~By the Lion's Mane: The Call~

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Five

Down in my cabin, I slumped to the floor, my heart thudding and my muscles exhausted. I caught my reflection in my mirror: my eyes and nose were red from the water and cold and my hair was plastered to my head. I stood again, rifling through my drawers to find a dry shirt and a leather vest to help keep me a little dryer and warmer. Then I went to find Lucy and Reepicheep.

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The hurricane raged for twelve days. I spent those twelve days with Lucy, Reepicheep, and Eustace, pumping water out of the ship. Whenever Edmund or Caspian would stagger into their cabin, soaking wet and shivering, I would go to them and give them something to eat, bandage their blistered and bleeding hands, and try to find them something dry to wear. However, we all quickly ran out of dry clothing, as we couldn't wash or dry anything without a fire, and so we all spent the twelve days soaked through to the skin and cold.

On the eighth day of the typhoon, I was up on deck to relieve one of the men. The rain was still beating down horizontally, the wind screaming, and the waves the size of mountains. I had my safety line tied to the mast to keep from being swept overboard, as one poor soul had been the day before.

"Edmund! Let me take over! Go get some rest!" I called to him.

He was visibly exhausted, his cheeks hollow and his eyes red. His arms trembled with the effort of holding the lines, and his hands were bleeding through their bandages. He shook his head, but I knew he was desperately in need of rest. I forcefully took the line from his hands and gave him a gentle push in the direction of the cabin.

I turned back to my job when a deafening crack split through the roar of the storm. I whipped my head around, knowing it wasn't thunder. My blood ran cold with despair as I saw the mast falling as if in slow motion, like a great tree plunging towards me. The men screamed and abandoned their posts, desperately trying to get out of its path. I stood, frozen, watching the huge timber falling down, down, down, taking an impossibly long time, as Edmund screamed for me to move.

And then something collided with my right side, knocking my breath out and sending me rolling across the deck through the several inches of water that covered it. Caspian landed on top of me as I gasped for breath. The mast landed with a boom that reverberated throughout the small ship, crashing through the rail on the right side of the ship.

I stared up at Caspian, my eyes wide and short of breath.

He looked down at me, and said in bewilderment, "Why didn't you move?"

I shook my head, not being able to answer that myself, and he rolled off of me, helping me to my feet before we went back to work on the newest task that had presented itself.

We had to have everyone up on deck. I set to work with an axe to chop the part that had remained on the deck into pieces so we could toss them overboard. It was backbreaking work, and I nearly took the axe to Eustace while he complained about forced labor. But finally Caspian sent me back down to my cabin, where I accidently slept for an entire day.

On the thirteenth day, I was up on deck, helping man the tiller, when the rain lessened. The torrential downpour slacked off to more of a spring shower, and the wind started to come in small gusts rather than constant howling.

Over the next hour, the waves decreased in size, the rain slowed to a fine drizzle, and the wind was gone completely. We all gave a great sigh of relief, and staggered to our bunks and cabins.

After the storm, the sun broke through the gray clouds, as if saying, "Sorry for being gone so long, but I'm back now."

We used buckets and cups and bowls to scoop the water off of the deck. Then we started up a fire in the galley, and had a hot meal for the first time in two weeks. We dried our clothes and enjoyed soaking up the hot sun on deck.