Axis of Aaron (32 page)

Ebon climbed out of the cabin, turned the key to ON, and ran the bilge pump until it gurgled dry. That done, he tried turning the key to START, but somehow fumbled it right out of the dash. A moment later the key was hopping around on his palm, and a moment after that it was in the water.
 

“Shit,” he muttered.
 

Ebon tried to recover the key, which was floating between the dock and the boat’s side, but it was too far down. There was an old blue ball cap in the cabin, so he used it as a scoop, trying to fish his key from the water. But again, he couldn’t get low enough. He leaned out, gripping the side, legs anchored under the wheel for balance. He snagged the key after some straining, but then the wheel slipped. He lost his hold and found himself floating in the frigid water.
 

He climbed out with some difficulty (Pinky Slip didn’t have ladders on the docks and he had to make his way to the rock shore and circle around), then sat shivering in a fresh breeze. He should definitely go up to the cottage and change, because if he didn’t he would get hypothermia. The taste of salt was strong in his mouth, and his shirt and pants felt very heavy.
 

Ebon looked back the way he’d come. He didn’t want to go to the cottage. He was suddenly very sure that if he went back now, he’d never return to the boat. Aimee would trap him in conversation. The doors would jam shut. A satellite would fall from the sky and block his way to Pinky Slip. Right now, he was at least away. Maybe it was the ocean fighting him, and maybe it was the island, but at least here, on the water, half of the obstacles were out of his way.
 

Walking back down into to the cabin and the still-oppressive scent of petroleum, Ebon found a few blankets, then swaddled himself. Better.
 

Teeth chattering, Ebon again attempted to start the boat, but it wouldn’t turn over.
 

Maybe the spark plugs were bad.

And maybe if he replaced them and got a spark, he’d ignite the fumes below deck, and would turn the whole works into a giant fireball.
 

Ebon again looked toward the cottage. That last glimpse was still in his mind’s eye — the faded paint, the old roof, the second story free of its post-modern addition. Of course, he’d simply been seeing it wrong, his vision fogged by a still-hammering heart. But maybe not.
 

He was suddenly sure — in a sky-is-parting, how-did-I-never-notice sort of way — that he’d seen similar things before. Around every corner in the cottage, the home’s original state seemed to lurk like an underlay beneath a thin glossy sheen. It was like a double-exposure photograph, where a trick of the eye could cause you to focus on either image. Most of the time, the cottage looked under construction and fresh. But he’d gone into the bathroom at night and felt sure he’d stepped on a broken floorboard. He’d peeked in on Aimee while she was sleeping and seemed to see her on a rickety old bed with a moth-eaten canopy, its posts faded and cracked like the wooden horses on the old carousel. He’d gone for walks and returned to seemingly see the cottage as he’d once known it (cute and blue gray with shake shingles, shore appropriate and quaint) or as he’d seen it on arrival (falling down, decaying, barely more than dust).
 

He didn’t want to go back there now. To do so was inviting madness. No, he had to get the boat started. He had to get out into the water. He had to push back, because he’d been pushed too many times.

“If I can’t get this boat started,” he said, staring down at the key with its yellow floatation fob as if it could hear him, “I’m going to sit here in the cold until I freeze.”
 

He turned the key. The engine fired to life without a hitch. Only once it was running did Ebon think about the fumes and their ignition. Could they still ignite? He didn’t think so. Engines ran on sparks and flame, so whatever might catch below deck would have already caught. He was safe — for now, at least.

Surprised by the engine’s sudden life, Ebon pulled back to steer the boat from the slip. But he hadn’t untied the dock lines in his haste, and now felt the engine tugging at the dock, making the boards creak and moan.
 

He moved the transmission back to neutral, then hopped to the dock. Thanks to Aimee’s cinch job on the dock lines, they’d only tightened as the boat had pulled them taut. Ebon couldn’t unwrap them; he couldn’t free the boat. And somehow, on the boat’s end of the lines, the loops were too small to get back off of the cleats. How was that possible? How had Bonnie got them on, if the loops were too small?
 

He fought with the lines for a while, but there was nothing doing. He’d managed to start the boat, but was unable to move it. He’d have to go back in, and probably ask for Aimee’s help.
 

“Fuck it.”
 

He hopped back aboard, climbed into the cabin, and snagged a large gutting knife he’d noticed in the kitchenette. Then he sawed the lines off, leaving small dangling trailers as the stern began to drift away, followed moments later by the bow. He wouldn’t be able to dock again using these lines (unless he could unwrap them, which seemed unlikely), but that was a problem for later.
 

Ebon eased the throttle into slow reverse. Nothing happened. He eased farther. Still nothing. Then he pushed it all the way back, and the transmission suddenly seemed to catch, throwing the boat out of neutral and into full-speed reverse. He tried to correct, but momentum had already sent him into the opposite dock, breaking away several boards with a loud crack. Ebon leaned over the edge and looked down. The dock had pierced the side, but the hole was minor and well above the water line. He’d need to get it fixed. But that too could wait.
 

The controls were sticky. He got it free, but the engine stuttered, spurted, and eventually jerked forward. Ebon collided with another dock in forward as he had in reverse. Once somewhat clear, the wheel locked, and he careened around in a perfect skidding circle, spanking a buoy that some asshole had left right in the middle of the marina and snagging his severed dock lines on it. He’d also forgotten to drag the bumpers back aboard, and the nearest one also became snagged on the buoy.
 

He used the knife to fix it.
 

The wind had begun to pick up. Ebon still steered forward, fighting the stubborn wheel (it felt like something was clutching the rudder) and cresting the small waves. The boat was plenty hearty enough to take it, even with the hole in the side he’d just made on the dock. But then, a hundred feet out, the front anchor deployed, and forward momentum caused the boat to spin almost in a circle on the pivot, the vessel’s ass end now pointed toward the bay.
 

He was unable to free the anchor, which had become impossibly wedged below some rocks in the channel. Of course. So with significant effort and after fifteen minutes, Ebon decided to climb in and unbolt the anchor chain as he had with the dock lines. He could return for it in the spring. He watched as the chain slinked into the depths, knowing it couldn’t be very deep so close to shore. But the water swallowed the anchor as surely as if it had vanished, and Ebon found himself wondering if he’d ever find it again after all.
 

When he was two hundred feet out, a cold sort of panic gripped Ebon’s heart like a fist. He’d watched Bonnie pilot the boat into Pinky Slip with no more angst than a skipping girl playing double Dutch, but Ebon was slowly growing sure that the transmission controls had rusted in place since then, that there were six tons of buried treasure wrapped around the rudder, and that the wheel was about to snap away. The thing felt a thousand years old, and he was only heading out deeper and deeper. There was a gasoline leak in the engine compartment; he had no anchor and no way to dock; he had a hole in his side. If his ship capsized, would he be able to swim back in the frigid water? If it stalled, were there any oars aboard? He couldn’t let it drift even if he had a way to get away himself, could he? Who knew where it might run ashore? Who knew what damage it might cause?
 

He looked toward the shore. Dark clouds had angered the horizon behind him while he’d been fiddling with the lines and anchor. Had he really thought this was a good day to test the ocean? The ocean had already won, and he’d barely left.
 

The cold water still against his skin reasserted itself despite the piled-on blanket. A wind blew off the bay toward the shore, giving the boat a warning shove.
 

Ebon felt torn. He was standing on a razor-thin rise, equally able to tip in either direction. One option was to go back, and he very much wanted to. He liked being with Aimee, talking with her, using his hands for renovation so his mind would stay empty — or dally only on subjects he approved. So he could head back to shore, walk to the cottage, change out of his wet clothes, and get a cup of tea. Aimee would even make it for him. And if he
did
turn back, he was quite sure the boat would cooperate. The wheel would turn fluidly and true; the engines wouldn’t stall or hesitate; he’d drift back into the Slip almost without mechanical assistance. Of course he would. Because if the ocean really
had
been against Ebon, allowing him to return by his own choice was even better than holding him by force. Because after all, the only thing better than tying a dog to a stake was tricking him into staying put on his own.
 

But on the other hand, if he
did
go back, what would he have learned? That he’d been right, and was indeed being held prisoner? Or worse: Because the very notion of
the ocean hating him
was so ridiculous, he might decide that he’d been paranoid and helpless all along. Weren’t you supposed to face your fears? Maybe he’d been stupid to feel the way he did about the island, the water, and whatever was wrong with both. But what was he saying to himself by refusing even to head out into the beast’s belly to test it? If he didn’t do this now, what did it say about him, and what he’d forever fail to do in the future?

With a feeling of abandon, Ebon rammed the throttle to full. The boat took off, its powerful twin engines too shocked to sabotage him in time. The waves were growing ahead, but Ebon ignored them. He wasn’t going to go into the ocean, he’d decided. Maybe later. For now, baby steps were enough. He’d head toward the mainland, across the bay. He didn’t even have to reach the shore. It would be enough to
see
the shore, and he should be able to do that quickly. And then, from the middle of the water, he could look at Aaron and the mainland as equals. When he returned, he’d be doing so by choice, not out of fear. He’d be in control. Captain of his own destiny, as it were.
 

Once his decision was made, the water seemed to obey. He steered out, watching the compass, knowing it should only take a few minutes at full throttle.
 

He saw the mainland on the horizon soon after. Feeling daring and victorious, he kept moving toward it, somehow knowing the clouds and waves would obey now that he’d broken through. And as the shoreline came nearer, he began to see familiar landmarks.
 

But not landmarks of the mainland.
 

They were landmarks of Aaron.

He could see the crescent shape of the island’s trough. He could see the bluffs, atop which Vicky’s house stood. He could see Redding Dock’s length to the north, its red planks slithering into the water like a snake. And he could see the carnival on the pier, the Danger Wheel’s bulk prominent at its end.
 

Ebon looked down at the compass. It told him he was heading east, not west. Yet he’d been heading dead west just a moment ago. How the hell had he got turned around?

The black smear over the island ahead had darkened, now moving closer to Aimee’s cottage. The clouds had grown taller, spreading like ink in a pool, becoming thunderheads. Lightning was beginning to fork beneath it like insect legs. It was close, but not there quite yet. He might be able to make it back in time if he hurried. But if he dallied out here in the water? Well, he’d be in for one bastard of a storm, riding out Armageddon in a boat with a hole in its side, unable to moor.

Instead of revving the engine toward Aaron’s safe harbor, Ebon turned the wheel until the bow was facing away from the island. Toward the mainland and clear skies. They really had grown clear too; he could see white clouds parted to sun ahead, patches of yellow glinting on the water.
 

A rumble of thunder from behind. The storm was approaching.
 

Ebon gunned the engine, intent on outrunning the storm. How fast was it moving? He looked back, watching a blue streak below the thunderheads as it neared the carnival, the bluffs, Redding Dock, Aimee’s cottage.
Fast
. And how fast could the boat move? Faster than it was going now, for sure. But Ebon could only throttle up so high because the storm was raising the waves, the boat fighting to crest them without knocking his teeth out. To make things worse, he wasn’t riding the peaks and troughs as they rose from the rear. For some reason he was headed
into
the growing whitecaps, as if the wind were blowing toward the storm rather than out of it.
 

He gritted his teeth. Throttled as high as he dared. And left Aaron behind, the storm close on his tail.

As the first specks of land began to appear in the sunlight ahead, Ebon decided he might be doing something foolish, bordering on idiotic. It was almost halfway through December, and none of the docks ahead — if he could even find any — would be open for new arrivals. He didn’t have dock lines; he’d need to use those of any marina he managed to find …
if
he could do it before getting dashed to pieces on the rocks. The waves had at least moved behind him now, but even that had a downside given the way he was being ruthlessly shoved toward the inhospitable mainland coast. He’d be lucky to stay ahead of the storm at all, luckier to slot into a marina given the surge behind him, and downright blessed if he was able to dock properly. Because even if there
were
docks ahead, none would be staffed. Boating season had ended for the sane.