Page 73 of The Wild Beneath

Evan squeezes his eyes shut. The cicada-sound disappears completely, replaced by his thundering heartbeat.

Chapter 26

“You could change your mind,” Annie says.

Walker has come back inside the warehouse, and it’s taken her a few minutes to work up the courage to say it.

He leans over the workbench, intensely focused, drawing a tidy diagram of the lifeline repairs on a scrap of paper. “I’m not going, Annie,” he says softly.

“I don’t want to go, either.” She draws a string of waves in the sawdust on the workbench.

“Then don’t,” Walker says.

She wipes her fingers on her pants, leaving flecks of sawdust behind. “But I feel like I’m supposed to.”

He’s pinned a map of the coast on the wall over the bench. Red pen lines trace theoretical courses north along the islands into Alaska. He leans against the map, his shoulder covering an entire Arctic Archipelago.

“Did you talk to Evan out there?”

“Yes.”

“What did he tell you?”

“What I already knew,” Walker says, looking into her eyes. “That he’s a good person. That he’ll do anything for you.” He puts his pencil down. “That he wants you to go with him.”

Annie takes this in. She knows it, too, of course. “Isn’t it the safer thing to do?”

“Safer, how?”

“Basic necessities? A place to live? Make a living?” She lists each point off on her fingers.

“You’re in the middle of living. Right now.”

“I mean the practicalities.”

“We’re almost done withPolaris, Annie.” His tone is impatient. “Look at her. You love to sail. Practicalities will figure themselves out.”

“It’s a boat, not a life.” She exhales firmly. “Look where it landed my parents.”

“You still don’t know for sure where it landed them.” He pushes himself off the wall to stand up in front of her. “It’s okay to want what you want.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“You do know.”

She closes her eyes and feels it: rocking to sleep on a boat, in the arc of the currents. Faraway islands, rocky crags, lone spruce and fir.

“This is your boat,” he says.

Her heart is a stone skipping over water. “But what about you?”

“I can only go with you so far.”

“Why?” Annie crosses her arms.

He lowers his voice. “I can’t stay here forever.”

“Is this because of what happened? You’ve been distant this whole week,” she says.