Catherine Steadman - Something in the Water - A Novel

He tells us that the staff will be on duty all night and, in the unlikely event that the storm should change course, we will be alerted promptly and moved into the main body of the hotel. But that hasn’t been necessary in the entire time he has worked on the island, he says, and today’s storm, although certainly choppy, doesn’t look too troublesome.

After he leaves we go out onto our private deck and look out across the lagoon. The sky is sapphire blue and the sun is shining out across the water. Nothing hints at the storm to come. We look at each other; we’re both thinking the same thing, Where is it?

“Shall we go check the other beach?” Mark asks, suddenly excited. He’s read my mind; maybe we can see it coming from that direction. Perhaps the storm is coming from behind us. We grab our sneakers and set off through the carefully preened jungle of the Four Seasons toward the storm front.

On the other side of the resort, the side that’s open to the South Pacific Ocean, there’s another longer, straighter beach. It’s windy here, too windy for hotel guests. The ocean is rough, the waves noisy and powerful, not like the quiet, still lagoon that our bungalow is perched on. The wild side of the island. I want to see the storm; I want to see it coming. The sun still shines bright and warm but the wind whips through our hair and T-shirts as we paddle into the shallows. And then we see it. On the horizon.

A towering column of cloud, ocean to sky, in the far distance. I’ve never seen anything like it. A wall of rain and wind. There’s no sense of perspective here, looking out at the vastness of the sky, no way to know its size, there’s nothing to judge it against, but as we watch, it fills half of the sky. At its edges patches of blue sky appear and vanish. A single thrilling pillar of gray, approaching.

We spend most of the day in the calm waters of the lagoon, paddleboarding, snorkeling. We’re advised to stay in our bungalows from three-thirty onward; room service will be available as usual.

We hunker down around three forty-five, with snacks, beers, and a movie marathon. Enforced relaxation.

We’re halfway through Close Encounters of the Third Kind when the storm kicks up a gear. The sounds of waves beneath the bungalow and rain on the roof force us to turn up the volume on the plasma screen. Mark whips out his phone and starts filming me.

I’m tangled like a beached, snacking whale in the sheets. Burying the pistachios under a pillow, I shift myself into a more attractive position, a more camera-ready position.

“What are you watching, Erin?” he asks from behind the camera.

“Good question, Mark! I am watching a movie about aliens while we wait for the world to end outside,” I answer.

The sounds of sirens and muffled shouting from the screen.

“Day five of the honeymoon,” Mark intones, “and we’re sitting out a full-blown tropical storm. Take a look at this.” Mark spins the camera to the rain-soaked glass doors.

Gray outside. A thick opaque mist. The wind is blowing all the visible plant life sideways, the trees arching against it. And the thick rain, in sheets, so much rain. He points the phone at the floor now; rain from the deck is pooling in cold puddles around the doors.

“Ghost ship,” Mark calls to me, looking out toward the water.

I jump out of bed and trot over to the windows. And there it is. A ghost ship. A yacht anchored out on the water, its sails safely packed in, mast secured, bobbing half-obscured in the fog.

“Creepy,” I whisper.

Mark smiles. “Creepy.”

The top of Mount Otemanu is gone, swallowed in the gray, only the tree-covered base still visible. Mark zooms in on the boat. He’s wondering if there are still people on it. We both stare at the zoomed image on his phone display.

It’s then that his phone pings and a text notification flashes up over the video screen. It’s only there for a microsecond but my stomach flips. It’s from Rafie. It’s important. It’s about a potential new job. Rafie’s been trying to help him out. Mark’s been waiting for this text.

Mark fumbles the phone and strides off toward the suite’s lounge area.

“Mark?” I say, following him.

His hand goes up impatiently. Wait .

He reads, nods, then puts the phone down carefully on the table, distracted, thinking. He swallows.

“Mark?” I ask again.

The hand goes up again, harder. Wait!

He paces, paces. Stops. Goes to the bar and starts to shovel ice into a whiskey glass. Oh fuck. That’s not good.

I make my way to the table slowly and bend to pick up the phone. Gingerly, tentatively, just in case it’s not okay to read his texts. But his mind is elsewhere. I punch in his code, his birthday. Tap messages. Tap Rafie.

Bro, sad news. Just heard they’ve filled the job internally. Fucking curveball. I thought it was sewn up. I’ll let you know if I hear of anything else. R

Oh. God.

I put the phone back down softly on the glass coffee table. Mark is sipping his whiskey on the other side of the room. I flick the remote off. The sirens and commotion cease. The clunk of his ice cubes and the muffled storm raging outside are now the only sounds.

Mark finally looks up at me.

“Shit happens, Erin, what you gonna do?” He raises his glass in salute.

I think suddenly of Alexa. Sometimes you’re the dog; sometimes you’re the lamppost.

But he’s smiling. “It’s fine,” he says. “I’m fine. Seriously.” His tone is calm, reassuring. And I believe him this time; he is fine. But…this is all wrong. What’s happening to him is wrong. It isn’t fair.

“I have an idea,” I blurt out.

I cross to him, take the whiskey glass from his hand, and set it down. He looks surprised, knocked off-balance by my sudden determination. I take him by the hand.

“Trust me?” I ask, looking up into his eyes.

He grins wide, eyes creasing. He knows I’m up to something.

“Trust you,” he answers. He squeezes my hand.

I lead him to the suite’s entrance and unlock the door. But he pulls my hand back as I try to push down on the handle.

“Erin?” He stops me. The storm rages on the other side.

“Trust me,” I repeat.

He nods.

I pull down the handle and the door flies back into my hand; the wind’s more powerful than I thought it would be, much stronger than it looked through the window. We step out onto the walkway and somehow I manage to wrangle the door shut again. Mark stands staring out at the maelstrom, the rain soaking fast through his T-shirt, darkening the fabric as I close the door behind us and take his hand again. We break into a run. I lead him along the stilt walkways, over the jetty bridges, onto the mainland of the resort, and on through the puddle-gathering pathways, all the way out to the roaring Pacific coastline. We stumble on through the sand, the wind buffeting us from all sides now. Our clothes, dark and heavy with rain, cling to us as we scramble out toward the waves. We stop at the edge of the South Pacific Ocean.

“Scream!” I shout.

“What?” He stares at me. He can’t hear me over the roar of the wind and sea.

“Scream!!”

This time he hears me. He laughs.

“What?!” he shouts, incredulous.

“Scream, Mark! Fucking scream !”

I turn to the ocean, the wind, the pounding abyss beyond, and I scream. I scream with every fiber of my being. I scream for what’s happening to Mark right now, for what happened to Alexa, for her dead mother, for mine, for Mark’s future, for our future, for myself. I scream until I have no breath left. Mark looks at me silent through the storm. I can’t tell what he’s thinking. He turns, seems to be about to walk away, but then he circles back and he screams, long and hard into the lashing rain and fog. Every sinew poised, every muscle ready, a battle cry into the unknown. And the wind roars back.