Copyright © 2021 by N. A. Davenport
Cover Copyright © 2021 Sleepy Fox Studio and Sunset Rose Books
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise without written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
ISBN: 978-1-7353445-0-8
Published in Norfolk, VA 23511
www.nadavenport.com
The world is full of magic and mystery. Most people are just too busy to notice.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Afterword
Anri and the Dragon Quest
Also by N. A. Davenport
Chapter One
“Are you ready, Will?”
A gust of wind whipped over the yacht, carrying his uncle’s voice away so Will could barely hear him. But he saw the big grin on his uncle’s face and gripped the halyard tightly in both fists, so giddy with excitement he could barely keep still.
“I’m ready!” he called back.
“Go for it!” At that moment, his uncle turned the yacht hard to starboard.
Perched on the aft port side, Will jumped out over the water and swung his legs over the top of the buoy tied to the end of the halyard.
The boat swung to the right, pulling Will in a wide arc skimming the endless glistening ocean. For a moment, all Will saw was a world of blue—the blue ocean underneath, sparkling and dark as it swelled and dipped, and the blue sky above, pale, distant, and intensely bright.
The halyard swing was so smooth and fast, Will felt like he was flying!
“Woo-hoo!” he whooped with joy. Then, before he crashed into the bow of the yacht, he released the rope and splashed into the water.
The shock of cold took his breath away, but it didn’t dampen his delight in the ride. He came up, sputtering and laughing, then swam up to the side of the yacht and grabbed his uncle’s outstretched hand.
“That was so much fun! Let’s do it again!”
The boat rocked and tipped gently as his uncle lifted him back aboard with an amused chuckle.
“What is going on up here?”
Will turned to see his mom climbing up the stairs from below deck. She wore a curious and annoyed expression on her face. More annoyed than curious.
Will sighed. It looked like the fun was over now.
“Just letting Will try a halyard swing,” his uncle said, grinning sheepishly.
“Halyard swinging in the middle of the Atlantic? John, are you serious?”
He put up his hands defensively. “Hey, come on, Kim! We used to do it all the time when we were kids, remember?”
“Not in the middle of the ocean! You realize we’re hundreds of miles from the nearest hospital, don’t you? What if he hadn’t let go in time?”
“He did fine—”
“Aren’t you at least concerned about your gear box?”
“Not particularly.”
“Well, what if it breaks down? You know halyard swings are hard on the engine!”
Will wrapped the towel around his shoulders and decided to climb below deck to get away from the arguing.
When Uncle John had invited his family to sail across the ocean over summer vacation, Will had been ecstatic. He imagined an exciting adventure full of thrills, like climbing the mast to sway high over the waves, swimming in crystal clear seawater thousands of miles from land, and, of course, spotting enormous blue whales swimming alongside them, making their boat feel tiny in comparison.
So far, the reality had been less exciting and a million times more boring than he’d expected. Every idea he came up with to make the trip fun got shot down by his mom. Use some rigging and a wooden board to try wakeboarding? Too dangerous. Use gross leftover fish to try chumming for sharks? Too wasteful. See how long he could balance on the bow of the boat as it crashed through waves? Well . . . okay, that probably wasn’t the best idea.
So when Uncle John finally suggested something fun and exciting to do—swinging out over the open ocean from one of the long ropes hanging from the mast—Will had jumped at the chance. He should have guessed that his mother would find some reason to ruin the fun.
“Seen any whales yet?” his dad asked as Will entered the kitchen.
“Nope,” Will answered with a sigh. He ruffled the towel through his hair to soak up the seawater.
“Hey, what’s the matter?” His dad turned from the stove to look at him. “Did you go swimming?”
“Kinda. Uncle John let me swing out on the halyard, but Mom thinks it’s ‘too dangerous.’” His sarcastic tone made his dad frown with disapproval.
“Well, your mom knows what she’s doing. She’s been sailing since she was a kid, you know.”
“So has Uncle John! At least he wants to let me have fun! He would have let me try wakeboarding, too, if Mom hadn’t stopped us.”
His dad pursed his lips together, trying to look thoughtful, but Will could see he was repressing a smile. “Wakeboarding with the extra table leaf, you mean? I think it might have been different if we had a real board for you to use.”
Will grunted sourly and pulled on his t-shirt.
His uncle’s voice came from above deck. “I’m going to check the forecast again. I don’t like the look of those clouds.”
“See how Mike is doing on dinner while you’re down there,” Will’s mom called as his uncle hopped down the steps.
“Hey there, kid.” He patted Will on the back as he lowered himself onto the bench at the table. “That was a good swing.”
Will’s dad raised an eyebrow.
Uncle John cleared his throat. “Yeah, but now probably wasn’t the best time to be trying dangerous tricks like that. Your mom is right.” He shot Will a sympathetic smile and flipped open the laptop on the table.
Will frowned. He was getting ready to argue his point again when his dad turned to them. “Who’s ready for dinner? I hope you’re hungry!”
“What is it?” Will asked, forgetting his grumpiness at the promise of food. He stumbled forward over the swaying floor, stomach growling.
“Potatoes, eggs, and butter. I had to get creative with this one. Take one up to your mom, okay?” His dad offered him two bowls filled with steaming yellow and white lumps.
“That is so random,” Will muttered, sniffing at the bizarre concoction. At least it smelled good.
“We’ve been at sea for eight days. Meals are going to be random until we go shopping again.”
“Buck up, kid!” Uncle John said from behind the laptop. “We’ll be in Horta in a couple of days, and there’s plenty of great food and fun to be had there. Ever been snorkeling or jet skiing?” He winked.
Will smiled at his favorite uncle and started carefully climbing the stairs to bring his mom her bowl of dinner. As he started his climb, he overheard his uncle say in a low
voice, “From the looks of this, we might want to head north to try catching a faster wind. The storm is coming on faster than expected, and I want to stay ahead of it.”
Will carried the bowls of food over to the helm, carefully keeping his balance on the rocking deck. His mother stood behind the controls, wearing her hat and sunglasses and staring out at the endless horizon ahead of them.
“Dad made dinner,” Will said, holding a bowl out for her.
“Oh, thanks.” She took the bowl and started eating without seeming at all surprised at how weird the meal was.
Will stabbed a chunk of buttery potato with his fork and took a bite. It actually wasn’t too bad.
“Look, Will,” his mom said. “I know you think I’m just pestering you and keeping you from having fun. But we have to be careful. If something happened out here, we wouldn’t be able to get help.”
“Yeah, I know,” Will muttered. He sat down, took a bite of egg, and leaned against the back of the bench.
In the distance to the south, towering mountains of clouds had been building all day. They’d appeared white and fluffy in the morning, like snowy mounds of cotton candy, but now thick gray layers crept between the sea and the sky, like a heavy blanket being drawn over the water. Underneath the cloud layer, the darkness faded nearly to black. Will hadn’t seen that before. The darkness looked ominous and looming.
“What did Uncle John say about the storm?” his mom asked, noting the direction of Will’s gaze.
“I heard him say something about going faster to stay ahead of it. Were those clouds always like that?”
“That storm system has been heading north and building all morning. I thought it would push out west, but it looks like it might not.”
The yacht chopped through the blue-green waves as they sailed onward. The wind at their backs soon chilled the potato-and-egg stew in their bowls. Will choked it down anyway. He was hungry, and it wasn’t like he could raid the pantry for frozen pizza.
He kept an eye on the storm clouds as he ate; it looked like they were getting closer, or bigger, maybe both.
“Hey, Will, check this out!” his mom said, pointing toward the sky.
High above and ahead of them, a flock of yellow birds was soaring to the south. They were too far away to see clearly, but the way they held their legs behind themselves as they flew, like long yellow tails, they kind of looked like herons. Only herons weren’t seabirds. They weren’t yellow, either. “What kind of birds are those?” he asked.
“I have no idea,” his mom said. “Where did they even come from? There isn’t land for hundreds of miles. And it looks like they’re aiming for the storm.”
Will heard someone climbing up the stairs from below deck.
“We’re going to have to outrun that storm,” his uncle said to his mom. “It isn’t following the predicted path. If we get farther north, we can catch a faster wind and miss the worst of it.”
“What? What do you mean? How fast is it moving? How bad is it going to be?” Will’s mom asked.
Uncle John’s usually cheerful and carefree face was set like stone. “We’re looking at gusts of fifty knots and a twenty-foot sea. If we can’t get ahead of it, it’ll catch us by tonight.”
Will stood, grasping the railing to steady himself, and squinted his eyes at the layer of dark clouds. They looked too far away to be a real threat, but as he watched, he glimpsed lightning flashing in the murky darkness.
He turned his gaze back to the flock of yellow birds. Just then, in unison, they dipped their wings to assume a new flight pattern, shifting from a V to a diamond formation. In that moment, Will was shocked to see that, instead of feathers, the birds had bat-like membranes stretched over finger bones in their wings.
In the next instant, they were flying horizontally again, and he couldn’t be sure what he’d actually seen.
“Will! Will, wake up!”
Will had been barely asleep to begin with. He was lying on his cot in an uncomfortable trance, trying to drift off. The relentless noise of creaking, sloshing water, cracks of thunder, and pelting hail surrounded him like an intense cocoon of misery.
Someone was pinching him. It took a moment for Will to snap fully awake and realize where he was. His body was rocking back and forth in his cot. It was dark. The wind and waves were beating against the sides of the boat outside.
“Will, come on, you need to get a life jacket on.” The worried voice belonged to his dad.
“What? What’s going on?” Will sat up in his bed and felt around his blankets and pillows to find where his t-shirt had gone. The rocking of the boat threw him off balance, and he nearly fell to the floor.
“The storm is getting worse. Your mom says we all have to wear life jackets, even below deck.”
Will stepped out of bed and crashed into the wall as the yacht pitched to the side.
“Here ya go, kid. Need any help?” His dad handed him a life jacket.
“No, I got it.” Will rubbed his face to get rid of the stinging pain from colliding with the cabin wall, then threaded his arms into the vest. “What time is it?”
“It’s about three o’clock.” His dad sounded more scared than tired.
“Where’s Mom?”
“She and Uncle John are at the helm.”
Will wrestled his life vest on and clipped the buckles together. Now, where had his shorts gone? He’d hung them from the hook next to his cot, but now the hook was empty. He rummaged on the floor until he found them and stuffed his legs in.
“Should I go up there and help them?” he asked. Sailing a ship through a thunderstorm sounded kind of exciting, now that he was awake anyway.
“No, you’d better not. They want us to stay down here. You and I would just get in the way.”
The boat lurched violently to the side again, and Will and his dad collided. His dad grabbed Will’s arms to help steady him. The boat rocked again, knocking them both onto Will’s bed.
“How serious is this?” Will asked as he untangled himself from his blankets. “I thought we were trying to outrun the storm.”
“We were, but we couldn’t catch a fast enough wind to get ahead of it. We just have to trust your mom and Uncle John and do as they say. They’re trying to keep us out of the worst of it still.”
Will could tell that, though his dad’s words sounded calm and reasonable, he was trying to hide the terror in his voice.
Lightning flashed through the windows and thunder crashed immediately after, loud enough to hurt Will’s ears. He could feel it shake through the boat around him.
The boat rose on a massive wave. Then they dropped, fast and smooth, like riding a roller coaster. Will’s stomach flipped inside him, and he gripped the bed so hard his hands ached.
Then there was a crash and the boat jerked, like it had struck something hard. The bow lifted, tilting everything back again.
If he didn’t think they were all about to die, Will might have actually enjoyed the ride. He’d always loved the wildest attractions at theme parks, but at the moment, he felt like he was going to be sick.
The boat pitched sideways again, and Will clung to his cot to keep from being thrown to the floor.
Out in the common room, the hatch opened, letting in a shower of rain and seawater. Someone scrambled down the steps and splashed to the floor.
Splashed? Will looked down. The floor inside the boat was now sloshing with several inches of water.
“Do you have your jackets on?” It was his mom.
“Yes, how’s it going?” his dad asked.
“Not good. The mainsail is ripped, and we’re having a hard time aiming into the swells. Come up with me now, both of you!”
Will and his dad followed. The boat knocked them back and forth, crashing them into walls and furniture, as they sloshed through cold seawater to the stairs.
“Where did all this water come from?” Will asked as his mom opened the hatch, but another boom of thunder drowned out his words.
U
p on the deck, the wind roared as it whipped around them. Will clutched the railing for dear life as the yacht lurched, lifted, and fell in the waves. He could barely see anything other than the faint red glow of the navigation system.
“What’s our heading?” Will’s mom shouted over the wind.
“I can’t even tell anymore! The blasted compass keeps spinning!” his uncle answered.
The boat crashed into another enormous wave, drenching them all in cold water, and when they came up, Will could tell they were listing to the side.
“Turn to port and get the engines running,” his mom yelled. “The jib is backwinded!”
“The engines won’t start and we’re taking on too much water! Get everyone to a life raft, now!”
The yacht crashed down into another wave. Water surged over the deck, nearly knocking Will off his feet. For a terrifying moment, it looked like the boat would stay submerged.
Lightning flashed again, and Will saw the bow break through the surface of the water. They were still listing to the right, and the surging sea all around them seemed closer than before.
Over the roaring wind, he could hear his uncle shouting, “Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!” into the radio.
“Will! Come here!”
It was his mom calling from the back of the boat. She was working with his dad to lift a large plastic case over the side. They hurled it into the water, but his mom held onto a tether attached to it. She pulled the tether toward herself, taking in the slack, then yanked on it hard.
“Will! We have to go!” his dad called.
Will blinked water from his eyes and realized that he’d been clinging to the railing, frozen with terror.
He made himself move, though the boat was rising and falling so sharply and swiftly it was like walking along a rollercoaster as it raced over the tracks.
Secret of the Dragon Egg (Dragon Riders of Avria Book 1) Page 1
