"Bah," Albus said grumpily, stumping up and plopping down onto a bench built into the railing. "None of it will be as cool as Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade. Who needs a stupid old crystal mountain? Or Bigfeet for that matter?"
"I think they prefer the term 'Sasquatches'," Lucy said carefully. "Or Bigfoots, even though it sounds a little odd, grammatically."
"Stupid apes can't even talk," Albus groused. "They can start telling me what to call them when they can say it in plain English."
"That's rather speciesist," Lucy commented, but without much conviction. "What's got you in such a foul mood?"
Albus rolled his eyes. "Mum just yelled at me for making a racket in the hallway. Me and Lily and Molly. We were just playing Winkles and Augers. I don't see what the big deal is."
"You were playing Winkles and Augers with Lily and Molly?" Ralph said, frowning. "But they aren't even in school yet. Do they even have wands?"
James smiled ruefully. "Albus' attitude toward the rules is pretty loose. He got both girls some cheap toy wands from Gorleone's Novelties last time we were in Diagon Alley and he taught them some basic levitation, just so he has somebody to play Winkles with that he can actually beat."
"I beat you last time we played," Albus countered, raising his eyebrows challengingly. "Don't pretend I didn't."
"That's because you kept on playing after Mum called us for lunch and I went downstairs!" James cried, tossing his hands into the air.
"S'not against the rules, is it?" Albus replied evenly. "I mean, I could have just claimed you'd forfeited. I gave you the benefit of the doubt." To Ralph, he grinned and added, "I won, two hundred and seventy-eight to five."
"You can't play Winkles properly in a hallway as narrow as the corridors below-decks anyway," Lucy said, leaning back on the railing. "But besides that, why would your mum care? It's not like anyone's asleep or anything."
Albus shrugged, bored with the topic by now. "Apparently Petra doesn't feel well. She's got seasickness or something. She and Izzy are in their cabin resting. We were at least two doors down from them anyway."
"Petra's sick?" James clarified, glancing at his brother. "Really?"
Ralph said, "You seem surprised. Lots of people get sick on boats. I'm surprised I'm not sick."
"You still have one more day," Lucy commented reasonably. Ralph nodded.
"I'm a little surprised, yeah," James said, furrowing his brow. "Petra just doesn't seem like the seasick type."
"So maybe it isn't seasickness then," Albus exclaimed, annoyed. "Maybe she has rickets. Or scurvy. Who cares? She'll be fine by tomorrow night, won't she?"
Ralph nodded thoughtfully. "Barstow says sailors used to be called 'limeys' because eating limes and oranges and stuff was a great way to keep from catching rickets out on the high seas, for some reason. Has Petra been eating any limes?"
"She doesn't have rickets, you prat," Lucy said, shaking her head.
"I bet there's some limes in the galley," Albus said, brightening. "We could take her some. You want to?"
"Just leave her alone, like Mum said, why don't you?" James said, raising his voice a little. "Lucy's right. Whatever she has, limes aren't going to fix it. Just leave her be."
"Oh, that's right," Albus said, rolling his eyes again. "Treus has to look out for his dear Astra. How could I forget? By the way, has she professed her 'deep and abiding love' for you yet? No? Ah well."
James sighed and shook his head. He was used to his brother's ribbing by now. He looked toward the mid-ship stairs, wondering if he should go down and check on Petra. Reluctantly, he decided not to. His mum was probably right. If Petra didn't feel well, it would probably be best if they just left her alone. Petra would ask for help if she needed it.
Later that afternoon, however, as the sky lowered and turned ashy grey, James was surprised to see Petra and Izzy walking the decks. He saw the two of them from across the ship, he on the bow, and them on the high, angled floor of the stern, strolling slowly, hand in hand. He angled toward the mid-ship stairs, trying to move as casually as he could, hoping they wouldn't come up the other side of the ship while he was aiming to meet them on the stern. He didn't want it to appear that he was following them although that was exactly what he was doing.
By the time he got to the stern, however, neither of the girls was in sight. He looked around carefully, and then turned back to peer over the length of the ship. Apparently, Petra and Izzy had gone back below-decks again. He frowned and shook his head. Far ahead of the ship, the sky was turning a deep, bruised colour, darkening and condensing. It was a storm, just as Barstow had predicted, and the ship seemed to be heading right for it. As James thought this, a high wind twitched over the ship, threading through his hair and singing a high, momentary whine in the ship's rigging. James shuddered.
After a moment's consideration, he headed back down the stern and toward the stairs. There was no point in being on deck for a storm if he didn't have to be.
Even if it would probably be rather exciting.
"Make sure all of your things are well-secured," Barstow said, stopping momentarily in the doorway. "Including yourselves. Find something solid to hold onto, and do so. Also, keep a bucket handy. Believe it or not, you're much more prone to seasickness below-decks, where you can't see the waves. There'll be enough of a mess to clean up topside afterwards without having to worry about any messes down here, if you take my meaning."
James sat next to Molly and Lucy on a small bench in the captain's quarters, near the bank of curving stern windows. "Well, at least we can watch it from here," he said somberly. "If we want to."
Ralph shook his head. "I've never seen the sky look that colour. That can't be natural."
"So much for calm seas," Lucy agreed, leaning into the purplish-grey window light. "Those look less like waves and more like the Scottish Highlands."
James peered out the window next to her and saw that it was true. Unbroken by any shoreline, the waves swelled to nearly geological heights. At one moment, the view beyond the window seemed to look down from a high peak, overlooking a valley of sloshing, white-capped foothills. At the next moment, the ship would fall into the shadow of that very valley, buried in a trough of steely water and surrounded by marching oceanic mountains. James' stomach rolled with the motion of the waves and he looked away again, back to the comforting confines of the captain's quarters. Lanterns swung from the ceiling and tools rolled back and forth on the desk, striking the low railings that surrounded its surface.
"James," his mum said from across the room. Lily sat on her lap, leaning comfortably back against her mother's shoulder. Ginny glanced sharply at her son. "Did you close my trunk and batten it down when you were done getting the sweaters out?"
James sighed wearily. "I don't know, Mum. Yeah, sure, I guess so."
"'Guess so' isn't good enough, James," Ginny said sternly. She was nervous, James knew, and nervousness made her strident. "I have a whole collection of shampoo and perfume and hand cream vials in there, not to mention your father's travel potions bag. If that gets knocked over, it'll cause no end of mess, and if those potions of your father's break…"
"It'll be fine, Mum, quit worrying," James replied.
"Go on, James," his father said from where he stood next to Merlinus by the captain's desk. "Run along before the waves get any worse. And bring me back that apple on the bedside table, if you would."
"Ugh," Audrey commented, clinging to Percy where they sat at a dark corner table. "How can you eat at a time like this?"
"I'm hungry," Harry shrugged as James passed him. "And James…"
James stopped in the doorway, holding onto the frame to keep his balance on the swaying floor. "Yeah, Dad?"
"Leave my Invisibiliy Cloak in the trunk when you close it, eh?" Harry said, nodding and smiling a little crookedly.
James shook his head wearily but Albus crowed laughter from across the room.
The narrow corridor seemed to lean from side to side as James maneuvere
d through it. The stairs at the end of the passage were lit with swaying light from the window in the door above. James stumbled into his parents' stateroom and saw that he had, in fact, left the trunk open and unsecured on the low table at the end of the bed. He clunked the lid closed and pulled the leather straps over it, looping them through a pair of brass hooks attached to the table, which was itself bolted to the floor. He glanced around and saw the apple his dad had asked for. It rolled back and forth in a bowl on the bedside table. Grabbing it, James turned and lurched back toward the stateroom door. He felt like he was walking uphill. A moment later, he stumbled through the door and caught himself against the corridor wall as the hill inverted, rolling beneath him. He looked at the apple in his hand and groaned, seeing that he had bruised it quite severely against the paneled wall.
A gust of air whistled through the corridor, bringing sea mist and the roar of the waves with it. James glanced to the side, up the corridor stairs, and saw that the door above had been pushed open, showing low, heaving storm clouds. A figure was silhouetted against the light, and James saw, with some surprise, that it was Petra. As he watched, she stepped out, letting the door blow shut behind her with a slam. Quickly, and without thinking, he followed her.
Wind pulled the door open the moment he thumbed the latch, nearly wrenching it from his hand. Sailors' voices called thinly beneath the roar of the waves, the whoosh of the wind, and the creaking groans of the ship. Mist blew over the deck-like sand, scouring it and making James squint as he looked around, scanning the narrow mid-ship walkway for Petra. He finally saw her, moving serenely up onto the stern, her dress whipping about her legs and a cloak flapping from her shoulders.
James stepped around the door and the wind changed, sucking it shut behind him so hard that he thought the glass window embedded in it might break. It didn't, fortunately. James hunched his shoulders and moved as quickly as he could along the walkway toward the stern stairway, following Petra.
Amazingly, he found her leaning on the high, stern railing, her forearms crossed in front of her, as if she was deep in thought. He approached her, calling out her name.
She looked at him over her shoulder, and smiled wanly. Her dark hair whipped and flailed about her face. "Hi James," she called back, raising her voice against the wind. She turned back to the ocean beyond.
"What are you doing up here, Petra?" James asked, moving alongside her and gripping the railing for support. "You should be below, with the rest of us."
"Did you read it?" Petra responded, ignoring James' question.
James nodded. "Yeah! I read it, already. I did it last night, but I couldn't find you when I was done. I wanted to talk to you about it, but…"
"I'm glad you read it," she said, still studying the monstrous waves beyond the railing. "It's important that someone else know the truth."
James looked aside at her. He knew he should get her below-decks, but he couldn't stop himself from asking the one question that he was most curious about, now that she had brought it up.
"What is the truth, Petra?" he asked, leaning forward. Something glimmered faintly on Petra's cloak and James saw that it was an opal brooch. She had only recently begun to wear it, and James could only guess that it had some special meaning for her. "What part of your dream story really happened? What part of it is true?"
Petra looked at him, her eyebrows raised slightly. "Why, all of it, James. All of it is true."
James shook his head, frowning into the misty wind. "That doesn't even begin to make any sense! I mean, in the story, Izzy dies! She's downstairs right now, alive as can be. We should be there too. Come on!"
Petra didn't move. "Oh, Izzy died all right. I killed her. Just because it didn't happen in this life, doesn't mean it didn't happen. You see, I'm sick, James."
James glanced back toward the heaving, rolling ship. Waves towered around it, casting it into their massive shadows. Men clung to the riggings, securing the sails. Far ahead, barely visible in the rushing mist, Barstow sat hunkered in the brass chair, wrestling with the steering pole, turning Henrietta into the waves. "I know," James said. "Mum told us you were seasick. Being up here won't help."
"I'm not seasick, James," Petra replied mildly. "It has nothing to do with the sea. Or maybe it has everything to do with the sea. It's just so… dead out here. Dead in the middle of everything, so very far away from home; from life and people and the noise of living. Here, there's no distractions from the dream. Here, the dream is just as real as reality. There's nothing I can do to shut it off."
James was becoming frightened, both by the storm and by Petra's strange words. "Let's go down below-decks, Petra," he said, touching the girl's elbow. "We can talk about it more down there. You can tell me what really happened on the night you took Izzy out to the lake. All right?"
Petra looked at him again, her eyes bright, searching. She sighed deeply. "Izzy lived. That's what happened. That's what I remember, at least. And it has to be true, doesn't it? Like you said, Izzy is here with us, alive and well. She lived. My mother fell back into the water when I brought Izzy back up out of the lake, carried in the sunken gazebo. I betrayed the resurrection of my mother to save my sister, and I'm glad I did. It was the right thing to do and I'll never struggle with that horrible, awful bargain again. But I did sacrifice somebody to the lake. Hardly anyone knows it. Damien, and Sabrina, and Ted. They saw what happened. What they don't know, though, is that we did it together, Izzy and me. We sacrificed Phyllis, Izzy's own mother, to the lake. We sent the Wishing Tree after her, made it carry her into the water, Izzy and I together, because Phyllis didn't deserve to live, not after what she had done to Izzy. Not after… Grandfather Warren…"
James frowned at Petra and shook his head. "I don't understand!" he called. The storm caught his words and bowled them away into the waves. "That can't be true, either! Izzy isn't even a witch! She's a Muggle, Petra! She can't do magic."
Petra shook her head slowly, distractedly. "She isn't a Muggle. She's a Muddle. She's caught right in the middle. Just like me."
James took Petra by the arm now, tugging her toward the stairs. "Tell me down below-decks, okay? You're going to be fine. Everything's going to be fine. Just come on with me, all right?"
Petra was still shaking her head. "Everything isn't going to be fine," she said, her voice rising in pitch, wavering. James was dismayed to realize the she was afraid, nearly to the point of tears. "Everything isn't going to be fine at all. Don't you see? I didn't change the bargain. I just changed the conditions. I didn't sacrifice Lily, or Izzy. I sacrificed Phyllis, with Izzy's help. Because of that, I didn't get my mother back. But I got something. I sense it. Something… someone… came up out of the lake. I thought I could escape her, but I can't. The dream is coming from her, like slow poison. I caused her to be, and now… and now…"
"Petra!" James said, shaking her and making her look at him. "We have to get below now! The storm! We can talk about this later, all right? I don't understand what you are saying, but it doesn't matter right now. You have to come down and be with Izzy! She needs you!"
That seemed to get Petra's attention. She blinked at him, as if coming out of a mild trance. She nodded. "You're right, James. Of course. I'm sorry. Let's go."
James nodded with relief. Taking Petra's hand, he turned and began to lead her back toward the mid-ship stairs.
A crack of thunder cleaved the sky overhead and a bolt of blinding lightning struck the aft mast, splitting it in two. Lashing burst loose with a series of high twangs and the mast began to topple, groaning and swinging sideways. James watched with horror, ducking and pulling Petra with him, but there was nothing he could do. The mast spun unpredictably, still trapped in the rigging, and fell to the deck with a shuddering crash. One of the mast's arms swept over James' head, brushing his hair. A split second later, Petra's hand was wrenched from his.
"Petra!" he shouted, scrambling backwards, his eyes wild. The angle of the mast arm had scooped Petra clean off the deck
. James' heart leapt into his throat and he threw himself toward the stern railing, his feet slipping on the wet deck. The mast had crushed part of the railing as it fell on it. Now, half of the broken mast jutted out over the waves, caught in a web of torn sail and rigging. Petra clung to the outside of the railing, tangled in the mast's rigging. Slowly, the weight of the mast pulled her away from the railing and she began to lose her grip.
James leapt forward and grabbed Petra's arm just as she slipped loose. She clutched his wrist as she fell away, yanking him forward so that he nearly went over the edge himself. He struggled to hold onto the railing with one hand while Petra dangled from the other.
"Petra!" he cried down to her. "I can't hold on much longer! Climb up!"
"I'm caught!" she called back, and James saw it. The rigging was still tangled around her ankle, binding her to the broken mast. Behind James, horribly, a huge splintering crackle sounded. The mast dipped precipitously as it broke further away from the ship. Ropes twanged as they snapped, and the tip of the mast speared the waves, bowing under their weight.
"Use your wand!" James hollered down, his voice thin in the pounding wind. "Break the ropes with your wand!"
Petra hung from one wet hand, slipping slowly as the mast dragged her toward the mountainous waves. "I don't have a wand," she said, almost to herself. She looked down, examining the stormy ocean below, and then, suddenly, she gasped. "My brooch!" she cried out. She patted at her cape frantically with her free hand, searching. "My father's brooch! Where did it go? Oh no!"
"Petra!" James yelled, raising his voice as loudly as he could. "You have to use your powers! The ones you used in the dream story! Break the ropes with your mind! Do it now! Quickly!"
Petra didn't seem to hear him. The ship rolled horribly as the waves towered over it, crashing now over the decks. The sky loomed and swayed overhead. It had begun to rain.
"Let me go, James," Petra said, raising her eyes to him. They were calm and dark in the stormlight.
"What!?" James called back, redoubling his grip on her wrist. She was slipping away, and James realized that she was loosening her grasp on him.