Introduction

Dark waters are rising. Who will stay afloat?

Architect Vance Nolan has crafted a marvel—shining apartments floating in the peaceful cove of a winding river. The project is partially occupied and about to make investors rich when a sinkhole gives way.

Torrential rains quickly flood the cove, leaving a handful of builders, investors, and residents cut off from the rest of the world.

The motley group is bitterly divided over how to survive.

Vance insists they wait for rescue. Developer Tony Dean wants to strike out into the darkness. And single-mom Danielle Clement, obligated to each man and desperate to protect her young son, Simeon, isn’t sure which one is wiser.

Power failure, an unnatural daytime darkness, explosions, and a murder expose hidden intentions and dark histories. Then Simeon spots something strange underwater—beautiful, shifting lights in the dark depths.

In this watery world, everyone’s secrets will eventually come to light. And deliverance may mean more than just getting out alive.

Another stunning exploration of the human spirit and supernatural possibilities from best-selling author Erin Healy.

“Heart-pounding suspense and unrelenting hope that will steal your breath.” —Ted Dekker, New York Times best-selling author (for Never Let You Go)

“[Afloat] is full of danger, intrigue, and compelling characters. Readers will enjoy the way she intersperses supernatural elements into this action-packed novel.” —CBA Retailers and Resources

“[Afloat] is original and engrossing, with a unique plot and relatable characters.” —Romantic Times

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Excerpt

Chapter One

The wet suit and the water are black, and after the man slips into both, he seems to vanish from the world. He has come on a starless night to avoid being seen, to hide a few containers where they won't be found. He will be underpaid for this task by his anonymous employer, but times are hard so he takes what he can get.

He has gone into the water between his bobbing boat and twelve shadowy structures that float. They are gathered under the weak moon in a semicircle like disciples awaiting their teacher. But he is not the one they wish for. As instructed he will secure his packages under the second unit, which is squat and unfinished. Which will never be finished.

The silky surface between him and building 2 reflects the sky's silver stars. For a moment, before he lowers the diving mask, he is distracted by the glittering scene. The understanding gives him a jolt: because it is a starless night, and these are not reflections. They are sardine-sized creatures flashing with their own energy, flickering randomly, tricking his eyes.

He lets go of the boat and reaches out to touch one, expecting it to dart away. It flares instead, flaming like a struck match though fully submerged, and sends a tingling shock through the palm of his hand. He jerks back. The flame dies. With the thumb of his other hand he tries to rub the sting away.

The pain won't die. Nor will his sudden certainty that more secrets than his are hidden in this place.

He would turn back, if not for the money.

He dives into darkness to do his work, avoiding contact with the silver things, and as he swims they fade away. Fear hurries him along. He needs to be gone before the sun rises, before everything concealed comes to light.

Chapter Two

If he had been looking at the day from a different point of view, Vance Nolan might have figured out the problem while there was still time to act. But when he first sensed that something was wrong, his instinct told him to search for the usual suspects: Equipment that might malfunction. Procedures that might be short-cut. Materials that might be shoddy.

So it was nearly noon before Vance realized that the thing bothering him was not any of these. Instead, it was an absence, a noise stripped away from the world, something like not being able to hear the sound of his own breathing.

He couldn't hear the birds.

Vance stood at the tip of Eagle's Talon, a long peninsula that hooked the wide Rondeau River like a bird snatching a fish. Feathery black willows spread shade across the land and housed plenty of feathered creatures, as did the tall grass-like leaves of the flowering river bulrushes. Most days Vance could hear the calls of terns and gulls and other waterbirds over the clattering human noises that rose from his construction site. But hammers, drills, nail guns, air compressors, trucks, and jocular workers had never drowned out the world as they did on this brilliant July day.

On the inside of the claw-like strip of land was a cove almost half a mile across, sparkling with summer sun. On the outside of the land's curve, the river was a swift highway that promised to transport a man to utopia if only he had a boat. Apparently the birds had set off for paradise already.

Vance removed his white hard hat so the light breeze could cool his head, then brushed shore dust off his short beard with his other hand. From this vantage, facing north, he could see the entire construction project going on inside the crescent of the cove. Before the first day of fall, the neighborhood that had been translated from his mind onto paper and then into a model would finally become a full-scale reality—though not exactly as he'd originally envisioned.

He looked north toward the top of the cove, where the long, skinny boom of a truck-mounted pump formed a towering arc nearly forty feet over the water. It scraped the sky's belly and then turned downward to deliver wet concrete to the surface of an unusual foundation. Constructed of sealed foam blocks, the platform was designed to float.

Here at Eagle's Talon, Vance built homes on water.

Technically, they were condominiums. Elite living spaces for wealthy owners, eight units in each of the twelve buildings, ninety-six units total. To Vance, though, they were the first step toward his real goal, which was to build beautiful amphibious homes for the poor. Until Tony Dean had scuttled Vance's plans, that's what these unusual units were supposed to be.

In spite of this, every day Vance stood here at the tip of the peninsula and reminded himself that all work was worth doing well.

On the day the birds fell silent, Vance's construction crew was assembling prefabricated aluminum walls on the cured foundations of buildings 1 through 6. A subcontracted pump company had spent the week pouring the foundations of buildings 7 through 11. Building 11, the final pour, would be finished within a few hours. It would cure within a few days. Building 12, the model, had been completed in the spring and already had residents in four of its eight units.

On the shoreline behind 11, the rough-terrain concrete-pump truck was braced on extended outriggers between the water and the earth. Behind the truck, a concrete mixer continuously fed wet concrete into the pump via a chute. And on the floating platform, the pump operator guided the boom with a remote control while a laborer pointed the hose where he wanted the concrete to go. The truck's rack-and-pinion slewing system made a whirring sound as the operator directed it to shift.

The only detail out of the ordinary that day was the presence of a fifteen-year-old kid, the pump operator's son, who was permitted to sit in the truck's cab while his father worked down on the foundation. Vance wouldn't have allowed the kid on the site at all, and he had questioned his presence in the truck, but the operator assured him it wasn't against company policy.

Vance didn't really care. Too many things could go wrong at a work site like this, and all of it was his responsibility—especially the things that went wrong. So he had asked the subcontractor's foreman, Drew Baxter, to send the kid home. As this would have sidetracked the operator and delayed the day's work, Baxter refused and blew him off with a grin that made Vance feel uneasy. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1. In what physical things do you put your sense of safety (e.g.,
money, sound structures, good health)? How do you respond when these securities are threatened or stripped away from you?
2. In what circumstances do you feel like you really need a strong certainty that God is real? How does this compare to times when you can live comfortably with your doubts? What accounts for the difference? If you don’t experience a shifting confidence, why do you think that is?
3. Natural disasters and accidents represent hardships that are far beyond a person’s control. Compare the ways Tony, Danielle, Vance, and Zeke respond to the various uncontrollable events in their lives. Which behaviors do you admire? Which serve as a warning? How do these compare to the ways you typically react?

Weblinks

»	Author Erin Healy's website
»	Publisher's Book Info

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