And Nina? Poor Nina. From the moment I met her on the Galaxy, she looked to believe the best in people, and she went to her death believing the stranger in our boat would save her. He did not. He did nothing. What more proof of his charade do we require? She told me once that she had asked the Lord about prayers. He’d said all prayers were answered, “but sometimes the answer is no.”

I suppose it was no for Nina. It infuriates me. When I glare at the man, he returns my look with a placid expression. I can’t imagine what he is feeling or thinking, Annabelle. Or if he feels and thinks at all. When we had food, he ate it. When we had water, he drank it. His skin is chafed and blistered like ours. His face is hollow and bonier than when we discovered him. But he utters no complaints. He does not seem to be suffering. Maybe delusion is his best ally. We all search for something to save us. He thinks it is him.

* * *

Yesterday morning, I awoke to see Geri fussing with a patching kit.

“What are you doing?” I mumbled.

“I’ve got to try and patch the bottom, Benji,” she said. “We don’t have enough people to keep bailing. We’ll sink.”

I nodded wearily. Ever since the shark attack, which ripped a hole in the lower tube, one of us has been constantly shoveling water out of our tilted raft bottom. It’s an endless, tiring task, only tolerable because there were many of us. But Lambert is slow at bailing, and lately he has been out of it. Little Alice tries, but she fatigues quickly. That leaves only me, Geri, Jean Philippe, and the Lord. Even collectively, we don’t have the strength anymore.

“The sharks, Miss Geri,” Jean Philippe protested. “What if they come back?”

Geri handed him a paddle, then handed one to me. “Bang ’em hard,” she said. When she saw my reaction, she lowered her voice. “Benji, we have no choice.”

We waited until the sun was high, when sharks are least likely to be prowling for food. With Jean Philippe and me leaning over the sides, paddles up like two exhausted sentinels, Geri took a breath and dropped into the water.

The next half hour was like sitting in a darkened house, waiting for a killer to reveal himself. Nobody spoke. Our eyes darted across the surface. Geri kept coming up then diving back under then coming up again. She found the hole, which she said was small, but being underwater left the glue and patches useless.

“I’m going to try some sealant and stitch it,” she said.

Again, we watched the water intensely. After twenty minutes, Geri said she’d fixed all she could. Then she dove back under one more time.

“What’s she doing now?” I asked.