Pathfinder by Julie Bertagna Page B

far as she can see, there is only ocean. Nothing else. A few blades rotate above the waves—all that’s left of the field of windmills.
    Mara grips her father’s hand as they face the impossible truth. All the islands in the north are gone. It’s as if they’d never been there at all. Now it’s too late for miracles. The entire network of islands has been swallowed by the sea. Along with most of Wing.
    â€œWe’re out of time, Mara,” says her father heavily.
    Furious, Mara runs down to the edge of the waves, crashes into the sea, and struggles to reach the old red phone booth that stands on the humpbacked bridge. Up to her waist in water, she reaches an arm through a windowpane long emptied of glass and dials 911, the old emergencynumber. Why, she doesn’t know. Who she is calling, she doesn’t know either. Who on Earth does she think might answer? The line is dead, of course.
    This can’t happen
, Mara sobs down the phone line that’s been dead for decades.
    No one answers. They’re all long gone.
    Mara stands upon the stone altar of Wing’s tiny church, her cheeks burning as she confronts the crowd of fellow-islanders that have gathered there.
    â€œThere
is
a New World,” she insists. “There
are
real cities—beautiful cities that are built high above the oceans, just like I’ve told you. The evidence is there, I promise. It’s our only hope. Where else can we go?”
    â€œMaybe she’s right,” someone calls out from the back of the crowd. “Maybe there are cities out there. But even if there are, they won’t take us all in—awhole island!”
    â€œIt’s what they were built for—to house flood refugees,” Mara counters.
    â€œThe sea might calm down,” says Gail and Rowan’s mother, uncertainly. “It can’t keep rising like this. I think we should stay put. What we know is safer than what we don’t.”
    â€œIt’s too late, Mom,” says Rowan. “We have to face up to this, now.”
    Mara glances over at Gail, who stands beside him. Gail sends her a trembly smile of support. Earlier, Mara had raced up to the church, sobbing breathlessly, terrified that her friends wouldn’t be there. Their whole street was now sea; their home flooded to the top of the windows. Thankfully, they had found sanctuary at the top of the hill.
    The toll of the bell had brought the islanders out of their barricaded homes to gather in the old church. Instunned, broken voices, they told each other of the lives swept away and the homes lost in the great sea surge. Then, urged forward by her father, Mara suddenly found herself on the altar, telling everyone who was crammed into the tiny church of the evidence she had found of the existence of the New World. All the time she felt Gail’s and Rowan’s blue eyes fixed upon her in amazement.
    Now she has told her story, all that she knows of the New World; now it’s up to the others to decide. Everyone is arguing, shouting their views and fears at each other across the church. It’s so loud and chaotic that Mara can’t tell whether the feeling is for or against her. Eventually, Tain strides over to the dust-caked organ that is centuries old—almost as old as the church itself. He lifts the lid and crashes a fist upon the keyboard. The most unearthly noise bursts in a cloud of dust from the organ pipes and stuns the crowd into silence.
    â€œRemember who this young woman is!” Tain thunders. “Remember who her grandmother was—Mary Bell, a woman whose vision and hard work helped this island survive at a time when we all thought that was impossible.”
    A murmuring fills the church as the older people remember.
    Mara blushes uncomfortably and shoots a glance at her mother. But the look on her face isn’t what Mara expected at all. Suddenly Rosemary begins to push through the crowd and stands beside Mara on