"Do you have shifters in your family?"
"I don't know," Lucy said. "I didn't even know about shifters until pretty recently." Her head snapped around. "Waita minute. Is that why your family was so weird around me? It's the shifter thing, isn't it?" Revelation followed on revelation. "Wait, wait. A lot of people in town are secretive like that. How many shifters are there in Westerly Cove?"
Wind swept over them, tossing the boat and bringing a spat of rain. Dark clouds were rolling in fast.
"We'll have to talk about this later," Eren said, with a swift skyward glance. "Heavy weather coming in. We need to find somewhere to pull in and wait it out."
Lucy followed him back into the pilothouse. It was astonishing how rapidly it was growing chilly. In mere moments, the clear green-glass waves had turned gray and choppy, and the boat was starting to roll heavily.
"I don't think I'm going to take us back to shore, just in case those guys try to find us," Eren said.
"Where are you going, then?"
"There's an island near here." As he spoke, his hands were in motion, pushing the throttle lever forward and bringing the boat back up to speed. "It has a sheltered cove where we can tie up and wait it out. And we'll be completely safe from your uncle's men there. In a storm, there's no chance they'll make it all the way out to us, if they could even find us."
And there was, similarly, no way a flying creature like a griffin could pursue them with the wind and rain picking up into what promised to be a storm. Still, Lucy couldn't help looking up, half expecting to see it.
Was that really Uncle Rodric?
How many secrets were hidden in her family's past?
EREN
By the timeEren reached the island, the sky was a low gray ceiling of dark clouds, the waves had gotten choppy, and it was beginning to rain.
Although Lucy had been game for almost anything to do with the boat so far, she was starting to look a little unwell, and Eren was glad that he was able to get her off the open sea before she had an experience in the boat that might make her hate it.
There wasn't much to the island. It wasn't even as large as Dane's island. A gray ridge of rock, emerging from the sea, looked like the broaching back of an enormous whale. But one side of the island had eroded down to a narrow cove, screened with stunted conifers, protecting it from the force of the wind. Eren motored carefully into the cove, and the choppy motion of the waves was immediately reduced to no more than gentle rocking.
"Doing okay?" he asked Lucy, who gave a somewhat hesitant nod. "Want to get out and put your feet on dry land for a bit? It'll help. I'm going to batten down the boat, and by that time you might be ready for some lunch."
"I'm not sure about that," she said dubiously, but her legs were steady as she jumped off the bow onto the spit of land with the pine trees. Soon she was poking around under the trees, picking up pine cones, while Eren securely tied up the boat and checked all over it for anything loose that might be damaged if they were blown about by the storm.
He startled the trash griffins hiding underneath a coil of rope. They flapped off in a furor and sought shelter under the trees. A moment later he heard a yelp from Lucy.
"Are you okay?" Eren yelled.
"I'm fine," she called back. "Did you know there are trash griffins on this island?"
"Those are ours." He ran that back in his head. Oh no. "I mean, the ones from the boat."
Lucy reappeared at the railing. She looked much more cheerful, if somewhat damp. "Can I have something to feed them?"
"Sure," Eren said reluctantly, "but do it far, far away from the boat, okay? The last thing we want is having them follow us around wanting food."
"I think they already do that."
"Yes, but not because we're feeding them on purpose!"
He gave her half a sandwich from the back of the cabin's mini-fridge that was, not spoiled exactly, but too smashed to be appealing. Lucy vanished off into the fringe of trees with a bounce in her step.
"Be careful, the rocks might be slick!"
"I'm being careful!"
Eren went inside and used the boat's radio to call home and let the family know where they were. A few minutes later, the intermittent spates of drizzle turned to a steady rain, and Lucy rejoined him in the cabin, brushing water droplets off her hair and shoulders.
"You're right, I feel a lot better," she told him. She glanced over her shoulder as the downpour intensified and water began to sluice across the deck. "Do you think they'll be okay out there?"