The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy

by Mackenzi Lee

  “Are you all right?” I ask Sim as I struggle to keep up with her quick stride, Johanna traipsing happily behind us.

  “Fine,” she replies, though that strong jawline is jutting out.

  “Are you certain? You seem tense.”

  “Of course I’m tense. I’ve got you and Miss Hoffman—keep up!” she calls over her shoulder at Johanna, who has stopped to feed the rest of her breakfast to a stray dog lounging on the stoop outside a mosque. “The two of you don’t blend in well.”

  “That’s not our fault.”

  “Doesn’t change the fact that we’re easy to spot.”

  “And you think someone’s trying to spot us?”

  She glances over at me, so quick it’s almost lost in the folds of her scarf.

  A parrot squawks right in my ear, and I swat without thinking. It nips at me, and I yelp, turning to glare at whatever negligent shopkeeper is failing to monitor their fowl. The woman is sitting on the ground, in front of a blanket spread with varying bottles and amulets and medicinal-looking charms. Amid the jumble laid out upon her cloth, a flash of blue catches my eye.

  I pull up short. Johanna crashes into me, and a woman behind us carrying two wicker baskets almost smashes into both of us. Sim stops when the woman curses loudly—in spite of the unfamiliar language, it’s very easy to distinguish a curse—and turns back to us. “What is—”

  “Sim, look!” I point down to the blanket, where six blue scales the size of my palm wink back at us.

  Sim comes to my side, Johanna on my other. The shopkeeper’s face is completely covered by her veil, but through the slit in the material, her eyes dart between us. “She shouldn’t have those,” Sim says. “It’s illegal in my father’s territories to own or sell the dragon scales. Or use them. Or hunt the sea monsters to get them.” She steps forward, crouches down on the balls of her feet so she can address the shopkeeper in Darija. Johanna and I stand behind her, helpless and dumb. As she speaks, Sim jerks up her sleeve to show the woman her ink, and the woman shies.

  “Don’t frighten her,” I say to Sim.

  “I’m not,” she replies in English without looking at me. “She’s frightened because she’s done wrong and she knows it.” She picks up in her native language again, and the woman squeaks back a few words in reply.

  “What is it?” Johanna asks as Sim stands and faces us again. The woman has her hands clasped before her in penance, her shoulders shaking.

  Sim knots her fingers behind her neck, starring down at the scales on the woman’s blanket, then up at the sky. I can hear her grinding her teeth. “We need to delay finding my father’s men.”

  “What?” I say. “Why? What did that woman tell you?”

  “She told me where the scales came from. Just outside the city.” Sim holds up a hand to shield her eyes from the sun as she turns to us. “There’s a dragon washed up on the beach.”

  Beyond Algiers, we follow a rough road that snakes through the countryside for almost an hour. Every step drops handfuls of sand down the backs of my boots. The houses turn to farms, then the flat terrain to a rough hike up a hillside of loose soil and scrub. All three of us lose our footing more than once when the soft earth gives out from under us. As we climb, the air grows thick with the smell of a beach and something decomposing upon it. Johanna and I both pull the collars of our dresses up over our mouths. Sim covers hers with her headscarf.

  When we crest the hill, Johanna gasps. I have to hold my hand up to shield my eyes from the sun before I see it too. Below us is a horseshoe inlet, hidden from the open water by cliffs. The sickle of white sand is framed by that radiant blue water and thick patches of greenery. And washed up on the beach, still half in the waves so that the surf froths with blood, is a dragon.

  By my best estimation, it’s likely over one hundred feet long, though I can’t be sure from its haphazard sprawl and its tail disappearing into the water. It resembles most closely the serpents from Sybille Glass’s drawings in the cabinet. It has a long body, the same sparkling blue of the sea, though the scales have been diluted by sand and blood. The armored forehead narrows into a pointed snout, with what looks like antennae sprouting from it like kelp snagged upon its eyebrows.

  There is a scattering of people on the beach, most clustered around the creature and picking at it with axes or knives, prying scales away and carving handfuls of the doughy flesh beneath. Some have even brought ladders and wagons along to aid with their take. A boy who can’t be more than ten is sitting upon the head, trying to hack off the tips of the antennae.

  “Bloody scavengers,” Sim hisses. “They cut up the corpses and sell the scales as a drug and everything else as sham remedies. The fat for clear skin and silky hair. Spine bones as lucky charms.”

  “Vertebrae,” I say.

  “What?”

  “The spine bones,” I reply, my eyes still on the creature. “They’re called vertebrae.”

  “Thank you, but that’s not what I’m concerned about right now.”

  “If you’re going to say something, at least say it right.”

  Her hands flex into fists at her side. “These rats are going to strip this corpse, flood the markets in Algiers, and then sell the runoff in Nice and Marseilles. Your Dr. Platt won’t be the only one looking for dragons.”

  “What do we do?” I ask.

  “I have to fetch my father’s men,” Sim replies. “We drive the scavengers away when this happens, and keep watch over the corpse until the tide takes it back. I’m going to run to the garrison and bring them back.”

  “I want to stay here,” Johanna says.

  “Why do you want to stay with a rotting monster?” Sim asks.

  “Because I’ve never seen one before,” Johanna says. “And I’d like to have a proper look.”

  “That seems ill-advised. You can wait for me in Algiers.” She looks to me for reinforcement.

  “I’d rather stay here too,” I say. Even dirtied by the sand, those scales in the light are like liquid sapphires.

  “Please. You don’t need us,” Johanna says to Sim, like we are children begging our mother for one more slice of cake. “We’ll probably just raise more questions with your father’s men. And you’ll travel faster alone.”

  Sim curses under her breath. “Fine. But stay up here. Don’t go down to the beach. I say that knowing neither of you will heed me, but these people are leeches.” She jerks her chin down at the beach. “Don’t try to take anything. If anyone starts to scold you or shout at you or pulls a knife, just run. They want to scare you away from their salvage. It’s not a joke,” she says when Johanna giggles, though I imagine it’s more from the delight at seeing the monster than at Sim’s words. “This isn’t a romp with your dog in the garden.”

  “Max and I don’t romp in the garden,” Johanna replies. “It dirties his paws.”

  “People have died for much less than one dragon scale.” Sim presses her hands flat against her lips, then says, “I’ll be back by nightfall. If I’m not, sleep here tonight and then go back to the city in the daylight—the boars and foxes hunt along the road after dark. And they won’t want a cuddle,” she says, for Johanna looks absolutely swoony with delight at the prospect of animal friends.

  “Anything else, Mother?” I say.

  Sim purses her lips, so hard her skin mottles. “Here.” She reaches down into her boot, pulls out her marlinespike, and hands it to me. “Don’t do anything stupid,” she says, then takes off at a run back down the hillside.

  As soon as Sim is out of sight, Johanna turns to me, her hands clasped before her. “We are not staying up here.”

  “Obviously.”

  She squeaks in delight, bouncing toward me on the balls of her feet. “And here I thought I might have to fight you for agreement. You’re such a rascal, Felicity, and I do love it. Come on!”

  We stagger down the cliffside path and emerge on the beach, our feet leaving pulsing halos in the damp sand as we approach the dragon corpse. One half-open
eye stares sightless at us, the glassy pupil slit. A thin forked tongue spills from between its teeth.

  “It’s like a snake,” Johanna says, hiking her skirts up as she bounds down the sand toward it. “An enormous snake that lives in the ocean. How does it breathe underwater?”

  “Does it breathe underwater?” I ask. There’s a wound in its side, between the soft flaps around its neck. Not gills, but vulnerable enough that something was able to dig its way in and tear up the flesh like the ground after a tree is uprooted. Maybe it’s the wound that killed it. “There are no gills.”

  “Maybe they’re hidden,” she says. “Or maybe they breathe like frogs through their skin.”

  “Is that true, or is this revenge for telling you ears regrow?”

  “It’s the truth! Don’t you remember the toads that swam in the pond on the Peeles’ grounds?”

  “I don’t remember them breathing through their skin.”

  “And if they really are like snakes, they must have a more effective means of regulating the salt concentration of their blood. Or”—she steps up close to the mouth, the jaws as wide as she is tall, and peers fearlessly into it, steadying herself against one of the teeth as long as her hand—“filters around the tongue?”

  I walk along the side of the serpent, watching the way the scales reflect the light like water. Birds are perched upon the spine, picking at the scales to get to the soft meat below. I test one of the scales in my hand—even with decay, they don’t split easily. In spite of Sim’s warning, I tug at it. It resists, so I use the marlinespike. Even with the metal as a lever, it takes a lot of prying before it cracks off in my hand. I fish my spectacles from my pocket and press them to my nose. Up close and whole, the scale is the shape of a corn kernel, round and tapered where it connects to the body. The color looks more pearly and reflective than it does when ground down into that sapphire powder.

  I don’t know how powerful the scales truly are, so I press it against my tongue with a light hand. It tastes of brine, though perhaps that’s just the residue of the sea, along with something like bone—is it bone? Are they bones and not scales? What creature wears its bones outside its body? I break off a piece of the scale the size of my thumbnail, press it to my tongue, and let it dissolve. When I swallow, it prickles the back of my throat, a bubbly, bright feeling that turns my senses to champagne.

  I know it is fast-acting, so I wait, wondering if I’ve even taken enough to feel any sort of kick or lift or difference at all.

  And then I stop wondering.

  It’s like the world sharpens. The colors become brighter. The sound louder—I can hear two men down the beach arguing in Darija, every word clear though I don’t understand them. I feel like I could learn it.

  I look down at the scale in my hand, and my vision blurs. It takes me a moment to realize it’s my spectacles. When I push them up on my forehead, the eyesight I lost long ago from squinting at tiny print in poor light has returned. I take a breath, and it’s like chambers inside my lungs that I never knew existed open, letting so much air flood me I fear I will float away. I’m not sure if it’s real, or simply my perception, but I swear my heart has never beat with strength like this. It’s not fast with fear, or ragged like after running. It’s strong. It makes me feel strong.

  I wish I had a book. I could read it at twice my usual speed. I wish I had a problem to solve, something mathematical and complicated, with a right answer. I flex my fingers in and out of fists, trying to decide if I want to run or swim or start listing every word I know.

  My heart begins to feel like it’s beating too fast. My whole body feels too fast, and at this speed, even a prickle of fear feels like panic.

  When it leaves me, it’s abrupt, like picking up a box you expect to be heavy and finding it weightless. The first thing I think—it comes to me without my consent—is that I will never truly breathe deeply again. I’ll spend the rest of my life feeling like my heart is not beating fast enough, my lungs not opening enough.

  “Felicity.”

  I look up. Johanna is standing in front of me, her hem splattered with dark sand and her eyes upon the scale in my hand. “You tried it.”

  “Just a bit.”

  “How did you feel?”

  “Powerful.” She holds out her hand, and I pass her the scale for examination. “This is dangerous.”

  She runs her thumb along the smooth edge, then back against the grain. “We need to take samples.”

  “Sim won’t like that,” I say.

  “Well, Sim doesn’t have to know.” She swings her mother’s bag off her back and tucks the scale into one of the pockets. “Do you think they’re different, depending on what part of the body they’re taken from? Or are they all the same? How did you get it free? Did you use your hands?” I hold up the marlinespike. “Good, use that. I’m going to see if there’s a way to collect some of the blood.”

  She darts back down the beach, her bag bouncing on her hip, and I set back to the task of wiggling more scales free. I’ve hardly got the marlinespike wedged under one when someone shouts. I look up and there’s a man running at me, thin and hunched but moving alarmingly fast. He’s shouting in Darija, and I don’t understand a word of it, but he’s waving his arms like he’s trying to shoo me away. I step back, raising my hands, but he keeps coming, now flinging his hand toward the glint of the marlinespike I’m holding.

  Sim had said run, so I turn and I run.

  He doesn’t follow me far, but I keep going after he’s stopped and returned to his salvage. There’s a stone outcropping on the edge of the inlet, its fanged tops domed with emerald moss. Craggy rocks are scattered at its base, water collecting between them in pools, their sides thick with fluttering sea flora and a few dotted with bright-orange fish.

  I lose my footing and step up to my knees in the ocean. Something slick and wet brushes my leg, and I shy. To my surprise, whatever brushes me shies too, and lets out a strange cry. It’s like a shriek but registers deeper in my ears than most sounds. My whole body jerks with it. The surface of the water, already puckered from my splash, ripples.

  I look behind me, but no one on the beach seems to have heard it. It comes again, and I clap my hands over my ears, peering down into the water to see what it is that is screaming at me.

  I heave myself out of the pool, my petticoats gasping, then crouch down. I touch my hand to the surface, and something presses back from beneath the waves. I fall backward in surprise, sitting straight into one of the thankfully less-deep pools and soaking my skirt. There’s the sound again, but softer this time and with more of a purr. Enough to be sure it’s coming from this pool.

  There’s a jet of mist, then two nostrils poke above the surface, the slits of skin that keep out water opening as they surface. I scramble back to the edge of the pool, and looking back at me is one of the sea dragons in miniature, its scales short nubs and thin fins poking from its belly, translucent and twirling like ribbon beneath the water.

  “Johanna!” I shout over my shoulder, so loud that several of the people on the beach turn. Johanna, absorbed in an examination of the dragon teeth, is not one of them. “Johanna!” I shout again, and this time she looks. I make a frantic wave, and she reluctantly detaches herself and trots to my side.

  The baby dragon pushes its nose against the edges of the pool, trying to hook its head on the rock and hurl itself out. I can see a spot along its neck that’s been rubbed raw and bloody from trying. “Oh, oh, oh! Don’t do that!” I scuttle along the rocks, trying to block the creature from harming itself again. When I touch it, it howls again, and I pull away. Beneath the water, its scales feel like velvet.

  Johanna, now close enough to hear it too, lets out a shriek of her own as she covers her ears. “What was that?” she calls to me.

  “Come here!” I reply. “There’s a little one!”

  “A what?” Johanna scrambles to my side, tearing the edge of her skirt on the stones in her haste. She lets out a small gasp when she se
es the tiny dragon, its tail thrashing against the confines of the pool, and seizes my arm. “Felicity.”

  “Yes.”

  “Felicity.” Her voice is a feather. “It’s . . .”

  “I know.”

  “A baby!”

  “Or it could be a pocket variety.”

  “Felicity.” Both her hands are on my arm now, strangling the fabric of my dress. “Felicity.”

  “That’s me.”

  “We have discovered a new species.”

  Her face is like sunlight on a river, an already resplendent beam made brighter. I don’t want to be the cloud and remind her we haven’t, though. Sim and her family have sheltered these animals for decades. The scavengers on the beach, the people in Algiers—these dragons are not new to the world, only to our very small part of it.

  Johanna puts a tentative finger into the water, and the tiny dragon wraps its lips very gently around it, suckling. “It doesn’t have teeth,” she says, her voice squeaking. “The big one does but—oh no, little one, is that your mother?”

  “How do you know it’s a female?” I ask.

  “Parental unit of indeterminate gender, then. Oh, I hope not, you poor thing. We can be orphans together.”

  It is radical, I think as I watch Johanna, both of her arms submerged to the elbows as she strokes the dragon’s head, the compassion she has for this thing. Most natural philosophers don’t carry this sort of tenderness for the things they study. Most doctors don’t. The hospitals in London are proof of that. The beetles and lizards and bats hunted for collections and then stuck with pins to a wall behind glass are proof of that. Men want to collect. To compete. To own.

  Johanna runs a finger along the bridge of the dragon’s nose, and a jet of mist shoots from its nostrils as they break the surface. It smells like seaweed and sugar. “Did you ever think,” she says as the dragon purrs at her fingertips, “all those years ago, when we played at exploring, that we’d ever actually be here? Or find something like this? This feels like a dream.” She pulls her hand from the water, shaking the water off, then turns to me. “Do you really think we can keep this to ourselves?”