Chapter 6: Not on the Manifest

Signe counted to three and made herself look at the chart instead of the sky.

The ferry was drifting east at nearly two knots.

By her math the Middle Ledge was twenty-five minutes away, and the falling tide would make it worse.

She went up the stairs to the wheelhouse and put her phone in the officer's hand.

"Drop both anchors now," she said. "Here, in the forty foot water, before the shelf. Pay out all the chain you have."

"Who are you?"

"I chart this coast for the Coast Guard. If you wait ten minutes, you won't hold."

He stared at the screen and then at her.

Then he picked up the radio and gave the order.

Below them the big chain went out with a roar that shook the deck.

The ferry swung, shuddered and slowed, and then hung there, straining, with the surf breaking white on the ledge behind her.

"Nice work," the officer said, in a voice that was not steady.

She did not answer, because the helicopter had come out of the rain.

It was orange and white and low over the swells. The wash from its rotors flattened the water in a wide circle.

Signe gripped the rail and shut her eyes.

One.

The roar filled her head, and for a moment she was eight again, with a rope in her hands and a stranger's voice shouting from the sky.

Two.

A hand closed on her arm. It was the boy in the yellow life jacket, holding his stuffed seal.

"It's okay," he said. "It's just loud."

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