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They had been expecting it. Louie had told them as much. But until the last minute they prayed the storm would pass them by, would turn back, into their thoughts they drummed the conviction that fate wouldn’t do this to them on top of everything else, not after it had almost served them up to a family even more wretched than they were, not after the fright, fate owed them this much, a moment of respite. Well, no.
And yet, when the waves began to form, Noah still thought the storm might trail away any moment now, a false alarm, just bluffing, and he waved his arms as if to shoo it away, spread his arms into the wind to stop it, shouting, Go away!
“Idiot,” said Louie.
And Noah seemed to shrink, right then and there.
He sat down next to Perrine, clutching the seat, and rolled his eyes, looking out at the surface of the ocean, spotted with whitecaps and spray.
Silence.
They watch.
Try not to notice the gusts of wind mussing their hair and splashing them with spray. They turn their heads every which way, as if an island might appear by magic, they’d force Louie to land, in the end the storm is far more terrifying than the crazed inhabitants of islands.
On the floorboards the hens have begun squawking, coming and going in a confused parade. The children know that the birds, too, can tell bad weather is on its way. They check the ropes along the boat, they’ll need to cling to them if it starts pitching too violently. They watch one another, trying to come up with what to say, what to think.
Noah thinks of the sunken worlds underwater.
Perrine thinks of Madie.
Louie wonders if the hens will slide into the water, or if they’ll manage to hold on. He decides to spread a tarp across the boat and ties it with string. Noah raises his hand and smiles:
“It’s like an umbrella. It will protect us from the rain.”
“I hope the wind won’t rip it off.”
And the impression they get is a very odd one when the storm suddenly wraps itself around them and sets the boat to dancing, because they can’t see anything, they’re trapped beneath the plastic, but there are just moments when the lightning illuminates the sea—at those moments, it’s almost as if the tarp had blown away. And yet a second later it’s there again, they can sense it in front of their eyes, they can feel it over their heads. Perrine is frightened: what if they sink. What if they get their legs and arms all twisted in the tarp and can’t get free, imprisoned like worms in cocoons that are too tight, drowning without a chance, without a gesture, chrysalises sinking to the bottom of the sea glinting blond and blue.
So she shoves the plastic tarp away without thinking, her eyes wide open, just the words pounding in her head, I’m scared, I’m scared.
Louie’s shout.
“Are you crazy?”
He yanks the tarp back over them; on the horizon, the light is yellow and pink. He points his finger into the distance.
“It’s getting calmer. We’re not in the worst of it.”
They keep an eye on the far end of the sea, clinging to the gunwale not to be knocked off balance by the waves; their fear doesn’t dissipate. For endless minutes the ocean tosses, whips, rolls them, and Louie needs a great deal of conviction to go on believing it’s only a little storm, he won’t let go, the sky is clearing and the wind growing steadier. The sea terrifies them, however, it has taken over the world, it is so dark that they can no longer make out the boundary between the ocean and the gigantic clouds, there’s only a vast black world engulfing them, It’s like being in the belly of a whale, murmurs Noah, but the others don’t hear him.
Then they can again see the shapes of the clouds, gray lights in the sky. Black, somber masses charged with a fierce rain go by on their left.
“Look,” says Louie.
They watch the downpours moving past, whirlwinds, and they’re at the very edge, pelted only by jagged little bursts of spray that sting their faces; over there the sea is rough, with towering waves that strain skyward.
Pray it doesn’t come this far.
Pray the wind will keep the waves away.
They cannot take their eyes off the storm as they move along it, graze past it, helpless to get away or to stop the storm from taking them with it, should the currents change, but they don’t think of this, they’re too busy clutching the boat, bracing their legs, regaining their balance when they slip.
Not as strong.
It’s getting calmer, says Louie again, in a low voice.
Waves slapping on the ocean.
Yes, not as strong.
A tiny burst of joy in their thoughts. Is it over? asks Perrine.
Almost.
Five, ten minutes. No more black. Gray, blue, a little bronzed yellow, as if the sun were trying to break through, to rip open the thick clouds. A single ray of light, unexpected, incongruous, inscribes an arrow of light from the sky to the sea. The boat has stopped shaking them about.
Noah looks up. And that?
Then they see it.
Behind them, raised by the elements, a renewed onslaught of waterspouts.
Before their gaping eyes, the sea has risen again. A sort of nightmare starting over, a bad dream they cannot escape, toying with them, making them believe that—and then.
The boat gesticulates on the sea—that is really the word for it—it twists, distends, a wooden body cracking and contorting, slamming the surface of the water every time it comes down, hemmed in by a pellet spray of lightning all around the children. In the beginning they shouted advice, orders, questions; now there is only a long wailing when the sea buffets them, half capsizing the boat, which rights itself just in time, they can’t even bail the water that is gradually making it heavier, it’s all they can do to huddle down, cling on, stay on board. The tarp tore away immediately, they saw it fly off into the sky, whirling, descending, heading off again—then they didn’t see it again, the storm took it, it’s gone; they hold on.
A dozen times, rattled by a breaker, a wave, a dreadful trough, they thought they would let go. Did let go, a hand, a foot, they slipped, by some miracle the three of them are still all in the boat, with the hens, which roll from side to side, beating their wings. The only thing they can feel is that their strength is waning, that the storm will get the better of them, their arms are braced, their aching fingers can no longer close tight enough around the ropes, and sometimes their gazes meet, full of fear, then look away, trying to find some sort of support, a place to hold onto.
Suddenly the wave is there: the one they dreaded. Broadside, all at once. A terrible sound, as if the boat is being torn apart.
They roll over.
In a sort of a hiccup the boat rights itself then crashes into the trough of the wave, tearing the children’s hands from the ropes and the gunwale, sending them crashing against the bow. They cry, scream, no one hears. No one to help. They don’t even say to themselves that they are going to die. Words are silenced.
Don’t even look at one another.
Everyone for themselves; the world around has vanished. No more thoughts, nothing that is not straining fully toward those clinging hands, those curving fingers, all breath choked by showers of spray.
There is only fear.
And the howling of the wind on the sea, like the terrifying cry of a ghost looking for lost children, parting the walls of storm with great gusts and blasts of rage.
When the wave recedes, they slam together where they have been hurled to the bottom of the boat, their noses bleeding unnoticed, they scratch and graze each other, and the hens in turn lose their balance, slide out from under the seat where even their frenetic beating of wings cannot restrain them. The children hear their squawking and cackling as if from another world; a moment later, the hens come tumbling on top of them, lacerating them with their claws as they struggle to right themselves, wings spread, flapping, hindered by the storm. Several of them roll from one end of the boat to the other, and Louie knows, reaches out, too late—they are catapulted against them, bounce, are projected overboard, they can hear the furious squawking, a few seconds, then nothing more, the children huddle under the seats, terrified by the sea’s momentum and how it has taken their hens, nothing more, no, just Perrine’s scream.