The Storm Between Decks

The sea changed its personality shortly after dusk.

Until then, the voyage aboard the SS Corregidor had maintained the uneasy civility of shared travel—dinner bells, restrained conversation, gramophone music softened by distance. But sometime after the second serving of coffee, the wind arrived with abrupt authority, rattling the dining salon windows hard enough for several passengers to glance upward at once.

Petra noticed who looked frightened first.

Not the women.

Not the older travelers.

Tomas Arguelles nearly dropped his spoon.

Only for a moment. A small tremor. But Petra saw it.