Saturdays at Sea

by Jessica Day George

  “But the Castle loves me best,” she said, and it sounded feeble in her own ears.

  “That doesn’t mean you have to save everyone every time. The worst part is when you do have the answer and they won’t listen to you, because you’re the youngest.”

  She put her hands on her face. “I thought no one noticed that but me,” she said.

  “It’s just the same as everyone assuming I would be a blacksmith, without even asking me,” Pogue told her. “That’s why I noticed.”

  She nodded. They’d talked about this before.

  “Even when I was knighted, it was just . . . it was like it was a game. My family treated it like a passing fancy, like the next morning I’d be back in the forge, and my knighthood would be gone.” He drew in a deep breath. “But at the same time they were different around me. My little sisters . . . they all curtsied to me at breakfast. That’s why I moved into rooms at the Castle. It was too strange. They believed that I was a knight and that I was the same old Pogue, all at once.”

  “And my family treats me like a child and like a sage who can decipher all the Castle’s whims at the same time,” Celie said.

  “Exactly,” Pogue said. “It’s not easy to be two things at once to your family.”

  “If they’re going to make me solve the problem of the Ship,” Celie said, “then they should treat me like an adult.” She was aware of how childish that sounded, and blushed.

  “Exactly.”

  “So, what do I do?”

  Pogue put his hands in his pockets.

  “You don’t know, either?” She sagged.

  “No,” he said ruefully. “But it just feels good to be able to say it aloud to someone.”

  “There is that,” Celie agreed. She sighed. “It looks like I’ll be finding out what the Ship wants. Because I want to know, too!”

  “Well, we all want to know,” Pogue said. “And the truth of the matter is that you’ll have better luck than anyone else. You’re more tuned in to the Ship and the Castle, even though your father is the king and your sister owns the Ship.”

  “Just promise me one thing,” Celie said, her heart pounding a little, though she wasn’t sure why.

  “Of course.”

  “Whatever solution I come up with, or whatever I discover, you have to back me up.”

  “Of course—”

  She held up a hand to stop him. “No, seriously, Pogue. Promise me. If I say that the Ship wants us to swim back to Grath, you have to support me in that. If I say we’re really going to find unicorns, you have to support me. No matter how crazy it sounds, or how dangerous.”

  Pogue thought for a moment, then nodded. “I promise. I’ll support you. I believe in you,” he told her.

  A rosy glow started in her toes and spread up her entire body. “Thank you,” she choked out, and fled to the bow.

  In the bow of the ship, leaning over the rail just above the figurehead, Celie felt the wind snap through her hair. She was tired and hungry and disheveled, but she needed to think.

  What did the Ship want?

  What if all the unicorns were dead?

  And what about Pogue? What if he was just humoring her? What if she told him a plan, or something she’d learned, and he laughed? What if he was just trying to get her to confide in him, but as soon as she did, he would carry tales back to Rolf, or worse—her mother?

  “Stupid,” she said aloud. “You’re the one who made him promise!”

  She pushed those thoughts aside and made herself think about the Ship instead. Then she decided to talk aloud to the Ship. It always helped her think; maybe it would make the Ship think, too.

  “They told us the unicorns are all dead,” she said, and she imagined her words going straight into the ears of the griffin figurehead. “The last one died years ago, in NeiMai, where we just were.

  “So, where are we going? Are we going to Larien? Are we going to see if any unicorns are left?”

  The Ship didn’t reply. It just surged on. The wind brought tears to her eyes, much as riding Rufus did. Celie didn’t have any frame of reference for how fast a ship could sail, but according to Orlath, this was the fastest one he’d ever sailed on. Now that they were back on board with the sails unfurled and the anchor drawn up, it had picked up speed again. Indeed, Celie thought they were going even faster now.

  “What’s the hurry?”

  “Well, it’s dinnertime,” Rolf said at her elbow.

  Celie nearly fell headfirst off the Ship.

  “Whoa!” Rolf grabbed her elbows and pulled her back. “Sorry!”

  “Don’t sneak up on me!”

  “I wasn’t trying to,” he protested. “But anyway: dinnertime.”

  Grumbling, Celie followed her brother across the deck to the stairs below.

  “So,” he said when they were almost there, “you were talking to the Ship?”

  “Yes,” she muttered.

  She couldn’t tell if he was making fun of her or not. After her conversation with Pogue, she was still feeling very sensitive about how her family treated her. Maybe she’d been overreacting, but maybe not.

  “Did it answer?”

  Again, she couldn’t decide whether he was poking fun.

  “No,” she said, curt.

  The Ship shivered as they went down the stairs. Celie and Rolf had to clutch at the rope nailed along the wall for a railing to avoid falling down. When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Rolf looked at her.

  “What do you think that was?”

  “We changed direction,” she said.

  “Did we?”

  Celie nodded. She had always had a keen sense of direction, which was one of the reasons why she never got lost in the Castle. The Ship had been going southeast before.

  “We’re going due south now,” she told Rolf.

  Orlath came out of the main cabin, where they ate. “We’re going south,” he said. His tanned face was pale in the lamplight.

  “That’s very bad,” he told them.

  Chapter

  17

  Celie and her family ended up eating dinner standing on the rear deck next to the Ship’s wheel. While they all ate awkwardly, standing up, Orlath used the Ship’s instruments to confirm that they were indeed headed south. Not southeast or southwest, but due south.

  Pogue and Lulath took turns trying to move the wheel, but it was still stuck fast. The Ship had set a new course, and would not be deterred.

  “But what is to the south?” Queen Celina asked. She wrinkled her brow, thinking. “I can think of nothing on the maps. Just more water.”

  “Larien is southeast,” Orlath said. He spoke mostly in Grathian now, and Celie wasn’t sure if this was a compliment to how well they’d learned the language, or a sign that he was too upset to try speaking Sleynth. “And if we were to aim the Ship southwest, it is a long distance, but after some months we would arrive in Xath.”

  “What’s that?” Pogue asked.

  “A vast and rather hostile continent,” he told them. “Xath is where my little Jocko is from. They have many creatures that you have doubtless never heard of, and trees that darken the sky, they reach so far toward the sun. But the people do not take kindly to visitors, and we would run out of supplies long before we reached it.”

  “But due south?” Queen Celina pressed.

  “Due south there is nothing but the Well,” Orlath said grimly.

  “What well?” the queen asked.

  “The Well,” Orlath said—and by the emphasis Celie could tell that it was capitalized, at least in Orlath’s mind—“is a great vortex of water through which no ship can pass.”

  “The Great Whirlpool?” Rolf said, his eyes wide. “Are you talking about the Great Whirlpool?”

  “Oh, the very, no,” Lulath whispered.

  “A whirlpool?” Pogue asked. “You mean . . . ?” He took his hands off the Ship’s wheel, which was holding fast anyway, and described a circle in the air with his hands.

  “Exac
tly, Sir Pogue,” Orlath said. “A great swirl of water that sucks down any ship hapless enough to come near it. Most whirlpools are caused by a few rocks, and are easy enough to avoid. They occur at the base of cliffs, usually.

  “But the Well, or the Great Whirlpool, is in the middle of the ocean. There are no rocks, no land nearby, nothing that would seem to cause it. It’s five times larger than any other known whirlpool, and the waters for miles around draw you in. If you’re close enough to see it, you cannot turn back.”

  “And that’s where we’re going?” Lilah asked, her horrified expression perfectly mirroring what Celie felt was on her own face. “How soon will we get there?”

  Orlath spread out his hands and looked at them. “Two weeks? Three?” he said. “I’ve never been; only heard tales from those rare survivors—men who jumped from their ships and swam away when the Well had their vessels in its pull. And our Ship is going so much faster than any other ship I’ve sailed on. What is four weeks for another ship will be three for this one.”

  “So it’s all right to start to panic now?” Rolf said.

  “I can’t believe the Ship would do this,” Lilah said faintly.

  “I am believing it not,” Lulath said stoutly. “I am believing that there is some planning, some thing in its workings, that we cannot see with our little eyes.”

  “What did you say to the Ship?” Rolf asked Celie.

  “What? I—” Celie looked for a place to put her empty plate down. “What do you mean?”

  “You were talking to the Ship when I came to fetch you for dinner,” Rolf persisted. “What did you say to it?”

  Everyone was looking at Celie, who was starting to wish she hadn’t scarfed down all that food just now. Was this her fault? Had the Ship decided that it was worthless now that the unicorns were dead? Behind Rolf, Pogue was still standing at the wheel. He gave her an encouraging nod.

  “Well,” she said. “I just went to the bow to talk to the Ship . . . after Lilah told me to find out what the Ship wanted,” she couldn’t help adding. “And I was saying to the Ship that we didn’t know where we were going, and that someone had told us the unicorns were all dead.”

  Lilah gasped, but the others all looked thoughtful.

  “And then the Ship changed course?” Queen Celina asked, as though it were a magical problem she was solving.

  “Not then,” Celie said. “When we walked below deck.”

  “That was only about two minutes later,” Rolf pointed out. Then he held up his hands, defensive, as both Pogue and Celie gave him sharp looks. “I’m just trying to make sure we have all the information,” he protested.

  “You think the Ship is so despondent now that it’s trying to . . . destroy itself?” Lilah asked shrilly.

  “No,” Queen Celina said. “I don’t think it thinks that way. But perhaps . . . Hmm.”

  “Perhaps what?” Rolf asked. “We have to turn this thing around so that we don’t die.”

  Queen Celina tipped her head back and forth. “I’d like to see the atlas, Orlath,” she said. “I want you to mark the entire area where the Well might be. And then I want you to mark our course from Grath to this very minute.”

  “Of course, Your Majesty,” he said. He looked at the wheel, then shrugged and said to Pogue, “You can keep trying if you like, but it’s probably useless.”

  Pogue agreed. “I think I’ll groom Arrow and get him to bed early,” he said. “That was quite a stressful day for the griffins.”

  “I’d better get to Rufus,” Celie agreed.

  “No, you don’t,” Queen Celina said, hooking her arm. “You come with me. I want you to see this, too, so that the next time you talk to the Ship, you have a better idea of what to say.”

  “I’ll groom Rufus,” Pogue offered.

  Everyone scattered to tackle their various tasks. Celie found herself looking at maps and charts in Orlath’s cabin with her mother and Orlath, which she normally would have enjoyed. But right now she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was in trouble. At first this made her embarrassed, but then she started to get angry.

  “What did I do?” she asked her mother at last. “I just did what Lilah told me to do,” she said, answering her own question.

  “What are you talking about, darling?” Queen Celina said, looking up with a startled expression.

  She was helping Orlath use some cartographer’s brass implements to draw a circle around the area that might hold the Well. It was very large.

  “Lilah told me to find out where the Ship was going, and what it planned, so I talked to it, it changed course, and now everyone’s mad at me. But it’s not my fault! I didn’t know this would happen!”

  “Of course it’s not your fault, darling,” Queen Celina said. She put down her pencil and stroked Celie’s cheek. “No one’s mad at you!”

  Celie raised her eyebrows.

  Orlath put down his ruler. “I shall leave to let you talk about this,” he said, and Celie’s heart sank, but then he added, “However, I would first like to say that I am not mad, and I don’t think anyone else is, either. Lulath’s letters are always full of praise for your whole family, and of course, poems to Lilah’s beauty, but also full of compliments to your boldness and intelligence, Celie. The moment the Ship left harbor of its own whim, I thought at once, at least Celie is on board!

  “We will be well.” He squeezed her shoulder and then went out.

  “Will we?” Celie said, feeling a little breathless. She was both flattered and concerned now: people really were thinking that she would save them, that she had all the answers.

  “No one is angry,” her mother said. “They’re frightened. Very frightened.” She rubbed her eyes. “I don’t think I’ve slept the night through since we started on this journey.

  “We’ve never known where the Ship was taking us,” Queen Celina reminded Celie. “We’re only assuming that we’re going to Larien, because of Lilah’s obsession with unicorns. The Ship may have planned to take us to the Well the entire time. We don’t know. It’s convenient to say ‘Celie to talked the Ship and now we’ve turned onto a more dangerous course,’ but if anyone is blaming you, they’re only doing it because they’re being foolish, or are simply too terrified to think clearly.”

  She took Celie’s hands in her own. “You’ve grown up so much in the past two years,” she said. “When we came home from that ordeal, being injured and lost, and finding the Castle under siege with you inside it . . . seeing you leap off the wall.” Queen Celina shuddered. “Well, I think that’s when Daddy and I both realized that you weren’t a little girl anymore, and that you really did have a special bond with the Castle. But it’s just so hard to reconcile that young woman fighting for her home and her family with that little girl, always dusty and mussed from climbing around old storerooms.”

  “And finding figureheads for ships in them,” Celie reminded her mother, but not because she was angry. She was a little tearful, to be honest.

  “That’s right. You’re always doing something astonishing,” Queen Celina said, and hugged her. “But you don’t have to solve all our problems, Celie, darling. That’s not your job. We’ll work this out together.”

  “Then what is my job?” Celie couldn’t help but ask. She wanted to be solving their problems. She wanted to be doing something.

  “To just be Celie,” her mother said, giving her another hug. Then she looked at the clock on the wall. “And for right now, to go to bed! I shouldn’t have kept you so long.”

  “But won’t you show me more of the maps first?” Celie wheedled.

  “Of course, darling,” her mother said, shaking her head as though to clear it. “You have such a gift with them. That’s why I wanted you to have a look.”

  Queen Celina showed Celie the map of the vast emptiness they were sailing through. At the top was Grath, and then not very far from Grath on the map was the Neira Isles. It was disheartening to think that they had sailed for two weeks in the very fast Ship to reach
islands that were only a couple of inches away. Larien was much, much farther from Neira than Neira was from Grath, and so was the Well, but according to the lines they had just drawn, they were headed straight to the Well. If they began to bear west, however, they would go around the Well and be able to reach Xath eventually.

  “The map isn’t accurate in regard to Xath,” Queen Celina told her. “So few ships sail there that Orlath said the distance may be greater or perhaps closer. It also depends on the course you take to avoid the Well.”

  “But we might not be able to avoid the Well,” Celie pointed out.

  “True; for right now we are headed straight toward it. But we do have quite a bit of time to turn in either direction. Apparently most captains prefer to change course immediately after the Neira Isles. Perhaps the Ship knows that it can cut it a little closer.”

  “Do you think the Ship wants to . . . kill itself? And us, too?”

  “Oh, my darling, no!” Queen Celina said, holding Celie close. “I don’t think the Ship thinks that way, if it really is doing what we would call ‘thinking.’ From what I’ve studied and learned about magic, it’s probably a very complicated sort of spell in every material that sort of works together, but I don’t know that it can really think.” Her mother smiled and shook her head.

  Celie was almost entirely certain her mother was wrong. The Castle could think. The Castle moved things—rooms, furniture—and it did it with good reason. It had provided a place for Celie and Lilah to hide during Khelsh’s awful occupation. It had guided Celie right to Rufus’s egg, and helped her keep Rufus a secret until she was ready to show him to everyone. It had waited to get rid of Arkwright until the Glowers had closed all the secret passages built by the Arkish invaders.

  The Castle could think.

  Which meant the Ship could think, most likely. Which meant there was a very good chance that the Ship was headed straight for the Well, and only it knew why.

  There was nothing they could do.

  Chapter

  18

  In the morning there was excellent news: a Grathian ship had been sighted. It was coming from the southeast—from Larien, most likely. Orlath had someone in the crow’s nest signaling with small flags by the time Celie was up and dressed.