Red Midnight by Ben Mikaelsen

Author:Ben Mikaelsen
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2002-08-24T04:00:00+00:00

16

TWO SHORES

I SAIL NOW into a very black night on a dark ocean filled with angry waves. The wind is loud, but the North Star hangs in the sky, waiting for us. It is good to look at something that is so far away from the ocean and the pirates and the cayuco.

I do not know what time it is. I see the moon, but I am not sure where the moon should be when it is early or when it is late.

Angelina is awake. “I itch,” she tells me, scratching her skin.

“So do I.” I reach down and pick up a coconut. I hit it with the machete until the shell cracks. “Here,” I say to Angelina. “I will put coconut milk on your skin.” As I rub the milk over Angelina’s thin arms and legs, I feel her bones and dry skin. She has already lost much weight. She looks up at me. “Will this help?”

“Oh, yes,” I say, even if I do not believe that my words are true.

“Do you itch, too?” she asks.

I nod and rub coconut milk on my own skin. And maybe I did not lie. The coconut milk feels good. But my hands still shake from escaping the pirates.

Angelina keeps scratching at her bites.

“The coconut milk will only work if you do not scratch your skin,” I tell her.

She nods and keeps scratching.

As we sail, the night is long once again, lasting until my arms grow tired and I fight to keep my eyes open. Always I must look into the darkness and be ready for the next wave. Above me, a thousand stars remind me that morning still waits over the horizon. I spit at the black waves. To answer me, the wind blows spray hard in my face.

I have discovered that the first sign of morning is not a light that I can see in the sky. It is when the stars grow dim and begin to disappear. That is what I finally see this night. As I wait for the sky to become light, I take the machete and I make another notch in the side of the cayuco. I have four notches now. Another night has let me live.

In the daylight, a second shore appears to my right. I blink hard because my mind is mixed up. I still travel north with the wind and the current. This I know. The cayuco has not turned. But there are two shores now. One is still the shore far to my left. The second is closer to my right. Both shores reach as far as I can see to the north and as far as I can see to the south.

I think at first that I am sailing into a big bay and that we should sail south again. But I am not sure of this. Suddenly fear makes me breathe faster. I pull out the map and stare at it with big eyes. Then I look up at the ocean. No, this is not a bay.

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