I really don’t want to interrupt, but I can’t remain silent. I clear my throat as softly as possible. “Excuse me, Chloe.”
She stops talking mid-sentence, and one of her long-lashed, bright blue eyes pops open, tossing a dagger my way.
“This is more than a tropical storm, and it feels much
closer to us than the experts predicted.” When Chloe remains intensely still and silent, the other women open their eyes and glance between me and Chloe. “My, um, intuition is telling me I’m not safe out here in the elements.”
I end the sentence with an uptick in my voice, indicating more of a question then a statement. Not my usual style, but then this isn’t my normal environment either. I’m so far out of my kitten-heeled, pencil-skirted, 90210ed comfort zone, I could be sitting on another planet.
A tense pause expands inside the group. The realization that I can intuit that shift in energy makes me think I might actually be learning something here after all.
An angry gust of wind picks up a wicker chair from the deck of the main resort and tosses it over the railing. A collective gasp zips through the group.
“Yep, you’re right.” In an abrupt turnabout, Chloe stands and grabs her meditation pillow. “Let’s head inside.”
I’ll laugh about Chloe’s personality shift from Mandela to Bezos at some point today, but now, I stand, picking up both my pillow and the missing woman’s. Holding one against my chest, the other dangling from my hand, I scan the surging water.
“Laiyla.”
I glance over my shoulder at Chloe, who’s giving me a what-are-you-waiting-for look.
“Come on.”
“Do you know where the other woman is? KT?” I ask. “Is she sick or something?”
Another gust tips me off-balance and rips the elastic band from my bun. My hair whips and spirals around my head like something out of The Exorcist. I hold both pillows to my chest and pull my hair from my face just as the sky opens up with a torrent of warm rain.
“She probably decided to join another group.” Chloe yells to be heard over the wind. I’m struck by how quickly the morning’s light breeze and blue skies have turned devilish, smothering the sun with thick charcoal clouds, and turning raindrops into blades.
I stare out at the ocean, yelling, “I saw her head down to the tidepools with scuba gear half an hour before our session started.”
This island, Nieu, is smack in the middle of the South Pacific, west of New Zealand. My pre-travel research exposed June as the beginning of cyclone season in the tropics, but this storm didn’t show up on experts’ radar until the retreat was underway a full day. Sketchy cell and internet service kept us from closely monitoring the path of the storm, but just this morning at our hippie-dippie, vegan, organic, wholly unsatisfying breakfast of chickpea flour mini frittatas—chickpea flour? Seriously?—the resort manager had assured everyone that this was a tropical storm that would not develop into a level one cyclone.
But, yeah—cyclone. It’s one of those words you can’t unhear.
Chloe appears at my side, one hand holding her pillow, the other grasping her now-loose, long, buttery blonde strands into a ponytail. For a moment, we take in the sight of the surf pounding the hell out of the tidepool shelf.
Chloe releases her hair and takes my hand. “Come on. We need to get inside.”
My stomach squeezes. I can’t bear the thought of the other woman somewhere under the ocean. I don’t know what happens underwater in a storm like this, but even if it’s relatively sedate down there, I can’t imagine how she will get through the violent surf to land.
“Have you ever been diving?” I ask Chloe. “How long will her air tank last? Long enough to ride out whatever this is?”
“I’ve been, but I can’t remember how long a tank of air lasts.”
A piercing alarm wails, making me jump and wedging my heart into my throat.
“This is a severe storm warning.” The tinny, mechanical voice comes between siren calls. “Return to the resort and shelter in place.”
Another round of siren wails drives into my ears, and I relent to Chloe’s insistence, feeling helpless.
Something catches the corner of my eye, and I’m three steps up the steep stairway toward the resort before I glance back. Despite my iron grip on the handrail at my side, the wind catches me like a kite, and I squeeze my eyes closed against the gust.
When I open my eyes again, I watch the sea lift a wall of water and dump it on the tide pools with as much care as someone bailing out a sinking boat. When the wave retreats, something dark is left behind. My stomach flips. It’s KT, still in her scuba gear, missing her mask.
“Chloe,” I yell to the woman a dozen steps ahead. “She’s here.”
I start back down the stairs. On the rock shelf, KT rips her fins from her feet, pushes up on her knees, and stays in a low crouch as she makes her way along the treacherous tide pools. Another giant wave crests behind her, and terror rises in my chest.