by Heidi Heilig
Those stars dimmed as we slipped into the Margins of the map, the slender threshold between one place and the next, where India in 1774 ran out and the next shore appeared. Mist rose around us like the souls of drowned sailors, and the only sound was the muted hollow music of waves moving along the hull. Everything seemed calm, but the seas in the Margins were unpredictable—the currents mercurial and the winds erratic—and passage was always rougher the farther afield we traveled. And, very rarely, there were ghost ships in the fog, captained by those who had found the way in, but not the way out. I rubbed some warmth into my bare arms.
“Are you all right, amira?”
I made a face and nodded toward the mist. “The Margins always reminds me of purgatory. The place between worlds.”
Kashmir’s brow wrinkled. “Isn’t purgatory supposed to be hotter?”
“That’s St. Augustine’s version. This is more like the Asphodel Meadows in Homer. Although with fewer bloodthirsty ghosts.”
Kashmir laughed. “Ah, yes, of course. I must catch up on my reading.”
“Well, I’m sure you know where my books are if you ever want to steal them.” I grinned as I turned back to the helm; just as quickly, the smile fell away. Slate had taken the wheel to steer us toward the far-off shore only he could see . . . but his face was full of frustration. He swung his head back and forth, he gripped the wheel, he leaned forward as if to get a closer look—but it was clear he couldn’t see our destination.
The ship rolled on the swells, and bronze light flickered in the fog, followed by the low grumble of thunder. Rain pelted the sails and the mist writhed in a sudden gust. In the crow’s nest above our heads, Rotgut cursed; he must have been swaying like a metronome.
New York should not have been difficult, not like this. “What’s wrong, Captain?”
“I don’t know!” Slate wrenched the wheel starboard, trying to take us around, but the waves were pushing hard to port. Near the prow, Bee tensioned the halyard on the jib, the bell at her waist swinging as she moved.
The Temptation groaned, and the ship shuddered as a swell hit, followed by another high enough to send spray over the rail. Kashmir caught my arm and pulled me close to the mast. I held on, keeping clear of the boom; my fingers found the rough splinters of the bullet hole. A breaker washed the deck, the cold sea soaking my feet.
“Slow down,” Slate said. “I need more time!”
Kashmir sprang into action, racing up the stairs to the quarterdeck and grabbing the sea anchor. I followed on his heels and helped heave it off the stern. As the canvas caught our wake and dragged, another swell hit broadside and jolted us hard enough to rattle my teeth. This time Kashmir stumbled; I took his hand and grabbed the rail, bracing for the next wave, but it never came. The sea stilled once more as we ran right off the edge of the map.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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MAP TO COME
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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The black water faded to blue, and I blinked in the sudden light of dawn—no, sunset. A breeze snapped in the netting and swirled through the mist, pulling it aside like a curtain to reveal, in the distance, the glittering glass skyline of New York City. The twin towers were nowhere to be seen—this was not the eighties, but I didn’t need to see the shore to know it. The captain swore and slammed his fist down on the wheel, stalking away and back, pacing like a tiger himself. This was Slate’s native time and place: late May 2016, within sight of the southern tip of Manhattan.
This was also where the auction would be held, in three days’ time, whether or not we had the money to win it.
Little bubbles of hope, like sea foam in my stomach. If we missed the auction because he failed to Navigate, it would be his fault, not mine. And I would be safe, at least for a little while longer.
The dark sea had calmed, and we floated like a leaf on a pond. I peeled my fingers off the rail, and off Kashmir’s wrist. He glanced at me, but I spread my hands. “The map looked fine to me,” I said, my voice soft, but the captain whirled around as though I had shouted an accusation.
“Maybe you didn’t look hard enough,” he said.
I met his eyes. “Hand drawn. Good detail. Dated. And new to us,” I said, ticking the four points off on my fingers. No matter how detailed a map, once we’d visited, we couldn’t go back, and Slate didn’t always remember where he’d been or what he’d done. Still, I’d only just bought the map, so I knew for certain he’d never used it.
“And yet it’s a dead ender!”
“So what went wrong?”
He snorted. “Nice try, Nixie.”
I threw my hand in the air. “Figure it out yourself, then.”
“You sure you don’t have any ideas?” the captain said, taking a slow step toward me, then another. “I know you’ve been nervous about going to Honolulu.”
His doubt stung. I knew my worth lay in my abilities, my knowledge, the way I could chart a course. Without that, I was little more than ballast. I felt my face redden; out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bee and Kashmir watching. “Don’t blame me for your failures, Slate.”
He glared at me another moment, then returned to the wheel, gritting his teeth and squeezing with white knuckles as though willing us into the right decade. But to no avail. The fog did not rise, the wind did not drop, and the shoreline stayed stubbornly constant.
Bee approached me so I could hear her soft question; sweat or sea spray gleamed on her scarred brow. “If 1981 won’t work, do you know another map to try? One where we can trade tigers for dollars?”
I pressed my fingers to my temple, trying to call up everything I’d ever read; not an easy task. “I suppose . . . someone in Rome might buy them for the Colosseum, but even if the captain could go back that far, we’d probably lose money overall.”
Slate threw me a disapproving look. “On top of it being inhumane.”
“As opposed to selling them to the yakuza in Chinatown?” Kashmir said with a grin.
“If a man kills a tiger, that’s inhumane,” Slate muttered. “If a tiger kills a man, that’s just inhuman.”
“The gang was the White Tigers, actually,” I said. “The yakuza are Japanese.”
“What’s the currency in ancient Rome, amira? Is it gold?”
“Not most of it,” I said. “But the coins themselves are quite valuable.”
“We’d have to find a new buyer,” Slate reminded me. “My coin guy died two years ago.”
“How hard could that be?” I said.
“The auction’s on my timeline,” the captain said. “We’ve only got three days.”
“Two now,” Kashmir corrected him.
“Then you think of something!” I glared at them both.
A roar drifted up from the hold; it was a curious sound, like whale song. The captain swore again and left the helm, jogging down the stairs from the quarterdeck and into his cabin, slamming the door behind him. I ran my hands through my hair. As first mate, Bee took his place, but for a moment, my fingers itched to take the wheel. Could I do what the captain had not?
“You didn’t do anything?” Kashmir said to me.
“What?”
“To the map.”
I blinked. “No! If I had a mind to sabotage a map, there are better candidates.”
“Ah.” He leaned against the rail, tilting his head to study me. “So,” he said. “What makes you nervous about Honolulu?”
Turning to face the water, I frowned at the waves. “It’s complicated.”
“I haven’t got anywhere else to be.”
My fingers tapped an idle beat on the metal rail; the brass was cool under my palms. Kashmir was the only person aboard the ship who did not know every detail of the circumstances of my birth, and I was reluctant t
o surrender the strange, small bliss I had in his ignorance. Kash was the most confident person I knew; would he even understand how scared I was? Or worse—might he fear for me, too? Still, at this juncture, even if I didn’t tell him, he would know soon enough. But how to explain? I’d never told the story before.
“Oi!”
Startled by Rotgut’s shout from the crow’s nest, I followed his skinny finger to the lights in the distance; a sleek white boat on the water, far off, but coming toward us.
“What is it?” I called up.
“Coast Guard!”
I stared at the boat for a long moment, trying to convince myself it wasn’t headed our way—until another roar echoed in the hold. Then I ran to knock on the captain’s door, hard, though I counted to ten before opening it.
Even so, Slate looked surprised to see me. I met his eyes, deliberately not glancing at the box in his hands, the box he normally kept under his bed. It wasn’t worth telling him to hide it; if we were boarded, it would be harder to explain the tigers than to explain his stash of opium. “We need you on the radio,” I told him.
His fingers tightened on the box. “It might help the map to work.”
“Now, captain.” I shut the door behind me, harder than I had to.
Back on deck, Bee was taking the ship around while Kash raised the sails. We were moving again, plowing the waves, heading east along the southern coast of Long Island. I grabbed the halyard, helping Kash with the sail as I watched the lights of the boat off our stern, closer now and gaining.
According to Slate, the Coast Guard in New York had always been a pain, but much worse, of course, since 2001, far nosier and almost impossible to bribe. Nothing like the eighties, in the uncivilized city of my father’s youth. To make it worse, the Coast Guard was full of people who loved boats, and they couldn’t keep their hands off the Temptation.
She was a striking caravel, her black hull copper clad below the waterline to keep out worms (and worse, depending on what waters we traveled). She rode on a keel fashioned from what looked like the rib of a leviathan, carved with labyrinthine runes from stem to stern, and at the prow, a red-haired mermaid bared her breasts to calm the sea.
Even if the Coast Guard wasn’t inclined to search us, they would take any chance to stand on the deck and spin the wheel and tell Slate how they played pirates when they were children. Of course, once on deck they were bound to hear the tigers roaring. I gritted my teeth and waited for the captain as below, our illicit cargo growled in their rickety cages.
Just as I was about to knock again, Slate emerged from his cabin with the radio hissing, but he stared at the Coast Guard ship for a long time, blinking slowly in the fading glow of sunset. My heart sank; his pupils were the size of dimes. “Captain?”
My voice startled him to action. He lifted the microphone. “New York Coast Guard, New York Coast Guard, New York Coast Guard, this is the ship Temptation, Temptation, Temptation, over.”
A brief crackle of static, and then a hiss as we waited. Bee gnawed her finger. “Did he find another map?”
I shook my head. “He can’t Navigate now, not with them watching.”
“Can’t or won’t?” Bee said.
“Shouldn’t,” I said. “People will report it. Or film it and put it on YouTube.”
“Privacy is important,” Bee said. “You get little of it in prison.”
“New York Coast Guard, New York Coast Guard.” Slate bounced the microphone impatiently in his hand. “This is the ship Temptation, over.”
The lights off the stern were getting closer; another roar reverberated through my feet. “What do we do if they don’t answer?”
Kashmir made a face. “We could throw them overboard.”
“The drugs?”
“The tigers.”
“New York Coast Guard,” Slate repeated. His brow shone with sweat. “This is the ship Temptation, over.”
No answer, and the lights grew closer still. “Captain—”
Slate swore and dropped the radio to the deck, striding toward the helm. “Bring me a map, Nix!”
“What map?”
“Any map!”
“But—”
“Nix!”
The speaker crackled then; we both froze. “The Temptation, this is the New York Coast Guard, please switch to channel sixty-six, over.”
Kashmir scooped the radio off the deck and handed it to the captain. “New York Coast Guard, this is the Temptation, switching to channel sixty-six, over.” Slate did so, the speaker still hissing softly.
“The Temptation, this is the New York Coast Guard.” The accent was pure Brooklyn. “Slate?”
“Yes.” It was almost a sigh of relief. “This is Slate. Is this Bruce? Over.”
“This is Bruce. We got a call reporting suspicious activity.” Bruce gave a bark of a laugh, making the speaker crackle. “Thought it might be you, over.”
“A black pirate ship always scares the yachters, Bruce. Never thought she’d worry the Coast Guard.”
“Worried? Nah, they just want to visit with you,” Bruce said. “The Eagle’s got our newest cadet on board. My nephew. Never been on a tall ship. Would you mind showing him the ropes?”
“Ah.” Slate took a breath, his eyes roaming across the deck, over the sea, to the boat approaching. “I’d love to, Bruce, but, uh—” His eyes fell on me. “But we’re a little busy. It’s my daughter’s birthday. We’re having a party and everything. Over.”
My eyebrows went up. “My birthday?”
“Oh, man, your daughter? What is she now, fourteen?”
I shook my head, but he wasn’t paying attention.
Slate’s brow furrowed. “Yeah . . . ?”
“Dangerous age, Captain.” Kashmir snorted.
“Hey, don’t let me interrupt the festivities,” Bruce continued. “Say happy birthday for me. I’ll tell the boy he’s gotta wait. Probably for the best, he’s a handsome kid. Welcome home, over.”
“Bruce, thanks, over and out.”
“Yeah, thanks, Bruce,” I said under my breath.
Slate shut off the radio. It was only another few seconds before the ship behind us slowed and changed course. I pushed my hair out of my face and watched their lights fade. Slate dropped the radio on the deck and dragged his hands down his jaw.
“Finally a bit of luck, amira,” Kashmir said with a half grin.
I grimaced. “Only a bit, though.”
“Yes, too bad about the handsome nephew.”
“Why?” I said. “You were hoping for a pretty niece?”
He winked at me, but not even teasing Kashmir could lift my mood. We were nearing the Hamptons now, and no closer to our destination. In fact, the tigers prevented us from getting into the harbor at all; Bruce, who Slate never failed to bribe with good liquor when he got the chance, might be able to call off the Coast Guard, but the harbormasters would notice the roaring as soon as we tied up to the dock.
“Nixie.”
I turned. Slate had retaken the wheel, and he hadn’t relaxed. “What?” I said, although I knew what he was going to say.
“I need you.” His voice was soft, pleading. “I need your help. I can’t miss that auction. I have to have that map. Please.”
I kept my face stony, but the guilt in me was rising like a tide. I’d chosen the wrong map, I’d plotted the wrong course: mistake after mistake after mistake, all the way back to the start. “I’ll check again. Maybe there’s something I missed the first time.”
“Not likely,” Kashmir said, winding his pocket watch.
“I appreciate your confidence,” I said in a flat tone. “Wait a minute.” I grabbed for the watch and missed. He was much quicker than I. “Let me see that.”
Once I asked, he handed it over without a fuss. The watch was three inches across, a triple-case gold repoussé design of Adam and Eve in paradise, and it was heavier than it looked. On the back there was the signature, even a serial number—and of course, it was in exceptional co
ndition for its age, in spite of its dunking. I pressed my lips together. After scolding him for taking it, the hypocrisy stung . . . but it was worth twice what I would have gotten for the tigers.
Kashmir inclined his head; he understood. “What’s mine is yours, amira.”
I leaned into him, resting my temple on his shoulder in a gesture of thanks. Then I straightened. “Captain?”
“What?”
I tossed the watch to Slate, who caught it and held it up to the light. “I’m sixteen.”
“Right,” he said absently, studying the watch. Then his eyes widened. “Oh!” He closed his fingers around the watch and kissed it. His knees sagged and he leaned against the wheel, laughing.
“Easy come, easy go,” Kashmir said. Another indignant roar drifted up from below; he rolled his eyes. “Well, most of the time.”
“Why are the tigers so restless?” I nodded toward the captain, who was opening and closing the watch case, delighted. “I know for a fact we’re not out of opium.”
“No, amira, but we’re out of meat. I’ve fed them every last scrap on the ship.”
Rotgut’s head whipped around, the thin braid of his beard flying in the wind. “You gave them everything in the galley?”
“And the bag of jerky from under your mattress.”
“Thief!” Rotgut scowled.
Kashmir grinned at him. “Glutton.”
Rotgut swore in Chinese. Kash responded in Farsi—and Bee interrupted with a jangle of the bell she wore. “Settle down,” she said in her quiet whisper, her brown eyes sparkling. “You’re both right.”
“So,” Kash said to me. “Where can we leave the tigers?”
“Leave them?” Rotgut straightened up. “Why leave them?”
I cocked my head. “What else do you want to do with them?”
“Kash just said we’re out of meat.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at his joke. At least, I hoped it was a joke.
“We’re not eating them,” Slate said. “Christ.” He turned the wheel and pointed us toward the dark shoreline. “We’ll drop them off ashore.”