The House Lost at Sea

by R. J. Blain

  I knew her well.

  I’d always known the love of Captain Louisa’s life had found her way to the bottom of the sea, too, although it’d taken her and her crew, including my beloved Ricardo, a lot longer to get there. I had heard of her disappearance, and I both cursed and blessed the day the ocean had gotten revenge on my behalf.

  I’d mostly cursed the day I’d learned Ricardo had drowned along with the pirate queen who’d ruined us all.

  The two frigates made by the same hand and carved from the same trees had set sail on the same tide for different waters. They differed in but one way, the proud figurehead gracing their bows.

  Captain Louisa had chosen a mermaid, an enchantress of the seas and potential doom or savior of sailors.

  Captain Maritza had chosen a sea serpent, so similar to the one decorating my flintlock it hurt, and unlike the rest of the ship, it had endured, its every golden curve shining in the light.

  The sea serpent mocked me, an eternal reminder Captain Maritza knew exactly what she had that I cherished. The figurehead hadn’t protected my Ricardo from death. Time would have come for him eventually, but my cursed heart insisted on dreaming about what might had been if only things had been a little different.

  “Behold,” Benny announced, spinning on a heel and sweeping his hat out to take in the entire room, large enough to showcase the frigate and its bounty, scavenged from the ocean’s depths. “The Terrier sank off the coast of New York in 1714 during a storm; witnesses declared her a ghost ship, devoid of crew, adrift and left to sink. One such accounting, discovered in the journal of a British sailor, claims the Terrier and her crew, captained by the Black Scourge, one Maritza Ludovici of Venice, had been spotted in deeper waters, alive and well. No one knows what became of those on board. When the shipwreck was discovered five years ago, there were no signs of combat, nor were there any skeletons discovered on the ship, which was, as you can see, remarkably intact. The crew’s possessions remained on board, making it one of the best preserved pirate shipwrecks of our time.”

  The crowd gaped at the ship and hung to Benny’s every word as he launched into a speech about the ship’s recovery, the work involved raising her from the deeps, and the restorations done to preserve her for future generations. I stared, too, my gaze fixed on the serpent figurehead, a warning of the Black Scourge’s treachery and her love of gold.

  I wondered what would have happened if Captain Maritza's love for my captain had surpassed her fondness for wealth. When had the scales tipped out of my captain’s favor?

  More than three hundred years separated me from my first meeting with the Black Scourge and the day she had, out of love for my captain, cursed me with the ocean’s blessing.

  With her dark eyes harder than any stone and more turbulent than any sea I’d ever sailed, she had stared at me. I could have sworn she saw into the depths of my soul, and in her voice, I had heard the pounding of the surf on the shore.

  With her words, she had cursed me to serve my captain well, to the ends of the Earth and all eternity if I must.

  There was no one left for me to serve, but still I lived. When I succumbed to the ocean’s call, I hunted the waters for what I would never find.

  I left Benny to regale the crowd with tales of the Black Scourge and her crew, abandoning his side to circle the frigate. Old cannonball scars marred the ship’s right side, deep enough to leave their mark without compromising her ability to float.

  I’d witnessed the ship’s acquisition of those scars for myself during one of the rare times the pirate queens had shared the waters against a common foe, the British fleets—the same fleets who had later hunted the Calico down and riddled her with holes, boarded her, and ultimately sank her.

  Every last item from the Terrier filled display cases around the room. The floors were modeled to represent coral reefs and the deep sea, covered in layers upon layers of epoxy, tricking my eyes into believing the entire museum would heave under me like swelling waves. The items closest to the door proved to be mundane, everyday tools a sailor needed to keep his ship afloat.

  Step by step, I circled the room, taking in the Black Scourge’s many treasures with an almost morbid fascination. Everything had a name and a purpose, and most of them the historians had even gotten right. I understood Benny’s shock at my pocket watch; those a match for mine filled a case, although the sea had eaten away at them after so many years underwater. I’d forgotten that; like their ships, our captains had insisted their permanent crew share the same watch, a symbol of the promises made between the two pirate queens.

  I couldn’t even remember the promise, only that the Black Scourge had betrayed us a mere year before we—both captains and both crews—would have retired from piracy altogether. My beloved Captain Louisa had looked forward to taking us to the house perched high on a cliff overlooking the sea, hidden in deep waters off the beaten path, an island so small and unremarkable I doubted anyone paid it any mind. It didn’t have a name, and the last time I’d looked over a chart of the oceans in its area, no one had bothered marking its presence.

  Sometimes, when I had nothing else to do and the sea’s call was too strong to resist, I left my home, walked to the shore, and slipped into the surf. Over the years, I’d learned if I stayed within a hundred feet from shore, I wouldn’t succumb to the curse. Beyond, I struggled to avoid exchanging frail, human flesh for the sandpaper-rough hide of a shark.

  The coincidence of a woman cursed to transform into a man-eating tiger shark serving on board a frigate christened the Calico had not been lost to me even then. It had been over a hundred years since I’d bitten someone, and almost two hundred since I’d killed someone.

  Captain Louisa had promised she’d find a way to undo what the Black Scourge had done, but that hadn’t stopped the pirate queens from enjoying each other’s company. In those early days, I’d spent a lot of time as a shark, taking out my fury over being discarded on the keel of Captain Louisa’s beloved Calico.

  In the same breath she’d promised to find a way to break my curse, she’d told me I’d deserved it for taking Ricardo, making him mine for a few months, and refusing to give him back without a fight. That had been the first time I’d lacked faith in my captain.

  She viewed my cursed state as a suitable punishment for what she considered to be a betrayal. Ricardo hadn’t even been part of our crew. But no, because Captain Maritza had dallied with Captain Louisa, I’d betrayed them both by taking one of the men. No, worse. To them, I’d weakened the bond between the rival pirate queen and her navigator.

  It wasn’t like I’d stolen Ricardo because of his skills with a map and reading the stars. He’d caught my eye, dared to be intelligent, and had flirted with me.

  I’d viewed that as all the invitation I needed to make off with him and make him mine. I’d even made him like it.

  We’d both resented our need to return to our crews and the sea.

  The resulting fight had cost my captain two weeks in port repairing bite holes in the Calico’s hull, so the bilge wouldn’t flood more than it was supposed to. In retrospect, I should have swam for deeper waters to freedom instead of circling the pirate ship, waiting to see if anyone was stupid enough to come within my reach.

  I’d left marks on the Terrier, too, though not enough to delay the Black Scourge’s return to the sea.

  I found Captain Maritza's possessions at the very back of the room. Fashioned from pure gold, her pocket watch had endured exposure to the sea with little damage on the exterior, and I wondered if its gears could be resurrected from the dead. Unlike mine, which was fashioned of silver with golden inlays, hers was as perfect as the day it’d been crafted, and my captain’s mermaid decorated its cap.

  Her sea serpent decorated mine. Somewhere in the deep sea, it decorated my captain’s watch, too. In the case, beside Captain Maritza's watch, the decrepit ruins of her flintlock rested on a bed of velvet, its gold inlays the only survivor of time and exposure to saltwater. The rest of i
t vaguely resembled the shape of a pistol. The state of her cutlass pained me; once a piece worthy of pride, it too had fallen into a state of ruin, its blade pitted and its hilt reduced to scrap, leaving the onyx pommel stone and the gold wires forming its guard as mementos of its glory.

  Her personal keepsakes littered the display surrounding the watch, the pistol, and cutlass, including a necklace plundered from a British merchant and a promise ring gifted to her by my captain. Among the string of pearls, the rusted keys from the ship’s treasure chests, and the coins from her stash, a flash of gold caught my eye.

  I sucked in a breath, peering closer for another look. I recognized the key and its chain; the other half rested at the bottom of the ocean, clutched in my captain’s hand even as the life fled her body. Combined, they would have opened every door in the house they’d built far off the coast of South Africa, trapped somewhere between the Old and New World. The island and its neighbors weren’t a part of any storied history, thus were lost to time.

  My captain had meant to call it home, but I had given it another name, a title as frivolous and idiotic as many of the ones foisted upon us: The House Lost at Sea.

  It ranked as one of the dumber names I’d given to something. The house was hardly lost, for starters. I knew exactly where it was, and no matter how far I roamed, I could find my way back to it. If I entered the ocean in New York, I’d be able to find my way south and east through the deeps without error. In the years between leading false lives, before the government’s surveillance had made disappearing far more difficult, I’d made the journey from Britain, arriving months later without losing my way once.

  I’d thought the key lost, and I’d only visited the island long enough to leave the treasures of my long life hidden in the caves of a neighboring isle.

  “It’s quite remarkable, isn’t it?” Benny murmured, leaning over to peer at the evidence of Captain Maritza the Black Scourge’s existence. “In the next few weeks, I’ll be adding her signet ring to the collection. There’s still a great deal being inventoried, restored, and prepared for the museum. What do you think?”

  What did I think? I turned and stared at the stern of the Terrier rising high overhead, the rotten boards gleaming with some clear substance preserving it from further decay. The ship alone surpassed my ability to comprehend its presence in the museum.

  To know the location of Captain Maritza's half of the key, which led to the pair’s greatest treasure of all, astounded me so much I couldn’t find a single word to express myself. I settled with a shrug, turning to look over the wealth of an age long past.

  The pirate queens had never made names for themselves in the way Edward Teach and so many others had, but they had left their mark on the world all the same.

  “Nothing impresses you, does it?” my friend asked, his tone wry.

  “Oh, I’m impressed,” I corrected, taking off my hat and spinning around my finger to take in the room with a single gesture. “This is a marvel unlike any I’ve ever seen. You have outdone yourself, Benjamin Allen.”

  What I wanted to know was why, and how, someone who had presented himself as dumb but sweet for so many years could hide something as magnificent as raising a sunken ship from the depths of the sea and preserving it for the world to see.

  For a few minutes, pirates once again ruled the seas, and the urge to set sail sang in my blood. But first, I needed both halves of one little golden key. One I would have to lift right out from under my friend’s nose.

  The other I would have to delve into the deeps and retrieve from my captain’s cold, dead hand, long since turned to bone.

  Five

  Living with the curse would be easier if I didn’t have to carry quite as many burdens around with me.

  Beers, cookies, and dinner stood between me and my plans to return to the House Lost at Sea, so I could close the book on my age of piracy once and for all. Without the final mystery of the house lurking in my memories, there would be nothing left binding me to either pirate queen. I could toss them aside and live with only my regrets of losing Ricardo. Maybe one day, I could move beyond him, too.

  Resolving the house’s mystery wouldn’t break the curse, but I doubted anything would.

  And so, I was punished for daring to love someone other than my captain.

  If I made all of the right moves, I might gain a different sort of freedom, one I hadn’t realized I lacked until I saw the reminders of the pirate queens’ alliance hiding within the display case, scattered among other treasures classifying as knick-knacks in the grand scheme of the Black Scourge’s plunders and wealth.

  I didn’t have to live with the pirate queens and their long story of love, loss, and betrayal. If I acquired the key, if I returned to the home that should have belonged to all of us, I could be free of them.

  Living with the curse would be easier if I didn’t have to carry quite as many burdens around with me.

  The room held many treasures, but the key should have been the star, the showcased treasure of the exhibit alongside the Terrier.

  Somewhere in the museum, a clock tolled the midnight hour. I stifled a yawn, watched the sleepy-eyed crowd still admiring the ship and mingling, and contemplated ways to torture Benny for having pulled so much wool over my eyes. Gone was the lighthearted, sweet man I’d met through work, who had been more than happy to let me rub his pennies together and turn them into serious money, even for a multi-millionaire. He’d played to perfection the role of a man smart enough to understand his fortunes were better off in the hands of someone like me.

  I wouldn’t underestimate him again.

  I wouldn’t underestimate Bensen, either, who verbally sparred with Benny at every opportunity. They made an unusual pair, their easy-going affection at odds with the challenge in their posture and sharp words.

  In a way, they reminded me of the Calico’s crew. As First Mate, second only to Captain Louisa, it had been my job to keep the general riffraff in line. Even when I’d spent weeks as a shark, circling the ship in harbor and at the early stages of the voyage, I’d served my role.

  It’d taken one foray against a British ship to prove my worth and reinforce our captain’s place as the leader. After the skirmish, during which she’d captured a handful of enemies while plundering and scuttling their vessel, she had made them walk the plank. I didn’t remember much of it, except she’d cut them so their blood seeped into the sea, and I’d torn them apart within moments of them hitting the water.

  I had a lot more reasons to hate my captain than love her, but I’d loved her all the same.

  After her demonstration, Captain Louisa had put the crew to work fishing, tossing me the bounty of their catch, probably to keep me from wandering too far. The crew of the Calico learned a very valuable lesson: obey the rules or walk the plank. For those she wanted to survive to tell the tale, she offered hooks, line, and bait. Feeding the hungry First Mate Catalina de la Corona did a lot to prevent those who went overboard from being unnecessarily eaten.

  I toyed with those who fed me when they fell overboard, nosed them through the rolling waves, and otherwise scared the piss out of them before returning them to the Calico alive and in possession of all their limbs.

  In time, the crew had learned to trust me with their lives if they fell into the water, especially after the captain convinced me to haul my ass back on board where I belonged. We’d argued over that, with her screeching like some fisher’s wife on the wharf while I slapped water at the Calico in open defiance.

  On any other ship, I would’ve been the one walking the plank.

  I wondered if the Terrier’s crew had someone cursed like me, and if they did, what had happened to him. Unlike my captain, the Black Scourge allowed no women on board, marooning those who attempted to sneak into the ranks. I suspected Captain Maritza couldn’t tolerate the thought of anyone competing for Captain Louisa’s affections. After my months with Ricardo, I’d only seen him again as a distant figure aboard the rival ship, and I’
d never been invited on to the Terrier when he might be around.

  Yet another punishment for my actions.

  Some days, I regretted I hadn’t sunk the ship of my captain’s lover, plucking Ricardo from the waves, and making off with him. I’d been branded a traitor for wanting him, but I’d stayed loyal until the bitter end.

  I regretted that choice, as it had cost me everything.

  Damn it all. Making off with a man on shore leave wasn’t even a real betrayal anyway, and if Captain Maritza hadn’t wanted him out of sight, she shouldn’t have left him where I could take him at my leisure.

  “I owe you a few beers,” Benny announced, whipping off his hat and dipping into a bow. By some miracle, his wig stayed in place. “Why don’t we take your car? There’s a pub the next town over you’ll appreciate more than the dive here.”

  Bensen crept up behind Benny and, with a wicked grin, cleared his throat. My friend’s startled yelp caught the attention of the straggling social elite, who joined Bensen in laughing.

  Even I cracked a grin at Benny’s undignified reaction.

  “Allow me to take you both for dinner. I asked my personal chef for a favor, and he is willing to whip up something for us at his home. He’s a delightful young chap with a lovely cottage on the sea not far from here.”

  I’d never understand the wealthy. While I had a fortune in treasure hidden away on an island in the middle of the ocean, I only took what I needed to get by, using my hard-earned paychecks rather than the wealth I had plucked from the sea. In some ways, I benefited from the curse.

  No human diver could beat me at looting shipwrecks.

  “Sounds good to me. Cathy?”

  “My boss is going to crucify me in the morning anyway, so what do I have to lose? I’m not driving you home, Benny, so you better bring your car.”