Peg-leg, Plank, and Locks hummed deep in their chests as Stubby sung in a coarse baritone:
It rose within me
A feeling that I can’t describe.
It surged up through me
That feeling that I cannot hide.
I spewed
I chundered
I vomited until I bled.
The sea, it hates me;
It will spend me until I’m dead.
Peg-leg, Plank, and Locks took hold of the last line and repeated it in sad voices. “Spend me until I’m dead. . . Spend me until I’m dead.”
Stubby continued:
It poured from my lips
The texture that I can’t forget
It sprayed all over
The burning bile in my nose.
I heaved
I threw up
I retched up my crab cakes.
The sea, my lover
You’ll spend me until I’m dead.
Cosmo doubled over clutching his stomach, and Ebba’s eyes rounded in sympathy. He was going to blow.
The three fathers echoed the last line again: “Spend me until I’m dead. . . Spend me until I’m dead.”
With a moaning shout, Cosmo threw his upper body over the side of the ship. His head disappeared from sight, but the sounds as he lost his stomach were all too audible.
And so were Stubby’s words. “Keep yer tunic on around our daughter.”
Ebba waited patiently, while Sally gulped back as much grog as she could, and then refilled the goblet for the sprite. Bending in close, she whispered, “Once we dock in Neos, ye’ll be able to get about and stretch yer wings a smidgen. Until then, keep out o’ sight, remember?”
Sal whirred in the back of her throat and palmed a chunk of mango into her mouth. Bouncing off her bed—consisting of a sock stuffed full of Barrels’ cravats—the sprite flittered in front of Ebba and touched one of the beads in her dreadlocks.
The sprite whirred again.
“They be my beads,” Ebba explained. “I’m tryin’ to fill all o’ me dreads full of them. That way, when other pirates hear my rattle, they’ll scurry in fear. And I think it’ll look fierce.”
The sprites eyes rounded, and she smiled in, what Ebba decided, was approval.
Ebba picked up one of the dreads that ran down to the middle of her shoulder blades. “They’re esp’cially special because each bead be a gift from my fathers,” she admitted. “I can be recallin’ where they gave each one to me, and what they said.” She rolled a white bead between her calloused fingers. “They gave me this one when we were on Maltu last. I’d just overheard Pockmark’s crew talkin’ of the magical fruit and the plunder they’d been searchin’ four years for. And Grubby dove overboard to get the bead back, after the scoundrel, Jagger, let it slip through the scupper.”
Sally was kicking and punching the air, and Ebba agreed with her. “Aye, I was right worked up, too.”
“Ebba?” Cosmo’s voice sounded.
Ebba jumped and shooed Sally away. She rushed back between the barrels and intercepted Cosmo by the fire pit. Too close for comfort.
“What are you doing back here?” he asked, peering over her shoulder.
She wiped her mouth. “Gettin’ some grog for everyone.”
His gaze dropped to her empty hands.
“Ye interrupted me.” She scowled, swiping some goblets from Peg-leg’s cupboards and throwing open the nearest barrel. “Are ye feelin’ any better?”
His mouth twisted into a wry expression. “Yes, your fathers’ singing was . . . effective.”
She frowned. “I’m sorry they did that to ye. They can be a smidgen. . . . .”
“Protective of their only daughter?”
She scrunched her nose, and filled the goblets in her hands, passing them to Cosmo. “Aye, and there be six o’ them to feel that way. But I don’t see any reason for them to get their sails in a knot.”
Red crept up Cosmo’s neck, and he became occupied with staring into the full goblets. “Well, you are a young female, and I am a young male. That’s reason enough for any father.”
Ebba snorted and lifted her eyes to Cosmo’s, sure he was joking. Her face fell when his serious amber eyes met hers. “What?” she croaked.
Cosmo opened his mouth, and she cut him off.
“I’m a pirate, prince slave. There be three types of people in this world: Males, females, and pirates, savvy? And I, Ebba-Viva Wobbles Fairisles, am a pirate.” She jabbed a finger into her chest. “Ye’d do well not to forget it.”
“You are a pirate,” he replied, and then softened his voice. “And a female. Pirates can be female too, you know.”
Cosmo may not know all the details of her stay in the brothel on Maltu, but he knew enough to leave the matter alone. Bloody landlubbers. Ebba backed away until she hit the entrance to the hold. There, she whirled and strode for the sleeping quarters as fast as she could.
Barrels poked his head out of his office. “Is everything okay?” he asked.
Cosmo could answer that.
Dashing behind her hammock, Ebba sank to her knees by her accessories trunk and threw the lid open to delve blindly within. Please don’t follow me. Please don’t follow me. There were only so many places to evade someone on a ship.
“Uh,” Cosmo whispered, “I’m afraid I may’ve mentioned to Ebba that she’s female. Again.”
She could hear him as plainly as if she were standing next to him. Unfortunately. That made it harder to pretend the discussion was over.
Barrels paused. “Might I inquire as to how that subject came up?”
Cosmo lowered his voice. “Barrels, surely she must know she’s . . . more than a pirate.” His voice took on an almost angry edge. “Why do you constantly tell her that she’s not? Are you purposely trying to avoid the conversation? Being female is nothing to be ashamed or scared of.”
Ebba wasn’t ashamed of being female; she was scared of being one. Not for the reasons Cosmo likely meant. Ebba didn’t see herself as physically weaker than men—she worked the riggings and knew how to use her pistols and cutlass. She didn’t necessarily like the lives that most females on the islands and in the villages led. And truth be told, she didn’t spend a great deal of time with women at all. But being female scared her for one reason and one reason only. Her fathers had left her because of it. And ever since Ebba started telling them she was just a pirate and nothing more, they hadn’t left her again.
She pulled out a long red bandana she usually wore when going ashore. The sight of it between her fingers blurred as traitorous tears filled her eyes.
Her father sighed. “When Ebba grew into adulthood, we made the mistake of dropping her to an acquaintance of ours in Maltu for several months.” Ebba felt them both looking to where she crouched behind her hammock. Did they know she could hear? Seemed likely.
The pause was lengthy, and Ebba assumed Barrels was giving her time to object to the recount. Not this time. Cosmo wasn’t going to give up until he had an answer, and Ebba didn’t want to be the one to retell the worst experience of her life. Two years ago, she’d thought the crew were going to Maltu to trade and had woken up in the brothel, her fathers gone. Maybe a part of her wanted to hear Barrels speak—in a situation where she could later pretend she hadn’t heard.
“Our Ebba has never really gotten over it,” Barrels said softly.
“She thought you’d abandoned her?”
Barrels voice was hoarse. “We assume so, yes. She tore up Sherry’s brothel, and it cost us a pretty penny to fix. But Sherry wasn’t angry at Ebba, no—we got the biggest earful of our lives for leaving ‘ma cherie’ all alone. Suffice to say, we were only trying to provide her with a female’s wisdom during her transition, but we will never make the mistake of leaving her again. Ever since, she’d demanded to be seen as a pirate and nothing more.”
“You took her to a brothel, yet you made me sick for removing my tunic in front of her.” The accusation was heavy in Cosmo’
s tone.
“Sherry’s the only female we trusted to keep her safe and show her how to deal with the changes to her body,” Barrels said defensively. “Stubby’s eldest sister has a mean streak. And the other’s a drunk.”
Felicity bobbed side to side beneath Ebba’s knees in the lull of conversation. Her mouth was ajar as she stared in the direction of the hold. Ebba was perfectly happy being a pirate, and Barrels’ words didn’t change that. Yet hearing that they’d only left her on Maltu to try to help her was . . . shocking. Life-altering.
More than two years had passed since her time with Sherry and the other gals, and she and her fathers had never spoken about it. They’d made their apologies when they’d seen how distraught she was. They’d attempted to broach the subject several times, but Ebba was so terrified that the subject used to send her into a full-fledged panic. After a couple of months, they’d stopped, and shoving her fear to the background became easier and easier.
Her fathers had never even given her a reason for dropping her there. Ever. So she’d had to figure that out herself. Was she to understand that her crew left so that she could make sense of the changes to her body? That they’d always intended to come back?
For so many years, she’d lived in the shadow of that memory. And for what? To only now learn that they hadn’t abandoned her because of her sex at all. They were all idiots for not bringing the discussion up sooner. As far as most things went, Ebba was happy to go with the least-confrontational route to keep the ship running smoothly—that was partly the reason why they had a ship law on the subject.
. . . But how much easier would life have been if she’d known the truth? If she’d just asked. Ebba frowned at the red bandana in her hands, stomach stirring uneasily. Did the same lesson apply to not knowing where her fathers came from? And what about the crumbling magical wall? Sink her, that revelation was a headache for a later day.
“That’s why she refuses to admit she’s a . . . well, a she?” Cosmo asked finally.
“From what I can tell, she has pegged being female as the reason we left. I believe a pirate’s natural propensity to run away from any type of reflection has exacerbated things. But . . . well, we should have tried harder. She just seemed happy as she was, so we told ourselves we didn’t have to. It was our mistake.”
A tear dropped from her chin onto the bandana. Ebba blinked furiously to be rid of the dratted things.
“That’s why she has no idea how beautiful she is,” the prince slave added softly. “I’ve never known anyone like her.”
Lifting her head, Ebba stared into the side of her hammock. She’d never been described as beautiful before. Fish lips, yes. Beautiful, never. Hard to know which one made her more uncomfortable, really.
The hush in the bilge took on an edge.
“I’m going to pretend I never heard that, Cosmo,” Barrels said. “And I recommend you never utter it around any of my co-parents, either—even Grubby. They’ll do much worse to you than sing songs if they hear it, and I’m not sure I won’t join in next time.”
“Show a leg!” Ebba squealed, flinging herself backward so she swung upside-down on the rigging.
“Sink you, Ebba-Viva!” roared Peg-leg underneath her, hand clutched to his chest. “Stop doin’ that?”
She laughed as he limped back to the bilge, glaring at her over his shoulder. The others laughed a little, but they’d all been the victim of that same prank too many times to find as much hilarity in it as she did.
Life at sea, living in confined quarters, got a bit monotonous. They all had their ways to alleviate the boredom—other than shanties. Ebba liked to jump out at people; Grubby—lucky starfish—went swimming beside the ship; Plank told long, dramatic stories and entered into his humming daydreams; and Stubby fretted about tiny things going wrong with the ship. Peg-leg listened to Ebba’s stories of what she’d seen from the crow’s nest that day. Locks liked to sing about his various lady friends over and over in his annoyingly catchy rhyming songs. He only made songs about them to keep all their names straight in his head . . . though he’d been curiously silent on this trip.
“Oi, Locks,” Ebba called, still upside-down. “Ye haven’t sung yer lady friend song once on this trip.”
Stubby sniggered. “He’s pining for another, lass.”
“I was just about to sing it,” Locks said. Ignoring Stubby’s muttered ‘please don’t,’ he drew in a huge drag of air.
Maltu Harbor
See the barber
Turn right
Delight!
Neos village
There to pillage
Fruit stand
Susan!
Pleo Forest
She’s a florist
Bad hair
Bonair!
Kentro Market
Has a basket
Nice skin
Laylin!
The thing with Locks’ shanties is they were terrible, and he never sang them less than five times, which left the tune in her head for days after.
“Hey, Locks,” she called. “What’s the go with this soothsayer? Why do ye say that ye don’t like her when ye really do?”
Locks broke off his singing, and Plank and Stubby groaned.
She pulled herself up to free her legs from the rigging and dropped to the main deck on light feet.
Locks sniffed, tilting his nose up. “Nineteen years ago, it were. Me, thirty-two years and in my prime. I saw her and thought, ‘She be fair-like’—”
“That ain’t what ye thought,” Stubby interrupted. He clasped his hands together and adopted a vacant-eyed expression. “‘She be the one for me, lads. I never saw such a beaut’ful wench in all my time. Like the moon above a calm sea, she is. I be half in love with her’—” A piece of coconut bounced off his head. Clutching the base of his skull, Stubby turned to glare at the unapologetic Locks.
Locks lowered his arm and took up his dagger to pry more coconut free. “As I were sayin’. I thought, ‘Here be a way to fritter away some time,’ so I bought her a real drink, with real money. She flirted with me and smiled, so I bought her a real dinner, with more real money. Then we get to her doorstep to. . . .”
“Drink tea!” Ebba blurted, squeezing her eyes shut. That was what bothered her about dropping their ship law about not asking why. If Ebba stopped ‘pretending,’ would she have to stop ignoring everything? Because she’d never stop pretending her fathers visited women to drink tea for hours on end.
“. . . To drink tea,” Locks stuttered. “Aye, and she turns around, all dramatic-like, and declares I’m a lyin’ double-timer, followed by a heap of words I had to ask Barrels about later on.”
Stubby cleared his throat. “I recall the translation be sumpin’ about how you had a girlfriend on each island.”
“Ye told her that?” Ebba asked. He didn’t usually. He’d told her that part of a parent’s job was to show their children how not to live their lives.
Locks scowled and remained silent.
“She be a soothsayer, little nymph,” Plank answered. “They know a lot more than normal folk like us.”
Locks mumbled behind her, “A real drink and a real dinner. I laid down genuine teeth-breakin’ coin for her.”
Her father was nearly as stingy as Barrels. “Why would the soothsayer help us if she don’t like Locks?” She ignored his answering scoff.
“There be no option but to ask her,” Plank said with a shrug. “We don’t know who else to go to.”
Well, if they didn’t know anyone, neither did she. She’d never really met anyone without them, barring Cosmo. Ebba moved away from her fathers, spotting the prince slave in question studying a map in the shelter of the bilge door.
“What ye got there, Cosmo? Learnin’ again?”
He smiled at her and her chest loosened. They hadn’t spoken about what had happened below deck in the last few days. She was embarrassed he’d caught her off-guard with the comment, and a little sheepish that he’d learned the true vers
ion of events at the same time as her. Even knowing why her fathers had left her, that time was still one of the worst of her life. Ebba could still recall the way breathing was hard and how she’d thought her heart would break into a thousand splintered pieces. She remembered watching her fathers from the window of a locked room as they sailed away—and the horror of Sherry’s ladies trying to put her in dresses. Scupper that!
“Not learning as such. Just trying to kill some time,” he answered. He shifted so she could see the map. His finger trailed over the mainland, Exosia.
“I’ve never been to the mainland,” she said.
“I’m not sure it would be wise for any pirate to go there.”
“Aye, King Forge be a nasty one. That’s for sure.” When her fathers were young, there was a great war between the king’s navy and pirates. The king eventually won, and any pirate not smart enough to lay low in the years after were quartered or chucked in the cages. He’d nearly brought pirate-kind to the brink of extinction.
“He can be,” Cosmo said hesitantly. “I suppose to a pirate, he is a natural enemy. There is nothing he hates more.”
Ebba whacked his shoulder and Cosmo blanched. “Sorry, that be yer sore one,” she apologized. “I forget ye would’ve known the king a bit, bein’ slave to the prince and all.”
“I really wasn’t a slave—”
“Aye, Cosmo. Ye were. Forced to do things ye didn’t want to do all day. Doin’ them so someone else could be more comfortable than yerself.”
The young man’s eyes took on a faraway sheen. “Yes, but I was paid, and I could’ve chosen another position if I wished. That is the way of life on Exosia. We don’t do what we like with our lives.”
Ebba winked at him. “That’s why ye should stay on Felicity.”
He took in their surroundings and sighed. It was a heavy, weary sound. “It is nice just to worry about one’s immediate vicinity for a change.”
Ebba-Viva Fairisles: Stolen Princess (Pirates of Felicity Book 2) Page 4