Stormy seas I pushed off as hard as I could, and Mama took the tiller as we edged our way out of the Mermaid’s shadow. Lucas was on the mizzen sheet; I took the mainsail. The moment we got clear of the ship, gusts of wind filled the sails and buffeted the boat. ‘Ease that mizzen off a bit,’ said Mama. Lucas let go the sheet until the boat felt steady. ‘Good lad.’ He tied it off but kept the end of the rope in his hand. In this weather, we were going to have to be ready for anything. Waves were already peaking higher than our gunwales. Mama headed the bow into the swell, so that the boat cut into the waves instead of catching them on the beam. ‘What’s the course, navigator?’ she asked. I squinted at the murky sky. ‘It’s a bit hard to tell with all those clouds, but I think that’s the sun there — and we ought to still be south-east of the islands …’ I took a calculated guess. ‘Ideally, we’d sail thataway.’ I pointed. It was the same way that the storm was headed.
