The Isle of Gold
Page 22
Brandon Dunn was not on the banks of the island, nor had any of the men of either of the shipwrecked crews laid eyes on him since before the great wave had swallowed the Caleuche. Very quickly the delight of finding themselves alive and well, even if stranded on a mystical island that threatened to collapse back into the sea, faded into mixed feelings of panic, fear, and loss.
Not soon after, twilight began to recolor the sky from vivid hues of orange and yellow to smears of purple and blue. The air ran cool. The assembly of nearly forty men, including the Captains Jones and Winters, Jomo, Tom Birch, and Evangeline, as well as Domingo Diaz, Elias O’Quinn, and Bim, Gregory Nip and the doctor, Horace Clarke, prepared to bed down for the night with rumbling stomachs and aching hearts. But just as they made ready to close their eyes a flash of ethereal green light flashed upon the sky, and moments afterward a burly man who had been assigned as lookout shouted, “Sails on the horizon!”
Then, their sounds rising, the voices of men joined in a steady chorus. “It’s the Caleuche,” they cried. “She sails still!”
And indeed it was the Caleuche in all her glory sailing toward them, her hull gleaming in the failing light and billowing sails of deep blood red rippling without wind. As the ship neared the edge of the beach one lone figure could be seen standing on the bow, curls of rich brown waving out from underneath a well-worn leather hat that was pulled so low over her eyes all that could be seen was a wide, grinning mouth. In her hand she gripped a thick wad of wasted red silk, and with this she gestured to Jomo, who shuffled his feet with desire. Beside her, rising no higher than her knee as it stood on all fours, was a big chested sea lion with tan skin wetted to the color of midnight black. Running in a ridge along the top of its sagittal crest was a distinctive shock of tall white fur.
From the ship a voice carried across the waves. “Aye,” it came, and the voice was unmistakably that which belonged to Merrin Jones. “Fancy we leave this cursed island behind and sail for kinder shores?”
There was a cheer all around, and for the first time, Captains Winters and Jones met each other’s eyes with a mutual look of anticipation. “What say you, Jones?” Winters, Evangeline’s arm in his, asked in his usual, growling way, to which the older captain replied, “I think we best be sailing to the only place where we might be relieving my other daughter of that damned ship—to the very place it makes berth.”
The pretty pink petals of Evangeline’s lips curved into a cunning smile and she nodded in agreement, freeing a blade that she slid from hidden in her bodice.
“Oy,” joined Tom Birch, who had said almost nothing the entire day, presumably lost in thought about the fate of the woman he loved. “I’ll sail to the end of the world for Merrin, but tell me … where exactly is that?”
“The end of the world be indeed where we sail,” answered Winters, clasping his hand on the taller man’s shoulder and looking approvingly to Captain Jones.
“Aye,” Jones confirmed, eyes on the Caleuche, on Merrin, and on Dunn as he began to walk out into the gentle lapping waves of the dark night water. “To the end of the world it is.”
About the Author
Seven Jane is an author of dark fantasy and speculative fiction. She is a member of The Author's Guild and Women's Fiction Writing Association.
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Seven is largely nocturnal, has an affinity for black and white photography, and exists almost exclusively on chai tea and avocados. She lives in New England.
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www.SevenJane.com