Furious Read online

  “I . . . I can’t.”

  “You can. If you take a shower and get dressed, you’ll feel better. Let’s go to one tourist site and if you hate it, we can come back.”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  My will to resist waned. Depression exhausted me. The constant emotional turmoil depleted my energy, but even the physical act of sitting in a room and crying ate away at my life force. I had grieved nonstop for six months, and the thought of spending the day inside the hotel room was too much, even though I deserved the pain for failing my daughter.

  “If you don’t come, I won’t go either, but we’re about to spend thirty days in an enclosed space. Let’s not waste our last day on land by sitting around in a cramped hotel room.

  “Last day? The weather improved?”

  “The monsoon is moving fast. It’ll be far in front of us by the time we reach the Bay of Bengal. We leave at dawn.”

  I perked up at the news. I would not have to stay in this hotel room, this purgatory, for much longer. Tomorrow, I would take a proactive step and attempt to snap out of my psychosis. It was time to confront my fears, to see if I had anything left worth saving.

  Brad scrutinized me—cocking his head and raising his eyebrows—wanting an answer.

  What the hell was I doing in Bali? What was I doing with my life? I was lost, uncertain. Was I making intelligent decisions or acting out of desperation?

  “Okay, give me thirty minutes.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Our taxi stopped on the road outside the Pura Goa Lawah temple. I wore shorts and a short-sleeved blouse, and Brad had on jeans and a tee shirt. Before we exited the car, I wrapped a kain kamben, a Balinese sarong, around my waist and draped a selendang, a temple scarf, over my shoulders. Brad slipped on similar garments, which we had purchased in the hotel gift shop. The concierge had insisted we cover ourselves before we entered the temple, and I had wondered if he lied to make a sale, but now I saw dozens of tourists wearing the coverings, and I doubted the whole Balinese population had conspired to scam tourists.

  “This is it,” Brad said, beaming.

  “It’s a beautiful setting.”

  I had been miserable company, and I attempted to sound upbeat for him. Besides, the stone shrines fascinated me. I opened the door of our Bali Taxi, known as a Bluebird, because of its color and the winged emblem on top. A horde of aggressive hawkers descended on us, selling sarongs, Balinese calendars, and an array of trinkets. Women grabbed at my arms and one of them slipped a shell necklace over my head. I had not asked for it, but I gave her eighty thousand rupiah. It sounded like a lot of money, except the exchange rate was close to fifteen thousand rupiah to one dollar.

  Brad paid our entrance fees, and they forced him to pay more for a guide. Nothing cost much, but I felt like a rube, there to be fleeced.

  “I hired a guide, but the site is small, and I have a guidebook, so let’s explore it alone,” Brad said.

  “Aye aye, captain.”

  Brad read from the guidebook as we walked. “Goa Lawah is an early eleventh-century Hindi temple built to protect the Balinese from dark spirits invading from the sea. There are twenty-five stone shrines and pavilions on the grounds.”

  I surveyed the area. “It looks like the set for an Indiana Jones movie.”

  “It does, but it’s a significant holy site for the Balinese.”

  The sprawling temple complex nestled against a jagged hill, with Mount Agung looming in the distance. A black sandy beach, bordering the Bali Sea, peeked between the trees behind us. The jungle surrounded the temple, poised to overtake the site the moment the groundskeepers turned their backs. Fig and bamboo trees dotted the grounds and two massive Banyan trees towered above the main temple. Wind rustled through the leaves and perfumed the air with a sweet fragrance.

  “Why do they call these sites puras?” I asked, reading over Brad’s shoulder.

  “The book says a pura is an open-air Balinese Hindi temple, with smaller shrines to various Hindu gods. The Goa Lawah complex is one of the six holiest worship sites on the island.”

  Brad narrated as we moved inland toward the main shrine. We passed through a portal into the inner sanctum containing three primary shrines. Beyond it, long stone steps rose to traditional Balinese candi bentar gates, which bracketed an enormous entrance to a cave, like ornate stone bookends.

  “According to legend, tunnels lead from the cave, all over the Island and to the Besakih Temple at the foot of Mount Agung. That cave is home to Basuki, the snake king. There’s a shrine somewhere on the grounds with a sculpture of the serpent.”

  “There are worshipers here among the tourists,” I said.

  Two dozen Balinese sat in front of the temple, with their feet tucked under their thighs and their palms pressed together. We watched the ceremony from a distance, and when it ended, we approached the elaborate shrine. We slipped off our shoes, mounted the steps, and stared past the gates into the mouth of the cave.

  Shadows bathed the interior of the cave, and its walls vibrated and pulsed with tens of thousands of black bats.

  “Goa Lawah literally means bat cave,” he said.

  “Yuk. They’re disgusting.”

  “Come on. They’re cute.”

  I examined a bat near the edge of the cave. It slept inverted, hanging from the rock with its black wings folded and tucked against its body. I leaned in closer. Its head resembled a dog, with a pink nose, long snout, and brown fur. Its chest heaved with respirations.

  “They’re creepy.”

  “If we wait for nightfall, we can watch them fly out to feed.”

  “I’ll take a hard pass.”

  Brad hovered over my shoulder and craned his neck to see. “They look soft. Want to pet one.”

  “Gross. They’re filthy and probably diseased.”

  “That’s the city girl coming out of you.”

  I caught movement out of the corner of my eye, and a bat darted out of the cave right at us. I screamed and ducked. Brad toppled over backwards.

  “What the hell was that?” I yelled. “Where did it go?”

  “It’s gone.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” Brad said, climbing off the ground. He seemed shaken.

  “Are you sure?”

  “It bounced off my head as it flew by,” he said.

  “Did it bite you?”

  “No.” He ran his fingers through his hair and inspected them.

  “Did it?”

  “I said no.”

  “Let me check.”

  “Damn it, Dagny. I said I’m fine. Stop treating me like a child.”

  I glared back. The bat had startled us, but that was no reason for him to berate me. It had unnerved him, so I let it go.

  “That scared the hell out of me,” I said. “I thought bats only flew at night.”

  “Maybe we scared it.”

  “How did we do that? We were the only ones frightened.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it’s sick.”

  I peered into the cave, unsettled. “That freaked me out.”

  “What’s wrong?” Brad asked.

  “I’m not sure. Maybe it’s just my worry about the trip, but that felt like a bad omen.”

  Brad frowned and put his hands on his hips. “You’re being silly. Do you want to back out?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  Brad scratched his head and ruffled his hair. “Come on, let’s go back. I need to take a long shower.”

  “And check
the weather again?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Brad asked. He stomped away before I could answer.

  I turned and gazed at the cave’s throbbing walls. It seemed as if the rock itself was alive, and I was looking at the snake king. I shivered and followed Brad.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I stood in the starboard helm with my fingers wrapped tight around the wheel and watched Brad untie the stern line. The harbor looked as flat as a pond, and for a moment, I felt like a child pretending to be a ship’s captain, but the red life vest, pulled tight around me, did not support my fantasy. I had no idea what I was doing, and I might as well have been holding the wheel of a 747 jumbo jet.

  Brad coiled the line and took the helm, and I sat on a bench behind him, relieved to yield my responsibility. He turned the key in the ignition and the diesel engine purred to life, sending vibrations through the soles of my sneakers and into my feet. When the engine warmed, he activated the side thrusters and pushed the yacht away from the dock, then fired the bow thruster and pointed us toward the channel.

  Here we go.

  My heart threatened to pound out of my chest, and I broke out in a cool sweat, despite the Xanax coursing through my system. I had not known until this moment, until we shoved off, if I had the courage to accept Brad’s challenge. It would have been easy to climb back on the dock, hail a cab to the airport, and fly home. It would be simple to go back to my life, avoid my aquaphobia, ignore our marital problems—refuse to confront Emma’s death. But if I gave up now, I could not see a way forward.

  I stood, leaned over the gunwale, and gazed at water separating our boat from the dock—a saltwater moat imprisoning me onboard. A chill ran down my spine and my muscles tightened. We floated ten feet away, and I could almost reach out and touch it, but we were no longer tethered to terra firma.

  We were at sea.

  Brad saw the apprehension in my face and smiled. It was not a pleasant smile, but a smug and arrogant one, and I wanted to push him overboard.

  “I know you’re afraid of the water, but don’t worry,” Brad said.

  “I’m not afraid of the water. I’m afraid of drowning.”

  “You’re safe. We have the dinghy in the tender garage and an inflatable four-man life raft stored in the port berth. Besides, this boat is all but unsinkable.”

  “They said that about the Titanic.”

  Brad navigated past yachts bobbing on moorings and steered us into the channel toward open water. We fell in line with other craft departing the harbor, a few hundred yards behind a fifty-foot yacht. The temperature hovered around eighty degrees, and white cumulus clouds billowed overhead—a perfect day—except for my paralyzing fear.

  I sat on the bench and held on with both hands, trembling, afraid to venture near the edge. The sea pulsed with meager one-foot swells, but I still felt the motion as the bow rose and dipped. The sensation started in my feet and moved through my body. Up and down. Relentless. I held my stomach and hoped I would not get seasick.

  “How bumpy will it be?” I asked.

  “Depends on the weather and the direction of the wind and current.”

  “Could it get bad?”

  “Of course. We’re sailing across the ocean.” He spit the words out, annoyed at having to explain.

  “This is hard for me.”

  Brad stayed silent for a full minute, before he spoke. “You’re right, I’m being cranky. I’ve had a splitting headache all day. I’ll be more patient.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “This yacht weighs over fifty-three thousand pounds, fully loaded. She won’t get tossed around like smaller craft.”

  “I can feel the motion now.”

  “You need to get your sea legs. By the time we disembark in the Maldives, solid ground will feel awkward. Don’t worry about it.”

  “That’s not how phobias work.”

  Brad stiffened.

  I shut my eyes and tilted my face to the sun, letting the rays warm me. The air smelled salty and fresh. Water splashed against our hull, the motor rumbled, seagulls cawed. My trembling dissipated.

  We motored southeast and Brad followed the buoys into the harbor. We passed between Tanjung Benoa and Seragan Island then cleared the harbor reef. The island grew fuzzy, its detail fading to a brown smudge until only Mount Agung remained visible in the distance. Bali was one of a thousand islands forming the Republic of Indonesia, which cut across the Java Sea like a giant slash and separated Australia from Southeast Asia.

  “Now that we’re clear of the marina, I want to give you a sailing refresher,” Brad said.

  “You told me you would do everything.”

  “You need to know the basics, so you’re comfortable taking the helm when I’m asleep or if we have an emergency.”

  “The wind blows the sails and pushes us across the water, right?” I asked, attempting sarcasm.

  “Actually, no. The wind pushes from one direction and the water impacts the hull from the other. We move forward because we’re squeezed between the two forces, like a watermelon seed pinched between your fingers.”

  “Watermelon seed. Got it.”

  “I’m explaining this for your own good. If I fall overboard, you will wish you’d paid attention.”

  My stomach hardened as if I had swallowed a rock. He was right. We were sailing three thousand miles across four seas and the Indian Ocean. I needed to recover my sailing skills.

  “Sorry. I’m listening.”

  “The most important thing in sailing is the wind. We have an east-southeast wind blowing off our starboard side, at about seven knots, but once we pass Indonesia and head toward India, the winds will be north-northeast and more intense.”

  I surveyed the giant black mast towering over the deck. “I didn’t realize geography dictated wind direction.”

  “Trade winds are tied to geography and seasons affect wind speed. Around the equator, winds collide and swirl, canceling each other out. We could even hit westerly winds when we cross the Indian Ocean.”

  “Can we sail into the wind?”

  “Pointing the bow at the wind puts us in irons, meaning we don’t move, but we can still sail into it by shifting a few degrees in either direction.”

  “Moving toward the wind always seemed counterintuitive.”

  “When the wind blows over one side, it’s called reaching, and when it’s behind us, we’re running.”

  “I remember the points of sail.”

  “If you remember nothing else, remember this—sailing is all about the wind direction and speed.”

  I shuffled to the edge of the gunwale, wrapped my fingers around the safety line, and watched the water slosh against our hull. It left a frothy wake behind us as the yacht pitched over the swells. The motion was not violent, but it was unnatural to feel the deck shifting below me. My knuckles whitened on the line.

  I closed my eyes and exhaled then opened them and focused on the horizon. “It’s coming back to me. It’s simple enough.”

  “It can get incredibly complicated, but we’re not racing, so we don’t need to study algorithms. Our hull will heel over in a close reach. Heeling more than thirty degrees is dangerous and we risk capsizing, so pay attention, because winds shift, waves grow, and currents change.”

  “What if the boat leans too far?” I said, crossing my arms over my stomach.

  “It’s called heeling, not leaning, and if it’s too extreme, let the sails out or turn into the wind. Either maneuver will right the yacht and slow us.”

  “I understand . . . in theory.”

  “I can talk a
ll day, but it’s easier to show you.”

  Brad turned off the motor, and the deck stopped vibrating. The whoosh of the winds and the lapping of water replaced the throaty growl of the engine. I could have been on the deck of an eighteenth-century whaler, except more electronics surrounded me than had been on the Starship Enterprise.

  A hollow feeling settled in the pit of my stomach.

  “The mainsail is almost eight hundred square feet. We can furl and unfurl it from the control panels at either helm. A genoa hangs off the forestay in the bow and gives us close to nine hundred more square feet of sail. We control it with this switch.”

  “You memorized the square footage?” I asked.

  “The sails and the wind mean everything.”

  “It sounds like we need a crew of four.”

  “Not with this beauty. They automated everything on this yacht. Electric winches control the sheets and pull them through the cockpit coaming until they converge at the helm.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” I said.

  “Watch me.”

  Brad flipped through the control screens on the sixteen-inch display behind the steering wheel. The labels read: chart, echo, structure, radar, sail steer, race, instruments, video, auto pilot, time plot, and wind plot.

  “I imagine the space shuttle has controls like this.”

  Brad smiled.

  He hit a switch, and the mainsail unfurled above us—a massive sheet of carbon gray, almost black. The wind was light, but the sail caught it and filled. The breeze came over the stern from our five o’clock, and we heeled a few degrees to port. I grabbed a chrome handle on the side of the instrument panel to steady myself. My body tingled.

  “You’ll get used to the tilt. When we’re flying, we’ll heel about twenty-five degrees more.”

  “I feel like I could fall overboard,” I said, my voice a whisper.

  “Always use one hand to hold on to something, and when the wind picks up, wear a safety harness and clip onto the lifelines.”

  Above me, the boom swung the main sail to port. Brad hit another switch and deployed the genoa in the bow. It filled and rounded like a giant balloon. An image of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade flashed in my mind.