Seawitch by Kat Richardson

good stuff to wash away the taste.” She shot a look over her shoulder at me and Solis. “Acai and blueberry. I think it’s horrible, but Dad likes the stuff.”
    “Better’n this,” Walter mumbled, lifting the small bottle in a shaking hand.
    “My theory is that the combined tastes must be much better than the individual ones,” Jon added, “because that acai berry stuff is kind of weird.”
    Walter started to offer him his orange glop. “Wanna find out?” It came out as a near whisper.
    Jon waved him off. “Nope. You drink it, Dad. You’re a better man than I am.”
    Walter wheezed another laugh, then guzzled his drink with a downturned mouth and a scowl.
    “OK, so . . . what’s the question of the day?” Jen asked, turning to us as her father reached for the bottle of purple liquid.
    “We have some questions about your sister, Ruth,” Solis replied.
    Jen blinked and Jon scowled. Walter looked stunned.
    “Ruthie?” Jen asked. “She’s been gone a long time. What kind of questions could you have? Have you found her?”
    “No. But the boat on which she disappeared has been found and we wish to know more about the passengers.”
    Jen blinked a little, her mouth working like a fish’s, and couldn’t quite form a reply.
    Jon leaned forward, helping his father with the lid on the bottle of Vitamin Water, but keeping his focus on us. “What sort of thing do you want to know?”
    “Did she talk about the trip?”
    “Not a lot that I remember,” Jon replied. “But I wasn’t around much then. I suppose she would have been excited, though.”
    Jen snorted and Walter shook his head.
    “So she wasn’t looking forward to the trip?” Solis asked.
    “She wanted it like fire,” Walter mumbled, wheezing.
    Jon reached over the wheelchair and adjusted the valve on his father’s oxygen bottle. “Ruthie was boat crazy, so if she was going to go out with those high-roller types, of course she was excited. She loved that stuff.”
    “Well, she liked her friends, too. I don’t think she’d have been as excited about it if they weren’t going along,” Jen added.
    “Which friends, specifically? Do you remember?”
    “Oh, Janice, of course—they were BFFs.” She looked at her brother. “What was that other girl’s name? The crazy one.”
    “Which one? Half of Ruthie’s friends were crazy.”
    “The one with the funny hair.” She turned her gaze back to me and Solis. “One of those blondes whose hair goes all green in the swimming pool. You know. Kooky. She was like a deckhand or something.” She looked back to Jon. “What was her name?”
    “Sally?”
    “Nooo . . .” Jen said, shaking her head. “That’s not right.”
    Walter coughed around a word. Jen and Jon both leaned close to hear.
    “What, Dad?” Jen asked.
    I could barely hear the whispering of his breath as he repeated the word.
    Jen looked up again. “Shelly. Dad says her name was Shelly.” She looked at her brother. “Does that sound right to you?”
    Jon nodded. “Oh yeah. Now I do remember her. Shelly Knight. Which I remember because Janice didn’t like her as much as Ruthie did and she called her One-Night Shelly. They used to argue whether Shelly was a friend or a floozy.”
    “Like I would remember that. I was, what, twelve?”
    “Well, you might if you’d paid attention.”
    “What came to my attention was the way you mooned around after Janice Prince.”
    “Mooned around? I never moon—unless I drop my pants first.”
    Solis cut into their developing argument. “Do you believe Shelly Knight was on the boat when it left?”
    “I’d be really surprised if she wasn’t,” Jon said.
    Jen nodded. Walter seemed to nod, too, but it could just have been that he was tired, since the energy around his head and body was very low. “Shelly,” he whispered, a slight scowl on his face. He motioned to his children and Jon leaned in to listen before Jen could turn around from looking at us.
    Jon nodded for a few