PoraBora

Chapter Thirteen

She was sick from her head to her toes, but Pe couldn't look away, couldn't close her eyes. It was impossible. It was three years ago in her head, and the skies were dark and the sea went from blue to black as the moon was blocked by waves. The winds whipped over the surface, dragging it into itself, piling it into behemoths that collapsed as soon as they were formed.

The manta was thrown from one to the next, entire remora submerged at a time.

"Get in the hull!" her father shouted, his wide face so wet she couldn't see it through the rain. He wrestled the tiller, legs slipping as seawater poured across the deck.

Pe's mother tried to pull in the stinger, but its tip was grabbed by the wave and snapped back. Her leg was caught by the line and it cast her like bait.

Pe screamed as her mother dangled, and clambered across the deck, grabbing the line's coil.

"Kanaleili!" Pe's father shouted. He grabbed the line too, wrapping his leg around the tiller and pulling for all he was worth. "Pull, Pe! Pull!"

Pe's mother skidded across the wave, hair whipping behind her. Pe couldn't hear her, because all she could hear was pull, pull, but it wasn't her father, it was her own head, pull, pull, because if she didn't, her mother would be—

"Pull, Pe!" Pe's father's bare arms hardened with every drag of rope. "Hold on, Kanaleili!"

The boat twisted as the tiller turned them into a wave and the water caught the bow. Pe was flung over the deck before the railing caught her, while her father bounced into the tiller, howling. The boat was falling, and the wave was falling over them.

"Dad!"

"Pe!"

Everything plunged into water.

Submersion's quiet was only a chamber to echo Pe's flailing. The water dragged her from the boat and tumbled her through bubbles. She lost any sense of direction with the boat, and her sense of place was distorted by pull repeating still. She'd just gone through the surface, but it felt like water was endless all around her. Open eyes found darkness measured only by depths.

Swim. She had to swim. So that she could breathe. So that she could get back to the boat. Her mom would still be tied, dragging along. If the boat was afloat. If not...she would be dragged under, down, down until Pe couldn't pull her back anymore.

There was blue, and Pe found herself. Color was light, and light could only be two things: the moon, or a god. Either one would save her, so she kicked instead of flailing as hard as her legs could kick. Her lungs swelled as her eyes tried to make out the surface in the light. Her shadow dropped behind her, and then she saw a shadow above, the boat, and she knew it was still afloat, that she would be okay, that her father had control of the vessel and as long as he did, they were fine, they were home.

By the time she broke the surface, the boat had already been dragged away from her. Her body was at the whim of the storm. It pulled her upwards as a great swell that could crush her boat towered up. Stay calm, she told herself, because, as her father had always told her, the wave would pass. It was not after her. It was not angry, or spiteful, or filled with hate. It was a wave, the same ocean that they had always crossed.

She let herself go under, after big breaths. It was easier not to swallow water below than above. She made her strokes when the wave let her, trying to feel the current and cross out of it, not against it. Then she could get back to the boat. Her father would save her mother, and then they would come for her. She just had to tread water and keep her lungs full of air. She would be fine. They would be fine. In the morning, the sun would be out and the sea would be calm and they would all eat breakfast. Her father would be proud of her, and they would be home.

Two minutes. She could hold her breath for two minutes, if she really got a breath before going back under. She held it now for two and a half. Her lungs squeezed. She swallowed, hoping there would be more air in her mouth. She shook, and held her hands over her face. Stay calm. Air would come. It was right there, just above her. She just had to wait until there was an opportunity.

She couldn't wait any longer. She scrambled into her own last bubbles, chasing them upwards. Her body spasmed from her chest through to her throat, but it wouldn't take in water as long as she wouldn't let it. She couldn't let it. It was right there, air, just there—

Pe erupted from the surface, and she couldn't wait a second more. She breathed everything she could. Water splashed into her mouth. She choked on it, and coughed, which only made her intake jagged and concentration impossible. The next swell pooled into her throat, and she swallowed.

Even when she had air in her lungs again, she felt like puking, the saltwater making her sick into her stomach. She certainly wasn't ready to try to go back under the water. But the giants were returning to rest in the ocean floor, leaving smaller swells, leaving the boat upright and without issue.

After calm minutes, Pe saw it, and she saw her father's head poke up between them. "Da--" Another swell. "Dad!"

There was another shape in the water. It rose twenty feet from her father, dark, tattered, and scarred.