by Seven Jane
XV
Dawn had broken on the bow of the Riptide and my heart swelled as I beheld it. Following behind my captain, I exited the dark cabin and came out into the light of the upper decks, adjusting my hat back atop my head to shield my eyes from the sun’s bright glare as I did. We had been enfolded in dark and cold for so long that it felt like ages since the last time I had seen the sun, or the expansive deep blue waters of the daytime ocean, or felt the sunshine beat hotly upon my skin. It seemed a lifetime ago, the last time I filled my lungs with the sweet, salty scent of warm ocean air, or watched the rippling of the waves as the ship passed through parted waters like a torch blazing across the water, sailing unencumbered and alone on still, peaceful seas that were brimming with life. On this long-anticipated morning the sun shone down through a sky full of wispy white clouds to light on crisp, turquoise waters that were still adrift with gleaming hunks of solid ice. These were not the same hard, cold masses that we encountered in the frozen sea, but sparkled like floating diamonds glittering atop a bed of blue silk. I sucked in a lungful of sweet ocean breeze, filling my senses with fresh saltwater and flushing out the heavy, intoxicating scent of the woman’s chamber until the sea, and sun, and salt made it seem no more than a distant, unpleasant dream.
On this morning, the sight of the ocean was even more enchanting than normal, and not just because it was unlike any expanse of water I had yet seen. This new view was beautiful, yes, and warm, but of a distinctly otherworldly appeal that was inexplicably older and less predictable than the seas charted in the land of men. The water was a little too green and the sky a little too orange, and I when I looked overboard I saw unsightly, misshapen shadows that did not resemble any creature I’d seen before gliding about beneath the waves.
Besides that, for the first time since setting out to sea, I now embraced the new day as I had dreamt it when I had stared out into the harbor from the dusty quayside streets of Isla Perla’s humid shores. It was the moment I had longed for most, and thought least likely to experience, besides the hope of finding Evangeline herself. This morning I stepped onto the deck for the first time no longer concealed as the young sailor Westley Rivers, but as Merrin Smith. No, not as her either—not the orphan drowning in a million questions who had timidly joined the crew of the pirate ship Riptide and spent the past several months lurking in the shadows, reading through stolen, water-damaged texts and trying to avoid the scrutinizing gazes of every man on the crew. She, that Merrin, had been left on the other side of ocean, in a realm where sea myths and legends were reduced to little more than stories in old books. I faced the open waters this morning as Merrin Jones, a daughter with a name as tied to the ocean as those of Mélusine and Charybdis themselves, and sailing boldly upon a sea where no man had yet sailed, and perhaps no woman either. The newfound freedom was in perfect harmony with the new break of light outside the ship.
The long length of my hair was let to hang out freely from beneath the brim of my familiar, well-worn hat, and I enjoyed the feel of the wind as it swept through, eagerly blowing the strands into salty tangles. More than anything, in all my months at sea I had craved the sensation of the wind blowing within my hair the same as it did against my face, but had been denied this simple pleasure as I strove to blend in with the men of the crew. Like my hair, this day my body was also free, as between my sudden awakening and being pulled out of the cabin by Winters and Jomo, I had not had an opportunity to apply the bandages I’d worn to conceal my figure—not that they were necessary now. My sex and my identity were known, even if I was still coming to terms with the latter, and I had not yet been pitched overboard because of either. I would have abandoned the hat, too, but it had become too much a part of me to let go—though it did give me a chill to remember it in the grip of the strange creature in the cetone chamber.
Still, finally, and for better or worse, such drudgery was over and I had never felt so comfortable being myself in my entire life as I did right at this moment. The sudden urge to remove the ring from my coat and put it on my hand overwhelmed me and so I did, admiring its sparkle in the sunlight on my hand as I walked. The stone, as if knowing it had been freed, hummed warmly against my skin with an undeniable life force of its own.
As I followed behind the captain and Jomo, I saw that I had been correct in my assumptions of the Riptide’s men. Those I could see were relaxing about the deck, drinking away the rest of the ship’s stores or playing dice. Gregory Nip was among the latter, as he would likely always be, laughing and slapping his knee as he joked with a man whose back was turned toward me. Still other men were curled up fast asleep on piles of old cloth or empty sacks that had once been filled with flour in Jomo’s kitchen. The rest were just staring wondrously at the water, grateful to be alive, perhaps, or considering the strange sea on which we now sailed. All of the men had a look of edginess to them, and all stopped what they were doing as I passed, alternating between nods of acknowledgement to amiably raised mugs, and some that pulled off their hats and were silent. Few met my eyes as I moved between them and the rails along the waist of the ship, save for Domingo whose one good eye met mine briefly, a hint of challenge in it, and I stared boldly at him until he averted his gaze and stepped aside. I wasn’t sure if the men’s distance was for my benefit or the captain’s as he marched purposely through his crew with Jomo and myself trailing behind him. It did not feel like a respectful distance, but rather like a sort of hesitancy, and once or twice I though I saw something akin to fear in their eyes.
What did trouble me, however, was the single obvious absence on the decks. The only man not present in the throngs of men relaxing or enjoying themselves, I was painfully aware as I took into account the face of each man as I passed them, was Tom Birch, who laid in unwaking sleep on his rickety cot in the captain’s quarters. I wondered if he would ever wake again—if he would ever see this place or me as I now was free to be, and what he would think if he did.
I must have paused, thoughts of Tom’s fate dulling the edges of bliss I had allowed to selfishly color my thoughts. Perhaps I had played some part in our survival of the storm, but it had come at a cost that none had paid more dearly than the man who had owed it the least.
“This way,” Winters growled impatiently, as if escorting me to this unknown person was a distasteful task that he was anxious to complete. He cast a backward glance over his shoulder as he and Jomo led me in the direction of Captain Winters’ favorite perch on the quarterdeck. The taller, darker man said nothing and regarded me with a deadpan face that I could not read through its scars and studs. One of his heavy hands reached back and wrapped around my forearm and tugged me gently but not unkindly forward, and I quickened my pace.
At the landing of the stairs to the uppermost deck Mister Dunn sat perched atop a barrel, smoking one of his cigars he reserved for special occasions. I had seen many expressions pass across this man’s face over the course of our time together—sometimes scowling, sometimes stern, and usually in between. Even in his most drunken stupor he had never worn an expression such as he did now. It wasn’t a smile, exactly—I don’t think the rigid lines of his weathered face would have allowed such a thing—but his eyes were gleaming and he blew soft smoke rings that lit lightly from his tongue as he flicked them into the air. If I hadn’t known better, I would have said he looked positively radiant.
In days past I would have thought better of opening my mouth to inquire on the source of his happiness, but this time I did not. Such timorous things were behind me, and after our conversation in the captain’s cabin I felt we were passed playing at formalities. “What is it that has you in such good spirits today, Mister Dunn?” I asked. The edges of my words were chilled with suspicion. I ignored the way the side of his mouth not busy with the cigar curled into a smirk. I never cared for it when he made such faces. They were usually at my expense. “In all your stories I don’t believe you’ve ever told me what it is that Bracile means to you?”
The quartermaster fixed me
with his black eyes. “Home,” he said simply, and his eyes shone like onyx. He pulled again at the cigar without another word, and tapped his heels against the side of the barrel.
Before I could respond, the captain and Jomo halted in front of me, and Winters locked eyes with Dunn in a look that clearly said, enough. Dunn smirked again, but his eyes left mine so that he could give his concentration to another smoke ring he let to float in the air between us.
The word—home—rung in my ears while the ring thumped on my hand.
Winters remained beside his quartermaster and motioned that I should continue on my own up the stairs that led to the upper deck. Jomo, likewise, stepped aside so that I could continue. Not knowing what else to do, I followed the path cleared before me, stepping up the wooden stairs to the landing above with an ominous feeling tossing in my stomach.
A man I did not know sat unaccompanied on the upper deck, seated in the heavy oak chair that had previously resided at the head of the captain’s table. His head was cocked to the side and his eyes were watching the water with an obvious weariness as I approached. He was not one of the Riptide’s men, of that I was sure, but I had no clue as to from where he had come or how he had arrived on the ship, nor how long he might have been onboard. There were no other ships whose sails could be seen on the horizon, and no rowboats were tied alongside the Riptides’s hull. No land was visible in any direction. Perhaps he had arrived in the missing space of time I had slept. This was, of course, the only possible scenario, though if he had been on this side of the seas that would have meant that this stranger had been here all along, and none had ever been said to survive the swallow of Charbydis’ throat
At least none had arrived in the heart of the ocean that were human, but as I observed the man more closely I began to suspect that perhaps he was not a mere man after all. There was something odd about him—that much was plain to see as I observed his appearance from where I stood on the edge of the landing. But it was not a frightening sort of difference—not at all like the woman in the cave—though there was something certainly that marked him as other. He did not look at me as I approached, but kept his face turned to the sea so that the details of his face were hard to discern. I wished I could see the expression on his face.
The man seated in the captain’s chair on the upper deck was grey—grey boots, grey hair, grey skin, and there was a slight transparency to him, like he were not entirely solid, but the shape of a man bound together by fog and shadow. The golden glow of the sun did not light on him, but shone through him. He was spectral, yet solid; I could easily see the sharp edges of his cheekbones where they pushed through the thin skin of his profile. Likewise, his form was so rich in detail I could even see the dark smear of sand beneath his fingernails on the long fingers of his hand where they tapped against his knee. He sat with one leg crossed atop the other, a tricorn hat dangling loosely from the fingers of his other hand at his side.
The edges of his clothing, also grey, floated of their own accord in the still air around him. He wore the trappings of a pirate, all guns and steel. His brocade buccaneer coat hung past his hips, with wide cuffs and a fold-over collar that folded over a grey linen shirt and cotton breeches. He wore boots that were similar to those worn by Captain Winters and which reached nearly to his knees, laced intricately by a material that looked more like seaweed than leather string. Judging by the roots of his hair it had once been rich brown, almost black in color, but even without the effect of its strange colorlessness had faded largely to grey with age, darkened in streaks that wove through it to give it the appearance of aged silver straw. It had the appearance of hair that had been windblown for decades, so long uncombed that it had rolled into spun lengths of cordish, rope-like hair that sprung from his head in a host of uneven tentacles, at least ten in number. Hair the same shade descended along the length of his jaw, past a grey ear featuring a grey stone, and then parted to cover both the top and bottom of his mouth, rounding at the point of his chin, and then curving upward again. The weathered skin of his face marked him as older, older than the captain but not nearly as old as Dunn. He was lean but not frail, pulsing with an ethereal vitality as he sat with surprisingly stately posture, like some aged king waiting boredly on his throne.
“Miss Jones,” he said without turning to me. His voice was as deep and rolling as the boundless sea itself. It was not raspy like the captain’s, but it thundered with the same powerful tenor that could command men and sea alike. It was a captain’s voice, and the most familiar voice that I had never heard. “I always knew you’d find your way to this place, love.”
“You know my name,” I said. My voice shook and I cleared my throat. “But I do not know yours.”
“I am happy to see you,” he continued as if he hadn’t heard me. He rose to his feet, tossing the hat in the seat of the chair as he stepped to the railing, which he gripped so tightly with both hands that his grey knuckles turned white. He bowed his head and the cords of his hair rushed forward, writhing in their own current above him. I had never seen a sword as long as the one he wore, and was not sure how I hadn’t noticed it before. It was almost like another appendage, extending from its hilt rose at his ribs until the blade reached well past his knee and hovered only an inch or two off the ground. “Though, of course, I would have wished it were not under such conditions.” He sighed with a sound like resignation and relaxed his grip on the railing. “I would have wished so many things different, love. None of this is as I would have intended it to be. I had only wanted to keep you safe.”
“Who are you?” I asked again, although I felt I already knew. I took a step forward. “Who am I to you?”
He didn't answer, but turned at last to face me, and at his throat I saw a gleaming piece of white shell—the same as the one on my hand—strung on a length of grey leather. I saw, too, that dozens of spirally coiled shells of sea snails were encrusted in his rope-like hair, and that the skin that was visible beneath the edges of his sleeves on his forearm and at the collar of his throat had a slightly scaly texture to it. His face was gaunt, and he had a thin nose and even thinner lips, but then I met his eyes, which were the only thing of him that were not grey. They were large, kind, and full of life, and as I looked into them I found that I was looking into hazel eyes the same as mine.
I was staring into the eyes of Captain Davy Jones. I was staring into the eyes of my father.
XVI
“You’re Davy Jones.”
“Captain Davy Jones, aye,” he corrected me with a self-depreciating smile, spreading his palms upward with a slight flourish as he turned and leaned backward against the railing. I watched as the tails of his coat followed at their own pace behind him, the ends swirling around his legs with a languid, water-like motion. His hair swished lively and then settled in the air above his head. The twisted cords never quite stopped moving, but continued to wave in place independently of each other like a host of grey tentacles against a backdrop of cloudless, copper sky. Taking in his full height I saw that he was tall, by my estimation as tall as Tom Birch, nearly six and a half feet or close to it, and his frame was fashioned with the same commanding posture that built Winters or even Jomo, though his movements were markedly different. His were loose and calm and contained none of the pent-up fury so uneasily kept by the other men. Liquid, that was the word that seemed best to describe him—liquid and grey, like the ocean on a foggy day. “And you be called Jones, too, I believe,” he said in a knowing sort of way.
“Aye,” I agreed, my voice barely above a whisper as I tried not to stare at the gleaming white shell around his neck. I could not bring myself to meet his eyes that were so similar to mine, and so I fixed my gaze on his grey coat instead, scrutinizing the embroidery at the lapel. The chaos in my heart had not yet decided if it wanted to laugh, or cry, or scream. I pushed the feelings away, and tried to focus on what the grey man had said, still struggling to accept that he was indeed a man and not a figment of my imagination or worse: anothe
r temporal dream that would soon evaporate into nothingness like the woman in the cove. “That’s what I’ve been told.”
He laughed, and it was a dense, musical sound—a rumbling of percussive beats that seemed to have a direct line to my heart, which itself was still beating wildly and without rhythm. He touched a long finger to the bridge of his nose as if he were thinking, and then said in a good-natured way, “And who was it told you that? It was Bullet, that clever old dog, was it not?”
No one besides Tom Birch had ever called the quartermaster by that name, and so it took me a moment to realize whom he was referring to, shocking me when I did. This strange captain, my father, trapped on the other side of the ocean from which no man had returned—a place the old quartermaster himself had called home—had spoken the name fondly, referring to Mister Brandon Dunn not by his rank or his proper name, but by the name of a friend. I wondered what strange story might connect these men. Dunn had said he’d been the one to deliver me into Mrs. Emery’s care at the House of Swallows, but he had never hinted to anything more that might explain his connections to these legends made flesh. There was a mist over the whole thing, a murky veil that covered everything in a substance that was not quite real, and not quite dream, but something else—something thinner, that word again—that somehow made up the fabric of my life and the events around it. How long had it been that these men had sailed upon the seas, and in what ways had their paths crossed and interwoven so that their connection with my own was a result of inevitability rather than consequence? What strange secrets was I left to still discover, what other revelations that would shake the very bedrock of all that I had assumed real in my life? I could not remember when I had arrived at Isla Perla any more clearly than I could know for certain how many years had passed that I’d been there. A dozen, two, more, less. Each was as likely as the other. My infirm grasp on time was much the same as that of the men onboard the Riptide who could not seem to count how many years they had sailed under Winters’ command or—save Jomo, whose life and sanity would have been forfeit without the aid of Winters, Dunn, and Evangline Dahl—where they had come from before they had found themselves a member of his crew. Such questions of time and sequences of events were great, winding mysteries that tangled up with each other and grew tighter each time I tied to unwind them. However, undoing such mysteries would hold until another time and so I set these questions aside for now.