“Molly, thank you,” he managed to say, sighing again and then grimacing from the sores on his ankles and wrists. Groaning, he sat up straighter and lay back against the mast.
“Why did all this happen?” Molly frowned and put a hand to Morgan’s cheek. His skin was cold and rough. Her sympathy for him was tremendous, and she looked at him as pityingly as she had looked at Thomas every time he had been in a similar situation—broken and helpless. Morgan had done much to protect the others, Molly knew, but once again she failed to appreciate his special concern for her.
“You need to start making plans,” he warned. “I’ll do what I can to help, but you’ll need to find my boots. Jack took ’em. I’ll do what I can, but I’m not Tom.”
“You’ve done enough, Morgan. We’ll all be all right. Just don’t give up.”
“I won’t escape, but you have to. Hurry back to the brig and don’t let anyone see you.”
“I’ll be back, and I’ll bring food,” Molly promised. She stepped lightly as she backed away, hesitant to leave him there alone.
“Don’t forget my boots,” he whispered as she left.
Molly crept back down the stairway, descending into the bleak underbelly of The Howl once more. Step by step the darkness of the ship stole her vision, and humidity choked her. She stopped briefly on the fourth deck, turning her head to look regretfully down the corridor toward the gardens. She vowed to return to them as much as possible in order to nurture her sanity and feed herself and the others.
On the bottom deck Molly cautiously kept her back to the walls and watched the doors of the living quarters of the crew, listening for anything or anyone who might be awake. Calculating that it must still be around midnight or early morning, with the day crew fast asleep, Molly jogged lightly down to the end of the corridor and pushed the brig key into the lock in the iron door. Gritting her teeth and scrunching up her shoulders, Molly bounced nervously on her toes as the iron door squeaked open. She shut and locked it behind her, reaching awkwardly through the bars like a contortionist. The guard she’d put to sleep was still in a pile on the floor of his cell, so she dragged him out and propped him up against a wall so he’d think he had fallen asleep on his own. The other guard, just a few strides away, was also still snoozing.
Geoffrey caught sight of someone scooting around on the floor. Startled by the movement, he stood upright in his cell, at first thinking it was one of the guards. Then he realized Molly had come back. The others whispered and asked Molly where she’d been as she cast off her cloaking spell and gave them all oranges, having given hers to Morgan. She told them to quiet down and she would explain, but only after she was back in her cell and the guards changed for the night. Ine and Geoffrey peeled their oranges and stuffed themselves. Chera was already finished with hers and thanking Molly with her mouth full. Leon picked at his orange and didn’t eat. When he realized Molly hadn’t had one, he gave his back to her, since he had no need of it. Molly collected everyone’s rinds and stuffed them and her orange into her blouse. Standing in front of her cell, she shut her eyes and mouthed an incantation. In a flash, she disappeared and reappeared inside her cell.
“Oh, how clever!” applauded Chera. “How did you do that?”
“The first time, I didn’t mean to,” admitted Molly. “Since then, I’ve put my mind to the task of figuring it out, and I did.”
“Incredible,” agreed Geoffrey, feeling his pockets for his journal and then frowning, having forgotten he hadn’t had it for several weeks, not since their capture by Jack Darcy.
“What were you doing out there? Where are we?” asked Chera, plopping down on the floor and resting one arm on her knees.
“Jack Darcy means to hand us over to someone in Bombay for a reward. We’re in the middle of the ocean somewhere. I couldn’t see land. Morgan said the ship is going to stop in Mo … Mum …” Molly couldn’t remember what Morgan had called the place.
“Mombasa?” suggested Geoffrey. “It would make sense. That’s on the East African coast. Those waters are rich with all sorts of traders and pirates.”
“Yes! That’s the one!” said Molly, pointing at Geoffrey.
“Wait, you said you spoke to Morgan,” Chera butted in. “He’s alive?”
“Yes, he’s locked in irons to one of the ship’s masts on the main deck. He doesn’t look himself. I don’t know what has happened to him, but he insisted that we make plans to escape.” Molly finished her orange, taking all the rinds and cramming them through a small hole in the floor at the back of her cell. “Now that I can vanish, arranging our escape is possible.”
“Let’s not fool ourselves into thinking it will be a simple matter,” warned Leon. “There are six of us, including Mr. Shaw. All around us are a few thousand werewolves, all with senses keener than our own. It does not please me to say it, but we also cannot so readily trust Morgan if the Blood Moons suspect us of conspiring.”
“What do you mean by that?” Molly asked harshly, thinking only of how much Morgan had suffered for everyone else’s sake.
“Miss Bishop—” began Leon.
“Captain Bishop, Mr. Beaumonte,” Molly corrected him.
“Captain,” he began again, patiently, “I know you may think you understand werewolves because you have spent time with Thomas, but the Order of the Blood Moon is a clan, and werewolf clans do not often take prisoners without converting them or killing them. Mr. Shaw is susceptible to conversion. He is human, and Jack Darcy will not have any use for him as a mortal.”
“What is your point, Leon?”
“Morgan may well have already been converted, and if this is true, his allegiance is with the Blood Moons no matter whether he wants to help us. If he hasn’t been converted, he may be soon. If they choose not to change him, he could be killed.”
“We’re going to do everything in our power to help Morgan.” Molly wasn’t going to budge. “We’ll also need to get The Roatán Butterfly back. We’ll be outnumbered, since Ine no longer has Yatagarasu in her possession. However, we won’t need to fight if we are quick and silent. Jack has magicians on the main deck who create wind to push his ship, but The Roatán Butterfly is still faster.”
“Captain? Molly?” Geoffrey spoke up. “If you can find where Captain Darcy hid our possessions, that might be a good start. You can use my journal to write down things you learn about the ship, and we can draw up a plan of action.”
“Good thinking, Geoffrey. I’ll do that.”
“If you can bring me Fantome, we can carve our way out of the brig when the time comes,” added Leon.
“Excellent,” said Molly. “But when to act? That is uncertain.”
“Bombay is full of places to hide,” piped Ine from two cells away. “I passed through India before I came to London. If we can’t get Thomas’s ship before then, perhaps we can go into the city?”
“Ah, yes! We can do more than that,” said Molly, raising her voice in excitement. Hushing herself, she elaborated on Ine’s suggestion. “Morgan said Jack is expecting a reward for our capture. If we can jump ship in Bombay before that, I’m sure he’ll linger and search for us. When he has no choice but to search for us on land, we’ll steal back The Roatán Butterfly and flee!”
“Will we last until the ship reaches Bombay?” Leon speculated.
“You might,” Chera retorted, “but Dios mio! A few months in this pig sty and I will be no more.” She made a face and wiped the greasy hair from her eyes with a huff. “The ocean! I can hear it outside, but I cannot see it. I am dying!” Chera sprawled on the floor and laid an arm across her face.
“We will persevere,” Molly assured her. “I can sneak into the garden, but not too often. We’ll have food, and the guards bring us a bit of water now and then.” This reminded Molly that she had taken one of the guards’ keys. To be sure there would be no suspicion, she got up and left her cell long enough to replace the key on the second guard’s key ring. Back in her cell, she sat and thought about how to keep herself and t
he others safe until they could escape from Jack. Morgan kept coming to mind, and when he came to mind, so did Thomas. Molly knew she and the others might be able to escape, but even if they did, Thomas was gone. Without Thomas, where would she go? What would she do with her life? Thomas was her one new beginning, and she couldn’t imagine hoping for another.
Thoughts of Thomas did not lessen with time. Weeks passed, and each night that Molly visited the garden she would sit beneath the warmth of the glowing glass flask and shut her eyes, imagining that Thomas was with her and that they were far from The Howl, alone and unbothered. Often Morgan would ask Molly unusual questions about Thomas, such as what happened to him up on the mountain when the Octopus took him away. Morgan wanted to know what Thomas had said to her.
“Do you think about him often?” he once asked her.
“Well of course,” she had said, smiling uncomfortably. “Why?”
“Suppose he’s gone?” Morgan said it as if to suggest she ought to put Tom out of mind. It was an odd thing to say, because Molly thought Morgan would have missed his friend and sympathized with her more than anyone else.
Morgan and the others warned Molly not to linger outside her cell any longer than necessary, fearing for her safety. Fortunately Jack had his men watch the brig less and less often. As far as the Blood Moons could tell, Molly and the others weren’t trying to escape and sat quietly in their cells for most of the day every day.
One night Molly dreamed the Octopus came for her. She walked next to the dark specter along a road full of horses pulling coaches. All of them looked identical, and their passengers gazed out the windows at her as they passed, headed toward the countryside. Molly wondered why they stared and why she felt so heavy when she walked.
“Why aren’t you home, dear?” one woman asked with an uncomfortable smile, as if Molly were doing something out of the ordinary.
The Octopus led Molly across the country to a strange grey shore where she saw Thomas happily building a house by the sea. He looked young; he had no scars, and he was healthy and lively.
“You see?” he said as he smiled at her. “We looked and we were patient, and we found it at last. It’s just as we said it would be.”
In the next moment she and Thomas were inside the house, which was only partially finished. It was full of guests, most of them people she did not recognize, but Thomas talked to them as though they were old friends. Everyone was laughing, and some were dancing to the music of a fiddler, but Molly felt uneasy, dizzy and lost. An impulse to leave the room struck her, but she couldn’t find her way out. Suddenly Morgan appeared in the dream as another one of the guests. He kept asking Molly if she were feeling all right, and he gave her the kind of concerned look to which she was becoming accustomed when she visited him on deck. Ever more uncomfortable at the dream party, Molly waved a hand and turned away from him.
The dream came apart, and when Molly awoke, awful cramps clawed at her stomach. As everyone slept she fought with the sickness, frustrated and confused. She had been on ships for longer periods of time, and never had such a nauseous feeling taken hold of her. After a while, the feeling subsided. Tired from the ordeal, Molly slowly fell back asleep.
*
Crossing the Chthonian Sea, Tom never saw another ship, though as he left the bay where the prophet’s shack had been, he did pass a rather sad looking lighthouse. Tall and stoic, it stood on the rocky outstretched finger of a long cape that pointed in the direction of the mysterious thread. The black flakes of night snowing from the sky followed his ship out to sea, even when he could no longer see the land. They piled up in drifts on the main deck and yardarms, blowing around in the wind coming from the Uyl Talisman around Tom’s right arm. Through eternal night he sailed onward, following the thread to the Octopus, however long it was going to take him. Holding on to the helm and never letting go, he neither slept nor ate. Time did not pass and the sun never rose or set, and all the while Tom felt trapped in a dream. If he ceased to think of Molly, other memories came to him, taking shape and playing out before him on the ocean waves, as if it were their theater. They came to him rarely, but when they did, they were often about people and places he had previously forgotten.
One particular memory that appeared to Tom took him back to his early years on the ocean, a long time before he knew Molly, even before he’d been a slave. When he had first left home, leaving his father when the Black Coats came looking for him, Tom had made a home in the docks along the Thames. It took no time at all for him to learn that if he were going to survive, he would need to steal. He had no other family to go to, and no one would take him as an apprentice. In those days he did not know their reluctance was because he was a werewolf.
Now as he sailed the ghost ship, Tom remembered the first time he had transformed. He owed it to his bad luck that it had happened during the day, and while he was stealing an old baker’s freshly made bread. The baker was living and working alone, and his eyesight was poor. Although Tom felt guilty every time he stole from the baker, the youngster was hungry, and the stomach has no sense of remorse. On the fateful day as he fiddled with the lock on the cellar door, which was down a stone staircase behind and beneath the baker’s shop, Tom had begun to feel strange. It was only sensible to blame the way he’d been feeling on his hunger, which had been the worst he’d ever known. The pain in his stomach spread to his bones, and Tom thought if he didn’t eat soon, he’d surely die. Creeping through the cellar, he became light-headed. His vision was intense and focused, and he could smell everything in the shop as if it were being held right beneath his nose. The baker’s footsteps rang out loudly, and Tom could envision exactly where the old man was at every moment. Tom climbed the cellar stairs as the footsteps moved away from the kitchen and toward the front of the shop. The baker had customers—two of them—a man and a woman. The man smelled of tobacco but wasn’t smoking, and the woman was wearing perfume that burned Tom’s nose. All this he sensed from behind the cellar door, two rooms away.
Quietly Tom turned the squeaky knob on the cellar door and crouched as he entered the kitchen. While he made his way to the ovens, the old baker and his customers chatted casually, unaware of the thief in their midst. The hot loaves of bread in pans next to the oven were all Tom could see, smell or think of. His stomach cramped and complained loudly, distracting him as he wrapped them up in an old rag taken from his jacket pocket.
A feeling of great strength washed over him. Hunger blocked out all his other thoughts, and Tom stared wildly at the bread in his arms. His mind left him, and his stomach commanded him to eat. Barely taking the time to chew, he ripped off great chunks of bread and packed his cheeks full. The more he ate, the less he cared about making noise. It was then that a low rumble rose in his throat—a sound like none that a human could make. Growling like a dog, Tom ate three whole loaves of bread and was chewing the last mouthful when the baker came back into the kitchen. When the old man shouted in surprise, Tom’s eyes widened, and he backed up against a wall like a feral animal.
“Get out of here, you!” the old baker cried, afraid to approach the crazed young boy crouched behind his ovens.
The bones in Tom’s arms and legs began to hurt worse. They moved and grew on their own as if they were going to jump out of his body. Tom forgot his hunger and became afraid as the muscles in his face tightened and his lips pulled back, long fangs sprouting forth from underneath them. His nose and jaws elongated in opposite directions, and golden fur burst from his skin as he became taller and broader.
“Help! Constable!” shouted the old man, running from the kitchen and out into the street.
Tom had lost his mind, barking and snarling, thrashing his arms and wrecking the baker’s shop. Bowls and pans clattered on the floor, flying from their hooks when Tom stepped on a rolling pin and crashed into them. No longer in control, Tom sprang to his feet and charged through the front parlor of the bakery, breaking down the door and skidding to a halt upon meeting the crowd of alarm
ed Londoners outside. Both Tom and the onlookers froze for the longest moment. The people in the streets, who were unaccustomed to seeing vampires and werewolves outside of trials or executions, stared in terror at the giant wolf, standing on two legs and baring its teeth at them.
“Disperse!” shouted several armed men in uniform, running toward the bakery. “Get away from the monster!” they warned the onlookers
Shoving and yelling, the people panicked and ran in all directions. Tom’s ears stood up straight as the armed men fired their weapons at him. He picked up the door of the bakery and hurled it at them, then turned to run away as they gave chase. The street emptied, people ducking into doorways and carriages turning away into side streets, their drivers shouting and yanking on the reins to keep their horses from hurting themselves.
Tom ran until the men lost sight of him. The rest of that day he ran and hid until he could no longer move. Not until he had left the streets and almost left the city did the men give up their chase. For nearly a year after his first transformation, Tom relied on his werewolf senses to steal and eat and hide. This became the nature of his life until he was finally caught. The man who caught him was another thief, a soon-to-be outlaw named Isaiah Silverstein. The son of a wealthy German landowner, Isaiah Silverstein had been a Hessian soldier fighting for the English during the rebellion in America. At the time he caught Tom trying to steal from him in London, Silverstein was a failed businessman turned privateer. He had owned a printing shop next door to the bakery Tom had stolen from a year earlier. Isaiah had lost money along with his business when ovens set fire to the bakery and then burned his establishment, destroying his printing presses. Now working for the East India Company, Silverstein made a living bullying trade ships off the coasts of East Africa and Arabia.
Instead of turning Tom over to the authorities, Silverstein considered whether having a werewolf aboard his ship might be good for business. Even though Tom had stolen from him, Silverstein was sympathetic with the homeless werewolf. Since losing his wealth, Silverstein had carried the burdens of East India superiors and knew well the struggles of people at the bottom of the Empire. He was a slow talker. His voice was low and rocky. His English had a slight accent, not always obvious, and he would raise his eyebrows when he spoke, as if everything he said surprised him. When he raised his eyebrows, he looked tired because his eyes were small. The thin beard that clung to his chin and cheeks ended in a point so that his face was shaped like a crab claw that might grab the face of someone to whom he was speaking. His dark hair was long but kept neat by the uncommon hat he wore, which had a wide, round brim and a flat top. He held Tom in a strong grip, looking him over as he squirmed to get away. He took his time deciding what to do with the boy.
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