The Pirates of Fainting Goat Island

by Teresa McCullough

  “Not anymore.” He walked out of the room and I followed him. We went out on deck and he leaned over the rail. “I missed this, being out to sea where we can’t see any land.”

  “But to leave everything. They’ll miss you when spring comes, and they plant their gardens.” His rainmaking was vital to the community.

  “They have plenty of grain which will grow without me,” he said. “They were taking me for granted. At first, they paid me what I was worth, but lately, they felt I should do it for free or nearly. The Captain’s gone and your mother too. I would have stayed to help your mother. But I’d be haunted by the Captain’s ghost if I didn’t look after you.” I could see by the crinkling near his eyes that he wasn’t serious, but I was taking my risks and didn’t mean to bring anyone else into it.

  “I certainly didn’t mean to drag you with me,” I said, concerned he disrupted his life for me.

  “You didn’t. Did it ever occur to you that I might have left Ship Town for the same reasons you did?”

  “You couldn’t,” I said. “I wanted to see the world, and you’ve seen it.” He sailed with my father for many years. I didn’t know his exact age, but he was in his fifties.

  “I’ve only seen a small piece of it, girl. There’s a lot more to see.”

  I didn’t have an answer for that one. I’d never been further from Ship Town than I could walk in half a day.

  Suddenly, Roddy jerked to a more upright position. He shaded his eyes and looked out. I saw what he was looking at. It was another ship. “Ship to port,” he said in a loud voice.

  For the next half hour, there was a flurry of activities. The dice players stopped playing dice and several men wore swords and breastplates. Somewhat to my surprise, a number of them wore eye patches. The ship was drawing closer and Merko changed course to go directly away from them.

  “Get up here, Heleen!” Merko shouted. “I need you to give us some speed.”

  I ran up to the bridge. “Put all the force you can in making us go to the starboard,” he said. I didn’t understand his tactics but obeyed. It seemed to me we should go directly away from the ship, not allowing it to cut a corner to shorten the distance between us. For the next hour, the other ship grew closer and closer to us. “Do you think you could burn their ship if we started a fire onboard?” he asked me.

  “Not now. It’s too far away,” I said. I didn’t like the idea of burning another ship, even if it was attacking us, but realized that might be better than allowing the attack.

  “Hmm. Take a break. There should be a fire in the galley. You can use that to defend us if they get close.”

  I stopped enhancing and walked back toward the galley. Suddenly, a huge wave came up and threw the ship in the air. I was thrown down and must have hit my head.

  I awoke, and the world was rocky. Roddy was by my side. Oddly, he was wearing an eye patch, like so many of the other men. He was moving around strangely. Then I realized it wasn’t a rogue wave that hit the ship. The ship was in rough water. It was also raining, and we were getting wet. He helped me up and we went into the common room next to the galley.

  “Don’t you frighten me like that again, girl,” Roddy said.

  “How long was I out?” I asked.

  “A few minutes,” he replied.

  “Is the ship still following us?” I asked.

  “Yes, and it’s closer.”

  If the ship that was chasing us came close enough, I could start a fire onboard it, using enhancing. I would burn their sails, which would keep them away from us, but hopefully not kill anyone.

  Lina was cleaning up chopped onions that were scattered all over the galley. I tried to grab the fire that I expected to be inside the enclosed stove, but I couldn’t feel it. Enhancing would allow me to take the heat from the fire, make it greater, and put it somewhere else, but there was no heat. I walked unsteadily over to the stove and hesitantly put my hand near it. No heat. I touched it and it was cold.

  “I can’t enhance heat with nothing there,” I said. I turned to Lina and asked, “Why is the fire out?”

  “We’re in a storm, in case you hadn’t noticed. No one cooks in a storm, it’s too dangerous.” She continued cleaning up chopped onions.

  I sat down on a stool. The ship heaved, and my stool started sliding across the floor. I managed to stop it, but the other stools were bunched in a clump at the end of the room or at the side of the long table, which was attached to the floor.

  “Probably the safest place for you is in your bed,” Roddy said. I felt shaky enough, so this seemed reasonable.

  “Why are you wearing an eye patch?” I asked as I stood up to comply.

  “In case we’re boarded. We may have to fight in the hold. If I go down to the hold and take off the patch, I’ll be able to see well. It’ll give me a few seconds advantage over anyone chasing me.”

  Roddy escorted me to my cabin and gave me a damp cloth to hold against my head. The bed had a railing to keep me from falling out and the drawers had latches to keep them from moving. Several times, I was thrown against the railing. I tried sleeping, thinking it might help my head, but worry and the constant motion made it impossible. Like a child, I found myself wanting my parents. I thought when I left Ship City, I would leave behind my grief, but I wanted the comfort of my mother’s arms and the sense of safety I associated with my father’s presence. I knew that if they were alive and here, they would not make things any better, but that didn’t stop the longing.

  A sailor barged into the room, saying I was needed. I went back to the bridge, holding on to whatever was available along the way to keep from falling. Fortunately, most of the way had rails, even if they were rope. I could see the ship was quite close to us. The sea was still rough, but not as much as it was earlier. Four large boats had been lowered into the water and they were headed our way, full of men rowing. Any thought that these people could be peaceful was dispelled by these men.

  Merko told me what direction to push the ship. While complying, I asked, “Why doesn’t the ship come directly to us and board instead of sending boats?”

  “Our decks are higher than theirs, and our hull is rounded. If the two ships are next to each other, there will be only a short stretch where they can board. Also, this is a large, loaded ship. If we crash into each other, there is no guarantee that either of us will survive the storm.”

  “I can slow the boats down,” I said.

  “Do it.”

  I concentrated on a single rower in the front boat and enhanced the motion of his oar. It pushed him backward, knocking him off his seat into the man behind him. I repeated the motion on one rower in each of the boats. I then did it randomly on different boats. I stopped doing one of them when a torrent of rain flooded a boat.

  “Did you do that?” Merko asked me.

  “No, Roddy must have,” I said. Roddy took water from the air, and there was plenty of water in the air here. Soon, all four boats were flooded. One capsized, and the men in another boat shipped their oars and bailed. Several men were hanging onto the hull of the capsized boat. The ship came closer and threw a rope to them.

  For the next several minutes, Merko gave orders to those manning the sails and to me. He seemed to be doing some delicate maneuvering. Meanwhile, the other ship picked up its boats and was still coming.

  I didn’t understand why Merko was giving me the orders he gave. He had a chance to get a long distance away, but he was using the time for position rather than speed. The other ship was getting closer, but suddenly, it stopped. The ship was no longer being tossed by the storm, but was sitting at an odd angle, apparently unmoved by the waves. I looked at Merko and he had a satisfied expression on his face.

  “I take it that I’m not needed anymore,” I said. We were no longer being chased.

  “Stay here. We still have to get out of the storm.”

  After a few hours, where my enhancing was mainly used to position us to take minimal damage from waves, Jerot came to relieve Merk
o. The two of them conferred briefly about where the storm was and both Merko and I left to rest. I slept well in spite of the storm. About an hour before Merko was going to relieve Jerot, I went to the bridge and asked Jerot if he needed enhancing help.

  “What exactly can you do?” Jerot asked.

  “I can make the ship faster in the direction its going. I can change directions slightly.”

  “All right, move her a little to port.”

  I obeyed by taking a piece of the forward motion and using only that. My mother taught me to think of forward motion as two men pushing on the corners of a narrow table. Neither one is directly behind the table, but it moves forward, because the left-hand man pushes forward and a bit to the right, while the right-hand man pushes forward and a bit to the left. If I ignored the motion of the man on the left, the table would move left.

  Jerot gave me a few more commands. He caught on very quickly, and I realized he was better at using my enhancing than Merko was. I almost expected Merko to be angry when he came. Many men don’t like to be bested, and Merko was captain while Jerot was first mate, but Merko just asked if I was helping for about an hour.

  “Yes,” Jerot said. “It’s easy to feel the difference, isn’t it?”

  “Easy for you,” Merko said. “Easy for me. I don’t think most of the men can tell.”

  After Jerot left, I asked Merko to explain what happened the previous day. “You deliberately set the other ship up to run aground, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. Do you feel sorry for them?” he asked.

  “Not very,” I said. “They were chasing us, and by sending four boats of men, it doesn’t seem like it was to invite us to tea.”

  “Hardly.”

  “But how did you know where to coax them to? We were in the middle of a storm and I haven’t seen a sextant here.”

  “I’m a navigator,” Merko replied.

  “What?”

  “A navigator. I got it from my father. If I worship the god Navaro, I can always remember a spot I visited and know which direction it is and have a feel for how far away it is. I nearly crashed into those rocks, oh, seven or eight years ago.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No, because I saw the breakers in time.”

  I knew a section of breaking waves when other waves weren’t breaking meant shallow water. Such a distinction might not be evident in the middle of a storm. “How did you know they wouldn’t see the breakers? There wasn’t a storm before.”

  “I am also a storm watcher. I know about nearby storms and approximately where they are going. We went out of our way to avoid this storm, but I was skirting the edge,” he said.

  “I suppose that you got that from your mother’s god,” I said.

  “Of course,” he said with a smile. “Worshipping two gods is a small price to pay for such skills.”

  Since I worshipped two gods, I understood exactly what he meant.

  CHAPTER 3

  A few days later, while washing our clothes on deck, I asked Roddy if he could tell when I was enhancing the ship.

  “Usually,” he said. “Sometimes I can tell who’s at the helm?”

  “How?”

  “Jerot’s a better seaman,” Roddy explained

  “Why isn’t he captain?” I asked. I realized he made better use of my enhancing, but that might be something different from seamanship.

  “There’s a lot more to being captain than seamanship. Handling men is a large part of it. The Captain was very good at that.”

  Roddy always called my father that. I hadn’t thought about my parents for a couple of hours and felt guilty that I hadn’t. I wondered if I would ever reach the point of talking about them naturally, as Roddy did. Yet when I looked at Roddy, I realized he felt grief too. It wasn’t right to let my parents be forgotten.

  I told Roddy about my conversation with Merko and the magic he used to escape the other ship, while Roddy was filling one of his empty kegs with fresh water, using his rain magic. I did the washing. It was a nice exchange of favors; he gave me the water in return for my labor of washing his clothes as well as my own. I offered to wash anyone else’s clothes, knowing the returns for such favors might help me in the future.

  “I gather you didn’t tell him about your other magic,” Roddy said.

  “Of course not.”

  “You realize they may get angry with you if you take advantage of it,” he warned.

  “I won’t use it carelessly,” I said. “Besides, Merko saved my life and I have a long way to go before I balance that debt.”

  Roddy supplied fresh water for everyone, and no one else seemed to see the need to do Roddy a favor because of it. Only Merko commented, “I suppose you want me to return your passage money.”

  “No,” Roddy said. “I just want you to transfer the debt to Heleen. She’s been nice to me over the years, always having a mug of ale for me at the Tavern and making my favorite dinner when she knew I was coming. I’d like to return the favor.”

  He was misleading Merko. Apparently, Roddy’s favorite dinner was whatever we served, and he paid for his ale, although I served it promptly and cheerfully.

  “You want me to give Heleen money? Or ale?” Merko asked, clearly not expecting an affirmative answer.

  “No, I want her to be able to go home whenever she wants. Just say you owe her passage to a busy port. It doesn’t need to be Ship Town. Whenever she wants it. I don’t need passage, because most captains will put up with me for my rain magic.”

  “Of course,” Merko said. After a pause, he changed the subject. “I now understand why you wanted your kegs back.”

  “An empty keg is useful to me,” Roddy said. “When will we reach Fainting Goat Island?”

  “In a few days,” Merko said.

  Four days later, I was helping Merko move the ship toward Fainting Goat Island. It rose abruptly out of the water as high as the mountains near Ship Town. But he told me not to aim toward it, but east of it. I could see from the waves that the water we avoided was shallow, so I understood the reasons for his directions. Eventually, we came to where we could see two islands. The smaller was Goat Island, and pretty useless, Merko explained. We passed between the two islands into a sheltered area. There was a dock and a tiny spit of land on Fainting Goat Island, but nothing comparable on Goat Island.

  There was another ship at the dock, with the name Manta Ray painted on its side. It was smaller than the Bat Bell but looked like it was fast.

  We came up to the dock, and the sailors, with practiced ease, attached the ship with ropes to the posts there. Roddy was one of the earliest ones off, taking one keg packed with his possessions. A few sailors moved some boxes from the hold, including mine. There was no way I could carry everything in a single load. A few men met the ship and one of them opened one of my boxes and started rifle through it.

  “Hey, that’s mine,” I said.

  “It’s share and share alike here,” he said.

  Angrily, I enhanced the motion of his leg, so he fell, grateful that my mother taught me how to use enhancing to defend myself in a way that caused little harm. Puzzled, he got up and reached for the bag he dropped. “You touch that, and you are going to fall down again,” I said.

  Another man reached for a box, and I made him fall by moving his leg a little more than he intended. One man reached for me and when I used my enhancing to protect myself, others grabbed my stuff. It became a game for them, and I was getting angrier every minute. They realized I wasn’t hurting them and were willing to take the risk. I saw Merko, still onboard, talking to someone from the shore.

  “Help me, Merko,” I cried out. “They’re taking my things.”

  Merko suddenly looked angry and gave a few stern orders. I couldn’t understand why he didn’t notice before. The men obeyed him and carried my things up the trail.

  The trail started as a stairway carved into the rocks. When we were higher than the masts of the ship, it turned into a natural trail, although ste
ps were carved out every now and then. It must have been half an hour before I reached the top. I was tired, and my legs ached from the unaccustomed climb. The last part was another stairway, this time between two walls of rock, leading to a village. The village was dominated by a huge stone house that sprawled around the area near the top of the stairs. There were several cottages scattered around as well.

  The house was built of the same stone as the cliff. I could imagine rocks were brought up to build this house. I realized that calling it a house was inadequate. It was a castle without a moat.

  I never saw a castle, only drawings in books, but I realized it couldn’t be a castle. A castle was a defensive building and this building had wide windows on the ground floor. Invaders would have their choice of entrances, since the windows would be easy to reach. There even was glass and shutters on the windows. Since both the glass and the wood for the shutters had to be imported, it spoke of wealth.

  The entrance led into a huge room with interior stone columns. A woman came up to me. “Heleen?” she asked.

  “I’m Heleen.”

  “I’m Milea,” she said. She was in her mid- or late-twenties and wore a worn, shapeless dress that was too large. She was barefoot, in spite of the cold stone floor. She was tanned with a beautiful complexion and wore her hair in a single braid of curly dark brown hair down her back. “Let me show you to your room.”

  She gestured to her left, saying, “Men’s bedrooms.” Pointing to her right, she said, “The kitchen is behind the tables There’s usually porridge available. We’ll have bread tomorrow if Merko remembered to get flour.” We started up the stone stairs. “All of the second and third floors are also men’s bedrooms.”

  My room was at the end of the corridor on the fourth floor. My boxes were placed outside it.

  “Men aren’t allowed in your room. You are free to go into theirs, but if you do they will have certain expectations. Lina’s room is here and Amapola’s here,” she said, pointing to the rooms across from mine and next to mine. She left.

  I unpacked a few things and shoved my boxes into the corner. I wanted to start earning my keep and went downstairs, where there was a large fire in the fireplace. I used it to gently warm the stone floor in the room. Doing too much would crack the stones. Milea was in the kitchen supervising five young women making the meal. They were chatting until I came. The conversation stopped.