“This nurse isn’t going anywhere,” McManlyman barked, jabbing a finger in Jane’s direction.
“I’m a doctor!” Jane growled. “Why must you assume—”
“But you’re a chick!” McManlyman said. “Or—are you a really puny dude?”
“I’m not a chick—”
“Then you’re the most girly dude I’ve ever—”
“I mean,” Jane sighed, “I’m not a chick, but a woman. And not a nurse, but a doctor. Get it?” She’d been too irked to notice the sword, but now she saw it and gasped, backing up a few paces.
If Max McManlyman had been thinking, he’d have said, “Well, I’m a man and a pirate. Get it?” But he wasn’t thinking. “Whatever,” he said instead, waving his cutlass about. “You’re our prisoner now. We need another doctor.”
Quick as a blink, before she’d had a moment to think, she followed her gut instinct and made to fling herself over the gunwale of the ship, which they happened to be standing near. But McManlyman had been pirating a long time and had taken many a prisoner. He knew a thing or two about escape attempts.
He caught her by the ankle mid-dive and even (since she was a chick after all) gallantly held her out far enough so that she wouldn’t bash her head against the edge of the ship. Then he said in his best Pirate Captain Voice, “I am Captain Maximus McManlyman and you are my prisoner.”
“Whozamus McWhatnow?” she asked as she swayed back and forth, trying to look up at him.
“Maximus McManlyman,” he responded. “You’re my prisoner.”
“Pull me up,” was her only response. It was exceedingly difficult to have a conversation while hanging upside down, and definitely took away any pretense that she might have any control over the situation. What she really needed was to be standing upright and having a rational talk with this bully, though really there was no point because there is no speaking rationally with bullies whether you’re upside down or right side up. Bullies have deep issues that take more than one rational chat to sort out.
“I really must object,” Bernard said from behind the Captain. He spoke as firmly as he could through his fear—this was the first time in all their years on the ship that he had ever come close to standing up to the Captain. “She was the only doctor in that entire city who was brave enough to venture onto this ship to help Warren. What sort of reward is it to repay such bravery and kindness with—”
“There is no way you’re forcing me to be a pirate,” Jane cut in, still hanging over the edge of the ship by her ankle. “Pirates kill people. I can’t sail with you.”
“Oh no, no, no,” McManlyman said. “You wouldn’t be killing anyone. You’d just be patching us up. I know you doctor types have a code. We pirates respect codes.” He began at last to haul her up. “We have a code, too: Get Lots of Treasure at Any Cost. You respect our code, we respect yours. Easy Peasy.” He set her on her feet.
“But I’m not—” she said, straightening out her disheveled clothes as she glared at him.
“But you are. You, as I have mentioned a few times now, are my prisoner. You can say ‘Okay!’ and go help some hurt pirates, or you can say ‘NO!’ and get sent to the brig, and we’ll bring some hurt pirates down, and you can then help some hurt pirates. Your choice. The end result is the same, so I’m cool with whatever decision you make.”
“No!” yelled Jane and Bernard in unison. McManlyman nodded as though this was exactly what he’d been expecting. Then he brushed Bernard aside and hauled Jane down into the bowels of the ship and locked her up. He ordered that some lanterns, doctor trappings, and injured pirates be sent down to her, assuming rightly that even though she’d said she wouldn’t help she wouldn’t be able to keep from doing so once she saw some real live injured human beings lying there groaning and bleeding on the floor of her cell. Doctors were so predictable.
Bernard waylaid McManlyman as the Captain was on the way back from locking up Jane. Bernard said, “Not cool, man. Not cool. What the heck was that? You can’t—”
“I can. What is with all these people telling me ‘you can’t’? I’m a pirate captain, and this is my ship, and so that means I get to do what I want to do. You’d do well to remember that. I like the money you pay me to transport you and your weird family across these waters, but I don’t like it enough to put up with any lip from you. Don’t make me get all piratical on you and your family—because,” he said, getting all up in Bernard’s face, “I will. Just give me a reason, and I’ll totally do it, man.”
Quaking in his boots as he stared at the shiny blade of Captain McManlyman’s cutlass which hovered steadily inches from his face, Bernard decided he’d done what he could to help. Jane seemed like a capable enough lady, he rationalized, and maybe, he thought hopefully, with her feminist leanings she might not want some guy jumping into the fray to fight for her. He didn’t want to insult her or anything, he tried to convince himself as he found himself nodding mutely at the Captain.
Jane would certainly not have been offended by any help from Bernard—she would have seen him not so much as a man helping a distressed damsel but as one human being who had an opportunity to assist another human being in need, which was definitely more what the situation was. But, though Bernard tried to do the right thing whenever he could, he was no hero or soldier, or any good at protecting himself, and he couldn’t go getting himself killed for a lost cause when he had a family that needed him. So, he stepped back with only a mild irritation at being bullied, but also with a firm knowledge that there was really nothing he could have done to win anyway (short of challenging the Captain to a tightrope walking contest or a tap dancing duel, and it was very far from likely that McManlyman would have ever consented to agree to that sort of showdown).
McManlyman gave Bernard an annoying ‘That’s right, you’re backing down,” look that Bernard tried to ignore as he strolled off to check on his son who was resting on the floor of the family’s room.
Warren gave him a brave smile from his nest of pillows and quilts on the floor and said, “Did you see the doctor off without incident?”
“Yup.” Bernard knew his son well enough to be sure that once Warren knew about the doctor’s wrongful imprisonment, he would try to do something heroic and silly, and end up in a situation that, even in top form, he wouldn’t be able to handle. In Warren’s incapacitated state, he would stand no chance at all of defending Jane.
Warren had been raised from infancy acting in family dramas, reading books about knights and princesses, playing romantic songs on his banjo and accordion, reading poetry, and in his off time daydreaming while staring out at the sea. The lad was, consequently, a bit too starry-eyed for his own good. Thus, Bernard’s desire to keep Warren in the dark about the fact that the brave woman who had risked venturing onto a pirate ship in order to give him medical attention was now being held captive. The injustice of it would drive Warren to do something stupid.
That night, the family was awoken by the sound of Warren yelling like a madman. They assumed he was in need of more of the pain tonic that Jane had left them. It took Emily a few minutes of listening to his fevered blathering, though, to realize that his arm felt okay and he was flipping out because he had just remembered the harpsichord had been smashed in the storm along with his arm.
“Mom, what am I going to do?” he asked frantically, clutching at her sleeve.
“Honey,” she said, all soothing and maternal, “Let’s get you fixed first, and then you can worry about the harpsichord.”
“But what if the Captain throws it out? I need that harpsichord, Mom. I can’t live—”
Corrine, who had been rummaging through her bag this whole time, pulled out the contact info for the harpsichord repairman. “Here,” she said, thrusting the paper tab into Warren’s hand and holding up the lantern so that he could read it. “I found this on the docks.”
Warren read it, first distractedly,
then intently, gripping it in his fingertips like a tiny little lifeline. “Ooh, Corrine! Could you track down this guy?”
“Sure thing, little brother. I’ll head out tomorrow morning.”
Chapter Eight
In his evil lair, Farland Phelps was plotting.
Much like Julianna’s parents, Farland had been devoting considerable efforts to finding the boy who could break the curse. Part of his plan was to post fliers for harpsichord repair by the docks. He figured this approach was bound to yield fruit eventually, since it must be challenging to keep a harpsichord tuned and in good repair on the high seas what with all the humidity and motion of the ship and whatnot. He further figured that this seafaring curse breaker would eventually end up in the Bay of Fritillary, since the capital was one of the biggest ports-of-call in the known world. So, he had strategically positioned a few harpsichord repair ads, then paid some vagrants (it’s super cheap to employ vagrants; they work for peanuts) to panhandle in sight of the fliers and report to him when they saw some seafaring person express interest in the ad. From there, he just left it up to time while he devoted his energies to other plots and schemes.
He was currently giddy with excitement because, earlier that very day, one of his paid vagrants had come by to report that, at long last, some lady had taken a tab off a harpsichord ad. Of course, there was no way of knowing whether this lady had any connection to the boy he was searching for, but it would be silly of him not to pursue the lead. The vagrant had said that the lady had gone out to a ship after taking the tab, so that was at least a positive sign, since it meant that the harpsichord in need of repair might be on a ship.
The plan was this: He would transform his evil lair into a harpsichord studio, then wait for someone to stop by and ask about harpsichord repairs. He would visit their ship, ask a few leading questions, and find out whether anyone on the boat fit the bill as the lad who could break the curse. If it was a dead end, he’d just say he didn’t have the right tools to finish the job; but if he did find the lad, Farland would kidnap him and send word through one of Conroy’s spies (Farland had a double agent working as one of Conroy’s spies) that the lad had been located. From there, all he’d need to do would be to slip the lad some time-release poison so he’d die shortly after being collected by the king, but before meeting the princess and breaking the spell. It was essential to the plan that Conroy get his hopes up as much as possible only to have them dashed by the lad’s death at the last possible moment.
Farland grinned, chuckled, then looked around his lair and muttered, “First thing’s first. I have to make this place look like a harpsichord studio.” He felt a bit daunted looking around at the heavy, black velvet curtains, tapestries of skeletons wielding swords, shelves full of colorful powders and liquids with alarming names and skulls-and-crossbones prominently displayed on the labels, big melty candles with black flames, and books with labels like Really, Really Deadly Poisons and Mind Reading Can Be Easy! and Compendium of Poison Substitutions. The only thing in the entire room that he wouldn’t have to hide or disguise was his fern in the front window. It would have been easier just to rent a storefront somewhere for the week, but unfortunately, he’d put his own address on the advertisement. Plus, he’d been short on funds of late.
Farland wished he could devote his life solely to his revenge plots, but regrettably there was no money in vengeance (he knew this for certain because he had registered himself as a nonprofit and then written a grant to see if anyone would fund him) so he had to resort to scraping out a living doing black market black magic for nobles whenever necessary in order to keep himself housed and fed as he pursued his real dream: getting back at Conroy.
Farland gave a huge sigh and told himself that, tedious though transforming his lair from an evil kind to a harpsichord kind would be, it still needed to be done, and the sooner the better. He gritted his teeth and got to work. First, he packed up his books and put them in his bedroom. Then, he turned all his bottles around so the poison labels were facing the back of the shelf. Next, Farland put up a sign on the shelf that read ‘Harpsichord Polishes and Oils’. Those details attended to, he scuttled off to a local music store to get some decorations.
Some time later, he came back with a few parcels and rolled up papers under his arms. The rolled papers were posters of harpsichords, fingering charts, and one big poster of Lonnie Green, the most famous harpsichordist around—Lonnie smiled out of his poster with nice teeth and long, curly brown hair. Lonnie looked most out of place in this room, Farland thought, as he hung the poster on the wall over the magical pool of raven blood and between a tapestry of a skeleton with a sword and another tapestry of a skeleton playing checkers with Death.
Next, Farland cleaned some poster putty off his fingertips and rolled up his beloved tapestries, then stuck up in their place some of the harpsichord pictures. The magical pool of raven blood informed Farland that he had better not move it anywhere, so Farland (not wanting to anger it) just covered it up with a big wooden board that he stored under his bed and usually used as a surface for working jigsaw puzzles. With the board resting atop the heavy stone basin, it looked sort of like a table. After throwing a plaid flannel sheet from his bed over the jigsaw puzzle board for a tablecloth, Farland unwrapped one parcel to reveal some sheet music and magazines which he arranged on the makeshift coffee table. Standing back and looking at the display, he had to admit it looked rather artfully done.
Next, he opened up another parcel and placed its contents (a metronome and a statue of a G clef) on the shelf in front of his magic powders and liquids.
He gave the arm of the metronome a tap to get it moving, and the steady tick-tick of a calming 58 beats per minute permeated the room.
Farland finally stepped back and surveyed his work with satisfaction. It was not perfect, but certainly passable; anyway, it would easily convince anyone who had no reason to be suspicious. He reached into his desk for paper, ink, and a quill, and wrote on good sturdy card-stock ‘Farland Phelps. Harpsichord Repairs and Tuning’. He took this makeshift sign outside, and used a bit more poster putty to affix the sign to the front door of his modest ground-floor Evil Lair in a cul-de-sac just off the textiles district of the city.
He rented in a building that housed a tailor to his right, a lady who spun and dyed yarn to his left, and a family with about a million kids by the sound of it above him. Back when he’d lived in the castle, his Evil Lair had been much more grand, but his free ride as Conroy’s BFF was long over, and rent in the city was insane even with an income helping the lords and ladies with the black market black magic making truth serums and invisibility spells (the lords and ladies all seemed to have the same problem: not trusting their spouses).
Surveying the results of his redecorating project, he gave a satisfied nod. Then, having nothing else to do, Farland went to stretch out on his bed and maybe take a nap or something. He couldn’t kill time doing a puzzle since his puzzle board was doubling as a coffee table, and he didn’t want to leave the apartment for fear of missing the visitor who might or might not even show up, and might or might not lead him to the one who might or might not be able to break the curse. With a sigh, Farland snuggled up under a quilt and began to read a book.
Bright and early the next morning, Corrine and Bernard sallied forth for the harpsichord studio. After their epic search for a doctor the previous day, they had a pretty good idea of how to get around the slippery, grimy, disgusting streets. So, they were able to locate Farland’s lair—er, harpsichord studio—before the morning dew had even evaporated from the piles of muck that lined the city streets. Bernard knocked on the door, then noticed that the poster putty affixing the sign to the door had nearly come undone, so he pushed it back into place. Why did the owner of this store use poster putty instead of nails, he wondered, and why was the sign made of paper instead of wood?
The door swung open, and they were greeted by a smiling, attractive ma
n of about forty. He had long, black hair and lots of jeweled rings on his long fingers.
Corrine wondered whether all those rings got in the way of his harpsichord playing.
“May I help you?” he asked in a sleazy voice that, when paired with the over-eagerness with which he asked the question, made Corrine’s skin crawl.
“Yes, we need a harpsichord repaired,” she said hesitantly, as he ushered them into the sparse storefront that was strangely devoid of actual harpsichords, though it did have a lot of posters and some sheet music and magazines. Corrine said, “The harpsichord is on a pirate ship. I hope that is not a problem?” Maybe she shouldn’t have mentioned the pirate ship right off the bat, but part of her was hoping he’d say no—she had a bad feeling about this guy, but didn’t know if the bad feeling was just because he sounded slimy, or if there was something else about him that was causing her intuition bells to ring.
He raised an eyebrow in surprise when he heard about the pirate ship, but said, “That shouldn’t be a problem. Let’s go.” And then he headed toward the door. They didn’t know it, of course, but pirates didn’t scare him in the least since he could disappear at will. Getting into dangerous situations never fazed Farland Phelps.
“Wait—” Corrine said. “Don’t you need to know what’s wrong with the harpsichord? Talk payment? Anything?” Why was this dude flying out the door at the first mention of a broken harpsichord without getting any information or grabbing any tools?
Shoot, Farland thought, I’m being too eager. Calm down, Farland. Calm down. You’ll know soon enough if this lead is going anywhere. He turned and said, “Ah, well, we can talk payment after I see what’s wrong with it. And, er, as to what is wrong with the instrument, I never ask laymen to, er, diagnose. I would rather go in with a head unclouded by preconceptions.”
“Wow, there must be more going on in the inside of a harpsichord than I thought,” Bernard muttered. “You really have to worry about misdiagnosing?” As he asked this, his gaze began to travel over the various bottles of liquids and powders. There definitely was more to this whole harpsichord thing than he’d thought. Just look at all those bottles of colorful stuff! He reached out to touch a bottle with big shiny pink crystals inside.
How to Break an Evil Curse Page 8