Hope and Red

by Jon Skovron

  * * *

  The celebration that night was particularly rowdy. Red was used to seeing the crew of the Savage Wind drunk, including Sadie. But that night it was so loud and chaotic, it made him nervous, so he retreated to the stern, where Missing Finn sat and stared up at the starry sky.

  “Why aren’t you celebrating with the rest of the crew?” asked Red.

  “A sailor learns that out here in open water, anything is liable to happen at any time. Always best to have someone keep a sober watch.”

  Several of the crew hollered something incoherent. Both Finn and Red turned to see Sadie punch Avery Birdhouse so hard that his nose began to gush blood. Then she grabbed him by the shirt collar and kissed him hard, his blood smearing all over her face.

  “Do you wish you didn’t have to keep watch?” asked Red.

  Missing Finn shrugged and turned back to look at the stars.

  “You in love with Sadie?” asked Red.

  Missing Finn smiled faintly. “What do you know of love, boy?”

  “My dad loved my mom.”

  “That so?”

  “It is. Everything he did was for her.”

  “He tell you that?”

  “Nah. It was easy to see.”

  “It’s a good thing to grow up seeing that.”

  “Why?”

  “It means you know there’s something more than…” He nodded to the celebration. “That.”

  Red didn’t know much about Missing Finn, other than that he had sailed more than anyone else on the ship. “What happened to your eye?”

  “Ain’t a pleasant story.”

  “I didn’t think it would be,” said Red.

  Finn grinned and ruffled Red’s hair. “You got a sharp tongue on you. Hope that doesn’t get you into more trouble than you can handle.”

  “So you’re really not going to tell me?”

  “What’ll you give me in return?”

  Red thought about it. “A secret for a secret?”

  “How do you know my story’s a secret?”

  “Because you ain’t told anyone on this ship about it. Not even Sadie.”

  “It’s not a secret, exactly. Just real personal.”

  “All secrets are personal. That’s why they’re secret.”

  Finn smiled again. “I’m starting to see why Sadie keeps you around. Clever as claws, you are.”

  “So it’s a deal?” pressed Red.

  “I suppose. But you first.”

  Red had already thought of his secret, so he jumped in eagerly. “After my mom died, it was just me and my dad. He used to leave a lot to go work. He was a whore. That meant people paid him to have sex with them.”

  “I know what a whore is, boy.”

  “You ever pay someone to have sex with you?”

  “Of course. I reckon most people in Paradise Circle have.”

  “I never will,” said Red. Despite Sadie’s assurance that not all sex was like the kind he’d witnessed, the whole idea still seemed unappealing.

  “That your secret?” asked Missing Finn.

  “Of course not. So when my dad went to work, he left me with our neighbor, Old Yammy. She was a nice lady. Taught me things like juggling and playing stones.”

  “You play stones?”

  “I’d beat you, I bet.”

  “I’d like to see you try.”

  “We can play if you like, but you’ll have to put down some coppers. Old Yammy told me never play for free.”

  Missing Finn laughed. “Maybe I will, just to see you lose. Now, what was that secret of yours, then?”

  Red leaned in close. He could feel a flush of embarrassment creep up on his cheeks. “She was so nice and taught me stuff, and what did I do? I stole from her. She had a big bowl of fruit on her table and every time I came over, I would take a piece, even if I wasn’t hungry.”

  “You stole that captain’s clothes,” pointed out Finn. “And what do you think we’re doing every day on this ship but stealing?”

  “There’s right stealing and wrong stealing,” said Red. “Don’t think I don’t know the difference.”

  Missing Finn looked at him for a moment, then nodded. “I guess you’ve got a point.”

  “Anyway, I went to look for her after my dad died, but the imps locked her up on the Empty Cliffs. I don’t know why. And I never got a chance to say sorry.” Red thought about that for a moment, wishing he could see her again. Then he shook his head. That was soft artsy stuff. “Now it’s your turn. How’d you lose your eye?”

  Missing Finn turned to look back out across the water. “I was older than you, but didn’t have any real talents or trade to speak of. As you might expect, things weren’t going so well for me, and somehow I ended up sleeping down on the piers. That’s where a captain by the name of Brek Frayd found me and offered me food and a place to sleep as long as I put in an honest day’s work on his ship.”

  “That’s when you became a sailor?”

  “That’s when I started learning how to sail.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Patience, boy. See, it wasn’t a good fit, at first. I got terrible seasick whenever the wind was high. And I wasn’t mindful of my work. So many times Captain Frayd had to tell me to go back and secure a line better after I’d just wrapped it around a cleat a few times. That is until one time, during a real bad luffer, a line I was supposed to secure came undone. The pulley whipped into the air, and the hook end caught me right in the face.”

  Red examined the oval-shaped wooden pulleys in the nearby rigging. Each one had an iron hook on the end that was as thick as his thumb. He imagined something like that going into his eye and shuddered.

  “You know what Captain Frayd told me after that?” asked Missing Finn. “He said, ‘The sea’s a terrible cruel mistress, Finny, and she’ll always take her due. You done paid in advance with that eye, my boy, and the sea will always welcome you now as her own.’” Finn turned to Red, and his one good eye gleamed wetly in the moonlight. “I been sailing these seas ever since. I never got sick again, and I never again left a line unsecured.”

  “That’s how you became a sailor,” Red said quietly.

  Finn nodded. “I been thinking about what that captain said ever since. Took me years to really understand what he gave me that day.”

  “Gave you?”

  “After something like that, I could’ve avoided ships the rest of my life. Nobody would have blamed me for being afraid the sea might take the other eye. But I didn’t think of it that way, because of the way he explained it to me. He didn’t try to make what happened any less terrible. He just made it worth something. And if you ask me, you can endure any kind of suffering, as long as it has a purpose.”

  “My parents died,” Red said quietly. “Did that have a purpose?”

  “That’s for you to decide. If they hadn’t died, would you have met Sadie? Would you have even come to Paradise Circle?”

  Red shook his head.

  “So that suffering made you into who you are now. A clever boy and a damn fine thief who knows good from bad.” He grinned. “Maybe it will make you into the greatest thief New Laven has ever seen.”

  “How do I know if it does?”

  “You’ll never know for certain, but nobody’s ever going to be able to prove otherwise, so you might as well just say it does.”

  A smile slowly spread across Red’s face. His ruby eyes twinkled. “Hey, yeah.”

  “It doesn’t bring your parents back. But at least it means their deaths were not for nothing.”

  Red stared up into the night sky. “The greatest thief New Laven has ever seen,” he said quietly, for the first of many times.

  * * *

  That first successful raid on a merchant ship made Sadie hungry for another. They prowled the northern coast, looking for more than the bits of jewelry and coin they had been taking from lacy yachts. But perhaps that captain’s threats hadn’t been idle, because within a few weeks’ time, the coastal
waters were teeming with imperial ships from Stonepeak.

  “Not a good time for us to be out,” Finn said as he and Sadie shared a bottle in her cabin. “We should lay low until those imps get tired of circling New Laven like a pack of goblin sharks.”

  “Nah, we just need a new mark,” said Sadie.

  “Like what?”

  Sadie took a pull on the bottle. “Them little villages we see all along the northeast coast. They’ve got to have something worth plundering.”

  “Food and lamp oil is about all.”

  “We need those things, don’t we?”

  “I suppose.” Missing Finn thought of what Red had said. There was right stealing and there was wrong stealing. “But Sadie, those folks are no better off than us. Some of them probably worse.”

  “Oh, don’t go all soft on me. I get enough of that from the boy. I promise not to kill anybody unless they force my hand. Does that appease your delicate conscience?”

  * * *

  The next day, the Savage Wind began its reign of terror on the villages along the northeast coast of New Laven. They were tiny places, usually only one dirt road. The people wore plain wool smocks. Many didn’t even have shoes. And they were completely unprepared for the small whirlwind of violence that descended on them. When Sadie came at them with her cutlass, most simply ran.

  “Easier than getting a slap from my father,” said Sadie as she watched a man nearly twice her size take off down the road.

  Sadie left Red to mind the ship at the dock, and the rest of the crew fanned out to look for anything worth taking. Avery Birdhouse located the large storage shed near the docks. Sadie had Bull Mackey and Wergishaw break the lock on the door. Inside, they discovered not only food and lamp oil, but several large barrels of ale.

  “I’d say this was worth the taking.” Sadie turned to Missing Finn. “Sometimes it’s not about the money, but about a finer quality of living.”

  They continued to ravage the coast for a few more weeks, going from village to village. Then one day they landed at a village with a sign that proudly proclaimed, MOONFLOWER LANDING, POPULATION 50. Except when she and her crew entered, not one of the fifty could be found.

  “I don’t like this one bit,” said Missing Finn, his one eye narrowed suspiciously.

  “Maybe they already ran away?” said Avery Birdhouse.

  “How would they know to run unless someone tipped them?” asked Finn.

  “Who would do that?” asked Spinner.

  “One of the other villages maybe. Who’s to say they don’t all know each other. Not that much distance between them.”

  “Let’s find where they keep the loot and be off before this goes leeward, then,” said Sadie.

  There were several small storage sheds. Every one of them lay open and empty except one all the way on the other side of the village. Bull Mackey broke the lock easily, since it was old and corroded with rust. But there was nothing inside.

  “Why lock an empty shed?” said Finn.

  Sadie grunted and turned back in the direction of the ship. The mast of the Savage Wind was visible above the village rooftops, and she could see an oily black smoke twining around it.

  “The ship!” said Missing Finn.

  “Red!” Sadie charged back toward the ship, her tall captain’s boots churning up the dirt, her cutlass held high like she could use it to frighten off the fire as easily as she’d frightened the villagers. But by the time she reached the dock, the sails were ashes, the charred mast had collapsed, and water was fighting with the fire to consume the remainder of the ship. The saboteurs, most likely villagers, had already slipped away.

  “Oh, God, Red!” Sadie threw aside her hat and cutlass, jerked off her boots, and threw aside her coat. She was just about to dive into the wreckage when she heard a boyish voice at the far end of the dock.

  “Right here, Sadie!” Red popped up from inside an empty barrel.

  “Piss’ell, boy! You had me worried!” She stalked over to him, her fists clenched.

  He gave her a surprised look. “You didn’t think I had enough sense to get off a burning boat?”

  She jerked to a halt and thought about that. “I guess I didn’t. Sorry, you got that much sense.”

  Red gave her a sly smile. “Would you say I have enough sense to grab a bit of money on my way out?” He held up a small sack and shook it so that it jingled softly.

  “You really are my best wag!” Sadie pulled him out of the barrel and into a crushing embrace.

  The rest of the crew had reached the dock by then. They stared morosely as the last bit of burnt lumber sank.

  “Well, that’s everything,” said Missing Finn.

  “Not everything,” said Sadie, her arms still around Red. “We still got our health, our wags, and enough money to get us home.”

  “Home?” asked Red.

  “That’s right. Back to Paradise Circle for you and me.” Then in a singsong voice she said:

  Where it’s dismal and wet,

  And the sun never gets.

  But still it’s my home.

  Bless the Circle!

  * * *

  Backus was having a quiet drink at the Drowned Rat when he looked up and saw a shape darken the doorway.

  “Not again…,” he whimpered.

  Sadie the Goat stood there, much as she had a few months ago, with that same red-eyed kid in tow. At first Backus thought his eyes were fooling him. After all, she’d been shamed in front of everyone in this very tavern. And yet, there she was, looking tired and dirty, but still a far sight better than the last time he’d seen her. The entire tavern went quiet as she walked calmly into the tavern, pat as you please.

  “Hiya, Backus,” she said as she passed him. Then she winked.

  She was halfway to the bar before Bracers Madge appeared. Backus was never sure how such a big woman could appear so suddenly, but there she was, looming over Sadie, her thumbs in her suspenders.

  The boy looked terrified and shrank back, but Sadie just nodded. “Hi, Madge.”

  “What you doing here, Sadie?”

  “I come to beg your forgiveness,” Sadie said loud and clear so the whole place could hear her.

  “My what?” asked Madge, looking confused.

  Sadie dropped down on one knee. “You’ve always been good to me, Madge. Fair and true and a damn sight kinder than most. When I came in here, hells-bent on revenge, I spit on everything good you done me. It was wrong as things can be and I’m forever sorry I did it. All I want to know is, will you forgive me?”

  Bracers Madge stood over Sadie, her arms crossed, her face expressionless. There was not a whisper in the tavern as everyone waited to see what she would say. But she didn’t say anything. After a moment, she turned and walked behind the bar. She picked up the little pickling jar that contained Sadie’s ear. Then she came back around to the front of the bar and solemnly handed the jar to Sadie.

  Sadie stared down at the jar in her hand, her expression full of wonder. Never had Bracers Madge given one of her prize ears back to its owner. It was a thing unheard of in Paradise Circle.

  Madge nodded to her, then walked back behind the bar and poured herself a whiskey.

  Sadie slowly stood, the jar clutched in her fist. “Well, now. This calls for some celebrating. And I think I have just enough money from my pirating adventure to buy a round for the house.”

  The tavern erupted in hoots and cheers, fists pounding on the table.

  Sadie looked over at Backus. “See you around, old pot.” Then she gave an evil chuckle.

  That was to be Backus’s last relaxing drink in the Drowned Rat for many years.

  * * *

  Sadie basked in appreciation and ale that night.

  “Time you started drinking.” She slid a foamy tankard to Red as she sat down at their table.

  Red’s eyes went wide as he looked down at it.

  “Go on, take a sip.”

  He took a gulp, and shuddered. “I thought it would tas
te good.”

  She laughed. “It tastes as it tastes. I’ve had better and I’ve had worse. Now, my best wag, what are your plans?”

  “Plans?” he asked as he sniffed at his tankard, wondering if he could take another sip without throwing up, afraid that Sadie would make him anyway.

  “We’re back in the Circle and everything true as trouble again. We’re older and wiser and a bit more keen. So what do you plan to do?”

  “I thought…” Red’s pulse sped up in alarm. “I thought I was still with you.”

  “Oh God, you can’t be hanging from my teat all the time. I’m still here and you’re still my best wag. But I’m not your captain anymore, and it’s time you started to make your own decisions.”

  “I don’t really know what to do.”

  “Well, what do you want to be?”

  “The greatest thief New Laven has ever seen,” he said immediately.

  Sadie had been in the midst of drinking from her tankard. When she heard that, ale sprayed from her nose and she laughed so hard, she nearly fell out of her chair.

  Red clutched his own tankard, looking embarrassed. He took a tiny sip. “It’s stupid, I guess.”

  “Stupid?” said Sadie. “It’s the sunniest thing I ever heard. And I don’t doubt that if you apply yourself, someday it will be said.”

  PART TWO

  As youth and innocence give way to experience, doubt clouds the mind. Those who find renewed purpose in the complexity will thrive instead of falter.

  —from The Book of Storms

  7

  Do you know how I fall asleep so easily each night?” asked Grandteacher Hurlo.

  He sat cross-legged before the candle-lit black stone altar. These last few years, age had prevented him from kneeling. But there was a peaceful smile on his old face, and a gentle look in his filmy eyes.

  “No, teacher, I don’t.” Bleak Hope found it difficult to concentrate on what he was saying because she had been sitting in a suspended middle split for the last hour. Her heels balanced on the tops of narrow poles on either side, which kept her raised above a glowing pile of hot coals. But she knew these were the moments when her teacher chose to impart his most important knowledge. He said when the body was strained, the mind was relaxed. So she pressed her palms together, breathed through the ache in her legs and lower back, and focused on the sound of his soft, dusty voice.