The Isle of Gold

by Seven Jane

  The island itself, as far as I could tell, was a kludge of craggy, stone-grey cliffs and granite canyon walls that rose forth from the ocean so steeply that the island might have been an underwater mountain sprung from the seabed, the tips of her so tall that they were lost in the fog of low-hanging clouds. Water ran from their precipices in quick-moving falls, and streams of foamy emerald water fell like tears down the face of a glacial goddess to pour back into the bays below her. I could see no signs of earthy life on the island; no palms or other signs of green vegetation that might nourish land-bound life or nesting birds, nor fruiting trees or wild bushes to provide shelter or comfort for a living being. There were, as well, no beaches along the outskirts of the island, and thus no place to find safe harbor. Bracile was a fortress at sea, impenetrable and harsh but still relentlessly beautiful.

  As we neared her shores a beautiful melody began to swell in the air, accompanied by a scent I could only describe as feminine. It was powdery and painfully familiar, and growing ever stronger as the song, too, lifted so that it was near impossible to hear anything else. I realized with a start that it was not music that I was hearing, but voices, and the smell was the one of lotus I had encountered in the sea cove. The sound was a lilting phantom opera, rising and falling in sharp crescendos and humming valleys that reverberated off the island’s rocky walls.

  “Do you hear that, now?” a man mused beside me, more to himself than to me. It was the gunner, O’Quinn, who had spoken. He wrapped his fist around a length of rigging from the main mast and pulled it and himself sharply to the side, angling the ship roughly toward the cliffs as he strained to see the source of the music. I noticed that his eyes had a glazed, glassy look and that his lips were wet with the sheen of saliva as he licked at them. “Such a beautiful song, that is.”

  I looked about me and noticed that nearly all of the men were similarly affected, their preparations with the rigging and sails forgotten as the entire lot of them leaned over the rails of the ship or hung like upended crabs from the nets as they strove to see the source of the disembodied, musical voices. Only Dunn and myself were immune; even Winters had an odd, dazed expression as he stood with his eyes shut and jaw locked in a frustrated grimace. It appeared as though he were in pain and I made to go to him, but then Dunn was there first, ordering me to steady the ship while he leaned in close to the captain, speaking in hushed, rough words. Most of them were too low to make out, but I heard something of sirens and nearing the cave, and then these were followed by words in a foreign tongue that I could not understand but sounded like they were made from the same ancient language I had felt in my throat earlier when I hovered over Tom’s body in the captain’s quarters. Whatever the quartermaster said had a restoring effect on the captain. I saw his eyes spark and reanimate, and he shook his head in one stiff downward jerk, and then returned the spyglass to his eye and continued to study the island while the other man whispered a steady stream of information at his ear.

  As Dunn continued to counsel the captain, I pushed O’Quinn out of the way and grabbed hold of the rope with uncertain hands. I had watched intently when Tom had piped orders regarding the proper management of the sails, but this had mostly been to watch him and not to learn the actual mechanics of sailing and so I had never handled them myself. I tugged at the rigging hesitantly, coaxing the ship off of her collision course with the cliffs as the sails turned and gave way. I felt the ship groan as if she, too, had been lulled by the siren’s song, but eventually her nose straightened and the ship turned its broadside to the island that was suddenly much nearer than it had previously been. The craggy cliffs took on more definite forms, and I saw that sharp overhangs jutted out from their sides, and upon them—in numbers that must have reached a hundred—perched silvery beings, each open-mouthed and adding to the airy opus around us.

  I had not seen them before but they were clear now, formed of sinewy upper bodies with small, rounded shoulders and small, rounded breasts. At their ends, thin, sickly green reptilian tails forked into two flatted fins and swished independently of each other. These were mermaids, that much was evident, but never had I heard a tale of mermaids that resembled such insidious creatures. Their skin was the pale blue of a waterlogged corpse, and their eyes were large and ominous, yellow in color and almond shaped so that they had a distinctly carnivorous look to them. Atop each of their heads writhed a mass of tentacle-like arms, all insipid though of different shades of green and grey, some even hues of blue or red, and none of which belonged to the natural world. Most frightening of all their features, however, were their faces below their eyes—two tiny slits for nostrils and thin black mouths from which came beautiful streams of sound that masked an undercurrent of fierce hisses and growls. I alone—or perhaps Dunn also, I could not be sure—heard these and the creatures seemed to know it. Gradually their feline eyes turned to focus on mine while the sound pitched higher and more insistent. The ring on my finger turned to ice, so cold that the chill rose up my arm and I shivered despite the intense heat.

  “Never mind them,” Dunn’s voice, calm and unperturbed, came over my shoulder as the sound soared to a deafening roar. “They only be trying to scare us. If they wanted us drowned they’d have been in the water ’fore we ever reached this far, pullin’ the men over one by one, the damned beasts.” He was beside me then, and when I did not respond he snapped his fingers in front of my eyes. I blinked and the cold was gone and so was the music. He eyed the mermaids with a distasteful sneer and then spat on the deck as if their very image disgusted him, and perhaps it did. “Don’t stare at them, lass. They keep you from seein’ what you be lookin’ to see.”

  “What’s tha—” I started to ask, but I blinked again and then I saw it. Behind the twisting tentacle hair of a particularly vicious looking mermaid was a small break in the cliffs slicing upward from the water to the sky. In truth, it was little more than a narrow passage into which a stream of water fed, but now that I saw it I was amazed I had missed it before. A ship the size of the Riptide was far too large to fit through it, but it was deep and wide enough that a small vessel might be able to maneuver through the sharp curves and steep cliffs that carved their way into the belly of the island. “There,” I announced, pointing in its direction. The shrieking noise of the mermaids quieted immediately and though I could sense the men freeing of the trance around me I did not dare to take my eyes off of the passage.

  “Drop anchor,” ordered Winters. It was done instantly as Jomo himself walked in front of me and untied the anchor lashing ropes and then removed the wedge that jammed the anchor chain. With a big clanking noise, the anchor plunged into the sea. The ship was allowed to drift until the rope was at full extension, and then she pulled to a slow stop. We were so close to the island now that I could have swam the distance easily, had I been brave enough to dare what swam below the water’s surface.

  Winters wasted no time. “Boats,” he barked. “Miss Jones, Mister Dunn, Jomo,” he listed, spearing us each in turn with blazing eyes before he marched toward the waist of the ship where the smaller boats were stored. He tossed a small rucksack into the bottom of the boat and stepped in, watching impatiently as the rest of us joined him. A small assembly of men whose names he had not called followed and made ready to let us down in one of the skiffs. He addressed them sternly. “We row the rest of the way. The lot of you keep a wary eye on the horizon. If we have not returned by first light, haul anchor and leave this place.”

  The four of us descended into a small skiff and dropped into the waters below, Jomo and Dunn paddling while the captain and I sat in the middle row of the boat. We made for a quiet quartet, all of us preoccupied with studying the island as we entered the narrow space between striking cliffs that seemed to have no top, sliding uninterrupted over water so still and perfect it might have been made of glass. We wound through tall looming walls of granite the color of chalk, their endless heights accented by streaks of black flint, seeming to stretch endlessly on. There were no
birds or waves to disturb the silence, and the only sounds were those of our breathing. Even the oars slipping beneath the water was quiet. I wondered how I might have explained such a vision to Claudette if she had been here with me now, what she would have made of this place.

  Day melted into evening as we continued silently on, passing slowly along the current until so much time had passed that the moon rose and turned the glassy green waters into a rich shade of midnight blue. Finally, we rounded another bend and illuminated in the soft glow of moonlight, a giant conch shell came into view, its spikes slicing upward into the air as it stood on its end, tipped toward the sky. It was embedded in glittering black sands that sparkled like diamonds under the light of a million stars so that the beach was a perfect reflection of the night sky, strewn with large boulders of gleaming ice the same as those that had floated in the wider ocean waters. Winters stood as we drew near, standing with his legs shoulder width apart, and when we were near enough to the shore he jumped out and into the water, holding the boat still so that the rest of us could do as he has done. We followed his lead, me slushing through the water a pace or so behind the captain while Jomo and Dunn dragged the skiff up onto the bank of black sand. For the first time in months I felt the firm substance of land as it swelled beneath my boots. I stumbled from the weight of it, and one of the men’s hands—I did not know whose—caught my arm as I relearned how walk on solid earth.

  In the pink fleshy curl of the cave’s yawning mouth stood a woman, waiting just at the edge so at first glance she was invisible against the white of the shell. The sight of her rooted us in place where we stood as we stared at her like she were a mirage in the moonlight. The curls of her hair hung long and loose, tumbling over her shoulders in waves the color of spun honey, and where her skin had been milk white before it was now dusted in gold that glittered in the starlight so that she appeared a living, gilded statue. Flecks of gold leaf encircled her eyes and covered her eyebrows completely so that the blue of her eyes shone like dazzling jewels in contrast. She wore a shimmering metallic gown of a slightly paler color, more bronze perhaps than gold. It wrapped the length of her long neck and then swept across her chest, clinging tightly to the slender narrows of her waist before billowing out softly and then stopping short at her ankles so that she could move freely in the glittering, black sands.

  She was golden and she was beautiful and she was Evangeline. She did not come any closer toward us. In fact, she did not appear to believe we were real any more than we did her, and she stood staring cooly at us from across the beach. When at last her face finally softened, she seemed only to have eyes for Winters, and a small smile bowed the corners of her lips. This was a signal of sorts; Winters made a moaning sound and took a cautious step forward, and then another, and then he charged forward, his strides long and quick even as they sunk into the dunes of black sand. When they were less than an arm’s length apart, he slowed to a stop and they stood facing each other, neither of them moving to close the space between them as they regarded one another silently from under heavy-lidded eyes. I could not tell what passed between them as they waited, barely breathing and contemplating each other as if they were staring at nothing more than a vision of their deepest desires.

  Evangeline was first to speak. “Erik,” she said, in a mellifluous voice that carried strong and sweetly on the wind, “you should not have come for me.”

  His face remained impassive as he reached out to gently tuck a strand of stray curls behind her ear. The tips of his fingers traced the curve of her jaw as he withdrew his hand and then it drop at his side. “What else could I have done?” he asked.

  I could see Evangeline inhale, her face as smoothly inexpressive as his as she stared at him for a moment longer. Her lips parted and then closed, and then with a deep breath she lifted her arms and reached for his face, threading long, slender fingers inside the tangles of his hair as with a hand on either side of his face she pulled him desperately into her, rising against him in a golden tide of curls and cloth. Then his arms found their way around her waist and locked her tightly against him, and the three of us watching from afar turned our eyes away as they embraced.

  XXI

  When at last they parted and turned to us, it was to Mister Dunn they came first, walking hand in hand across the starry black sand as if afraid to let one another go. Evangeline was a vision in gold and smiling more easily than I had known her to, her eyes bare of the cunning glint I had seen when I studied her from afar from the balconies of the House of Sparrows. If she was bothered to have been trapped here in this unreachable place for the last two years it did not show. Instead, she appeared composed and contented, moving as gracefully across the black sands of Bracile as she had the dusty quayside streets of Isla Perla. Winters, too, had changed; there was a new peace to him, though the set of his jaw was as taut as ever and the sharpness of his eyes had not dulled. If anything, he was more tenacious now than he had been before. The madness that hung about him these past few years dissipated so that he moved about with the same kingly air I had seen in my own father when he had visited the Riptide.

  “Brandon,” Evangeline called, and Mister Dunn went to her immediately, the words “my lady” falling from his lips as he sank to his knees before her. She embraced him warmly, holding the white flame of his head against her breast as a mother might coddle a child. Words too low to be overheard passed between them. When at last she released him, he stood and she lifted her free to hand to stroke his face, and as she turned her gaze to Jomo I saw that she wore a ring on the middle finger of her left hand that was identical to the one I wore on my right. She smiled up at the towering, dark man, and then, releasing Winters’ hand, allowed herself to be gathered up in his arms, her delicate form almost lost entirely in his hold as she clung tightly to him. “My warrior, Jomo,” she murmured into the muscle of his shoulder. “I am so relieved to see you well.”

  I watched all of this curiously, surprised by the amount of tenderness that passed between the four of them as they reunited. The rumors that had passed on the island had been that Mistress Dahl was as cold and detached as Winters himself, and just as prone to violent fits of temper that had been the death of men who crossed her, but I did not see that same woman now. This version of Evangeline was kind and genteel, and she embraced her friends warmly. I knew so little of these people, I realized, and would not have anticipated that Dunn and Jomo would have been received into her arms with such obvious affection. A jealousy rose up within me, and as it did, I could feel the warmth of my ring on my finger as I pulled my hat down over my eyes. My heartbeat drummed in my throat as Jomo unfolded his arms and Evangeline stepped out again, this time with her eyes set on me.

  “Merrin,” she said, and my name had never sounded as sweet on anyone’s lips. She held out both of her hands to me, and I accepted them, enjoying the feel of her hands in mine as my anxiety and envy melted instantly away. “I have waited so long for this, my sister. I am so sorry that we have lost so many years together, but there will be time for that later.” She smiled at me, and without meaning to do so I was smiling back, and I saw in her face the same smile I had seen on our father’s, fond and inviting, but I saw something else in her face, too. My pulse sped as I recalled the woman in the cove and her sinister smirk. Evangeline’s face was rounder, her nose less severely thin, but the likeness was undeniable, down to the same subtle cleft in her chin. “I know you must have many questions, and I will answer them all in time as best I can, I promise it. But, tell me, where is Tom Birch?” She squeezed my fingers and then let go of my hand, reaching for Winters as he approached from behind and touched his palm to the small of her back.

  I struggled to find the right words, too enthralled by the sound of her voice and the feel of her skin to answer plainly. She stepped backward and something hardened in her eyes. A look of cold impatience washed over her features and again her face took on the same imperious countenance that belonged to the proprietress of The Goodnight Merm
aid, and not this trapped goddess awaiting rescue from an enchanted island. “Where is Tom Birch?” she demanded, turning so quickly to face Winters that her skirts swirled around her in a flurry of spinning gold.

  “He sails the Caleuche,” explained Winters, his voice gruff and without inflection. He did not elaborate further.

  “No,” she gasped as if this had been the last thing she expected to hear, and she shook her head as if the news has stung her. She spun back to me. “That cannot be,” she said, searching my eyes under the brim of the hat for confirmation.

  “It is, my lady,” Dunn affirmed, bowing his head slightly as he came forward. He did not look at either of us, but kept his face apologetically downcast. “He fell as we sailed int’ the heart of the ocean, and when we arrived in this place your father took ’im aboard rather than let him die. Merrin very nearly bound herself to save ’im she did.”

  “No,” she repeated, and there was horror on her face, as well as anger.

  I saw unspoken knowledge in both of their eyes, and thus an opportunity. “Is there a way to save him?” I asked, passing my eyes from Evangeline to Dunn and back again, avoiding Winters. “Is there a way to free him from the Caleuche? Or to free its captain?”

  “I believe so,” she admitted, although she sounded hesitant. There was irritation, too, in her eyes as she looked at Winters, but about what I did not know. Something passed unsaid between them, but she took my hand and squeezed it reassuringly. “But the cost will be high, sweet sister … higher now than before.”