LITMIR.BIZ

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Heinrich and Denny kicked off their flip-flops and waded into the harbour. They climbed into the dinghy, which rocked from side to side, sending small waves rippling to shore.

      ‘Where are we going?’ Kitty asked, a grin spreading across her face.

      ‘Back to our place,’ Aaron told her.

      ‘Your place is … a boat?’

      In the moonlight, Lana caught Aaron’s smile.

      ‘Come on,’ Denny called from the dinghy. ‘You’ll like it, we promise.’

      Lana shrugged, then slipped off her sandals. The seabed was slimy beneath her soles and she tried not to think about what could be lurking in the dark, silent water.

      It was a squeeze on board and Lana sat on a damp plank of wood, squashed between Shell and Kitty with her satchel and sketchbook on her lap.

      Aaron yanked at the start cord and the motor spluttered to life.

      The smell of diesel and fish rose from the harbour as they motored forward, clouds of cooler air brushing their skin. With the weight of them all, the dinghy sank close to the waterline, and Lana thought that if she reached a hand over the side she’d be able to trail her fingers across the surface.

      The night was still and quiet as they passed fishing bangkas, which looked like colourful dugout canoes, drifting on their anchors. The others talked amongst themselves in an easy rhythm, but Lana and Kitty said nothing. They stared ahead as, through layers of darkness, the shadow of a yacht began to emerge, moonlight illuminating the curve of a dark-blue hull.

      Lana widened her gaze to absorb it more fully. The yacht was elegant and long, with two masts standing guard. In the moonlight the name of the yacht, painted in a curling white script, came into focus. The Blue.

      Lana turned those two words over on her tongue and, as she did so, a surge of something she couldn’t quite define – excitement, anticipation, fear – pushed through her heart.

      *

      They were sitting towards the back of the yacht – the cockpit, someone called it, which had made Kitty giggle – drinking tall glasses of rum and Coke. Lana held a joint between her fingers that she couldn’t remember being passed, and music played from a speaker somewhere on deck. The yacht rocked gently, like a lullaby from the sea, and Lana felt her body relaxing into its rhythm.

      Shell had given them a tour below deck, showing them the main living area, which she called the saloon, and the narrow galley kitchen that was neatly kept except for a stack of empty beer bottles on the side. There were three cramped cabins at the front of the yacht, which contained bunks, and then two slightly larger cabins at the rear with double beds where Aaron and Denny slept.

      Lana liked the simplicity of their living quarters, where everything smelt of warm wood and varnish. She’d never set foot on a yacht before and kept pausing, noticing details she wanted to sketch: the row of salt-curled paperbacks squashed together on a shelf in the saloon, bookended by a sturdy copy of The Encyclopaedia of Cruising; the two small hammocks attached to the galley ceiling filled with fruit; a pile of charts spread out on a table with a beautiful conch shell set on top as a paperweight.

      Kitty finished her drink, then set down the glass, saying, ‘I still can’t believe you all live on a boat. Whose is it?’

      ‘I’m the skipper,’ Aaron said, who was sitting with his feet wide apart, a drink held easily in his large hands. That made sense; Lana had noticed the way he’d run his palm carefully over the wheel when they came aboard, his gaze moving across the deck – as if checking that everything was as it should be.

      ‘So you just sail around from place to place, deciding where you want to stop?’ Kitty asked.

      He nodded. ‘Pretty much.’

      From what Lana could tell there were five crew: Aaron, Denny, Heinrich, Shell and then a fifth member, Joseph, who’d been smoking alone at the bow when they’d arrived. Denny had asked if he wanted to join them, but Joseph had waved a hand in the air as he sloped by, saying in a lilting French accent that sleep was calling.

      As the night wore on, more rum was poured – and then more still. Lana let the conversations wash around her, hearing bursts of Kitty’s laughter, which had taken on a loose, almost liquid sound. As the yacht turned lazily on its anchor, she watched the lights from the town flickering in the distance across the inky water. She had no idea that this was only the beginning.

       3

       THEN

      Lana woke to the sensation that she was swaying. A deep throbbing resonated through her skull and she lifted a hand, rubbing the heel of it against her forehead. Though her eyes were closed, she could sense sunlight and became distantly aware of an engine running and the sound of water nearby.

      Gradually her eyelids peeled open – and she saw not walls or a ceiling, but sky. She blinked, squinting against searing daylight. A breeze brushed against her face and she tried to push herself upright, but everything seemed to move, tilt, swing. She struggled – but it was as if the bed, the very ground, was sinking away from her. Then she realized: she and Kitty were in a hammock. She turned her head, sending a new shock of pain around her skull, and saw sea, sky, the deck of a yacht.

      ‘Kit …’ she croaked.

      Kitty came out of sleep as if she’d been plugged into the mains. She sat bolt upright, her hair wild, eyes wide. ‘Yes? What?’

      Lana blinked again, searching out the harbour, the fishing bangkas, the town – but land was just a blur of muted shadows behind them. ‘We’re moving.’

      ‘Holy fucking shit! What happened last night?’ Kitty exclaimed, half-laughing.

      ‘Tanduay Rhum happened,’ Shell said, gliding across the deck barefoot, holding out two mugs of coffee.

      Lana reached for one. ‘My God, you lifesaver.’

      ‘Have you kidnapped us?’ Kitty asked, taking her coffee.

      Shell smiled. ‘Aaron wanted to sail to a spot up the coast on high tide, so he set out early. You’ll be back at the harbour by lunchtime.’

      Kitty ran a knuckle beneath each eye and pulled on her sunglasses, which had miraculously survived a night on the hammock.

      ‘Were you okay up here?’ Shell asked. ‘I use the hammock when it’s too hot below deck, but it can get a little damp.’

      ‘I don’t think we’d have noticed where we slept,’ Lana said, looking out to sea as they were motoring forward. Then she manoeuvred her legs out of the hammock, wincing at the hot ache in her ankle as she stood.

      ‘How is it?’ Kitty asked.

      Lana experimented with putting weight on it. ‘Not too bad.’

      ‘Good morning.’

      Lana and Kitty both turned to see the Frenchman, Joseph, approaching. He had a thin, angular face and wore a rumpled shirt over a pair of shorts, his dark hair foppish and uncut.

      ‘Sorry I didn’t stay and meet you properly last night,’ Joseph said on reaching them. ‘You had a good time, yes?’

      ‘I think so – from what we can remember of it,’ Kitty replied.

      ‘We’re still trying to get our heads round the fact that you all live here, on this boat,’ Lana added.

      ‘Yes, me also.’ Joseph smiled. ‘We’re all lucky to have found it.’

      She nodded in agreement.

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