Free Red Sea by Diane Tullson Page A

windows is seawater, and on quiet nights like tonight, we’d leave the windows open. I must be feeling creepy because I check all the windows and leave only a tiny porthole open over the galley.
    I should be more afraid of the freighters. Maybe I almost wish we’d get run over in the night.
    SOMETHING WRENCHES ME from sleep. My body feels like it weighs twice as much as it does, like when your hand goesto sleep and it feels like someone else’s. I try to lift my head and the muscles in my neck scream with pain. I drop my head back onto the pillow, hating what woke me from the escape of sleep.
    A fragment of dream pokes at my conscious mind, a dream of a kiss that makes me want to wipe it off my mouth. It’s Ty’s kiss, but it’s not Ty in the dream, it must be the pirate. Duncan is there too, and other people. I shiver and pull the blanket more tightly around me. Duncan in the dream is smiling, or he seems to be. I can’t really see his face.
    Awake now, I can’t even bring Duncan’s face to mind.
    I think of the photo in the bottom of the go-bag and I wish I had it, that and a flashlight so I could see Duncan’s face. I have a photo of Ty, but it’s an old one from when he was in high school, and I don’t think it looks like him anymore.
    The air in my cabin feels suddenly close, like it doesn’t have enough oxygen. My heart pounds, I can feel my temples bouncing with the pulse. And I’ve soaked my shirt with sweat. The blanket now restrains me, fights me, as I struggle to untangle myself. It sticks to my bare legs, and I claw it from me. In the pitch black, my cabin feels like a coffin.
    I yank at the collar of my shirt, seeking air. With scrabbling fingers, I loosen the latches on my cabin window, pressing my face against the screen, gulping night air. The coolness from outside runs down over my face and the back of my neck. The drumbeat in my temple quiets. Breathe.
    Now I feel like laughing, but I don’t trust myself. What if I laugh like a crazy person? What if I am crazy?
    I roll out of bed and find my way out into the main cabin. Briefly, I think that maybe Mom is gone and my heart resumes its race, but I find her with my hands, exactly like I’ve left her. I smooth her hair. Her forehead does feel warm. I loosen the quilt around her shoulders. She mutters, which makes me jump, but then she falls quiet again. Her breathing sounds quicker than it did in the day. Is it tomorrow yet? I reach under the quilt to her watch and slip it off her wrist. It’s a good watch, with tiny illuminated dots so you can tell time in the dark. Duncan got it for her before we left on the trip, and a matching one for himself. He wanted to buy me one, but I said I wouldn’t wear it. A quick and brutal image floods my mind of Duncan, his arms stretched out in flight, and yes, his watch, and the horrible way his skull disengaged before he disappeared over the side. I grip the watch, focusing on the tiny swimming dots. At last, my vision clears. It’s five, thank God, almost morning. I strap the watch onto my own wrist. I will not go back into my cabin. Instead, I grab the quilt that I washed yesterday and wrap up in it on the seat next to my mother.
    According to the time zones, it’s still last night at home. Ty hasn’t gone to bed yet; he probably isn’t even home. Jesse is curled up in her pajamas, doing her nails, watching reality TV , microwave popcorn at the ready. Dad’s watching TV too. He has the news on, but he’s fallen asleep. He’ll wake up in his chair in a couple of hours and stumble off to bed.
    If I could call them up right now, what would I tell them? What would I say to Ty?
Hey, Ty. Met someone new, a piratewith big teeth and bad breath
. And to Dad.
Hey Dad, I ditched Mom on her watch and now she’s half-dead. Duncan is totally dead. This is your big chance to be the hero.
With Jesse, I wouldn’t get a word in.