2

The windows rattled at the front of the Gumbo Diner. When a big gust hit, the plate glass seemed to breathe, straining against the window frames. Galveston had a long history with hurricanes trying to blow the city off the map-just blast across the island and sweep every trace into the Gulf of Mexico. Locals had been worried for a week, but if the latest forecast proved correct, they were in the clear. The hurricane had shifted to the east, expected to ease down to a tropical storm by morning. They were only going to get the outer edges, a lot of rain and bluster.

Even so, there'd be no work tomorrow.

Book felt like the only one unhappy about that.

"Come on, man," Gerald said. "Don't be stupid."

Luisa tapped the table. "That's a little harsh."

"You're right." Gerald raised both hands. "Stupid's the wrong word. But staying out on the Christabel during this storm is not smart. I'm not going to say it's irrational, but this decision and irrational are definitely neighbors."

Book smiled. Somehow, Gerald always managed to needle him without making it hurt. It seemed strange that he was an only child, because Gerald Coleman would have been the perfect little brother.

"I'm aware you guys think I'm nuts," Book said. "But I'll be fine."

He felt confident about that. Relaxed, even. Book appreciated the way stress and calamity narrowed options to just a few. He glanced around at the team.

Gerald sighed. "Your funeral, Book."

Luisa Hidalgo hadn't taken her yellow raincoat off throughout the meal, just sat there dripping as she ate. "I know better than to try talking you out of something stupid."

The fourth member of their team sopped up the remainder of his jambalaya with a piece of bread and popped it into his mouth, chewing as if none of this were any of his business. Alan Lebowitz sipped his homemade root beer and then dabbed at the corners of his mouth with a napkin. He behaved as if he were sitting at the next table over.

Book had known and admired all three of them before starting on this project, but he had assembled this team based on more than just their credentials. The project required they spend an awful lot of time together, much of that time in close quarters and isolated from the rest of the world, so he had chosen colleagues whose company he thought he would enjoy. There had been moments of friction in the early days, but time had shown the wisdom of his selections. In a relatively short time, they had become a bit like family, with all the teasing and bickering that word often entailed.

If they were a little like family, then Alan was the lovably grumpy uncle. Book might be the project manager, but Alan had decades on the rest of them, and often a single grumble or sigh from him would set the others laughing, even as he kept them focused. People talked about the wisdom of age as if it were something every senior citizen acquired with time. Book thought that was bullshit-assholes and fools never grew wiser, they just became old assholes and old fools. But as much as they teased him, what Alan had to say always mattered to the rest of the team.

"Alan?" Book said. "You going to chime in here?"

He issued something half grunt and half chuckle. "There any point?"

"Come on," Book replied. "I know you've got something to say."

Alan leaned back in his chair, hands on his belly as if he had a gut worthy of Santa instead of being slim as a fence post. "My view isn't going to change your view, is it? Men my age are known to be stubborn as mules, but I've never met anyone as stubborn as you."

Luisa hugged herself as if the gusting wind outside had blown right through the glass. Her raincoat crinkled loudly. "And if you thought he would listen, what would you say?"

"I'd say Gerald had the right word," Alan replied. "Sleeping out on that old junker is stupid as heck. You don't know how bad this storm's gonna get, but it won't be fun. The docking platform may be welded in place, but there's no telling what a strong-enough storm could do. If it breaks away, getting you off the ship after the storm will be a nightmare. There are too many variables."

Book opened his hands like a preacher, about to explain the research that went into installing the stairs and the docking platform on the hull of the ship, but Alan shook his head.

"No, no, Mr. Book. I'm not trying to persuade you," the old professor said. "Just answering Luisa's question. And now that I have, I'd like to get some coffee in me and go hunker down in my bed until this storm blows over."

Alan glanced around for their waitress and grumbled when he didn't see her. He reached into the pocket of his baggy pants and tugged out his phone. In a moment, he would be lost on Instagram or down some other rabbit hole. At sixty-seven years old, Alan spent more time vanished into his phone than the rest of them put together. Gerald had nicknamed him "the screenager."

"I appreciate the concern," Book said, looking around the table. "Whether it comes as questions about my sanity or otherwise, I recognize it, and I'm grateful. But I promise you, I'll be fine. That freighter has been out there forever. It's been through multiple hurricanes that caused significant damage, and this storm is nothing in comparison."

Luisa nodded. "I know. You're looking forward to it. You've already said."

"I look at it as just more research."

Book spotted the waitress and waved her over. As she approached, he caught Gerald giving him one last admonishing glance.

"I know you're stubborn as hell," Gerald said. "But if you change your mind, you come and sleep on the sofa in my hotel room. I promise not to give you shit about it till the storm blows over."

Book nodded his thanks but wanted to move off the subject, so he was glad when the waitress arrived. The Gumbo Diner's menu offered dessert, but somehow none of them ever ordered anything but coffee after dinner. They ate there nearly every Friday night, after a long week out on the water, and by the time coffee arrived, everyone seemed eager to retreat to their respective corners.

Luisa had rented a tiny apartment outside the city. Alan lived in a B&B patterned after an old-fashioned boarding-house, where a seventy-five-year-old woman made his bed and gave him breakfast every day. He liked being taken care of but didn't have anyone in his life willing to do the job. Gerald had spent these months in a midrange hotel in the midst of downtown. He liked to be in the middle of things, to eat good food, drink good whiskey, hear live music, and shop for hats and shoes and expensive clothes.

As for Book, he had started out in that same hotel, but soon afterward, he had moved on board the Christabel. They all thought he was out of his mind, and Book understood. The freighter had been sitting belly-deep in the water off Pelican Island since the Big Blow of September 1900, and the ship wasn't going anywhere. You couldn't sink a boat that had already been sunk.

The freighter had run aground way back then and been towed to Pelican's eastern shore not long after. Its dismantling and removal had been planned a dozen times, but there was nothing government did better than steal money from itself. Every time it seemed this eyesore was slated for removal, the funds had been diverted elsewhere.

Over the years, in a stunning example of nature laying claim to something forged by human hands, the ship had been infiltrated by mangrove trees. Roots from the nearby shore grew underwater and up through the rusted iron hull, around broken masts and smokestacks. The trees spread, growing across the still-intact deck, braiding themselves into something beautiful and seemingly impossible-a small mangrove forest that rose forty or fifty feet above the deck. There was something spiritual about it all, but Book didn't dwell on that element of the floating forest. He was here for the science.

Book liked to call it the floating forest, but when the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department put together the funding request, someone in the statehouse started referring to it as "the Christabel Project," and it stuck. Book had gotten over it quickly. The beauty of this strange phenomenon brought him serenity-which was the main reason he had been living on board the Christabel instead of in a Galveston hotel like the rest of the team.

Peace. Nature. An experience no one else could claim. As a scientist, he didn't believe in magic, but sometimes the world around him offered moments and places and extraordinary experiences that filled him with a sense of wonder and delight, and that was magic enough.

So he would sleep out there tonight, just as he had every night since he had departed the hotel more than three months ago.

The check came, and Book paid. Texas Parks and Wildlife would reimburse him.

Alan stuck his phone back into his pocket. He sipped his café au lait and glanced around at the rest of them. "Weird being here on a Wednesday night."

Gerald smiled thinly. "You're not used to you and Book being the only white people in the place."

Alan shrugged. "There's that. It's also just quieter."

"Might be because of the storm as much as it being a weeknight," Luisa said.

"I don't mind," Alan added. He searched Gerald's face. "I actually prefer it quieter. I also don't mind being one of the only white faces in the joint....