Chapter 6: The Boathouse

The storm came up the river on Thursday night, and by ten o'clock the Ravenel house had lost its lights.

I lay on my bed on the third floor and listened to the wind try the shutters.

I had promised my father I would stay off the water, and I had not promised him anything about a boat on dry land.

I put on Beau's old rain jacket from the hall closet and went out the kitchen door with a flashlight.

The shell road to the boathouse was running with water.

The sloop sat under its canvas cover on the lift, and the cover snapped and strained at its ties.

I got the nearest corner up and shone the light along the hull.

It was a white wooden boat, forty feet, with a name painted on the stern in faded gold.

The name was Second Wind.

There was a brass hatch in the deck, padlocked, with a ring of rust around the hasp.

I was reaching for it when the lift shifted under the wind and the canvas whipped across my arm.

I stepped back onto the shell bank and my hand went down on the ground to catch me.

An oyster shell opened my palm from the heel to the base of the thumb.

I did not scream.

I looked at it by flashlight for a moment, surprised, as the blood ran off my wrist.

"Sabra!"

Beau came down the road in a slicker with a lantern, running, and the light swung wildly.

He stopped in front of me and saw the hand.

"Inside," he said. "Now."

"It's fine."

"It's not fine. Come on."

He got an arm around my waist and walked me into the boathouse, and shut the door on the wind with his shoulder.

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