“You trying to burst your eyes out your head?” he asked as he took the tiller.

“No, sir,” I replied.

“No sir, yes sir, no sir,” he piped, shaking his head in disgust. “How about making use of that owl stare and keep track of Baines, if you’d be so kind? I won’t have him blamin’ me for getting lost out here, top of everything else.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, and turned to the beating wind.

The Baineses’ boat crashed along to our leeward, rising and sinking behind the swells. Moses and Mercy had pulled ahead and were fading into the billows of rain.

“Well?” Sewel hollered behind me. “You see them?”

“Yes, sir. I see them.” My real papa was named James Morris and he never hollered. He’d been a simple shoemaker in New Providence, where he and Mama had met. He’d died nine years earlier, when I was six. Sometimes I wished I’d paid closer mind to him, as I only remembered little things about him, like his brown-stained hands and the little gap between his two front teeth that I inherited, but I hadn’t known any better back then. I’d always thought he’d be there. After he died, I got wiser and made sure to remember everything Mama did and said. Now all my memories of her twinkled in my mind like stars.

The storm worsened by the minute. Soon, it proved to be what I’d most feared—a hurricane. Gales screamed in my ears. Waves fell upon the wherry like stumbling giants. Bursts of spindrift spit into the air, the droplets like pins against my face. I lost sight of Mercy’s boat and prayed she’d made it safe back to West End.

“Fran!” Sewel yelled over the howling wind. He tossed a pail at me. “Get bailing!”

I did as he said, bailing water as fast as I could, but every new wave undid my efforts. We were in real danger of being swamped.

“Sails! Ho, Baines! Sails!”

I looked up, startled by Sewel’s shouts, and found him staring into the distance. I squinted, trying to see what he saw, but night had fallen and I could scarce tell the sea apart from the sky. Finally, I spotted it and gasped.

Amid the angry waves, I saw a brig in a terribly wounded state. The poor vessel’s mainmast had snapped in half and the top had fallen into the sea. The ship was heeling dreadfully to that side, pulled by the weight of the downed sail.

That wasn’t all. It had run up on a reef, one that had grounded dozens of ships before. I could think of no other reason why it’d turned broadside, making itself vulnerable to the surging seas.

I looked at Sewel. He was still staring at the troubled ship. “Mr. Baines didn’t hear you.” His boat had kept heading for home.

“Just as well.”

I didn’t understand. “But we’re going to help…aren’t we?”

“Now, why would we do that?”

My body went cold all the way through.