The Findlings by Rebekah Lewis

Author:Rebekah Lewis [Lewis, Rebekah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rebekah Lewis

Chapter 17

Hatter didn't sleep at all. He'd retreated to the hall and closed the door. Not sure how long he waited there—hand seared to the door knob as he warred between opening it and keeping it shut—he eventually released it and stepped back a few paces. Was she still in there, or did she leave him? He stalled his hand as he reached for the knob again. Despite curiosity and dread, he couldn't bring himself to look. Once he did, if she wasn't there, the reality would end his sanity. It would be best to put off the inevitable for a few more hours. He could pretend she hadn't gone yet, and all would be fine.

At some point, he returned to the sitting room and poured himself a cup of tea, but his hands shook too much to drink it. The air suffocated him, and the room closed in. Shedding his jacket, cravat, and other offending layers until he was down to his shirt and pants, he rolled his sleeves up to his elbows and rubbed his face.

Waves crashing all around me. Pulled under. Tumbling. Tumbling.

His eyelids popped open. He was safely in his house but could taste the salt from the water and the sting of it in his eyes. His nostrils burned and he couldn't breathe.

Lightning struck the ship's mast, snapping it in half. The rigging caught fire. Not long after, the ship capsized. He couldn't find his parents in the wreckage. He couldn't find anyone. Clinging to a floating piece of driftwood saved his life.

Hatter remembered blacking out as the sea pulled him farther away from where the ship went down. It hadn't taken long to realize he would die before he was old enough to shave. Then he awoke, thinking he'd made it to the end of the world since one half the sky was black with thousands of twinkling stars that didn’t match the patterns from the night before, while the other half shone with morning sunlight. Bright rays warmed the water beneath him that had been so cold before. The waves were stronger, and the rocking had brought him out of his slumber. How he'd managed to hang on to the driftwood and not drown was beyond him.

An island had hovered in the distance that day. Waves crashed against the rocky structures before the shore. Cliffs rose high above the beach, and violet and blue trees cast a rainbow over the top. His throat dry from dehydration and saltwater, he'd believed the island no more than a mirage, but he started swimming anyway. He'd blacked out again the moment he reached the shore...

It was as though Hatter was back in the ocean, drifting into an unknown, but he was firmly anchored on dry land. He was no longer that boy, Byron, of a world he'd left behind at the bottom of an endless ocean. Yet he was still that boy, floating over an abyss waiting to tumble him into their dark fathoms. Melody was his driftwood.

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