He said, “Whatever you want.”
And then Jeremy had the first stirrings of a new sensation.
A feeling of power.
ATHENA’S SECRET WAS UNDER sail for the first time in many days, under a medium-sized working jib, the canvas lovely and full, catching the first hint of trade wind from the east in the ruddy light.
The sun was setting, bursts of cloud blazing on the horizon. Witch Grass was abandoned again, observed at an increasing distance by the crew of Athena’s Secret.
Martin was at the helm, weary but happy. More than happy—he felt released from all that had happened. Susannah was with Martin on deck, and Laser was there, too.
“Brave dog,” Susannah was saying to the German shepherd, a low approving phrase she repeated.
Martin watched as the aircraft took off from the surface of the sea and swept upward and then turned back. The plane flew in a ragged circle over the yacht, a wide, slightly unsteady circuit, and then it headed west, into the rising darkness.
Axel was asleep in his bunk, stupefied by scotch and codeine. He had wailed aloud that they would never see such a fortune again, until the liquor and pain pills shut him up.
Now, Martin could detect a soft murmur, Leonard’s voice, and then Claudette’s, sounding relieved and eager to recount what had happened, turning naked event into another of Leonard’s personal legends. For Leonard, money seized and money lost was nothing compared with escaping with their lives—and having a good story to tell.
Susannah was singing.
Martin had never heard her sing at all, and now she kept her voice low, confiding her lyrics to the dog. But then she was not keeping her song so quiet, and the song was right there for him.
Athena’s Secret was alive under their feet, the strakes and beams communicating the texture of the ocean, through the deck, into Martin’s body. The canvas strained the rigging, and the wind gently pulled the mast. The keel cut a space where the water had vanished, a space that the vessel sailed across as they soared.
By Michael Cadnum
Seize the Storm
Flash
Peril on the Sea
The King’s Arrow
Nightsong: The Legend of Orpheus and Eurydice
The Dragon Throne
Starfall: Phaeton and the Chariot of the Sun
Blood Gold
Ship of Fire
Daughter of the Wind
The Leopard Sword
Forbidden Forest: The Story of Little John and Robin Hood
Raven of the Waves
Redhanded
The Book of the Lion
Rundown
Heat
In a Dark Wood
Edge
The Lost and Found House
Zero at the Bone
Taking It
Skyscape
The Cities We Will Never See
The Horses of the Night
Ghostwright
Breaking the Fall
Saint Peter’s Wolf
By Evening
Sleepwalker
Calling Home
Nightlight
Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers
175 Fifth Avenue, New York 10010
Text copyright © 2012 by Michael Cadnum
All rights reserved
First hardcover edition, 2012
eBook edition, September 2012
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Cadnum, Michael.
Seize the storm / Michael Cadnum. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: On a pleasure cruise in the Pacific, seventeen-year-old Susannah, her parents, seventeen-year-old cousin Martin, and eighteen-year-old crew member Axel face off against seventeen-year-old Jeremy, a drug lord’s son, and hired killers Elwood and fifteen-year-old Shako.
ISBN 978-0-374-36705-3 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4299-5488-4 (e-book)
[1. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 2. Boats and boating—Fiction. 3. Criminals—Fiction. 4. Dogs—Fiction. 5. Pacific Ocean—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.C11724Sie 2012
[Fic]—dc22
2011020865
eISBN 9781429954884