Midnight

Castaway

Estelle's feet fell in the dirt...and then her toes sunk into sand. The white, glowing shore beckoned, crystal-clear waves teased up by flickers of tropical breeze. Gulls flocked and dove in the distance, arcing from the mountain at the far end of the island to glide around the shoal-encrusted bay.

The same breeze that stirred the waves and lifted the birds teased Estelle, brushing at her mangy, scattered lobe-length hair. Droplets of bay water and grains of sand rose on the wind, tickling her cheeks.

Afraid. Jason had called her afraid.

"I'm not afraid." The breeze took her words, and the incoming tide fell just short of her toes. The sound of the sea rang in her ears. "I'm not afraid. Not..."

Her mouth was dry. "Not anymore."

It wasn't silence. There was too much noise: waves and birds, wind and rustling fronds from the jungle, Estelle's own soft breathing. But it was tranquil, and it was calm. And it smelled of salt: salty sea air borne off the Iron Sea.

The smell of memory and disaster.

***

Waves lapped gently: a distinct departure from the night before. The sound was still enough to drive Estelle into a fit...and the infernal rocking! It was a hundred times worse on the lifeboat than the galleon.

The overpowering smell of sea air...

"We're lost, we're cast away–"

"We're going to be all right, you hear me?" Thump. The young man in the bow dropped his helmet without a second thought, and he hurried to her side, nearly seizing her hands. "Look at me. Look at me!"

Against her frenzied and panicked judgment, Estelle did. Her eyes reflected in his, and in those sapphire irises...

He wasn't afraid. He wasn't, was he?

"How are we going to...?" There was the rising sun...how hot would the day become here with no shelter? "We're hundreds of miles from–"

"That doesn't matter." His voice didn't waver like hers, and neither did his gaze. "You know why? Because we've got patience, and we've got will. A man can do anything with those. We're not going to die."

Estelle clutched her head, breathing deeply. "Why?"

"Why?"

"Why did you save me?" Tears of terror ran down her cheeks, and the feeling drove her on without care for propriety. "Why did you...you came for me, when everyone else was..."

"Why?" From his frown, even he wasn't fully sure. "Because you're worth it."

"Why?" Estelle reached out and put her hands on his shoulders, knowing it was impolite but too panicked to care. "What have I done to merit this?"

"It's not what you've done." It was like he had to pick his words out and test them one at a time before he could commit. "It's what you could do." He took her hands in his. "Think of it this way: someone thinks you're important."

"...true." She swallowed. "Thank you." But that didn't change anything: certainly not the trackless ocean spread for miles on all sides. "Now what?"

"Now?" Her companion reclaimed his helmet, pressing it into her hands as he reached for a fishing line. "Now we survive."

***

Estelle dreamed of thunder and rising winds, battering away as she stood on the deck. She clutched her coifed hair as the gusts tried to steal it away, and flinched as lightning illuminated the deck, awash with seamen rushing about as the waves got taller, and taller...