eyes are still red. I go and put my arm around his shoulders; he feels thinner than usual.
âWell, weâre not going back out there,â says Venice. âWe may have to burn it like Hex said.â
Iâve never heard my brother sound so assertive, as if the experience on the ship changed him, let him see that in some way he is stronger than all of us. Hex is looking at him differently, too. Not as a child but as a peer.
âIâm not going near it,â Ez says. âI told you to stay away from it and you didnât listen.â His voice has risen in pitch and I see Hexâs eyes get bigger and his lips tighten like theyâre on a drawstring.
âThis is all bullshit,â he says. âI need to go meditate.â
I start to join him but something in his face tells me not to and I go to the window instead. I can see the wooden horse rear up on the prow of the ship as it moves in the water.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
Hex seems to be avoiding me all night. When he finally comes to bed I feel an exhale of relief move through my whole body. But he turns his face to the wall. I ask him whatâs wrong.
âI donât want to talk about it,â he says. âCan we just not talk for once?â
I canât not talk. And since when doesnât Hex want to talk to me? âWhy did you think I was your mother?â I say, in spite of myself.
He sits up in bed and glares at me. âWhy do you think? I was fucked up. I might as well have been high.â
âIs that what this is about? You think you got high again? It wasnât anyoneâs fault. We didnât know this would happen.â
âThatâs not the point. I donât like being out of control.â
But Hex , I think, weâre always out of control. Look around you.
âYour mother was out of control,â I say instead. âBut youâre not her. And neither am I.â Hex has told me that his mother would leave him alone all the time when he was little and that when she was home she was so drunk or high she hardly knew who he was. She had black hair and green eyes and pale skin like Hexâs; I saw a vision of her once, staggering around the house in a silk nightgown with a bottle of liquor, reciting Shakespeare. He hated her. I remember the way he looked at me on the ship, like he wanted to harm me. Itâs hard to forget that look, even if he didnât realize it was me.
âJust go to sleep,â he says, as if he still doesnât know who I am.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
We wake to a shaking and I think, This is it again, another Earth Shaker. Another one. Itâs here.
The whole house is moving and then I hear Venice call out.
âGiant!â
Itâs not just a nightmare. As I run downstairs I can see the Giant coming toward us through the window. He staggers blind, his hands out in front of him. Heâs sniffing the air, like heâs tracking me, my scent, no one elseâs. Iâm the one who blinded him and killed his father.
My hair stands up on my head; my voice catches in my throat.
I donât remember how my friends and my brother and dog and I get out of the house but somehow we are outside in the mournful gray dawn and Bull is still coming toward us. I grab Veniceâs hand. He has Argos, and Hex and Ez and Ash are with us and we are running through the mud.
We are running toward the ship because thereâs nowhere else to go, or at least thatâs what the ship is telling us, calling us to it, beckoning us back. The horse on the prow rears out of the water, sea foam frothing from its mouth like the beast has gone mad.
Whereâs Merk? I think but itâs too late and Iâm at the ship and climbing the rocks, clambering over the side onto the deck.
Ghosts , Merk said.
I hear a shot and turn around and thereâs Merk, running toward us, backwards, shooting his rifle at Bull but Bull keeps coming. How will we ever sail