CHAPTER 53
Like before, Kallias was not wrong. It came in the morning. The sky turned practically green in advance, as if in anticipation, it was sick with worry.
And all too soon, the clouds rolled in, ominous and black and frothing.
Rain quickly followed. She could see its silver wall approach like a charging army until it began pelting the windows of the lighthouse like it was trying to get in, like it was begging to like a man pursued banging at the doors of a church.
Lightning cracked, fierce and angry, as if it and the thunder were quarrelling.
The sea responded appropriately, churning and heaving like God was shaking a bowl.
Waves slammed into the sides of the island, letting water explode upward like it had always wanted to fly.
And through the chaos and the madness, she watched. First, for ships of course, and then for Kallias. It worried her that he was likely closer than he would normally choose to be because of her. If he were to get slammed into the shore, she didn’t know what she would do.
But she saw no ships and she saw no mermaids, and the day dragged on in tense apprehension.
Maybe it was because of Kallias’s foreboding tone, but the entire day her heart felt sure she would see a sinking ship she’d have to save.
She dreaded it, which was silly really as she never had before, but she couldn’t help it.
Last time’s failure still echoed plainly in her mind.
If anything, that really meant that she needed there to be a rescue, just to prove to herself that she could.
But statistically, she knew it was unlikely. She hardly had a rescue a year, let alone two within the span of a few weeks.
But nature so rarely operated by logic.
So she waited and she watched and she dreaded.