Castle of Water: A Novel(28)
And as if to put an emphatic accent aigu over his realization, a lash of stinging rain came from out of nowhere, or rather somewhere way up in the churning clouds above. It arrived in three sharp blasts and then steadied itself to a gusty drizzle.
Even quicker than he had come up, Barry scurried back down, hopscotching over the boulders and dodging through the palm grove. When he reached Sophie, she was standing in front of their thatched hut, pointing out across the ocean.
“Barry, regarde. The waves.”
The coral reef that circled the island (and sheltered it, for that matter) a hundred meters out had become a ring of seething white foam. Acting like a seawall, it was catching the big waves before they reached the shore; their bases cut out, they were breaking over the top of it.
“Fuckin’ birds were right.” He grinned at Sophie, who did not appear to share his amusement. “I think the cyclone is coming this way.”
“But what do we do? This could be a very dangerous situation, non?”
“If things get bad, there’s a little cave up on the side of the rocks we can hide out in. We should be okay there. In the meantime, we can stay here in the shelter and wait.”
Barry ducked inside the palm hut to get out of the wind and the rain, which by then had taken a turn for the vicious. He tucked the radio back into the waterproof duffel bag, beside their other essentials, and zipped it securely shut. Sophie followed him in, her brown eyes wide with mounting concern.
“And how do we know if things get bad?”
“Trust me, we’ll—”
And just like that, they did. The first of the big waves came without warning—it breached the reef as a soundless swell that Barry and Sophie only half noticed out of the corners of their eyes. When it struck the beachhead, however, its sneak attack was revealed with the force of a bomb blast, causing the very ground beneath their feet to shudder. The two castaways instinctively crouched, just as one does when startled by a close clap of thunder. The wave’s humpback exploded into a white swirl of foam that came careening all the way to the edge of the shelter.
“Merde!” Sophie poked her head out to examine the wet line the wave had left only feet from the entrance. “Should we go, Barry?”
“I don’t think we need to just yet.”
At which point, a shredding gust of what was already very strong wind ripped back most of the roof above, sending palm fronds cartwheeling across the sand and making a wild dance of the blue tarp beneath.
“Barry!” Sophie shouted his name into the wind as the structure and all hell both broke loose around them.
“Come here, I’ve got you.” Barry threw his arms around her and shielded her from the whipping cords and thrashing leaves; the wind was suddenly nettled with rain, and their skin stung from the storm-whipped sand. Several grains lodged themselves painfully in his contact lenses; he was in the middle of repositioning one when he noticed a second monster cresting the reef. This wave was even larger than the first, and he had already grabbed Sophie’s hand and spun in the direction of the island’s interior when it erupted across the shoreline behind them.
“Run!” was all Barry had time to shout, yanking Sophie out of the hut and toward what he hoped would be safety. A surge of seawater caught them knee-deep as they cleared the sand and entered into the palms, all of which were bowed and thrashing in the storm. For once, Sophie didn’t argue, and Barry didn’t question—they both simply ran, legitimately terrified by what was happening around them. One by one, trunks began snapping, each resounding like a twelve-gauge shotgun blast. Several trees collapsed right in front of them, blocking the trail and causing Barry to change his zigzag course. They did not see but rather felt a third wave blindside their island, its entire stone core quaking from the force. And more were coming.
Barry didn’t even break stride when they reached the first rain-slicked boulders of the mountain; he leapt upon them nimble as a cat and turned to help Sophie pull herself up.
“The little cave is close to the top. We’ll be safe there.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
As he had noted, it really was more of a half-sheltered outcropping than an actual cave, but it would have to do. Together, they scrambled up the steep rock face, ever mindful of the slippery moss and pockets of bird guano, the latter of which turned to a slick paste when mixed with the rain. At several points in the climb, Sophie became stuck, but Barry was always right there at her side, ducking back down to lend her a helpful tug or a strategic boost, in a way that, although she would not have admitted it then, reminded her of her grandfather during her childhood hikes in the Pyrenees. Barry and Sophie barked their elbows and skinned their knees but were otherwise safe and sound when they got to the mouth of the crevice and tumbled soaked and panting onto its cold stone floor.
At last perched safe from the roaring winds and the smashing waves, they dared to look out at the storm that surrounded them. Barry was dumbfounded, amazed by the violent turn it had taken since his first glimpse from the summit. It was genuinely terrific. Not in the word’s more pedestrian sense, but in its original Latinate meaning: full of terror. The sky and sea were welded at the seams into a single image of hell, with kohl-black mists, gouts of red steam, and monster waves reaping their way across it. It was like something out of a Bosch painting, but at least they were safe up there, sheltered by the rocks and out of harm’s …