Woman Overboard

Chapter 15 : Temptation (3)

Danielle

August 31st, 1820

(2:34 PM)

The sun bared down on Danielle like the pelt of a huge monster stumbling through the woods, trying to suffocate her beneath its shaggy stomach. She dodged it wherever she could: under trees, in bushes, mud puddles, et cetera. She was now covered in a crispy layer of dried mud that served as her shoddy armor against the monster.

If it hadn't been for the footprints in the mud, Danielle might have lost her way. With every minute, she seemed to fall farther behind the pack. At first, she could see their backs. Then, she could still hear them talking. Then, she could make out only the crunching of sticks under their feet. Now, she only had the footprints they had left behind.

She couldn't help but feel abandoned on two levels. First, because her mother had opted to leave her behind even though Danielle so fervently wanted to join her. The second reason was the abstract and illogical feeling in her gut that they were running away from her, leaving her behind even though they had no way of knowing she was there at all.

Escaping The Brookes hadn't been difficult. As soon as Taonga fell asleep (not even half an hour after the rest left), she snuck away. Chris was in no shape to stop her, so she had an open lane to make her exit.

When she reached the deck, she realized she didn't have much of a plan. So she began an improvisation that would soon become a long, wild, meandering act stretching across hours and miles and emotions.

She had ended up shimmying down a rope tossed over the side of The Brookes, which accounted for the angry blisters on her palms. When she reached the end of the rope, still several yards from the surface, Danielle leapt away from the wall and into the water.

Hitting the surface stung but didn't break any of her bones. The water had felt cool and revitalizing on her skin for a time, but she soon tired of this and sought to reach shore. Unfortunately, her weak strokes were no match for the weight of the ocean, which fought her every movement with strong, sluggish arms.

She resigned herself to making slow progress. Temptation ran rampant in her mind; she wanted to eat, to drink, to go back to Brooke. To discard her shoes. But she knew she couldn't do any of these things just yet.

It took her nearly an hour to reach South Carolina sand. By that time, the pack was long gone, and panic began to counteract her fatigue. She didn't think before stuffing her clothes into her soggy knapsack and taking off in a dead sprint.

It took a solid two miles of running before she heard the first voice. Until that point, she had been following footprints and paths of downtrodden roots and foliage. When she finally heard evidence of the crew, it took all her willpower not to barrel forward and into her mother's embrace.

She had no way of knowing it, but she only caught up to the crew because they were weighed down with the two sick men and the boatload of supplies. Not to mention, the men grew more weary and slow with every step through the thick, hazardous bog. Their pack wasn't compelled by the adrenaline and tinge of madness that had possessed Danielle.

However, when she found them, the voices broke through her delirious haze enough to distinctify the physical pain she was in. Still naked, her skin had dried and burned spectacularly in the sun. Her face felt tight and wouldn't move much. Her hair had hardened into crispy strands, fallen loose from its braid during her journey. Her knapsack itself had solidified into a stiff wall of fabric, but its contents remained slightly damp.

The pain slowed her down. She began walking, jogging with short bursts of energy. But soon, she became paranoid that someone would hear her footsteps and find her. In Danielle's mind, the prospect of being caught seemed more frightening than dying of starvation in this bog. She didn't know exactly what her punishment would be, but she knew it would be bad.