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“Can you cup some water in your hands?” I asked her. With her help, we lowered a bucket down into the water on a rope, scooping up a good amount of water to last us a few tries.

McKenzie held out her cupped hands, barely a quarter of a cup full. I stared into them, willing the water to do something…anything. Move up and down. Slosh side to side. Trickle along the side of her skin. But nothing worked. We tried for what felt like hours, each attempt looking more foolish than the last.

“What the heck are you two doing?” Noah came trotting up, unsuccessfully trying to tuck his loose-fitting tunic into his pants.

“Katrina might be able to control water,” McKenzie said nonchalantly. “We’re trying to test her powers.”

“Of course.” Noah rolled his eyes playfully. “Why not?”

“So far it’s clear I’m not very good at it.” I tilted my head with a pout.

“Well, how did you figure it out in the first place? Is this part of your mermaid thing?” He asked, crossing his arms.

I lowered my gaze, blinking and thinking about the question. “Well…” I tried to remember every time I’d painted something difficult. Something that shouldn’t have turned out perfectly the first time, but did.

There was the time I painted a flower, a beautiful withering rose when my mom had her first relapse. The petals had formed perfectly, and the paint drifted into all the right spots without a thought. Then there was the showcase painting. Each time I added something, I was thinking of my own hopelessness, or of failing Mom, or losing Milo. And most recently, the message bottle painting on the deck. Because I’d been thinking of how lost we were. And I was afraid Milo was dead…

“I think I figured it out,” I gasped turning to McKenzie. I crouched down and scooped up my own tiny handful of water. I stared at it and thought of Milo. I thought of how much I regretted the way I’d spoken to him before we set sail. I thought of how angry he’d made me when he kept Cordelia’s letter from me. But how now I realized it wasn’t something that should’ve come between us. He swore it was a mistake, and I knew it really was, but I chose to hold onto it and let it break our trust. But he wasn’t wrong. I had become consumed with chasing her. And he was right to be wary of it. Cordelia’s influence had made fools of us all. And I was at the center of it. I’d pushed away Milo for it. And now I’d lost him and everything else.

“I’m sorry.” The words quivered on my lips as tears came to my eyes, and at the same time, the tiny amount of water in my hand slowly began to creep upward in droplets, curling over my fingers like vines made of bubbles. I dropped the water in surprise, flinging it on Noah. My smile widened into a gaping grin.

“I did it!” I gasped.

“How?” Noah asked, wiping the water from his face with his sleeve.

“I think it’s when I feel. When my emotions are strong. But especially when I cry.”

“Interesting,” McKenzie raised an eyebrow. “Like your tears are connected to the water or something.”

“That theory sounds good enough to me,” I exclaimed, still catching my breath from the excitement. “It works, whatever the reason.”

“Well maybe that will come in handy somehow.” Noah shrugged. “Maybe you can drain the ocean and find that trident.”

McKenzie stepped beside him, wiping her wet hands on his arm as he gave her a disapproving look. “Don’t be so sarcastic, Captain Asshole.” She planted a kiss on his cheek. I couldn’t help but laugh at them.

The rest of the morning, we sailed quietly as the Widow picked up speed and carried us onward. I looked out at the horizon just as the land mass came into view. A long stretch of island with rising green hills and sandy cliffs in the distance.

Nassau.

24

Turn A Blind Eye

Milo

It was morning. The morning my father would die.

I did my best to focus on my mission of stealing a ship for my own, but my relentless thoughts continued to tug at me. No matter how much I tried to convince myself he deserved it, another small voice in me wanted to believe that perhaps I was still wrong about him. Perhaps I’d just misunderstood everything. Perhaps I should intervene. Or at the least, I could be near the scene…just in case.

By the church bells, I knew it was 11 o’clock. Valdez would kill my father at the last stroke of noon. With my stomach full of fresh ale and bread, I stalked off to the harbor, where plenty enough men remained still clearing out debris from the ship I’d burned down the night before. But it was quiet enough.

With a full bottle of rum in hand and a woodblock in the other, I sat down on an overturned skiff by the harbormaster’s shanty. It was a rough, creaking excuse for a shack perched high on level with the docks by its own set of stilts. No one would think twice about a poor sailor day drinking and whittling a block of driftwood in a spot that smelled of brine and rotting fish. So that’s the part I planned to play.

It didn’t take me long to spot Valdez’s ship, already moored at the docks. Some of his crew remained on board, but I knew he wasn’t on the ship. He would’ve been returning from a chat with my father soon.

I waited as the sun inched across the sky, taunting me with its unforgiving heat. I’d been so used to coming out at night in the cold Atlantic that I’d almost forgotten what it was like to bake out in the open Caribbean like this.

Damn. Hurry up, Valdez.