by Annet Schaap
Crow, who is at the top of the mast, has almost given up. He can’t see anyone or anything. Or can he? Is that someone swimming out there?
“Hey?” he says. And then he shouts it: “Hey!” And then: “Hey! Captain!”
“Can you see her?” Buck himself is standing on the lookout on the other side of the ship, shielding his eyes from the sun.
“No, not her. But I thought for a moment that…”
“Keep looking, man. It’s getting so dark.”
“I…I thought I saw a mermaid. Could that be?”
“No, they never come around here. So no, it’s not a mermaid. Keep looking!”
“But I really did think that I…Yes, there it is again. I think it’s a young one. Look, Captain, over there! Look! She’s waving!”
rock
The rock has been there ever since the sea once bit a big chunk out of the land. It sits right in the middle of that bite, as if there was a small piece the sea did not like.
It is an awkward thing. Nothing will grow on it: it is too small and too far away for a fort or a tower. Seals often lie sunbathing there. Sometimes a ship smashes into it. And now there is a little dead girl lying on it.
At least, that is what the little girl herself thinks. Because her eyes are closed and yet she can still see everything.
She sees the fairground train, winding its way through the land like a long snake, with her friends at every window: Oswald, Lanky Lester, Olga and Olga, and also a very angry Earl.
She sees the admiral at the open window, Miss Amalia alone in her room, Mr. Rosewood on the bench in front of his shop in the evening sunshine.
She sees the lighthouse with a wide-open door, with planks dangling from rusty nails. Where a red-faced sheriff is questioning the neighbor, who is smiling and pointing into the distance.
She sees Martha with her suitcase, sitting on a post at the harbor. Lenny is sitting on the ground beside her, with the dogs resting their heads on his lap. They are looking out over the sea, as if they are waiting for something.
She can see the White Cliffs in the distance, where the mermaids are on the lookout for their Nephew Neverseen, who has read every book there is to read and so knows everything, and yet knows nothing at all.
And much closer, in his hut, she sees Nick, and in his hands a bottle with a string hanging out of its neck. He gently tugs the string and, inside the bottle, the sails of a tiny ship slowly rise. They are black, and a flag the size of your little fingernail is flying from the mast, bearing a skull and crossbones.
“Look,” says Nick. “Here she is.”
Lampie looks—and she sees her mother. She is as good as new, with her long black hair tied up with a piece of string.
Hello, Mother.
Hello, my sweet child.
I really must be dead this time.
Is that what you want?
I don’t know, says Lampie. I don’t think I was finished. Or was I?
That’s not my decision to make, says her mother. But I don’t think it makes any difference anyway, whether you were finished or not.
It’s so good to see you. Lampie can’t take her eyes off her mother. You went away.
No, I didn’t. I was here all along.
Where is here?
Here, everywhere.
Oh. But not with me.
Yes, with you. Always. You just have to open your eyes.
Lampie does not like that thought. But then I won’t see you.
Oh, but you will. Just do it.
Through her eyelashes, Lampie can see how bright it all is. Through a hole in the clouds, the sun shines into the water, turning everything around her into gold. Moving gold, splashing gold.
So I am dead, she thinks. Because this must be what Heaven looks like.
You’re in such a hurry, says her mother. It’s just water. Look! There’s a boat sailing this way.
She’s right. There really is a ship coming, a big ship with dark sails and a flag with a skull and crossbones.
Look, says her mother. The Black Em is coming to fetch you.
The Black M…What is that? murmurs Lampie.
She can tell from the sound of her mother’s voice that she is smiling all over her face. The Black Em? she says. That’s me.
the Black Em
To sail out in the middle of a storm—well, the storm has died down now, but the wind is still blowing in gusts—and to moor a wooden ship so close to a rock that a man can jump down onto it from the deck, and without knocking any holes in the bow—that calls for a very skilled sailor. But Augustus is rising to the challenge. He feels a little rusty, but he is quickly getting the hang of it again.
Lampie is scared half to death when two big boots suddenly land next to her head, when big hands grab her under the armpits, and big eyes look at her from a bearded face, as if he has been waiting for her all his life. Even though she has never seen him before.
“Cannons and cholera!” says Captain Buck. “You look so much like her.”
“Um…Like who?” Lampie asks.
“Like Em. Like your mother.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yes.” Pirate Captain Buck gives her a grin, showing the gaps in his teeth. Then he swings her over his shoulder and climbs back on board. “You’ve got red hair instead of black, but otherwise I’d think she was all mine again.”
“I belong to myself,” mutters Lampie.
“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean,” says Captain Buck with a sigh.
He stands her on the deck, on her own two feet. A pirate in a dress wraps a blanket around her and plants a kiss on the top of her head.
“Julie!” says Lampie with a smile. “Are all of you here? The dwarf too, and Lester and…”
“No,” says Jules. “It’s just me.”
“And us! We’re here too!” More pirates come and stand around her. She recognizes faces and remembers names. Bill gives her some ointment for her scraped knees, and Crow brings her some dry clothes, which are far too big. But all the time she keeps sneaking glances at the helm.
He was the first thing she spotted. And he has seen her too.
Sometimes when you really, really want something for a very long time and then you finally get it, a sort of silence descends, a moment of stillness when no one knows what to do.
Lampie has imagined so often what she would say and—well, there he is. He is a bit balder than she remembers and has a lot more beard. And there is that leg, of course, and the way he is standing at the helm—that’s new too.
Buck takes the wheel from him, and Augustus walks over to her. They rest their hands side by side on the rail. The wind blows in their hair.
“There you are,” says her father after a while.
Lampie nods. Yes, here she is.
“I’ve thought about you so, so much,” Augustus mumbles. “All those days, every day. And…”
Yes. Lampie nods again. She has thought about him too. And yes, here they are.
“You know, you really do look like your mother.”
Lampie nods a third time. “Yes, everyone says that.”
Inside her head she hears her mother sigh. Come on. Out with it!
Out with what? What is she supposed to say?
Not you, says her mother. Him.
“This is our old ship,” Augustus says, taking in the whole boat in a sweeping gesture.
“Yes,” says Lampie. “It’s nice.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Very nice,” says Lampie, looking out across the sea. What could be better than sailing, than going wherever you want to go? And plundering, because that is what it will come down to. Sleeping in hammocks. Seeing foreign countries. Turning brown all over.
“I can teach you to tie knots. And to sail the ship, when your arms are a
bit longer. Or, um…maybe you could cook for us?”
“Definitely not.” Lampie has absolutely no wish to do that.
“That’s a shame. We don’t have a cook, so we’ll have to get by on ship’s biscuits.”
“I might know someone,” says Lampie. “If she wants to do it. And if Lenny can come too. If he’s brave enough.”
She thinks he will be. If Lampie is there too.
“Maybe. Your mother never cooked either.”
Yes, Lampie remembers that very well.
Her father looks at the horizon again, where the last remaining bit of the sun is sinking into the sea. “I, um…” he says, and then he clears his throat a few times. “I really, really miss her.”
“Me too,” says Lampie. “But sometimes she’s still here.”
“What do you mean?” Her father looks at her in surprise.
“I hear her talking inside my head.”
“Em? Seriously? So what’s she saying now?”
“That she wants you to get a move on.”
“Me? What with?”
Lampie shrugs. “I don’t exactly know.”
Augustus looks into the distance and thinks. Then he nods and looks at Lampie with that expression she knows so well. But he doesn’t say anything.
He’s sorry, thinks Lampie. But he can’t say so. Doesn’t matter.
And then a young merman leaps out of the water.
“Lampie, there you are! They found you! But I was the one who rescued you—did you know that?”
“Fish!” shouts Lampie. “Hey, Fish! Do you know what? I’m going to be a pirate. Just like my father!”
“Is that him?”
Lampie nods and looks a little proudly at the man with the wooden leg.
“Hello, sir,” says the young merman politely, leaping out of the water.
Augustus nods. “Hello. Yes. Hey, I’m sorry.”
“Um…What do you mean, sir?” asks Fish. Panting, because he is having to swim quickly to keep up.
“Not you. Her,” says Augustus. “I’m sorry.” He rests his hand on her cheek, where the blue has long since faded. “About everything. Really sorry.”
Lampie gives him a big grin. The water stretches out behind her father in every direction. They can do anything, go anywhere.
“It’s fine, Daddy,” she says. And so it is.