by Seven Jane
I smiled, but kept it hidden beneath the brim of my hat. With that I knew for certain, that if I were to ever put my heart in the hands of anyone, it would be Tom Birch.
Tom and I continued to stand in companionable quiet as the Riptide inched slowly forward. Eventually I lost track of what little sense of time I had. I knew it was not night, but neither could it be morning, nor midday. We were in a place without time, I thought, somewhere in between, and as we sailed onward time seemed to slow even further until it felt like we weren’t really moving at all. The occasional noises of the other men stirring about the decks of the ship hushed, and the few audible sounds that did come were thick like they came from beneath water until they, too, ceased into silence. The only evidence that time had passed at all was from the frost itself, which had begun to thicken and increase in intensity, the cold coming to life in specks of white that swirled down in thick dust from the stars laying in a snowy white blanket on the edges of the ship. It covered my eyelashes, coating them in thick white down that made my eyelids droop under their weight while the air seemed to turn even colder. I shivered despite myself, the cold seeping into the hollow tunnels of my bones.
Spurred by my trembling, Tom Birch came closer, sealing the inches that remained between us as his body pressed firmly against me. He angled sideways and lifted one arm around my shoulders, letting his blanket fell heavily atop my own as his long fingers wrapped around my arm, holding me tightly to him. The movement was instinctive, a gesture so natural that it felt like one he’d performed a million times before, and yet so new and unexpected that a different sort of coldness instantly froze the blood flowing in my veins. I turned slowly to face him, lifting my head as his moved downward, mirroring mine. The embrace had been quick and instant, but now things moved in slow motion, the descent of Tom’s eyes so slow that I saw the thick lush of his eyelashes touch as they blinked in the darkness. By the time his eyes met mine my head and heart had become engorged with more questions and emotions than I had ever experienced at the same time, all swelling up and demanding space at once, and I completely forgot that I was still on the verge of freezing. It was wrong, this way he stood holding me and looking at me, and yet nothing else had ever felt so right. The oxygen in the air ran empty, and I could not remember how to breathe.
“Who are you, Rivers?” he asked, his words slurring out of parted lips as if spoken in a trance. The words were his but his voice sounded distant and hollow. The green of his eyes shone brilliantly in the silver starlight, emeralds on a background of diamonds, but they were slightly out of focus so that the man looking at me was both Tom Birch and not him at all. One of his fingers rose to my cheeks to lightly brush snow from my eyes, and when this was finished he rested his hand against the side of my face, cupping my ear in his palm. The heat that pulsed from his skin amazed me as his thumb traced the length of my lower lip. It should have been cold, but it was not. His touch thawed the ice from my skin, and my entire body melted along with it, the specks of ice running to water and then turning to sweat that beaded on my flesh. It was odd and unusual, and just as I made to remark it I became aware of another heat against my skin, this one throbbing from within the layers of cloth wrapped around me. It started dull and increased in intensity with each thump, and it seemed to come from the pocket that held my ring, though that couldn’t be possible. It was warm, hot, almost burning, and it felt alive. The longer Tom’s hand lingered against my face the hotter and more insistently the ring pulsed, until it felt like it might burn through the layers of fabric and brand my flesh. At last I could withstand it no more and I let the bounds of my canvas sheath fall open as I pushed away from Tom’s hold, desperate for cooler air.
I could breathe easier outside the reach of Tom arms, and I watched as a frost-tipped wave crested behind him, rising upward and waving in my direction. For a moment I forgot him entirely, staring instead into a black, snow-specked ocean that looked warm and inviting. The whisper of a hundred voices rose from the water, all calling and beckoning to me. I took a tiny step backward, out of Tom’s grasp, and the canvas cloths gave way and fell to our feet. The overwhelming urge to leap overboard washed over me, and I placed a hand on the rim of the ship’s wall, and sucked in a lungful of cool, sweet air. The voices called again, all mixed together and unclear, but before I drowned in them Tom’s hand was on my cheek again, warm and heavy. Gently, he returned my gaze to him. “Who are you really?” he repeated, his voice was even thicker now as he stepped into me, his body pressing once more against mine as the ocean voices calmed. It was warm against him, and his lovely green eyes were soft and heavy and welcoming, like bathwater just begging to be stepped into.
“I …” I breathed, my lips unable to shape words as Tom came closer, promising to touch mine. I would tell him. I could tell him anything, and we could go together into the warm, waiting water. My knees began to give way beneath me, but his arm looped around my back and held me upright. I opened my mouth to speak, to say my name, but no sound came out. The ring calmed, lying heavily as it hummed against my chest.
Just when I thought I would fall, sinking into the heat and darkness of my own desire, a man’s voice called loudly somewhere outside of me, somewhere that sounded far away. “Get her below! Now, before the sea claims them both,” it cracked like thunder in the quiet, and while the sounds were still echoing in my ears I felt a firm hand wrap tightly around my forearm. It pinched my skin and pulled me rudely back to life.
X
The hand belonged to Dunn, and it was tearing me farther and farther away from the consuming eyes of Tom Birch as it pulled me behind him, his coif of white hair guiding us like a flickering white flame in the starlight. Cold wind blew suddenly from nowhere and buffeted deafeningly around us. I was still holding the canvas blanket in my fist, and I pulled it as tightly as around me as I could, tucking my head against my shoulder so that my hat would not fly away. My steps were shaky and uneven as my feet struggled to keep their footing on the deck that was barely solid beneath me. Glancing over my shoulder, I noticed that Tom made no move to follow us though his haunting green eyes tracked our retreat, shining with eerie, unnatural light. Their gaze did not break until we’d descended the short flight of stairs to the main deck and moved out of sight toward the back of the ship toward the captain’s office. Then his shadowy figure turned its back to me and shifted its focus to the ocean. My heart sunk as his eyes left mine, like a piece of me had been ripped away with them.
Even with the strength and bluster of the wind, the ship was abnormally still, and I noticed as we made our way across the deck and hurried toward Captain Winters’ quarters that Tom was not alone in his unusual behavior, although he seemed to be the only one to have any semblance of life in him. The remaining men above deck, nearly two dozen in total, had, in turn, each become a figure in a band of statues placed ornamentally about the ship. They stood like pieces on a chessboard—no more human than waxen ice ornately carved and decorated with the stylings of men. Some looked as if they had been rubbing their hands together for warmth, or attempting to light a fire, or even lifting a flagon of ale to their lips when they had simply paused, locked their eyes like magnets on the sea, and frozen solid. Others appeared as though they were staring up in wonder, their eyes blank and dark and unseeing. I gasped and nearly fell when I noticed Jomo, face turned upward from below the grating on the floor of the deck so that he could also see the sky above. His form would have been completely concealed in the dark had it not been for the silvery sheen of his scars reflecting the moonlight as they, too, faced skyward.
The sea had similarly transfixed each and every one of the Riptide’s men—including those in the lower decks, too, I assumed, remembering Jomo—transforming her into a ghost ship manned by a frozen crew as it sailed on water obscured in thickening snow and roaring winds. With that new perspective things seemed much less magical than they had before, and I felt the first tingling of fear. It was too cold. The dust falling from the sky could jus
t as well have been ashes rather than snow. I was reminded of ashrays, ghosts, and other less than kind things that Dunn had said occupied the depths below the ocean’s surface, and thought again of the voices I had heard calling just moments ago from the waves. A shiver ran down my spine that had nothing to do with the temperature.
As Mister Dunn continued to pull me stumbling toward the door to the captain’s cabin I stole a last glance at the helm. The only exception to this frightening icy stasis, I saw, aside from the ship’s quartermaster and myself, was its captain—the embodiment of winter himself who faced the sea unaffected. He was still standing with both hands clasped sternly on the wheel, but his face was more animated than I had ever seen it. His eyes were alight with blue fire as they stared wildly out over the water from beneath his brow, and an anticipatory snarl lifted his lips so that deep rivets were carved in the folds of his skin around his mouth. His teeth were bared, and his long, auburn hair had come loose from its hold so that it billowed madly in the air around him in a glowing red mane that left a fiery blaze about his head. The fragment of stone at his throat burned white hot like the ground glass in a lighthouse’s lamp. All combined, it was a terrifying sight, and my heart leapt in my throat as his eyes darted quickly to me and then off as Dunn pulled me farther away.
My last glimpse of Winters saw him with one fist raised, yelling a battle cry into the air. I was too far away and could only barely hear the sound of his voice, much less make out his words, but still I could feel the determination of it. He yelled again, and as if in response a fierce gale of frigid wind slammed into him. It knocked him backward but he did not fall, only steadied his feet, snarled harder, and yelled again. The thought struck me that his very name might have been given to him just for this—a sort of divine providence that a man so cold on the inside would be the one to fight against a night afloat on frozen sea. If it were to be a battle against frost and ice, then Erik Winters, the mad and ruthless pirate captain, would prevail.
Dunn did not release his grip until he’d sequestered me in the quiet solitude of the captain’s office and bolted the door securely behind us. I rubbed the sting of his hold from my arm as he dropped me into one of the high-backed wooden chairs in the small sitting area of the cabin. Cold numbness began to fade and in its wake my body felt sore and bruised, like the wind had battered my flesh without my knowing. My arm throbbed where Dunn had gripped it, and I could already see purple smears forming where his fingers had dug into my skin. I watched wearily as he bustled wordlessly about the cabin, first procuring a tall candle from the captain’s desk, and then quickly striking a match against its wood top. He held the flame against the wick until it caught fire and brought a glimmer of pale orange candlelight to the dark cabin. The icy wind, infuriated at his success, banged loudly against the door, but Dunn only cocked one ear briefly in its direction and then disregarded it. Cupping the flame in his hand, he dragged a stool along with his foot, returning to where he’d left me, still trembling in my chair and nursing my arm. The old quartermaster looked like he’d aged a decade as he seated himself with noticeable effort on the stool beside me, his throat producing a small, aching groan as he adjusted himself. He reached forward and tested the temperature of my skin with the back of his hand. It was surprisingly soft to the touch—warm, solid, and vibrating with life.
Apparently satisfied, he withdrew his hand, set the candle on the floor between us, and fixed me with his small, black eyes. As I met his stare I expected to find him shocked, furious perhaps, or even frightened, but the expression on his face was not at all what I anticipated. In fact, it looked like sympathy. A brief search of my memory could not produce an instance where I had ever seen an expression of this sort on Dunn’s face. His characteristic look was sometimes a glower, sometimes a grimace, but always stern. Never had I seen him seem so much as tired or dismayed, and only on one occasion could I recall seeing him something akin to content—when we’d been moored in Isla Perla and he’d learned that I could read. In contrast, the closest to a match that I’d ever seen on the man’s face to his current expression had been the one he’d worn the night he’d told Tom and me the story of Mélusine, but then it had been forlorn and diluted with brandy and madness. All of this made his current countenance more disturbing than any other might have been, although I was too exhausted and sore to care much at the moment. Even the bruises blossoming on my skin felt dull and far away. My head swam from pain and exhaustion, and I worried I might lose consciousness.
There was warmth even in the single light of the candle’s small flame as it beat against my face, and while I stared into it I felt my eyelids turn heavy and begin to sag. After a few meager attempts to keep them open I allowed them to fall closed, but when I did, the image of Tom’s eyes boring into me—bearing down into my soul while the sea called in its ghostly whisper—snapped me awake. His eyes had been so strange and bright, simultaneously Tom’s eyes and not his at all. They held none of his normal mirth but were hollow and distant, the eyes of a ghost. The memory was cold, as if an arctic breath had blown through my bones. I felt pale, solid, and empty like the men on deck—a shell of a person in place of a real one. And it was maddening, how much I both wanted that look in Tom’s eyes and feared it. I didn’t even know what it meant. I didn’t even know if it had been real. For the first time since we’d left Isla Perla, I was genuinely afraid.
Mister Dunn’s hands were back on my forehead, feeling around for signs of distress. “Come on, now,” he was saying in a gentle tone that matched the look of pity still hanging on his face. It should have been a simple thing, for my eyes to adjust to the room that had been my home for weeks, for my body to warm and my mind to stop spinning here in the calm of the cabin, but it wasn’t. I was cold again, so cold, even though the ring had begun to pulse warmly again with heat from my coat pocket and the room was a harbor from the wind gusting on the other side of it. My teeth chattered and I burrowed deeper in the linens. My hat had come loose atop my head and I pulled it down tightly over my eyes. I wished I could see the dusty streets and boring taverns of Isla Perla—that I could lay in my scratchy hammock in the brothel’s kitchen. I longed for Claudette’s company, for her sweet and pandering laugh, and for the balmy heat of the island that had been my home.
Dunn removed his hand from my forehead and pulled a flask from his breast pocket, and then without a word he forced it between my lips and tipped it into my mouth. Although I didn’t want to, I drank, hating the way the liquid burned against my lips. It tasted bitter and sickly sour, like goat’s milk that had spoiled but thinner and slimier than even that, medicinal and salty. I gagged and tried to expel it from my mouth, but Dunn held a hand firmly against the back of my head and continued to pour until I had no choice but to allow it to pass down my throat. When he finally removed the flask, I forced the last swallow down and tried to blink the taste away, but already I could feel sensation slowly returning to my limbs. It came over me like a rising tide, filling the hollowness that had carved out my insides and restoring me. Once I was whole and warm again, I felt weak—incredibly weak—and tired, as if I had not slept for days or more. I strained to hold my eyes open long enough for them roam around the cabin, forcing them to move around the small quarters and study it as if seeing it for the first time, concentrating on the details as best I could. I saw the captain’s books, his desk, the soft blue hammock where I slept. It was familiar, this place. It was safe. The frozen ghosts and the icy water outside—the doppelgänger that had taken Tom’s form—these things could not claim me here, and I was not alone so long as Dunn played guardian at my side.
“Wh-What is that out th-there?” I stammered finally. My voice cracked painfully from the cold and I cleared my throat and tried again. “Where are we? What’s happening? It’s so c-cold.”
Mister Dunn shook his head slowly from side to side. “Don’t exactly know how to explain it,” he admitted with one his typical, infuriating shrugs. “We be sailin’ on the boundaries between
this world an’ the next, and that be a haunted place—”
“Will they …” I interrupted. I took a deep breath, forcing my eyes to stay open as I did so that Tom’s face would not reappear behind my eyelids again. “Will he, Tom Birch … will he …” I couldn’t find the right words to ask if they would survive this trek between two worlds. I wasn’t even sure how I would, and it never occurred to me to doubt Dunn’s words.
Dunn sighed heavily. “Aye, they’ll be all right, once we sail through this.” The wind banged noisily against the cabin door again and he muttered something I didn’t catch under his breath. It sounded foreign and guttural, like an ancient chant, but I wasn’t sure and didn’t ask.
“If you don’t know, how can you be sure?” The frozen statues on deck has been so damned unnerving; I didn’t know if I could face them again.
The quartermaster sipped from his flask, taking in the bitter fluid with a satiated sort of grunt. “I told ye before we left Isla Perla, there’s a lot you don’t know about life on the water. Life in the water, be a more fittin’ way of puttin’ it, though I don’t think ‘life’ be quite right neither.” He paused and sipped, and when he was ready he spoke again, attempting something close to an explanation. “The men, well, right now we be passin’ through a place where the livin’ ain’t meant to be, you see. Place where old souls linger, and some things ain’t which ne’er been alive to begin with make their beds. Makes the boundaries between things a little thin.” He put emphasis on this last, narrowing his eyes for emphasis.
“What’s that mean then?” I swallowed forcefully, pushing down the nausea that bubbled in my throat as I watched him drink. “Thin?”