But there’s no sign of her anywhere. Not a single trace of Cupid or any other boat on the horizon. I tell myself Jo was smart enough to duck into a cove, to take shelter in one of the many inlets that pepper the shore around Salem and Beverly. She’s a seasoned sailor. She can handle a little bad weather. Yet as I swing Ebenezer around the tip of Great Misery, I can’t shake the nagging feeling in my gut.
It’s the same neck-tingling sensation I had the summer we turned ten, when she fell off her bike riding back from the library and shattered the bones of her wrist. I found her on the side of the road, crying her eyes out, and carried her home.
It’s the same chest-aching tightness I experienced the winter we learned to snowboard, when she got lost in the glades and couldn’t find her way down the mountain. By the time I got to her, she was halfway to frostbite.
Call it instinct, call it insanity… call it whatever you like. Inside my heart, there’s an internal alarm system programmed just for Josephine Valentine. When she’s in trouble, I somehow always seem to know.
Or… I used to.
Maybe that internal alarm system doesn’t work anymore. Maybe whatever part of my soul that used to be synced with Jo’s has eroded over this past year of silence and miscommunication. Maybe she’s perfectly safe in someone else’s rescue boat at this very moment.
She’s probably already back on shore, my mind whispers. Go home, pour yourself a drink, and drown out all thoughts of that girl.
But it’s hard to listen to my mind when my heart is screaming something else entirely.
I’ve nearly given up when I spot something in the water. It’s metallic — each time the sky flashes with lightning, it glints in the dark. As I pass closer, I realize it’s the submerged top of a mast.
A sunken sailboat.
The sails, shredded to no more than rags, drift like ghostly fingers in the water. Half of the Valentine crest, hand-stitched with red thread, is still visible on the top section of the main sail — irrefutable confirmation of something I already knew in the marrow of my bones.
This is Jo’s boat.
Panic and pain tangle into a knot and lodge inside my throat, blocking my airway. I’m barely breathing as I scan the surrounding waters for signs of life. There’s nothing. Just black water and raging wind. I cup my hands around my mouth and scream at the top of my voice.
“JO!”
Against the storm, the sound barely carries, swallowed instantly by the darkness. The chance of her hearing me is slim to none, but I keep it up anyway, yelling until my voice goes ragged.
“JOSEPHINE!”
Despair claws its way up my throat as minutes pass with no response. I picture her caught in a line, dragged to the bottom of the ocean along with Cupid, and nearly break down at the thought.
“JO, CAN YOU HEAR ME?”
In these currents, she could’ve drifted halfway to Provincetown by now. I motor in slow laps around the wreckage, back and forth, searching the swells in as much of a grid as I can manage, heedless of the intensifying squall unleashing hell all around me. The steering wheel fights me as I take on the building surf, shuddering beneath my grip. Water rushes by my rubber boots as it sloshes over the transom, then drains out the deck scuppers. Even standing beneath the relative protection of the semi-enclosed wheelhouse, I’m soaked to the skin beneath my rubber coveralls. My t-shirt is plastered to my chest; my hair drips onto my forehead.
I use a wet forearm to wipe water out of my eyes as I continue scanning the dark horizon. It feels futile. A fool’s errand.
She’s gone.
You were too late.
The thought is crippling. My knees are threatening to buckle beneath me when I finally see something bobbing off the bow. It’s faint — barely more than a flicker amidst the rolling waves — but there’s no denying it’s there.
A light.
Blinking every few seconds.
Red then white then red again.
Recognition slams into me like a gut-punch.
The emergency strobe on a life-jacket.
“JO!” I scream, voice breaking on the word. Spinning the wheel around with impatient hands, I push the throttle into higher gear. The Ebenezer rattles in response, the overheated engine wheezing warningly, but I pay it no mind. My eyes are fixed on the blinking beacon, afraid to shift away even for a second. I won’t risk losing sight of it.
Of her.
I shove the boat into neutral as I come up alongside her and lock down the wheel to keep the boat from drifting too much off course. I don’t focus on the fact that the girl in the water is not responding to my voice. Or the fact that, even through the distorted glass windshield, she looks far too still. I put all my energy into the task at hand. Something inside me, beneath the roaring panic, functions on auto-pilot as I retrieve the boat hook pole we use to catch lobster buoys and bend over the transom to pull her in.
“Jo,” I gasp as I catch sight of her face up close. Her eyes are closed. I can’t tell if she’s breathing. “Just hold on….”
Please, God, let her hold on.
The pole is slick with water; it’s difficult to maneuver as I snag the collar-strap of Jo’s lifejacket and tow her toward the side of the boat. When she’s within arm’s reach, I toss the pole blindly behind me and lean over the transom to grab hold of her lifejacket. It’s no simple feat. The boat rocks riotously in the waves. Twice, I stumble off balance, nearly toppling overboard myself. Only by some small miracle do I manage to keep hold of both my balance and the limp girl in the water.
My right hand spasms in pain as I haul her waterlogged body up over the side. She’s stiller than a corpse in my arms as we collapse backward onto the deck. Her skin is clammy with cold beneath my fingertips. I shake her lightly, saying her name over and over. Getting no response.
“Jo, come on.” I slap her cheek. My voice breaks on her name, jagged with desperation. “Josephine!”
I lower her onto her back, pushing away my panic as I recall the steps to administer CPR. Jo made me take a course with her three years ago, when she was toying around with the idea of becoming a lifeguard at Good Harbor Beach. She changed her mind when she realized she’d have to socialize with chatty beachgoers all day long — not exactly an ideal summer job for an introvert. But by that point, we’d already taken the certification classes — pumping our hands against humanoid dummy chests in time to the song “Stayin’ Alive” under the watchful gaze of several registered nurses on a YMCA gymnasium floor. My participation was more about keeping Jo company than actually acquiring life-saving skills. Never in a million years did I think I’d find myself in this position. If I had, I might’ve paid better attention.
Think, think, think.
What were the steps?
ABC.
Airway.
Breathing.
Compressions.
You can do this, Archer.
She needs you to do this.
My hands shake as I tilt back her chin. Her head lolls in my grip, a lifeless rag doll, as I position her face properly. Sucking in a large gulp of air, I pinch her nose closed, then bring my lips down on hers and breathe deeply into her mouth. One long exhale, then another. Her chest inflates as the oxygen rushes into her lungs.
I sit back, waiting.
Watching.
Praying like hell.
Still, she shows no signs of life.