Ebba-Viva Fairisles: Immortal Plunder (Pirates of Felicity Book 1)

by Kelly St Clare

  Ebba took a step closer and reached out to touch his skin. The black mark was small, only the size of half a copper coin. Five short tendrils weaved outward from the smudge like the rays of the sun . . . a very black and angry sun. Her breath caught and she glanced up at him. “What do ye think it is?”

  His gaze dropped as she tilted her head to look at him. He wet his lips before answering, “I have a feeling it’s nothing good.”

  She came to a quick decision. “We need to tell my fathers.” Spinning on her heel with a crunch of the sand, Ebba stalked in the direction of the shacks around the next bend.

  “Wait. Wait!” Cosmo whispered loudly. He grabbed her hand in a light hold. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. We should keep it secret. Just for now.”

  His mangoes were spilling out of his basket. “Why?” she demanded. “Ye’ve got black stuff in yer arm. They may’ve seen somethin’ similar. And the crew of Felicity don’t keep secrets.” Though that wasn’t strictly true. She’d learned a whole heap about her fathers in recent times that they’d never breathed a word about.

  He tilted his head to where Felicity bobbed back on the pier. “No? You’re not keeping your own secret on the ship?”

  Traitorous blood crept into her cheeks. No one knew about the thing she kept hidden in the hold, and that was the way it would stay. Aye, so their crew kept secrets, but not important ones . . . that would bring the wrath of the rest of the crew upon them. “I don’t know what yer talkin’ about.”

  “You disappear into the bilge every day for an hour, Mistress Fairisles.”

  “A pirate needs their alone time, once in a while.”

  Amusement lit his eyes and she placed a hand on her hip, eyes narrowing.

  “What’re ye so afraid of telling me fathers for, anyway?” she shot.

  He cast a furtive glance toward the shacks before startling, and peered down at his bare chest in sudden alarm. He shook his tunic out and shrugged into the wet linen, still stained despite his once-daily washes.

  “Why’re ye getting dressed?” she asked. “You’ll just need to be takin’ it off again to show me fathers.”

  He cleared his throat, muttering, and she strained to hear, catching something about six overprotective pirate fathers.

  She shook her head and resumed her push through the sand to the shacks. “Yer a clownfish, Cosmo. That’s for sure.”

  “I don’t mind being a clownfish,” he murmured. “As long as I’m still swimming by the end of the day.”

  They made their way around the white-sand beach and came to the first of the shacks. There were now eight. The shacks sat in small clearings their crew had formed in the coconut trees fifteen feet from the cliff face—so rocks crumbling off the cliffs didn’t land on them. The eighty-foot space from the water to the bottom of the cliffs was half-filled with coconut trees which hugged the ring of sheer cliffs all the way around the inlet. Only the tunnel to the ocean outside interrupted the shore on the southern end.

  “Mistress Fairisles,” Cosmo said.

  At his odd tone, she peered to where he pushed through the sand beside her. “What?”

  His brows furrowed and he searched her face. “Don’t you ever wonder why you have six fathers?”

  Ebba’s gaze froze on Cosmo’s face before she remembered to walk and act naturally.

  The truth? Since she was old enough to ask herself that question, she’d run in the opposite direction as hard as possible, and her fathers certainly hadn’t pursued the subject either. It was fact that a pirate didn’t need solid answers to survive—and one of their ship laws. Who cared about the why when it didn’t change the reality of a situation? Knowing why a shark was chasing a person didn’t change that it was, or that the person should swim like Davy Jones himself was coming after them. In her experience, pretending away the oddities in life had always worked and kept the crew happy.

  A month ago that changed.

  Their crew had returned from thwarting Malice, but they hadn’t gone back to normal. Life wasn’t quite the same. In some small, fundamental way, they were all altered, including her.

  “Nay, I don’t think about that,” she replied to Cosmo through gritted teeth.

  “I didn’t mean to offend you, Mistress Fairisles,” he replied, watching her closely.

  She sighed. “I’m sorry. It be a sore point for me. Esp’cially after going through Syraness and everythin’ with Malice . . . It may sound odd and un-pirate-like, but I’m wonderin’ if I should be questionin’ a few things here and there.”

  Cosmo appeared to think for a few seconds before answering. Always thinking. “I don’t see the harm in that,” he said, expression neutral.

  Ebba shrugged. “Aye, well, I ain’t decided on the issue.”

  Their run-in with Ladon had revealed a few things about her fathers’ past, previously concealed. Despite her new understanding that some things were bad enough to not want to discuss them, Ebba had since caught herself wanting to ask questions she’d never wanted to ask. Ebba-Viva Wobbles Fairisles, born-and-raised pirate of the Free Seas, was considering that she should stop pretending about a few things. Like why she had six pirate fathers . . . amongst several other large issues, like the presence of magic.

  “I’m sorry for prying,” Cosmo said. “We can talk of something else if you prefer. Until you’ve come to a decision. If that happens, I hope you know that I’m happy to listen and talk.”

  Ebba exhaled slowly and nodded, relieved the prince slave had backed off.

  She picked up her pace as murmuring voices drew her to the third shack down the row and put the conversation with Cosmo aside for the time being—or maybe forever if she could manage it. The odds were fifty-fifty.

  “Ye’re not just puttin’ up a shelf, Barrels,” an exasperated Plank was doing his best to explain. “It will be a perm’nent fixture of the place. And it’s got to be matchin’ the other shacks yet suit the other furniture and general feel of the room.”

  Ebba groaned loudly and Cosmo nudged her arm, grinning.

  Stubby and Locks had fortified the temporary shacks, and then Plank had entered interior decoration mode. Usually, Ebba loved accessorizing and mixing and matching textures and materials, but her enthusiasm for the project had died right alongside her eagerness to stay on Zol for the rest of her life. Somewhere in the second week.

  “Plank, dear fellow,” replied Barrels, “I do not care where the shelf goes as long as I have somewhere to put my books.”

  She and Cosmo halted in the doorway.

  Each crew member of Felicity had their own shack made of wooden slats. Woven tree leaves formed the flooring atop the sandy ground, and a bed pallet sat against the far wall. On the right wall hung a picture of Ebba that her fathers had someone paint ten years before. Her eight-year-old self was scowling at the painter, but all six of them had shed tears and bought a copy all the same.

  Barrels strode to the left side of the shack and held a sawn-off plank against a different spot.

  Plank rubbed his forehead, looking around in desperation. He caught sight of the pair of them in the doorway. “Ebba! Perfect. Come and tell Barrels where the shelf needs to be.”

  Ebba shoved her beaded dreadlocks out of the way and scanned the room. She pointed to a space above the bed. “It’s got to go there.”

  Plank whirled back to Barrels in triumph. “See. I was tellin’ ye that.”

  Barrels pushed up his spectacles and smoothed a wisp of peppered hair back into the black leather thong he always wore. All of her fathers had gray or white hair, aside from Plank, who—though not the youngest of her fathers—possessed a full head of raven black curls.

  Cosmo crossed his arms. “But what if the shelf falls on his head as he sleeps?”

  “Ha!” Barrels said, coming over to clap him on the back. “That’s what I said.”

  He and Plank faced off, neither willing to budge on the matter. She was glad Grubby wasn’t here. Confrontation made the youngest of her fath
ers extremely nervous.

  Ebba cleared her throat after a glance at Cosmo. “So,” she drew out, “Cosmo’s got a black sun in his arm.”

  Cosmo glanced at his shoulder at her comment, the wrinkle on his brow clearing as he inspected the shape of the mark. “Huh, it does look like a sun.”

  Barrels and Plank slowly turned from each other to pin their full attention on the younger man.

  “Does he now?” Plank asked, taking a few predatory steps. “And how do ye be knowin’ about that, Ebba?”

  Cosmo began to stutter, but Ebba spoke over him. “Why, I saw it after he’d washed, of course.”

  “W-what she means is—”

  A voice bellowed from outside. “Lunch be up!”

  Cosmo bolted out the door.

  Ebba went before her fathers. “Ye should take a look at it, the pair of ye. I’ve never seen anythin’ of the like.”

  “Ye’d think with how much he be washin’, he wouldn’t have a grubby spot left,” Plank mused.

  Ebba nodded. “That be my exact thought, too. So why is it there?”

  “Maybe he doesn’t wash right. Maybe that’s why he needs to do it so often.”

  They approached the fire pit in front of the middle shack and Barrels sniffed the air. He blanched and without bothering to sniff the air themselves, Ebba and Plank reversed their direction without hesitation, gapping it back the way they came.

  “Oi, you lot. I said lunch be up,” Peg-leg roared.

  Ebba eyed the light sweat on Plank’s forehead as he turned back with slumped shoulders and ventured to sniff the air. He gagged. “Seaweed babies with shark’s teeth, we can’t leave now. He’s seen us. He’ll get in one of his moods.”

  “He’s already in a mood,” Barrels argued. “We haven’t had fresh vegetables in weeks.”

  Ebba grimaced. When Peg-leg was upset or angry, it showed in his cooking. Meals had grown steadily worse in the last two weeks, taking a sudden dive three days ago when the last of the bananas were eaten. Peg-leg strongly believed in a balanced and nutritious diet. The garden he’d planted a couple of months ago wasn’t ready to harvest, and the supplies they’d brought with them from Kentro were now gone. Peg-leg grew angrier by the day and his meals worse.

  Ebba sniffed and reared back. “It be fish stew again.”

  “Shite,” Plank cursed.

  “That’s one coin to the curse jar,” Barrels quipped.

  “What? For shite? That ain’t a cuss word.”

  “Two coins.”

  Ebba listened to their bickering with one ear and watched Cosmo’s expression as he sat on a log around the fire pit and took a bowl of fish stew from the bald-headed Peg-leg. He seemed to sway where he sat for a few seconds before quailing under Peg-leg’s watching eye and bringing a spoon of the stuff to his lips.

  “He ain’t gonna do it, is he?” she whispered.

  Peg-leg loomed over the top of the servant boy, hands on rotund hips and scowl firmly in place.

  Cosmo shoved the spoon of stew in his mouth. He quickly chewed, smiling at Peg-leg after swallowing. Her father withdrew and the young man turned ashen.

  Plank clucked sympathetically.

  “I said, lunch be up!” Peg-leg yelled, slamming a lid on the large caldron and stamping his wooden peg in the sand.

  “That’s where ye get yer temper,” Plank said to her grimly.

  Ebba rolled her eyes. “Aye, and what do I get from ye?”

  Barrels was quick to answer. “Short attention span.”

  Aye, she might’ve gotten the worst parts of each of her six fathers, but she’d probably got the best parts of them too. It all evened out, in her opinion.

  The three of them took seats on the large logs bordering the fire pit. Ebba spotted Stubby, Grubby, and Locks approaching through the trees. She caught Stubby’s eye and drew a finger across her throat, shaking her head.

  They were gone within seconds.

  “Aft’noon, Peg-leg,” Ebba said pleasantly. He shot her a beaming smile as he passed two wooden bowls filled to the brim to Plank and Barrels.

  Ebba ran to the pot. “Here, let me do that for ye,” she said. “Ye’ve been on yer feet all mornin’.”

  He smiled at her again and sat on a log with a loud sigh. “That I have, Ebba-Viva. And no thanks I get from anyone else for the work I do. With hardly any ingr’dients. In terrible conditions.”

  Ebba made a soothing clucking noise and tipped the tiniest amount of fish stew into her bowl. “Well, we have somethin’ to share with you,” she said brightly. “Cosmo has a black mark on his wounded shoulder. Do ye think there be a spider inside his body, crawlin’ around?”

  Behind her, Cosmo gagged.

  She put the lid on the pot and made her way to the far side, so Peg-leg wouldn’t see the contents of her bowl.

  “And just how do ye be knowin’ what his shoulder looks like, Ebba-Viva?” Peg-leg asked darkly.

  Why were their sails in a knot about her seeing his shoulder? They should know she was a pirate who had no time for dalliances around her career goals.

  Barrels sniffed the fish stew, jerked violently, and rushed to say, “How about you show us the mark, Cosmo?” Barrels waited until Peg-leg stood and approached the young man before placing his bowl to the side with some haste.

  Ebba poured her stew behind the log and covered it with sand, seeing Plank do the same. They grinned at each other.

  Cosmo removed his tunic and stood hunched under the scrutiny of her fathers. Ebba squeezed into their midst and ran a gentle finger over the black mark. Cosmo shuddered.

  “See?” she said to her fathers.

  Plank grabbed her hand and pulled her back. “We be seein’ just fine, little nymph. Don’t be touchin’ men. They have diseases the eye can’t be seein’.”

  She rolled her eyes at him but couldn’t help eyeing Cosmo askance. Guess a person could never be too safe. . . .

  Barrels peered over the top of his spectacles. “Over six weeks have passed since you sustained the injury. If it was going to become infected it would’ve done so long before now.”

  Peg-leg glanced at his own wooden leg. “Aye, that be a certainty. It ain’t an infection.”

  “Not a normal one, anyway,” Plank said, tapping his mouth.

  Cosmo swung to look at him. “What do you mean?”

  Plank walked around the fire pit, hands clasped behind his back. He took his time answering and Peg-leg groaned as it became obvious to all the answer wasn’t going to be quick. Plank was the storyteller of their crew and enjoyed building drama and suspense. That wouldn’t be a problem, and Ebba certainly didn’t mind his tales, but his stories were usually long-winded, which the others took objection to. Even she had to agree the weird, ominous voice Plank adopted when he told stories was a little strange. After the recent happenings, however, where a number of his stories had turned out to be partially true, Ebba now took particular interest in his recounts of mythical creatures and old magic.

  “Cosmo was hit by a splinter from the gunfire,” Plank said in a deep, slow voice. “Not a bullet from any gun, but one from Malice.”

  Ebba stared at him.

  He put his hands palm up, reverting to his normal voice. “We know there be somethin’ wrong with Pockmark and their crew. There’s no knowin’ what they put in their gunpowder, and the like.”

  “Seems far-fetched,” Barrels said, clearing his throat.

  Peg-leg snorted. “Just a wee bit.”

  Plank’s face turned stony.

  “The mark is growing bigger,” Cosmo said quietly, breaking the tension.

  A coconut thudded to the ground in the distance as they all turned to look at him.

  “It is?” Ebba asked.

  His eyes dulled. “It started as a pinprick about two weeks ago, and I didn’t notice it at first, but now I’m sure. It’s getting larger. Fast.”

  Peg-leg hobbled over and smacked him upside the head. “Why did ye not tell us that, boy?”

 
Cosmo put a hand over his mouth and swallowed several times. The cook narrowed his eyes on him and Cosmo forced a smile, no doubt swallowing back the fish stew that had risen in his gullet. Ebba snickered.

  “I didn’t want to bother you with it. We’re already in danger,” Cosmo confessed in a thin voice, still struggling to keep the stew down. “I had rather hoped it would go away by itself.”

  Peg-leg scratched his rear. “Aye, boy. Ye’ll soon learn that nothin’ goes away just because ye wish it to. Believe me.” The crew and Cosmo looked down to where Peg-leg continued to scratch.

  “. . . What are we goin’ to do?” Ebba asked, nose wrinkled.

  Plank shrugged. “I don’t know what we can be doin’ about it, little nymph. We don’t even know what ‘it’ is.”

  “Maybe we should go and find us a medicine person,” she blurted, seeing her chance to escape Zol. “It’s the least we can do for Cosmo. He’s nearly part of the crew.”

  Barrels shook his head. “Malice and every other pirate ship between Kentro and Maltu will be on the lookout for us. We cannot risk venturing out into the open sea.”

  “We’ll need to go out sooner or later,” Ebba shot, folding her arms. “We’ve run out of fruit and veg’tables already. Ain’t that right, Peg-leg?”

  Peg-leg scowled. “That we have.”

  “We have plenty of food to last us a few months longer. The heat from Malice may’ve ebbed by then.” Plank put in. “It may be safer. . . .” He tilted his head towards Ebba, and Barrels and Peg-leg followed his eyes to her.

  Cosmo held up his hands. “I wouldn’t dream of putting Ebba in danger.”

  “I be fine with danger.” Ebba shot daggers at her fathers and Cosmo. “Ye all seem to be forgettin’ it was me who got us through the siren’s nest.”

  “I’m in no doubt of that, Mistress Fairisles, but I am happy to wait and see what happens to the mark,” Cosmo replied with a reassuring smile sent her way.

  “A diplomatic response as always, Cosmo.” Barrels slid a signet ring onto his little finger. He tended to dress fancier than the rest of them. A clean cravat was tied around his gullet and though the sand and air were warm, he wore a doublet over his tunic and had his buckled shoes on. Barrels came from Exosia, like Cosmo, except way back when. And though he could sail and shoot to match the rest of them, there were certain things he hadn’t been cured of despite decades spent aboard ships. Fanciness and reading being two of them.