Pirate Curse

by Kai Meyer

  “Indeed.”

  “Why did he … ,” Munk began, groaned, and was silent for a moment. Finally he got his feelings under control. “Why did he kill my parents?”

  “He wasn’t after them,” said the Ghost Trader, and then he spoke Jolly’s fear, “but after you.”

  “But why?”

  “Can’t you guess?”

  “Because we’re polliwogs,” Jolly blurted without stopping to think about it.

  The Ghost Trader nodded.

  Munk’s eyes narrowed with anger. “But what does he want from us? Why did he want to kill us?”

  For a while no one said anything. The oil lantern swayed back and forth and with each movement illuminated the Ghost Trader’s features before they disappeared into darkness again. Light, dark. Light, dark.

  “I’m not sure if he really wanted to kill you,” he said finally.

  “What else?” Jolly asked. “Abduct us?”

  “Possibly.”

  She wasn’t satisfied with this answer, just as she viewed most of the Ghost Trader’s explanations with skepticism. Perhaps he was telling the truth. But was that really all he knew? She didn’t believe that for a moment. And did he really only intend to protect them from this maelstrom? Or was there more behind it? His airs of mystery made her angry, and she grew even angrier because he made it so clear that he thought they were dumb children who could be put off with a few hints.

  She looked at Munk and realized he was thinking the same thing.

  “That isn’t everything,” she said, turning to the Trader. “We have a right to—”

  “To the truth?” the man interrupted her. “The Mare Tenebrosum is the truth. Just like the Maelstrom and the Acherus.”

  Munk’s eyes narrowed. “Who are you, really?”

  “Only one who sells the souls of others.” That sounded so ambiguous that Jolly would have liked to take him by the shoulders and shake him. Selling ghosts was one thing; the souls of the living, another. Had they lost their own souls long since, just because they’d gotten mixed up with him?

  “Tell us everything,” she demanded. “Everything you know.”

  The Ghost Trader turned his eye away and looked straight into the glow of the swaying lantern. As if at a silent command, the parrots’ eyes also followed this movement.

  Munk’s voice broke the silence like a thunderbolt, although his words were very softly spoken, almost whispered. “My parents are dead. What price did you pay for your knowledge, Trader?”

  Jolly’s stomach contracted. It wasn’t long ago that Munk had called the Ghost Trader his friend. But now he appeared to be blaming him entirely for what had happened. The excited, exuberant boy Jolly had come to know had changed. He was more serious, more withdrawn, almost a little weird.

  “This knowledge is dangerous,” said the Trader, “and anyone who possesses it has paid dearly for it. One through loss, another through responsibility, and some even through the guilt they must take upon themselves. It is always painful to cross a threshold. New experiences rarely come as gifts.”

  “New experiences?” Jolly’s voice had the crack of a slap on the face. “It strikes me that a heap of experiences in the last few hours are ones I’d have preferred to avoid.”

  Munk didn’t move.

  “I would only bring you into greater danger if I initiated you into everything.” The Ghost Trader stood up. “There will come a time when you will understand everything. But not here, not tonight. The Mare Tenebrosum is closer than we all guessed. The Maelstrom is turning. It isn’t good to speak too long about these things without knowing how far his senses reach.” The Ghost Trader passed between them as he left, his black robe grazing Jolly’s cheek like an icy wind. “Go to your berths. Rest as long as you can.”

  Munk’s eyes shot sparks, but he continued to sit there. Jolly, on the other hand, couldn’t contain her anger. She jumped up and grabbed the Ghost Trader by the arm. She withdrew her hand immediately, but nevertheless, one of the parrots struck at her furiously with its wings. The other uttered a shrill scream that hurt her ears.

  “Shhh,” the Ghost Trader said soothingly to the birds. He stopped, but he didn’t turn around to Jolly and Munk. His back rose in front of them like the tower of a dark cathedral.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “and that’s the truth. I’m not the cause of what has happened, but I ought to have foreseen it.” Now he did turn around, but his voice grew fainter, as if it were lost in the shadows of his hood. “Things have occurred that we might perhaps have been able to prevent. The Maelstrom is awake. And the polliwogs have gained importance much earlier than we all hoped.”

  Hugh emitted a sharp hiss in Jolly’s direction, but the Trader soothed him by stroking his black plumage.

  “Loss, responsibility, and guilt,” he said once more. “Each pays in his own way, believe me.”

  Then he left them there and went below.

  Jolly stared after him as if she could draw him back outside with her gaze alone. When, still angry, she turned to Munk, he surprised her with his astonishingly calm eyes.

  “You don’t know him,” he said. “He’s always like that.;”

  “Do you know him, then?”

  He hesitated. “Anyhow, I’ve heard him speak that way before. He’s just like that.”

  She snorted angrily, then let herself down opposite Munk, sitting cross-legged on the deck. “I wonder why he agreed.”

  “To what?”

  “To take me … us to New Providence. Certainly not just to do me a favor. He doesn’t care anything about Bannon.”

  “Perhaps there’s something there he’s interested in himself?”

  “He keeps saying he doesn’t want to bring us into danger—and then he simply agrees to head for an island that could be attacked by the Spanish armada any day? And what’s all this talk about gods and guilt and responsibility and all that stuff supposed to mean?”

  Munk shrugged, then stretched out his arm and took her hand, “Whatever happens—let’s stay together, okay?”

  It sounded like a request, but wasn’t there also a trace of demand in his tone?

  “I want to go back to the pirates,” she said firmly. “And I’m going to find Bannon and the others, that I swear. All this nonsense about the Mare Tenebrosum and some sort of maelstrom … that’s no concern of mine.”

  “Jolly! If that brute that killed my parents—if he really was sent by this Maelstrom, then I have to know more about it. Then I have to know everything about it.” His eyes blazed.

  Jolly laid her other hand on his. They’d both suffered a loss, and they were alone in their grief. Perhaps it would actually be simpler if they acted together. But did she really want to be part of his revenge? And besides, how realistic was it for a fourteen-year-old boy to take on powers like the Mare Tenebrosum?

  God, how realistic was it to go find Bannon and the others again?

  Deciding quickly, she increased the pressure of her hand, “If I manage to find out something—about Captain Bannon, I mean—then I’ll help you afterward.”

  Munk looked at her and nodded.

  Silently they made a pact whose consequences neither could evaluate. But it seemed the right thing to do.

  They remained on deck and curled up together on the planking to sleep. Neither one had any desire to become familiar with the interior of the former slave ship. Even out here, the atmosphere was oppressive and creepy; below deck the closeness and darkness would certainly rob them of breath.

  At some point Jolly fell asleep, although in the morning it seemed to her that she’d had hardly any rest that night. She was weary, as if nightmares had snatched her from sleep, even if she couldn’t remember any of them. Nevertheless, the feeling remained: During the night, she’d been visited by things she didn’t want to know about.

  Almost the same as the reality. She hadn’t asked to be snatched from her familiar surroundings into this nightmare.

  “The polliwogs have gained importa
nce” she heard the Ghost Trader’s voice saying again and again. And each time, the phrase seemed more ominous to her.

  Gradually, the morning light penetrated the fog ring around the ghost ship. The shadows lost their depth only when the blue Caribbean sky was already dazzling in the opening high above them. Like the stars the night before, the sun also now seemed farther away than usual. The outside world seemed to have receded into the infinite distance, which was either the nature of the ghost ship or a consequence of their experiences.

  Sorrow lay over the ship like a fog of its own, and Jolly felt in no position to do anything about it.

  After she got up, she left Munk sleeping and considered whether she should explore the ship on her own, but she decided against it. Instead, she clambered forward onto the bowsprit, letting herself down onto it like a rider on a horse and remembering sadly how often she had done the same thing aboard the Skinny Maddy, which was now lying somewhere on the bottom in the depths of the sea.

  Occasionally she looked over her shoulder and saw Munk some distance away, kneeling on the deck and frowning. He’d spread all his mussels out in front of him and was forming a multitude of patterns with them. Sometimes he made a glowing pearl rise over the empty shells, but it would immediately close itself inside one of the mussels again. Whatever he was trying to do—perhaps strengthen the wind for a sail, perhaps something that took away his grief—he seemed not to be having any success with it.

  The Ghost Trader didn’t appear again until early afternoon. He placed a hand on the mainmast and closed his eyes. After a while, Jolly realized that he was having a dialogue with the ghost in the crow’s nest in this fashion.

  He moved his lips, just as a cool gust of wind carried the words to Jolly’s ears.

  “We’re there,” he said. “The island ahead of us is New Providence.”

  She strained to see ahead, but she saw nothing but muffling fog. Sometimes it seemed to her that the billows formed into fuzzy forms, into faces, into entire scenes.

  New Providence, she thought with relief.

  A place almost like a home.

  The Pirate City

  The pirate emperor declined to receive Jolly.

  The inn where he held court was scarcely worthy of the name. Taverns and taprooms lined the narrow streets, but only two or three gave reason to hope that the food might be enjoyable, the rum not watered, and the beds free of vermin. The Fat Hen lay in the center of what grandiosely called itself a city, although the civilized sound of the word was deceptive for a place like this. Nowhere could one meet so many scoundrels, murderers, cardsharps, and grandiose posturers as on New Providence. And here in Port Nassau, the only developed harbor on the island, was the heart of this pirate kingdom, the pit in which so much scum met each other that white gloves turned black soon after coming in contact with it.

  Jolly felt snug and cozy.

  She’d grown up on the high seas, but it was places like this where she’d been on land with Bannon now and again. Civilization, for her, was the sight of stinking, narrow lanes, overflowing taverns, and the occasional spectacle of a fist-fight, a stabbing, or even a throat-cutting in the half light of burned-down lanterns.

  She knew nothing else. The notion of perfumed palaces, powdered wigs, and uniformed lackeys produced in her the same disgust that would probably have overwhelmed so many Spaniards, Englishmen, or Dutch at the sight of this murderous cesspit.

  Port Nassau was her capital and Kendrick was her emperor.

  That’s what she told the guard standing at the entrance to the Fat Hen and barring her way. The man, a particularly dirty and unattractive individual, was picking his teeth with a knife; he didn’t even take the blade out to shake his head. Only when it became clear to him that Jolly wouldn’t be shaken off did he stick the knife back into his belt and lean forward.

  “I know you, girl.” His breath smelled of stale beer and remains of food. “You’re the little one from the Skinny Maddy. You’re a loudmouth and a show-off and a pain in the neck, and you could only get away with it because the great Bannon held his hand over you.” His grin exposed teeth the color of curdled milk. “But the Maddy has gone down and Bannon’s gone to the dogs. As far as I’m concerned, you’re only a cheeky brat who deserved a whack on the seat of your pants a long time ago. That’s what I think, y’know? Hey, in a few years, if you’re still alive, you could turn out to be a pretty good-looking female. Then you can come back and say hello. But until then—be off with you!”

  With a self-satisfied smile, he stood up again and yawned loudly; as he did so, he shut his eyes for a moment.

  When he opened them again, his dagger lay in Jolly’s hand and was pointing at a place a hand’s breadth below his belt buckle.

  “Kendrick,” she said grimly. “Right now!”

  “Jolly, quit it,” whispered Munk, who was standing directly behind her. “You’re going to set the whole pack on our necks.”

  “Did you want to see pirates or not?”

  “Not so many.”

  “You should have considered that before.”

  Munk sent Jolly a pleading look. They’d come here together.

  The Ghost Trader had let them go off alone—right after they’d left the ship—without saying much. But it hadn’t been a farewell, and Jolly felt certain that the Trader didn’t intend to let them out of his sight except for a short time.

  The pirate stared at Jolly’s knifepoint, which was poking into his fly. A nervous grin fluttered over his scarred face.

  “You’re not serious, girl. You aren’t as crazy as everyone says, are you?”

  “And you’re not as dumb, are you?”

  He blinked at her as if he still couldn’t grasp what had just happened to him: A girl of just fourteen had tricked him and was threatening him with his own knife. Jolly saw how hard his mind was working. If anyone saw it, this embarrassment would be the talk of all Port Nassau in no time.

  “What shall I do?” he asked reluctantly. “I can, of course, go in and ask if Kendrick will come out to you.”

  Jolly tried to ignore Munk, who was hopping nervously from one foot to the other. “Is Kendrick staying here in the inn?”

  “Of course. Taken all the rooms, bought all the beer and rum, and paid all the girls. It’s sort of like his palace, the Fat Hen.”

  “And you’re sort of like his bodyguard?”

  The pirate grinned proudly. “Sure. Me and a few others. One at each door, front and back. But it’s clear who’s the most important, isn’t it?” He gave a mean little laugh. “The one at the entrance, naturally.”

  Heavens, how could Kendrick rely on such a fool? He seemed to feel very secure here in Port Nassau. No wonder—after all, he’d killed all those who’d supported his murdered predecessor, Scarab, or driven them from the island.

  “Good,” said Jolly, putting a little pressure on the blade. “If I let you go inside there to tell Kendrick I want to speak with him, will you give me your word that you won’t try any rotten tricks? You come out again and without any pistol or saber or anything like that?”

  “Word of honor, for sure!” The pirate nodded and noticeably repressed a grin. “It’s a good idea, just as you say. A very good idea. You’re a clever child. You can rely on me, for sure.”

  Munk’s voice quavered. “You still trust this fellow?”

  Jolly paid no attention to him. “Then vanish and do what you promised,” she said to the pirate. She threw the dagger into the air, grabbed it adeptly by the point, and flung it purposefully across the street. Vibrating, it stuck in the middle of a window cross. Munks eyes grew even larger.

  Wordlessly the pirate disappeared inside the bar. Noise and stench billowed out as he opened the door and closed it behind him again.

  “Are you completely—” Munk was beginning, but he was interrupted as Jolly grabbed his arm and pulled him away with her.

  “Out of here! Fast!” she cried, and then together they ran down the street between dirty men
and scantily clad women, through several gateways and lanes, which sometimes were knee-deep in garbage. The stink that lay over the entire settlement was horrible, and yet Jolly took hardly any notice of it.

  After some minutes, she halted. Munk came to a breathless stop beside her.

  “What was that all about?” he asked angrily. His breathing was fast and jerky. “That whole performance could have cost us our necks.”

  “Quite possibly—if Kendrick catches us. But he won’t. He’ll certainly have a lot of fun when that moron tells him what happened. And in case the guard and his flea-bitten friends look for us … well, we’re gone, right?”

  “And why do all that?”

  “I found out what I wanted to know. Kendrick is hardly guarded. He feels very secure in the Fat Hen.” Her grin grew wider. “Bad for him. Good for me.”

  “You can’t be … no, you’re not that crazy.”

  Jolly laughed. “I’m going to pay His Majesty a visit tonight. And then I’ll find out if he knows anything about the trap for the Maddy.”

  “You’re mad!” Munk hit his forehead with his hand and turned in a circle in place. “Completely out of your mind!”

  She waved him off. “I grew up among this mob. Kendrick is a bastard and a murderer, but if he knows something, he’ll tell me—provided I bring the right arguments with me.”

  “Not knife-sharp arguments, by chance?”

  “Could be.”

  Munk’s suntanned face turned as white as chalk. “You really have lost your mind! That was all too much for you. The shipwreck, the ghosts, the Acherus …”

  Jolly beamed. “I haven’t felt so good for a long time.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of.”

  “You wanted to have adventures, didn’t you?” She gave him an ebullient kiss on the cheek. “Well, now you’re right in the middle of them.”

  Whereas the nameless island on which Munk had lived with his parents lay on the eastern edge of the Bahamas, a last outpost before the gigantic, empty Atlantic, New Providence was in the center of the island group. It was a small island, oval and extending from west to east, with only one harbor on its coast. New Providence was officially an English colony, to be sure, but the officials of the British kingdom earned themselves sumptuous dividends by permitting the pirates and fences there. It was said that the English governor on the island took in—instead of the meager thirty pounds a year his government paid him—a total of forty thousand pounds when he did business with the freebooters and collected part of their take.