T. Bunn - Drummer in the Dark

As she unloaded her gear, a cluster of storm jumpers pushed shouts and invitations her way. Jackie knew all their first names, but few details more beyond cars and boards. The pirates among them had hit on her once or twice, then accepted her turndowns with buccaneer grins and the shrugs of those with more chances than time. She was respected because she came for most of the heavy blows and handled herself with the fanaticism of one who lived for such events. Jackie waved at the group but did not approach. Today was not one for their clubby atmosphere and single-minded tales of flight. She wanted nothing more than abandon.

She rigged her sail, tied the boom storm-taut, and stepped her mast. She went back to the car for the storm harness, which she slung about her shoulders and cinched between her legs so that the hook dangled just below her rib cage. She drew her hair tightly into a band, pulled the daggerboard from her trunk, locked the car, and dragged the board across the shore.

Jackie smiled at the hoots from those already back and standing weary along the roadside, and pulled her board into the kicked-up bay. The water was warm as a brackish bath. Even at knee depth the wind pushed up sparkling froths, which her blood answered with an adrenaline champagne all its own. She slid the daggerboard home, hefted the boom, tested the fore foot strap. She took a couple of little ready-jumps, feeling the wind impatient to pluck her away. She gave all her weight to the boom and the board, then rose up so swiftly she had to shout, knowing it was a day of promise and speed. She slipped her back foot into place, felt the swooping rush, and gave into the only oblivion that had ever worked for her.

The board was no longer clunky and two generations out of date. It was a chariot pulled by spendrift stallions, and she a woman who knew no earthly bonds. She flew so fast the board scarcely touched the wave crests, her solitary wing searching for that last tiny thrust that would break her free entirely and send her shooting away from all the impossibles of a life she had been forced to call her own.

Mainland to her right and Merritt Island to her left, she accelerated until passing homes and stands of water-bound green all became shades of speed. She hooked the harness ring on to the boom and leaned farther back until her body was as billowed as the sail, two arcs joined by impossible balance. With each little wave jump she was drenched anew in water warmer than the wind. She felt her fingertips and the tip of her ponytail trace across the wave tops, and became more intimately connected still to her partner in this dance. From behind there came a hooted shout of approval. Glancing around, she saw an upside-down mate leaning upon his mast rope with one hand, trying to right himself from a spill, his other hand a fist over his head as he screamed to her an instant’s fame.

Downwind where the island ended and the water broadened, the waves became frothy sloping catapults. Jackie raised herself back up, unleashed the harness hook, and began steering with body movements and fractional adjustments of the sail. Her clenched fists searched through the boom for the faint quiver of coming gusts. She took the measure of each blow, reaching for the invisible fist. Abruptly a new feather of strength pressed against her sail and her cheek. She angled slightly east, aimed for the highest of the waves ahead, crouched further, timed the approach, then jumped and shouted with the effort. The wind joined with her own cry, shrieking up almost a full octave, willing her into the wild gray sky.

She flew. Time halted then. Her cry became a silver thread reaching out with the raucous force of a gull, weaving its way into the heart of the storm, a call of hope and thrill and pain. She willed the moment to go on forever, never to return her to a waterborne world. She splashed down in a hard landing, the sail dipping and drenching, which meant she had to sail on long enough to lose the water-weight before searching again. Then she found another invisible fist and aimed for the clouds and the universe of eternal storm.

Jackie flew as far as the next causeway, which meant a two-hour push tacking back upwind. The water was largely empty, save for a few other lightning-fast storm jumpers, several sailboats throwing heavy wakes and rigged for blow, and one motorboat. She circled back behind one of the uninhabited marsh islands and took shelter in a cove overhung by palmettos and wild palms. A trio of stalking herons watched from the white-sand beach, gray heads turned so they could all give her a resentful one-eyed glare. She lowered the sail to the water, seating herself so she could watch the waves be trimmed and topped by the blow. She dropped her eyes to her board, inspecting the frayed seams along the daggerboard and the rusty repair screws she had put in herself to reinforce the foot straps. The check on her dinette table represented the first money since her brother’s death not marked before it arrived for meeting the day-to-days. But in this haven of wind and light, she knew it was not the lack of answers that worried her. It was the fear of finding nothing more than another false freedom.

A pod of dolphins swam into the tiny cove. The surrounding green offered a sliver of calm water not more than fifteen feet wide. Breezes filtering through the mangrove and palmetto and silver palm sent tiny shivers across the sheltered waters, out to where the bay joined with a froth-covered sea. The dolphins lumped up and wheezed their gentle breaths, circling around two tiny fins that signaled the presence of babies. The bayside species was smaller than their ocean kin, and more comfortable with humankind. They nosed about, rubbing bellies upon the soft white bottom sand, whistling their shy chirrups, offering quick notes of water-borne inquiry. How was she? Confused, was the answer. Frightened by the prospect of waking up again. Awash in memories of former times.

There had indeed been other chances, given only to be stripped away. A father who let his wife drive him off, leaving little Jackie screaming for him to stay, or else take her with him. Those pleas had resulted in years of vicious torment from a hyperjealous mother who prized her wounds like medals. Jackie had survived by living to protect her little brother, a golden-haired seraph too sensitive for the best of this world, much less able to survive alone their mistake of a mom. Preston had prevailed because Jackie had sheltered and bolstered. He had never been one for people or words, but his mind had gobbled math the way another might devour mystery novels. In school he had thrived on calculus and uncertainty theory, subjects that left Jackie utterly cold.

When Preston accepted a job with the Hayek Group, she had worried without understanding why. When the money had started pouring in, she had grown truly frightened. But Preston had found a place that justified his talents, one so all-consuming he could ignore the past they both loathed. Preston had risen among the ranks of traders until she could no longer argue against his choice. She had finally given in to his enthusiasm, accepted his money, and revived her own dream of returning to graduate school. All the while, she remained troubled over the waters where Preston now swam. She studied international finance in hopes of delving the tides and the currents and identifying the sharks before they devoured him.

And then Preston had introduced her to Shane Turner.

Jackie was in the process of tossing that particular memory to the wind when she noticed the motorboat. It was the same one she had seen earlier, and now that she was focused upon it she had the impression this was not its first pass around her island. The man at the wheel fastened upon her with a pair of binoculars, a ludicrous act considering the turbulence. Jackie rewarded him with an appropriate gesture, then rose uncertainly to her feet as the boat veered and headed straight for her. The dolphins whistled a warning and disappeared.