blasted ocean.?
Helen tried to argue?to a point out how silly it would be to test
her ability to hold her new shape with so little practice?but
Daphne only shrugged and said that it would be easier to test it on
land before they ventured out on the water. It seemed that Helen?s
fear of the ocean was inherited. Daphne loathed it, and remembering
what Hector had told her about how her own dislike of the
ocean came from not being able to control it, Helen assumed that
her mother must be a huge control freak to hate the ocean so
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passionately. After a quick check to make sure that neither of them
were wearing clothes that might get them recognized, Daphne
dragged Helen out onto the street with a promise that it would be
?fun.?
The storm had mashed the fallen autumn leaves into a kind of
red-brown paste that coated the cobblestone streets and clogged
the overwhelmed gutters. The rain was petering out and the wind
was dying down, but the bottoms of the clouds were still a
smudged-mascara color, and water ran in impromptu rivers down
the sidewalks on their way out to sea. Fallen branches lay here and
there, the bushy ends denuded of leaves, and the trunk ends, newly
ripped from the tree, ended in fresh white splinters that stuck out
in all directions like dropped boxes of toothpicks. Helen could
smell the tree sap in the air as the few trees that the island had to
offer bled out after losing their battle with the wind. With the disturbing
image of dead wooden soldiers and giant wooden horses in
her mind, the last thing that she wanted to do was eat.
?Nothing?s going to be open,? Helen protested, but she knew she
it wasn?t true.
?I used to live here, too, you know. And if there?s one thing I