It’s #BookQW and a moment with a brother seems like a ‘year’!
More of the excerpt from Chapter 4:
Without my magic, I can’t speak with our dolphins. And if she couldn’t give the young’uns their training directions, what was the point of sailing out to meet them? Come to think of it, she’d never sailed without magic as a backup either. She could, but why risk it? Perfect. She’d use their family’s aquaculture work to avoid the quash.
Coral found Ma in the galley. Ma’s flowered sundress swirled as she stowed the last of the breakfast dishes and, as quick as a cleaner wrasse, latched the windows in the ship’s polished wooden walls. With a steadying breath, Coral wrapped a tighter control on the blue energy skittering through her.
“I’m ready to go to the bakery.” She smiled oh-so-sweetly at her mother. “I’ll have afternoons free to do the training with Salm, but I’m concerned about sailing with no magic. You know how vulnerable a wizard—”
“Ha! That’s a good one.” Salm clattered down the companionway ladder. “You worried about sailing? We won last year’s Fest race with your bum skimming the waves to keep the craft upright. Tell another yarn, why don’t you.” He batted her braids as he plowed past.
“Salm! Orb curse it, I swear I’ll—”
“Coral!” Ma glared at her. “Watch your language.”
She snapped her mouth closed while her grinning brother escaped down the fore passageway.
“Salm?” Ma called after him. “I’m shifting the power to charge our storage batteries.” She crossed to the navigation desk and peered at the console controlling their wind turbines and solar panels, human technologies that ran the ship’s instruments and household appliances. “Change it back when you need electricity.”
Coral groaned inside. Salm wouldn’t spend much time on the boat while in port. Ma’s efficient ship shutdown was rapidly shutting her out. She had to try again. “Ma? Pop wants the dolphin measurements done, and if I kept my magic, I could run the young’uns through their paces.”
Ma sighed, which wasn’t really an answer.
“Just give me a warning for what happened last night.” Coral kept the tone light, her desperation tamped down. “Salm comes and goes at all hours. Why not me? I’m sixteenth year, nearly seventeenth. It’s but a two-year age difference.”
“Age is not the issue.” Ma glanced up from flipping switches. “Self-control is.”
***
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