A wave crashes over the side and into the cockpit as the boat continues to be pushed along. If I put the sail up now, we would be moving at breakneck speed but there’s no saying where we’d end up.
I glance at the GPS, see the radar flashing. We’re about 10 miles out from what looks to be an atoll, something small and without a name on the chart. And when I say 10 miles out, I mean we’re heading straight for it.
I look up at Daisy. She’s shaking slightly, staring at nothing. Perhaps she’s in shock. Perhaps I shouldn’t be yelling at her.
Even though it’s all her fucking fault.
You’re the one who put her in charge, I tell myself. Maybe this is your fucking fault. Just like so many other things are.
“What’s happening?” Richard appears at the top of the stairs, throwing on his lifejacket. “I woke up to yelling, and my internal compass says we’ve changed direction.”
“We’re fucked!” I yell at him, letting go of my confident captain persona. “Absolutely and completely fucked!”
Richard frowns and I don’t bother throwing Daisy under the bus. She can do that herself.
“I…” she begins, reluctantly looking at Richard. “I panicked, he was trying to get the sail in and I thought I hit the deck lights but…”
Richard’s eyes widen beneath his glasses. “No. Please don’t tell me you hit the autopilot.”
“I hit the autopilot.”
“I said please don’t tell me that.”
“It was an accident!”
Richard shakes his head in disbelief and motions for Daisy to undo her lifeline.
“Go downstairs and tell Lacey what happened,” he tells her. “I’m staying up here.”
Reluctantly she undoes her clip and gives it to Richard, then heads down the stairs.
She looks at me before she disappears into the cabin but I give her nothing in return.
“Is that true?!’ Richard yells as he comes closer. “Did it shut down?”
I spin the wheel to show him. “We’ve got nothing.”
“Shit.”
He peers around at the navigation. “We’re going eight knots with the sail reefed,” he says, noting the instrument readings on the monitor. “What is this?” He points at the blob on the radar.
“That’s an island.”
“We’re heading straight for it!” He blinks at it and then looks to me in shock.
“I know.”
He shakes his head again, rubbing at his forehead for a moment before he’s almost knocked off-balance by a wave. “This can’t be. We have to do something. Maybe we can fix it?”
“I’m going to have to try,” I tell him. If it’s an electronic thing, I’m probably out of luck, but maybe there are few wires that need to be crossed, something, anything.
I can’t do nothing.
“How much time do we have?” Richard asks as I move out from behind the wheel. He instinctively goes to it, even though it’ll do no good.
“You’re the one who loves trigonometry,” I tell him.
I leave him up top to puzzle over it, even though I know the answer is in the range of “way too fucking soon.”
You don’t have time, I tell myself. You need to prepare everyone for what’s going to happen.
I go down into the cabin and see Lacey leaning against the table, seemingly in disbelief, and Daisy sitting down beside her giant piece of luggage and for some reason the sight of that thing taking up half the boat makes me want to rage and throw it overboard.
I can’t do that right now. I already let it all out. Now I have to pull myself together and do what I can for the ship.
“I’m so sorry, Tai,” Daisy whimpers quietly.
“I don’t want to hear it,” I snap at her. I look at Lacey. “I take it she caught you up to speed?”
To my surprise Lacey isn’t crying. She’s not even blinking.
“Lacey?” I repeat.
“What’s going to happen to us?” she says eventually, slowly meeting my eyes. “Are we going to be okay?”
I tap the side of the stairs where the engine compartment is.
“The only shot we have is if I can get the steering fixed. I don’t know how I’ll do that, but I’m going to try.”
“And if you can’t? Then what happens?”
I take in a deep breath, trying to steady my voice. “I’m not sure what happens. But…I do know that we are at the mercy of the wind right now. It is pushing us in one direction and there is no stopping it. The good news in this is that we are heading downwind, which means we are going with the waves. It could be worse. We could be drifting and being battered from the side. If that happened, there’s a good chance the boat would capsize.”
Daisy gasps at that, bringing her hands to her mouth.
“Yeah,” I say. “It’s pretty much my worst nightmare.”
“So if there are any freighters out there…” Lacey says.
“They aren’t the biggest concern right now. We can pick them up on radar. We could call ahead and tell them we can’t get out of their way, and maybe there’s enough time for them to get out of ours.”