Strong Like the Sea by Wendy S. Swore

Author:Wendy S. Swore [Swore, Wendy S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shadow Mountain Publishing
Published: 2021-04-27T19:12:20+00:00

Small kine water? I give him the stink-eye, but Uncle just grins wider.

“Bah!” I grumble. He may be the kahuna on all marine biology things, but who really knows what’s down there? There could be all sorts of things hiding under the sand or in the shadows. Cars driving over top wouldn’t have a clue of what lurked below.

Why make a bridge here at all? It’s obviously a man-made riverbed. It’s got cement walls down both sides and everything. “Why’d they build a waterway that starts right here by a parking lot and ends at the ocean? It’s only, what—a few hundred feet long?”

“See behind you? The long dip in the grass? It’s a natural depression. Laie is a flood zone. You know heavy rains sometimes bring water down from the mountains and fill the streets, yeah? It’s why so many here build their house on stilts—they prepare for the floods they know will come sooner or later. If there was no water channel, no way through to the ocean from here, the next heavy rainstorm could flood everything on this side of the highway.

Okay, fine. So maybe they have a good reason for the water here, but it’s still mean that Mom added this path to my challenge. I stare down at the water below. On this side of the bridge, saltwater mixes with fresh runoff to make a brackish soup, so probably there’s nothing big hiding up here, but that’s how hiding works: you don’t see hidden creatures until they jump out and try to get you.

“So, we go look, or just watch those little fish all day?”

I jump at Uncle’s voice. How long was I staring at the water anyway? I swallow. “I think . . . uh, I think that one of us has to go in there and look under the bridge.”

I glance at Uncle hopefully, but he doesn’t volunteer. Instead, he extends a hand toward the water. “Ladies first.”

Why does it matter to him if I go in the water or not? Okay, fine. I’ll just step in and . . . My leg muscles flex, but my foot is stuck fast to the grass. Not just stuck, but rooted, like my heel transformed into a banyan tree vine, burrowing deep down through the ground all the way to lava rock.

The other foot doesn’t do any better. I can step back, but not forward. A short circuit in my brain with malfunctioning feet sensors. I blow out a breath in frustration. “Stupid. So stupid.”

“Can’t step in, can you?” Uncle sidesteps so I can look at him better.

I shrug. If I could, I would’ve done it already.

“Remember what I said before about how these kinds of fears are bigger? It’s not your fault that you feel afraid, and you’re certainly not stupid. It’s your mind and body’s way of protecting you.” Uncle leans against a tree and steps out of his rubber slippers.

Still rooted to the side of the shallow pool, I watch him from the corner of my eye.

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