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"We want to stay up here and watch the big waves," Claire said

"Eureka, I need you to hold the wheel again" Brooks handled the sails, trying to get the bow of the boat to face the waves head on, which would be safer, but the swells slammed the starboard side

Eureka made William and Claire stand next to her so she could keep an arrown too rough

A powerful surge crested before the boat as if it had been rising from the bottom of the sea for eternity Ariel rode up the face of the wave, higher and higher, until it slammed down and struck the surface of the water with a boom that shuddered hard up to the deck It knocked Eureka away froainst the led to her feet She shielded her face fro across the deck She was five feet fro Suddenly the boat turned against the force of another wave, which crested over the deck and swamped it ater

Eureka heard a scream Her body froze as she saw William and Claire swept up in the floater and carried toward the stern Eureka couldn’t reach theust sla the mainsail to violently switch sides The boo tohere the tere struggling to stand on a bench in the cockpit, away fro water

"Look out!" Eureka screamed too late The side of the boom hit Claire and Willia their bodies overboard, as if they eightless as feathers

She threw herself against the rail of the ship and searched for the twins a the waves It only took a second, but it felt like an eternity: orange lifejackets bobbed to the surface and tiny arms flailed in the air

"William! Claire!" she shouted, but before she could jump in, Brooks’s arm shot across her chest to hold her back He held one of the life preservers in his other hand, its rope looped over his wrist

"Stay here!" he shouted

He dove into the water He tossed the life ring toward the twins as his strong strokes brought him to them Brooks would save them Of course he would

Another wave crested over their heads--and Eureka didn’t see them anymore She shouted She ran up and down the deck She waited three, maybe four seconds, certain they’d reappear at any n of the twins or Brooks

She struggled onto the bench and dove into the roiling sea, saying the shortest prayer she knew as her body turace …

In midair she remembered: she should have dropped the anchor before she left the boat

As her body broke the surface, Eureka braced for the shock--but she didn’t feel anything Not wet, not cold, not even that she was underwater She opened her eyes She was holding on to her necklace, the locket and the thunderstone

The thunderstone

Just as it had done in the bayou behind her house, the mysterious stone had cast some sort of impenetrable water-resistant balloon--this time around Eureka’s entire body She tested its boundaries They were pliant She could stretch without feeling cra her from the elements It was a bubble-shaped thunderstone shield

Free froravity, she levitated inside the shield She could breathe She couldstrokes She could see the sea around her as well as if she earing a scuba mask

Under any other circu But she didn’t have time to not believe Her faith would be the twins’ salvation And so she surrendered to her new, drea ocean for her siblings and for Brooks

When she saw the kick of a little leg fifty feet in front of her, she whimpered with relief She swa her arrew closer, she could see that it was Willia Claire’s

Eureka strained with the strange effort of swi inside her shield She reached out--she was so close--but her hand wouldn’t break the surface of the bubble

She jabbed at William senselessly, but he couldn’t see her The twins’ heads kept ducking underwater A dark shadow behind theht have been Brooks--but the shape never careeaker Eureka was screa with futility when suddenly Claire’s hand swooped down and accidentally penetrated the shield It didn’t rabbed her sister hard and pulled her in The drenched little girl gasped for air when her face broke through Eureka prayed that William’s hand would stay in Claire’s so she could pull hi Fro drawn into?

"William, hold on!" Eureka shouted as loudly as she could, not knohether he could hear She only heard the slosh of water against the surface of the shield

His tiny fist broke through the barrier Eureka pulled the rest of hi born The twins gagged and coughed--and levitated with Eureka in the shield