by Seven Jane
I had avoided looking at the stars since the navigator’s death, worried I might see him reflecting downward knowingly at me.
With Rabbie departed, I alone was the only other soul onboard besides the captain that I knew to be aware of the totality of our new heading. It was secret I held closely and silently though none had asked me of it. Not even Mister Dunn, although I was certain I saw the knowledge lurking in his eyes whenever I caught him looking at me, which was often. He seemed pricklier than normal, shorter of temper and quicker of suspicion, and permanently riddled with anxiety though I was unsure of the cause. We rarely spoke, the quartermaster and I, but he was always nearby, constantly watching with his sharp, black eyes fixed on me as I moved about the ship, or spoke with the captain, or Tom Birch. On these occasions his wiry shadow was especially close, trailing mine as if it were an extension of my own. I waited for more of his legends, more of his sailor’s nonsense, but he was quiet and observant in a way I found most unsettling.
Winters himself said nothing about his slaying of Rabbie and had not attended his brief burial. He had simply wiped the smear of blood from the blade of his dagger and, using his own compass and the navigator’s maps, had proven to be more than capable of handling the Riptide’s helm. He stood confidently at the wheel, adjusting our course under the gaze of Rabbie’s stars. He let no one else near the helm, and now spent his nights staring at the sky, much like Rabbie had done, but instead of searching, wondrous eyes, his were cold and calculating and expectant. He was waiting for something, what I couldn’t tell, but I imagined it was for the moment that the ocean would swallow us whole and lead us to an island that was not charted on any map and could never be found in the same place twice, and had never returned any man that had sailed for its shores.
And so we sailed on, no longer with our bow pointed across the ocean, but with a heading that, if real, would soon see us sailing within it. Our new course was beyond the boundaries of manmade maps and discovered oceans, and into the territories of the gods of the sea.
“It’s not an island of gold as it says in the story of Odysseus,” Winters’ deep voice explained, rumbling into the darkness one night as he watched and waited, staring out into the blackness off the bow of the ship. “Not a haven of lost Aztec jewels or a fountain of youth, nothing so trivial as that. Doesn’t matter what the stories say, there will be no riches to be found in a place like where we sail. Not the kind that most are searching for anyway.”
There were no stars shining from the heavens that evening, and so the sky and the water were of such a similar shade of black, and the waves so glassy and still, that it was virtually impossible to tell where one ended and the other began. Even the ashrays were at peace, their absence only adding to the emptiness of the night. It felt like we were sailing into a grave. The only light for miles came from the flame of a single lantern set by my side. It cast vague shadows against the walls of the deck as I captured the day’s notes in my journal. The time was nearly at curfew, and soon the order would be called for lights out and then the candle flame would, too, be gone and blackness would envelope the rest of the world until morning.
The sound of Winters’ voice shook me from my writing and I looked around, uncertain at first that he was speaking to me. The man had not uttered so much as a word in days, to me or anyone else, and never had I heard him say so much at once. I swept my eyes about the decks, expecting to see Dunn lurking nearby even though I knew the captain and I would be the only two awake on the quarterdeck at this time. It had not been intentional, but it had become a habit just the same. The rest of the crew would be either sleeping on the main deck, huddling for warmth under the cool ocean breeze in the waist of the ship, or disappeared below to eat and rest. Still, it was just as likely that the captain was speaking aloud to the water as it was that he would bother to seek my company, and so I waited for him to say something else before I risked interrupt his thoughts. My quill hung suspended in midair above the page, providing a focal point for my eyes as I did not dare look at him, the man standing like a shadow in the dark at the edge of the ship.
Finally, he turned to face me, peeling his eyes away from their watchful vigil with noticeable effort so that his body turned first without the rest of him with it. Once his head had followed he leaned back against the railing and crossed his arms so tightly across his chest that the leather of his coat made a wrenching sound in the quiet. He bent one knee backward, anchoring his foot against the wall of the ship with a thud; the candle illuminated in his eyes so that the steel in them glinted in the darkness.
“I’m sorry, Captain?” I answered at last, unsure of what to say. I had been a member of Winters’ crew for months and still hadn’t grown accustomed to the weight of his full attention. “I don’t catch your meaning.”
“Where we’re going,” he answered in his gruff tone, not bothering to elaborate further. He walked over toward me, and then squatted down to crouch on his heels at my side as if we were speaking confidentially. His bent form absorbed the small circle of candlelight, and his scent, a wash of gun smoke and salt, filled my nostrils. I could see every fine line of his tanned flesh in my peripheral vision, could perceive in vivid detail the way his auburn hair shone like copper as it hung about his head and crawled across the sharp, unshaven cliffs of his face. It was unnerving how he could be so still even when he was moving. Even when he spoke he barely stirred, as if the sound simply pulsed from him. He tapped his finger against the cover of my journal. “Don’t write it down wrong, Mister Rivers.”
“Yes, sir.” The words stuck like pitch in my throat.
“You aren’t required to always agree with me,” he snapped. His eyes were leveled with mine, and razor sharp. “Have I ever shown you any harm?”
I winced, and then was forced to agree again, this time with a note of apology both for the agreement and for saying it, “Of course not, Captain.”
Winters rolled his eyes, and with a contemptuous look upon his face he pulled my journal from my hands, gently but firmly, and I could not resist. Panic rose in my throat and threatened to spill out of my mouth. I expected him to read what I’d been writing, to disclose the secrets I’d hidden from him and everyone else aboard this vessel, but he did not. Instead, he closed the book and flipped it in his hands, studying its cover intently. He ran his hand lightly across the leather, his fingertips caressing the fine, round edges of the sand dollar on top. It was a tender, almost sensual movement, as if the symbol meant something more to him than just a common shell. With every breath my fear mounted, panicked by the way he studied the book, and then, just as I could feel the fear crawling its way into my throat, he handed the journal back to me. Rising to his feet, he returned to the rail.
“She was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen, first time I laid eyes on her,” he mused into the black night air. The thunderous quality of his voice had lowered to a rumble, so that the words mingled with the thumping sounds of the waves licking the sides of the ship. He needed not say her name. For other men, such a sentiment could have referred to a prize, or a ship, or even the ocean itself, but for Winters there could be only one she. “A woman of surpassing beauty in every way. Golden hair and eyes the color of the sea in the morning, neck like a swan. I had never seen anything as enchanting as her.”
He pulled a rolled cigarette from his belt and, striking a match against the railing, lifted the flame to his lips and breathed life into the paper. After flicking the match into the water, he touched a finger to the bit of stone dangling on the cord around his neck. Silently my hand made its way to the secret fold of the inner pocket of my own coat to touch the ring that held the stone matching his. I listened, enrapt, as he continued to speak.
“But even more than she was beautiful she was fierce. Terrifying, actually. The only person I ever met that was capable of scaring me.” He made a noise which might have been a laugh if he could have made such a sound, but I didn’t think he could. “I knew from the moment I saw her t
hat there was no going back. She owned me. Never doubted for a second that woman, if you could call her that, would be the death of me.”
“You really mean to take her back then, even if she is … Even if it means …” My voice trailed off, unable to speak into existence the specifics of the legends we’d both read. Winters and I both held knowledge that the riddles in those ancient texts hadn’t been able to share, though neither of us gave voice to them.
“Aye. I do.”
“And then what?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper. “What happens after you find her? If we find Bracile, there’s no certainty any of us will ever leave its shores again. We’ll be as trapped as she is.”
He was quiet for a long time, staring solemnly out into the darkness until the glowing red ember of his cigarette shortened all the way to lips and fizzled out. “Doesn’t matter,” he said finally, pitching the scrap into the sea. “The sea stole her from me. I will have her back. Nothing else matters.”
IX
I woke naturally several hours later to find that we were sailing uneasily upon a wintry ocean. It should have been first light, later even perhaps, but the day was still as dark as the night before it had been. A soft, otherworldly glow filled the space around me. It illuminated the shape of the ship with hazy pale blue light as the remnants of a foggy dream evaporated from my thoughts. Briefly I was convinced that the watery ghosts trailing in the wake of our ship—ashrays, Dunn had called them—had lifted themselves from the sea to walk amongst the crew still slumbering about the decks. This they had done in the dream from which I was still struggling to wake, these ghosts that looked oddly familiar and might have been remnants of my own past. With wispy arms which were deceivingly strong, they clung and dragged; their pale, shimmering forms had tried to pull me down below the waves, riving me from this world and forcing me unwillingly into the next. It had been dark, and frozen, and even knowing it was a dream I had feared it would never end, like an omen that needed only time before it would come to pass. As the dream mist cleared from my mind I worried that I had awoken inside of my own miserable dreamscape, carrying the ghosts with me to the waking world, but was comforted by the sounds of life stirring around me as other men awoke. I loosed a puff of breath into the frigid air in relief, and watched as it hung and then dissolved above me.
There were no ghosts aboard, but neither was there any source of light responsible for the silvery sheen that turned day into night. I craned my head upward and saw that no moon hung from the sky, nor would there have been room for it if did. Instead, the dark canvas was filled with a host of a million stars, each shining as bright as Sirius and twinkling of its own accord like a net of diamonds had been cast over the heavens. Their combined, glittering light reflected off of a patchwork of freshly fallen snow that hovered like clouds atop the ocean waves and shaped itself into the petals of frost flowers. It made the light fragmented and fickle as it flickered against the ship, our vessel now a glowing prism where it slid amongst the current. Glittering white flakes fell from the sky and disappeared into the water. Icicles grew and hung like fingers off the railing of the deck. It was frigid and frozen, spectacularly beautiful and deadly with thick white rocks of ice floating and bumping against the hull. Someone had hoisted our colors while I slept and the black was a smear against the silver sky, the red and gold of Winters’ marks bright and distinct and alien.
As my eyes adjusted to the strange light around me I stood, pushing away the thick linen I’d used as a blanket while I’d slept. It was cold, ever so much colder than it had been on the blacker, emptier night that I had fallen asleep. Colder, even, than my dream had been. The captain was nowhere to be seen, and for a moment I thought that our conversation might have been just another figment of fantasy, but then I saw him, standing still as freezing ocean spray decorated his bare arms in the starlight, and I knew that the time he’d been watching and waiting for would soon be upon us. I thought I saw a slight smile pull at the corner of his mouth, but then the stars flickered again and it was gone.
I pulled the heavy cloth back over my shoulders, bundling it against me as tightly as I could manage over the lumps of awkward clothing and weaponry I wore to hide my increasingly womanly figure. Men slugged about me on the ship, many cocooned in similar fashion with blankets and scraps of old sails wrapped around them. They moved about stiffly and gracelessly, frozen pupals covered in a thin layer of frost, gathering in small groups. None had been able to coax a flame to light in the icy air although many of them held tinderboxes uselessly in their hands. One of these bundled figures, taller than the rest, stood alone on the bow. The shimmer on my cheeks blurred the bottom portion of my vision, but even through that handicap and the disguising effect of the cloth I could recognize Tom’s form. I made my way to him as slivers of ice stung the exposed skin of my face.
“I didn’t know it could snow at sea,” I said as I arrived beside him. I sidled up to him as closely as I dared, leaving only a deep breath to separate us.
“Not often,” he responded without looking at me. There was a twinge of uncertainty in his voice. He scrunched his nose as a cold spray hit his face, and then used his forearm to wipe it away. “Although I don’t think I ever seen it quite like this.” He paused for a moment and contemplated the scene before him. “Must be the captain has found the way after all, and we be sailing to stranger tides than we have before. Can’t think of no other explanation for such as this.”
“That’s a good thing, then?” I left it a question. I had never actually bothered to ask what the men truly thought of Captain Winters’ mysterious heading, not that I would have dared to approach most of them with such a question, save for perhaps Dunn, but his feelings were already clear if not confusing. I wouldn’t have asked it now if it had been anyone other than Tom. The memory of Rabbie’s death flashed before me.
Tom Birch sucked his teeth consideringly and thought a while before he answered. “Aye,” he decided finally. “Though I don’t think none of us knows what to expect from here. Might be good, might not.” He shrugged and the cloth fell away. One of his taut, muscular arms reached out to pull it back closer against him. He shivered. “Either way, I figure we keep sailing ’til we find out, or ’til something makes us stop.”
Knowing him as I did, I hadn’t really expected Tom to say anything different, though there was comfort in the familiarity of his words. I made a sighing sound of agreement as I gazed out over the glittering carpet of midnight blue and silver water that unfurled endlessly before us. Some might have found Tom’s predictable behavior tedious and dull, but I admired its simplicity, finding his unwavering loyalty and even-keel temperament a testament to his honest and true nature that made him, somehow, profoundly beautiful despite the physical features that had already decided him handsome. At least in my experience, men like him—people like him—were hard to come by, especially in a place like Isla Perla where most would slit your throat for nothing more than the coins in your pocket. Such honest men were doubtless a rare breed anywhere else for that matter. Tom rose above them all, in both the literal and figurative way.
“Can I ask you a question, Tom?” I inquired timidly a few minutes later. It had been slowly burning inside of me for weeks while I gathered the comfort to ask. We had spent so much time together I felt I could be forthcoming with this man, even it were an honesty tempered with deceit. “It’s more of a personal one, this question.”
He arched his eyebrow and looked at me out of the lowest corner of his eye so that the brilliant green of his eye shone above a crescent of white. He bowed his head to listen closely. “Aye?”
“Do you think it’s worth it?” I gestured toward the wintry ocean with my elbows under the fabric. His eyebrow lifted into another question as if he wasn’t following, and I realized I was being cryptic. “All this. Sailing into the middle of the ocean, to a place that only maybe exists and is said to be guarded by a monstrous beast? No charts, no prizes. Rabbie. All this to find a woman who he’s been
looking for for years but no has seen so much as a trace of?” I looked again to the bizarrely frozen sea, asking Tom a question I already knew the answer to. “Is it worth it to you?”
Several minutes passed in silence, and I regretted asking. “You don’t have to answer. My apologies, Tom. Didn’t mean to overstep.” Small hot circles of embarrassment blossomed on my face despite the cold.
“Not that.” He gave a small laugh. “Not at all. Just not an easy one to answer, mate.” He clicked his tongue the way he did when he was thinking. “First part is simple enough. I go where he goes.” He jerked his head backward in the direction of Winters, who was still standing resolutely at the wheel. “Been sailing with him and Ole’ Bullet since I was a boy, I have, don’t even remember life without those men. They’re the only family I’ve got. Wouldn’t be worth my time to let them leave me behind, so it ain’t no matter where the captain wanted to sail—I go.”
This I hadn’t known, and it challenged many things I thought I knew about the two men. They had been decent enough to me, that much was true, but neither seemed the sort to serve as caretaker of a young boy, although to them that was exactly what I was, even if I wasn’t a young boy in the traditional sense. I was still young and inexperienced, and very much out of place on this crew. Further, both of the men, with the assistance of Mistress Dahl, had nursed a broken and battered Jomo back to health after he’d been rescued from the slaver—Winters had set the rest free rather than trade or sell them. Perhaps the two weathered pirates possessed softer hearts than I had assumed.
“About that last, well …” Tom shrugged and kept his eyes on the water, “the way I see it, there be worse things to sail for than a woman. Of course, I ain’t never been in love, Rivers, so I don’t rightly know how I might be about it. But if I ever was, I can only hope it’s a kind that’s strong as what the captain has, he and Miss Dahl. If that were so, I believe I’d rightly sail to the end of the world for her, too. Worth more than all the gold I could carry, I expect.”