Race to the Bottom of the Sea

by Lindsay Eagar

  He’d brought her things before: mother-of-pearl earrings, emerald necklaces, a belt made of hand-woven alpaca. Each time he’d present something to her, and she’d just stare at him with those soft eyes, gray as doves, as flint, as the sky after an ocean storm. She didn’t even have to say anything — those eyes said it all.

  Thank you, but I’m not interested in things you’ve stolen. Thank you, but I don’t want trinkets. Not something you picked up from a beanie ship. Not something you wrenched from a dying duke’s hands.

  No, she didn’t want any of his spoils.

  But still. For years he had searched for the perfect thing to give her. Something to remind her that their love was, to him, as tangible as the gold he plundered. Something for her to hold when she couldn’t hold him. Something that told her that he saw into the very heart of her, just as she saw him.

  For years he had searched, and come up empty-handed.

  And oh, how a pirate hated to search for treasure and come up empty-handed.

  He stopped at a jeweler’s booth. The owner watched Merrick with suspicious eyes, smoking a glass shisha with long, lazy drags.

  “What about this, Captain?” Cheapshot Charlie held up a milky-white comb, inlaid with abalone shell.

  “No,” Merrick said as soon as he looked. “She doesn’t wear things in her hair.”

  “Well, cobbers, I don’t know the first thing to look for.” Bloody Elle skimmed the booth and found a diamond-encrusted tiara, shiny enough to put the sun out of work. “This?”

  Merrick scoffed. “You just picked up the flashiest thing he has.”

  “Don’t mind her,” Cheapshot Charlie drawled. “She doesn’t know the first thing about picking out jewelry.”

  Bloody Elle glared at him but didn’t argue.

  “The merchandise is for buying, not looking,” the jeweler said.

  “How can we buy it if we don’t look at it?” Merrick asked calmly, examining a ring.

  “If you won’t buy,” the jeweler said, “then we’re closed.”

  “Closed?” Merrick repeated. “In the middle of the afternoon?”

  “Closed to you,” the jeweler snapped. “Now, go. Other customers want to buy.”

  Merrick pulled a wad of blue notes from the breast pocket of his embroidered overcoat. “Here,” he said, peeling off a note and tossing it at the jeweler. “That should buy us the freedom to browse without you whining.”

  The jeweler hesitated, then took the money. “Ten minutes,” he said, greedily fondling the bill while Merrick ran his eyes over every piece in the booth.

  Merrick.

  He could hear her voice in his head now — a small voice, but powerful. Like the northern wind.

  I don’t want your spoils.

  A set of opal cuff links.

  I don’t want your stolen gold, or rubies, or diamonds.

  A peacock-shaped locket, with garnets for the bird’s glistening eyes.

  I only want you.

  There. He spotted it, tucked in the back corner of the booth like the jeweler was ashamed of it.

  A pewter brooch, with a frilled edge. No gloss or shine to it. Just metal.

  “A fine brooch,” the jeweler immediately boasted, “worn by the duchess of Molvania for her wedding —”

  “Save it,” Bloody Elle snapped. “Captain, are you sure? It’s so … gray.”

  Gray, like a pair of eyes. The color of storms.

  “How much?” Merrick asked.

  “Twenty thousand green notes,” the jeweler said, testing the waters.

  “Like hell it is!” Cheapshot Charlie’s jaw clenched. “I should pull out your beard, hair by hair, for thinking you could swindle us.”

  “Fine. A thousand green notes,” the jeweler said, and puffed his shisha, “and I’ll be glad to be rid of it. It cheapens the rest of my wares.”

  Merrick reached for his wad of notes, then stopped. This was money he’d acquired through work. Through piracy. Either he’d pilfered this cash directly from cocoa ships or he’d sold the things he’d stolen. He had quite the stockpile of money on him, and on his ship, and even more hidden away in a secret location, but —

  I only want you, she’d said.

  That’s what he wanted to give her. A part of himself.

  His hand bypassed the money and found the only honest thing he had: a silver pocket watch, the one his father had given him when he was a boy. He held it out without a word.

  The jeweler lifted it to the sky, as if he expected it to be transparent. He checked its gears, then gave a short nod. The trade was accepted.

  He gave Merrick a little box, and Merrick carefully cradled the brooch in the layers of crushed velvet.

  “That box is probably worth more than the brooch,” the jeweler said, his shisha clacking against his teeth, “so don’t be surprised when your lady is insulted and throws the whole thing in your face for thinking she has such poor taste!”

  When the smoke in his booth finally cleared, the three strangers were gone. The jeweler reached his arms into the air, stretching his back, and rolled his head around his neck socket — and the crowd parted, just for an instant, long enough for the jeweler to see the poster glued to the hash house wall.

  That face … That crooked smile, the fire dancing behind the eyes.

  “Him!” he shouted to the shopkeepers around him. “The pirate from the posters! He was here, in my booth!”

  “What a fool!” they shouted back. “Ten thousand blue notes to kill him, and you let him walk free?”

  The wet market suddenly burst into a frenzy of yells — it was always loud, yes, but with this news that profitable pirates were roaming wild, the clamor was unmatchable.

  The Molvanian coast guard blew their horns. Booths closed their canvas flaps. Beefy mercenaries with tattooed faces dashed to their schooners, readying their curved scimitars and salivating for their handsome rewards as they paddled out of port.

  But it was too late. The pirates had already slipped away to their ship, and as the sunset painted the horizon in rosy stripes, Merrick took the helm and guided the Jewel into open waters, the weight of his pocket watch replaced by the heft of a pewter brooch in a velvet-lined box.

  Something from him.

  “Fidelia!” Dr. Ida Quail’s voice carried through the rain-forest like a bird’s call.

  Fidelia was crouching on the pad of a giant water lily (Victoria amazonica), collecting algae samples with a cotton swab. She paused, a catfish splashing her as it crept up the riverbank.

  Her mother repeated the cry. “Fidelia! Come quick!”

  The hairs on the back of Fidelia’s neck stood at attention. She jumped onto shore and cruised through the green undergrowth until she reached the tree house.

  The tree house was about twenty feet up, the perfect height for the Quails’ research hub in the jungle: too high for most carnivorous prowlers, too low for pesky monkeys — or so they thought. Fidelia hurried up the bamboo ladder, her gut knotted in terror. Mom sounded like she was in trouble.

  Her imagination whizzed with the dreadful possibilities: Had Dr. Quail been cornered by a jaguar? Did she get scraped up by a patch of walking palm trees? Had a foul-tempered anaconda slithered into the tree house? There were countless other things that could go wrong during a field study; so far, the Quails had been lucky.

  But what if today was the day their luck had finally run out?

  Ida Quail was in the tree house, hunched over with her back to the door — limbs still intact, still breathing, as far as Fidelia could tell.

  She approached her mother cautiously. “Mom? What’s wrong?”

  Her mother giggled and spun around. She held a baby three-toed sloth, which had its arms wrapped around her neck like a human infant. The sloth was wearing Fidelia’s spare glasses, the awful horn-rimmed ones she only kept around as a backup. “She won’t take them off !” Dr. Quail said.

  Fidelia tickled the lethargic sloth under the chin. “She can keep them. They look
better on her, anyway.” She placed a sunbonnet on the critter’s head, and the sloth dreamily leaned its head back, modeling it.

  “Fidelia?” Dr. Arthur Quail jogged up the ladder, a sliver of suma root in his hand. “Ah, there you are. Let me see that arm.” A cloud of mosquitoes hovered around Dr. Quail’s chin. His blood-sucking companions were determined to penetrate his wiry goatee but were ultimately unsuccessful, thanks to a newly concocted mosquito repellent, made from vine juice and figs.

  She extended her arm. A bite from a rat snake crossed her wrist. “It’s not that bad,” she said, but Dr. Quail dabbed the milk from the suma root onto the injury.

  “This will keep it from scarring.” He kissed her forehead. “Now, I can’t find my notes on the star-grass specimens. Have you seen them?”

  The tree house was a hurricane of crumpled bedsheets, browning apple cores, and manila file folders. “You two are slobs.” Fidelia used her toe to slide a Goliath cockroach off Dr. Quail’s clipboard. “They’re right here.”

  “What would we do without you?” Ida said. The sloth climbed onto Fidelia’s shoulder. When the critter peeked up at Fidelia from under the bonnet, it had one blue eye and one black-and-red eye.

  The black-and-red eye started bleeding.

  The sound of gulls clucking woke Fidelia, and the last whispers of her dream fizzled away. It was dark still, the light thin, the stars faint — that strange, uncategorized moment between night and dawn.

  She pushed herself up to a sitting position and found her glasses. No sign of any black clouds or tempestuous waters. But there, in the distance, she could see the blurred outline of the horizon climbing, of trees, the corners of buildings.

  The mainland.

  Glassport — she identified the famous glass dome in the skyline immediately. This is what Aunt Julia wants for me, Fidelia thought, rubbing warmth into her arms. A move to a city like this.

  A new fire flickered beneath the cook pot. The pirates of the Rasculat stood around the sandpit, Niccu stirring a pot filled with Molvanian coffee. Fidelia knew that scent. It was Ida Quail’s favorite java — black as tar, strong enough to stand up a spoon in. Blinking hard before the tears could pool, Fidelia swung her legs to exit the hammock — but then she heard Niccu’s words.

  “… all the way back to Arborley for her ransom,” he was telling the others. “It’s not worth the trip.”

  Fidelia quickly lay back down, pretending to be asleep, her ears straining to hear the rest of the conversation above the usual din of sailing — chains clanking, the creaking of old wood bending into water, the wind flapping the sails.

  “Then what do we do with her?” Hanzi said. “I’m not babysitting.”

  “We’ll sell her to the highest bidder,” Niccu said. “There’ll be someone in Glassport that’ll want her. Matteo, maybe.”

  “Or Lucian and Crow,” Drinka suggested.

  Niccu shrugged, sipping his coffee from a tin mug. “Either way. She’ll fetch a fine price.”

  Fidelia’s heart sickened. Now what? She didn’t want this, didn’t want any of this — she didn’t want to go with Matteo or Lucian or Crow or any other dangerous-sounding piratical sort; she didn’t want to stay with the Molvanian pirates, either.

  She hadn’t even wanted to leave Arborley in the first place.

  A cold fear throbbed in the hollow of her stomach — and a rage. This was Merrick’s fault. He was the one who dragged her away from Arborley Island. And now, it seemed, she would have to get herself out of this mess.

  If she explained to the Molvanian pirates who she really was, if she promised them some sort of reward money for returning her safely and promptly to Arborley Island … Would they believe her? Would Aunt Julia be able to scrape together an amount of cash that would suffice?

  She planted her feet on the deck boards, hoping she would be able to bargain her way into a safe trip home. But she stopped.

  Merrick, still leaning back against the mainmast, suddenly rolled forward, the ropes that bound him falling silently away from his body and onto the boards. Fidelia gaped, her eyes flickering to the Molvanian pirates. None of them noticed as Merrick stealthily dropped to all fours, crawled to Bloody Elle and Cheapshot Charlie, and sliced through their ropes with the dagger in his boot.

  Adrenaline coursed through Fidelia — but she willed her heartbeat to steady itself and considered her choices: She could scream and alert the Molvanians, strangers who were planning to sell her off. What if they wouldn’t make a deal with her? What if they refused to take her back to Arborley? She could be bounced all over the world, from ship to ship — she might never get back to Aunt Julia. Or she could stay silent and trust that Merrick would stay true to his word to return her after she helped him to retrieve his treasure.

  The monster she already knew or the monster she didn’t?

  Fidelia chewed her bottom lip as Merrick, Cheapshot Charlie, and Bloody Elle stole across the deck, one light step at a time. Merrick’s throat bobbed up and down — a cough tickled, but he stayed silent as the waters.

  Could she trust him to return her home when this was all over?

  One look into his blue eye, and she knew she had to believe him.

  “Scrub the pond scum off this ship,” Niccu ordered, giving the chipped, rough railing a severe look. “And find something to patch her up. Oakum, if they have it. We’ll fully refurbish her when we have the bread for it.”

  Bloody Elle crept, ever so quietly, behind a row of barrels, readying a broken board to use as a club.

  Meanwhile, Cheapshot Charlie shook the numbness from his arms and climbed up the mainmast like a spider. He began untying the knots holding a tangle of ropes to the mast.

  Luca dropped his empty coffee tin and stepped away from the sandpit, and Merrick struck. He seized Luca, pressing his blade into the pirate’s neck.

  The other Molvanians jumped, yanking out their guns. Before they could fire, Cheapshot Charlie loosed the ropes, trapping the Molvanian pirates in a heap on the deck, where they bobbed like idiot carp.

  “Monstrous!” Niccu cried. “This isn’t over! I’ll have you —”

  Bloody Elle charged forward, batting the revolvers from the Molvanian pirates with her board. Cheapshot Charlie climbed down from the rigging and joined Bloody Elle, seizing weapons and restraining the Jewel’s invaders.

  But in the tussle, Niccu kept a hold of his gun, and, from his position lying on the deck boards, aimed it through the ropes not at Merrick but at Fidelia, who stared back at the revolver. The dark tunnel of the barrel was a tiny black circle across the deck, a shark’s eye moments before it rolled back in its socket. Her heart stopped, her feet froze, everything slowing as Niccu’s finger inched back on his trigger… .

  Aunt Julia’s face surfaced in her mind, and Fidelia clenched her eyes shut.

  Merrick stepped in front of Niccu’s gun just as it discharged. As Merrick staggered back, grasping his left shoulder, he dropped his grip on Luca. Bloody Elle seized Niccu’s gun from his hand and spun it around to face Luca, who put both his arms in the air. Merrick knelt on the boards and angled his dagger against Niccu’s neck.

  “Please,” Niccu choked, his oily black hair caked in dust. “Kill me quickly.”

  “I thought anyone from the Rasculat would have more sense than to chase after legends,” Merrick said, not a shred of pain in his voice. “Especially after losing one of your own to the daisies.”

  Niccu looked up at Merrick, his eyes wide in fear. “How could I live with myself ?” he whispered. “To be so close to Merrick the Monstrous and not try to win his gold?”

  Merrick let the tip of his blade drag along Niccu’s skin. “How does it feel now? To stare at your death?”

  Niccu said nothing.

  Fidelia thought she could feel every billow in the sails, every insignificant wave beneath the Jewel. Even the morning breeze held itself back, waiting.

  “Are you thinking about gold now?” Merrick growled. “Riches? A stockpile of
gems?”

  Niccu shook his head. “My — my home.”

  Merrick named it for him. “Molvania.”

  “Yes.” Niccu tilted his head back onto the boards and closed his eyes. “A golden sun over farmlands. Rolling green hills, and mountains, and snow. Frescoes hanging in the village cathedral, older than my grandmother. The house I grew up in … only a shack, but my home.”

  Goose bumps prickled Fidelia’s arms. Home.

  “Oh, Yanko.” Niccu whimpered this, a sad smile on his face. “I failed you, my cousin.”

  “You’ll see him soon enough; you can beg his forgiveness then.” Merrick tensed, his mouth a long, bold killing line as he pressed his dagger into Niccu’s throat.

  Fidelia’s insides constricted. “No!” She ran to Merrick’s side and held on to his elbow; he tried to shake her off, but she clutched tighter than a barnacle. “You can’t kill him! I won’t let you!”

  “Stay out of this, Quail.” Merrick motioned to Cheapshot Charlie, who grabbed Fidelia around her middle and hauled her back.

  “I won’t help you!” she spat. “I’ll throw my Water-Eater right overboard. Then you’ll have to figure out some other way to get your precious treasure!” She felt electric, blazing with righteous energy. Bargaining energy.

  “Or,” she fired on, “you’ll have to send me down into the cave alone. Without anything to protect me. Will you really send me down to my death? I’ll make you do it.” She paused, catching her breath. Would he truly make her suffer the way he was? Was he really that monstrous?

  He looked at her, unblinking, his blue eye burning. With a snarl, he stabbed his dagger into the deck and grabbed Niccu by the collar of his tunic. He dragged the Molvanian pirate to the railing, hoisted him up, and held him over the side of the ship. It was terrifying, Merrick’s burst of strength — his peacoat flapped open, his shirt beneath unbuttoned, revealing a chest sunken enough to hold water, but still he lifted this bear of a man and dangled him above the water as if he were an empty candy wrapper.

  Niccu did not fight back. He didn’t kick his legs or throw punches — he simply locked eyes with Merrick and bowed his head. “I will watch for you in the stars,” he said — not a threat, but a simple statement. A final blessing, of sorts. A premature eulogy.