“The water is coming up over the low side,” she says, closing the hatch. “If the cockpit fills, the boat won’t float and the flood water will sink us. We may have to consider abandoning ship.”

“Where are we going to go?”

“I don’t know,” Willa says. “But we should pack ditch bags just in case. Take only what you can’t live without.”

As Willa packs her duffel with the flashlight, a change of clothes, her wallet, and Wyatt’s GET A LITTLE WILD T-shirt, she touches the faded Campbell drawing. “Though she be but little, she is fierce.” Willa doesn’t feel fierce at all. She feels helpless and utterly swamped with sorrow at the thought of losing the boat. Taylor is crying as they climb back into the v-berth with the VHF and the cat.

“Ten hours into this trip, I wanted to go home,” Taylor says. “But now this boat feels like home. It can’t end like this.”

Willa puts her arms around her friend, hugging her tight. If she had any words of comfort, she’d offer them, but she doesn’t know what to say. Instead they cling to each other as the forecaster announces that Hurricane Dorian has made landfall at Hilton Head, South Carolina. Flying debris crashes against the hull. Lightning illuminates the cabin as bright as daylight. Less than a second later, thunder booms, shaking the boat. The rain sounds like machine-gun fire. Like they’re caught in the middle of a war without any weapons of their own. Willa closes her eyes and hopes that dying won’t hurt too much . . . and that’s when she feels the boat begin to rise.

The sky is overcast as Willa slides back the companionway hatch, but there is a bright spot where the sun is hidden behind the clouds. The water is muddy, like coffee with cream, and the trees along the shoreline are all leaning in the same direction. A car in the ferry lot has been stabbed through the windshield by a tree branch. And the wind indicator at the top of the mast has blown away. But the rain has passed and Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is still caught in its web of dock lines. Still floating.

“We made it,” Taylor says as they step out into the cockpit. Sodden leaves are wedged in every nook and cranny, and there is sand packed into even the smallest cracks. “We survived a hurricane.”

Willa sits down to steady herself as tears of relief track down her cheeks, and Taylor goes back into the cabin for a moment and returns with the pirate flag. She runs it up into the rigging, where it flutters in the breeze. NO QUARTER. NO SURRENDER.

“I’m going to call Captain Norm and my parents,” Taylor says. “Do you want me to have them pass a message to your mom?”