. She felt a surge of renewed hope, and when she looked at Winker, his eyes were focused on Ned and her as if he really saw them.

Winker raised a hand. “I’ll take…early watch. Sunrise to mid…morning.”

Ned said, “Midmorning to when the sun passes overhead—about two. Okay, Miranda?”

She nodded.

“I’ll take it from two until sunset,” he said.

“We’re not catching a southern current, are we?” Winker asked, but it sounded more like a statement of fact.

Ned shook his head. “I don’t think so. It’s getting colder and drier every day.” He waited, as if he didn’t want to say the rest.

Or maybe, Miranda thought, he was having trouble talking. She was. Her tongue didn’t fit inside her mouth like it should. It had thickened, and it rubbed against the roof and the sides like a rasp.

The next day she lay under the tarp, feeling the light but shivering because the sun seemed to have lost all its heat. When she felt a tug on her foot, she struggled to sit.

“Your turn,” Winker said, and he stretched out and slept before she could get to the side of the boat.

Before noon, Miranda couldn’t stay awake. Her head would jerk forward or loll back, setting off an alarm and bringing her again to her watch, but if any ship passed quickly she knew she’d miss it unless it bore down on them. Oh, and she really wished it would bear down on them, make huge troughs next to them that would raise them up into the air so they could shout, “We’re here. Throw us a line. Give us water.”

She no longer needed to pee. That humiliation of going over the side of the boat half-naked had ended some days ago, but she knew what not peeing meant. She remembered the humiliation with some longing.