The Ship of Lost Souls 1

by Rachelle Delaney

  He climbed toward a banner of stars speckled over an indigo sky. Soon the cool night breeze greeted his face, and he found himself standing on the main deck, under the towering foremast. As he’d thought, the layout of the Dark Ranger was very similar to that of the Lady Eleanor: It was double-masted with a gun deck, a quarterdeck, a small poop deck at the back of the vessel, and a forecastle deck—which sailors called the fo’c’sle—at the front. He took comfort in that familiarity. Indeed, if he closed his eyes and concentrated on the sway from the waves rolling under him, he could almost believe he was back on the Lady Eleanor, still en route to the tropics in search of the mysterious treasure. Uncle Finn would be standing beside him, knotting a rope to test their sailing speed and telling unbelievable tales from the tropics, like the one about the rubies that fell from the sky. Yes, it was all a lark again, nothing to fear—not with his uncle beside him . . .

  Two pirates clumped by, cursing, and pulled Jem out of his dream. He dove back down the staircase into the shadows. He needed to find a good hiding place where he could watch the action and contemplate his next move.

  On the Lady Eleanor there had been a trapdoor under the foremast, under which Jem had hidden a few times to escape Uncle Finn’s lectures on bromeliads. He now scanned the Dark Ranger’s deck for a similar compartment and couldn’t believe his luck: an iron handle gleamed on the floorboards nearby. Jem launched himself toward it, yanked up on the handle, and dove inside without a thought to who or what might already be occupying the space.

  Thankfully, it seemed empty, although the darkness was so deep that it was hard to tell, and Jem had learned that dark spaces on ships tended to be inhabited by rats. He shuddered and pushed the door open above him just enough to peer out. A pirate with a red sash tied around his waist ran by, shouting something about devilish ghouls to no one in particular. Then Jem saw an odd sight: a small figure in a hooded black cloak. At least, that’s what he thought he saw, but it darted by so quickly he couldn’t be sure. But wait—there was another, no taller than himself and scurrying faster than a cockroach. What on earth?

  Just then the door above him swung wide open and a massive figure started squeezing itself into his space, feetfirst and grunting. Panicked, Jem pressed himself against the wall. His hiding space could hold perhaps three of him, four at the most. He’d never go unnoticed, especially not with his heart thumping like the drum major in the King’s Cross marching band. Boot heels hit the floor, and a hairy arm brushed against his face.

  “Who’s there?” a familiar voice gasped. “Oh God, ye ain’t one of them, are ye?”

  “Shh. Thomas, it’s me,” Jem whispered. Thomas, he was fairly certain, would do him no harm. His heartbeats quieted down.

  “Boy!” Thomas said, sounding relieved. “Ye’re a smart one to hide. If ye go back out there ye’ll soon feed the fish.”

  “Who are they?” Jem asked, hoping to distract the giant from the obvious fact that he’d escaped the cabin below deck. “The Ship of Lost Souls. What is it?”

  “Shivers, boy, ye don’t know? A seaman’s worst nightmare, that’s what.” Thomas’s voice trembled in the dark. “’Bout ten years ago, a wee ship called the Margaret’s Hope set sail from a port school with a few schoolmasters and sons of the King’s Men on board, out on some expedition. Studyin’ geography or somethin’. Got caught in a hurricane, they did. Never seen again.”

  A torrent of footsteps rattled over the trapdoor, and Jem ducked instinctively. The sound of the footsteps faded, and Thomas continued. “But not long after, sailors began to talk of a strange sight: a small ship, like the Margaret’s Hope, glidin’ like a ghost over the sea. And ghostly she was. Manned by spirits of the dead, they say. The Lost Souls haunt the waters, cloaked and hooded, and if they catch yer vessel, well, God help ye.”

  “Ghosts?” Jem repeated. “The Dark Ranger has been invaded by ghosts?” He shook his head. It just got more and more absurd. No one back home would believe a speck of it.

  “Ye haven’t been here long, have ye, boy? Ye’ll see. These islands are full of spirits. And not kindly ones, either.” Jem heard him search around in the darkness for the latch, then push the door open a crack.

  “Look,” Thomas said, and they both peered out. Four pirates thundered by, yelling and stumbling over one another. Behind them, two cloaked figures darted and pranced like little demons. Jem swore he could hear mischievous laughter.

  “Good Lord,” he said, half to himself. “Where . . . where am I?”

  “Told you, boy, it’s a crazy place. The islands are full of spirits and magic. Bad magic.” Jem felt Thomas shiver beside him, and he trembled, too, despite the logical side of his brain that was still scoffing at the notion of ghosts and magic. “But now, I can’t stay and chat. Cap’n told me to hide all the pieces of eight we got down below. Just raided a man-o’-war last week, we did. And—” Thomas stopped and clapped his great hand to his mouth. “Whoops. Forget I said that. My big yap, it gets me into all sorts of trouble. But ye won’t tell, will you? Ye’re pretty well one of us now.”

  With that, Thomas hauled his giant frame out of their hiding space. He paused before closing the trapdoor. “Stay here until I come back for you.” And then he was gone.

  “Stay here,” Jem repeated for the second time that night. “Not likely.” For Thomas had just reminded him of the greatest danger he faced, far worse than whatever fiends were prancing about the ship. Jem was now expected to join the Dark Ranger pirates, prisoner on the dark seas, so far from home, and without his uncle. He had to escape. He had to get home. But for once, he couldn’t think of anything resembling a logical plan.

  He opened the trapdoor and clambered back into the cool night air. Shouts and shuffles drifted over from the poop deck, near the stern. Jem crept in the opposite direction to the fo’c’sle and peered over at the waves. Swimming was out; he could only dog-paddle, and there was no land in sight. Maybe he could find another good spot to hide until they docked in some port. But who knew when that might be? And where would he hide? The pirates would scour the schooner as soon as they realized he was missing.

  Then he saw a small ship, perhaps one-third the size of the Dark Ranger, rocking against its starboard side and tied to the pirates’ ship by a thick rope and a grappling iron. It had a single mast but looked sturdy. At first Jem assumed it belonged to the pirates who used it perhaps for sneak attacks on other ships. But then a beam of moonlight illuminated a name scrawled in chipped white paint on its side. Margaret’s Hop. The final e must have eroded over the years thanks to the salty waves. It was the Ship of Lost Souls. Somehow Jem had pictured it veiled in eerie mist. But the Ship of Lost Souls was just a normal ship—although tiny and in need of a good cleaning.

  A scuffle behind him made Jem turn. Three Lost Souls had surrounded Captain Wallace, pressing him against the mainmast. They were playing “monkey in the middle” with the captain’s spectacles, dancing in circles around him.

  “Stop it. Leave me alone,” Captain Wallace whined, squinting at the ghouls who mimicked him with glee.

  “Boy!” Thomas came running across the deck, straight for Jem. “I told ye to stay put. Get back down below!” His shouts drew the captain’s attention, and Captain Wallace squinted in Jem’s direction.

  “The boy? Bliss’s nephew?” For a moment he ignored the devils pirouetting around him. “Grab him, Thomas! Tie him back up!”

  Jem ducked out of Thomas’s reach and took off running toward the stern. Now he was in for it. There was nowhere to hide out here. Those churning waves were looking rather inviting.

  Just then, two big hands seized Jem’s shoulders and stopped him in his tracks. To his surprise, they weren’t Thomas’s arms pulling him back, but arms cloaked in black. The arms of a Lost Soul! Jem yelped and tried to wrench himself free, but the thing held fast.

  “Stop struggling.” It spoke! Jem tried to
shove it away, but the Lost Soul was much stronger than he was. It threw a long arm around his waist and pulled him toward the grappling iron that attached the Margaret’s Hop to the Dark Ranger. The other two spirits joined them, and four more appeared out of the shadows. Together they backed away from the pirates, who watched, helpless, as more and more Lost Souls emerged—a swarm of black hoods. Thomas looked like he might cry. Silently, one by one, the figures launched themselves off the side of the ship and rappelled down the rope to the sloop below. Jem couldn’t believe it—he was being kidnapped from his kidnappers!

  “Our turn,” Jem’s new captor said in a low, grumbly voice, nudging him toward the edge. “Hold the rope tight and let yourself down.” When Jem hesitated, the thing gave him a shove.

  “What would Master Davis do in my place?” Jem wondered aloud as he dangled his legs over the dark Atlantic and the ship of cloaked ghouls. Chalk it all up to building character? Try to reason with the Lost Souls?

  “Please let me wake up to discover it’s all been a dream,” Jem said. Then he shut his eyes, imagined himself back at school, and slid down the rope. Oh sure, the King’s Cross wasn’t the most thrilling place to live. But at least at school he was safe. Suddenly the predictability of a life completely without surprises seemed downright appealing.

  Jem opened his eyes when his feet connected with the deck of the Margaret’s Hop. He sighed. If this was a dream, it wasn’t over yet.

  His captor dropped onto the deck behind him, then used a dagger to cut the rope that tied them to the pirate ship. “All hands on deck!” it hollered, as the sloop began to drift away from the Dark Ranger. Jem looked up at the ship he’d just escaped from. Thomas leaned over the side, waving a handkerchief like a forlorn mother. Beside him stood the Dread Pirate Captain Wallace Hammerstein-Jones, tearing at his hair and crying, “You let him get away! The treasure was about to be ours, and you let him get away!” His voice faded into the night.

  For a few minutes the Lost Souls seemed to forget about Jem, abandoning him on the deck while they ran about the ship, calling orders like “All hands!” and “Weigh anchor!”

  The Lost Soul who was manning the wheel chose a course, and off they sailed into the darkness, away from Captain Wallace’s wails. And away from Uncle Finn, wherever he was.

  Jem gave into his wobbly knees and sank down to the floorboards, which smelled vaguely rotten and moldy. He tried to swallow the lump in his throat as he remembered the times he’d tuned out Uncle Finn’s lectures on flowering shrubs. Or faked sick to be excused. How could he have been so thoughtless? But he didn’t get far into the memory, for soon the Lost Souls returned and formed a huddle around him, their dark cloaks rustling.

  A few of the ghouls chuckled, and Jem dared to look up at them, expecting the worst. What could come next on this disastrous adventure? A fateful plank walking? Or something more torturous? But the ghouls made no move to hurt him, until the biggest one—his captor, Jem was certain—poked him in the ribs with the toe of its boot.

  “Leave him alone,” another Lost Soul spoke up. “He’s scared.”

  “Yeah, Lucas. Don’t touch him.”

  A demon named Lucas? Absurd. But Jem had come to expect as much. He’d just lie still and hope the dream would end soon.

  “But look what I found on him earlier,” the one named Lucas said. “Looks like a map.”

  Uncle Finn’s map! Jem’s head shot up, and he struggled to his knees. He hadn’t even noticed it missing from his sleeve.

  “Give it here.” Another ghoul snatched it from Jem’s captor.

  “No!” Jem shouted. They would not have his map, his uncle’s pride, and his last bit of Uncle Finn. Without thinking logically—for by now he was far beyond thinking logically—Jem threw himself at the Lost Soul who was holding his map and tackled it to the floor. “Give it back!”

  The ghoul fell with a shriek, although not the shriek one would expect from the dead. A softer, more human shriek. Jem pinned it to the floor, his knee on its chest, and grabbed the map. Another Lost Soul lunged at him from the side, but he elbowed it. Then—for now he had nothing to lose—he grasped the ghost’s hood and yanked it back.

  The ghoul had hair. And large, dark eyes. And a mouth, wide open. Jem froze as his unbelievable adventure reached new heights of illogicality.

  The Lost Soul was a girl. A dark-haired, dark-eyed, very angry girl.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Although Scarlet McCray spent a good portion of her time in disguise, not once had anyone ever uncloaked her. For a moment she could only stare, openmouthed, at the boy who crouched over her, his bony knee jabbing into her chest. With one swift kick and a twist, she could have him pinned to the mast with her dagger to his Adam’s apple.

  But as she reached for her weapon, hidden deep inside her cloak, she saw the fear in his eyes. First kidnapped by pirates, then by a bunch of cloaked ghouls—could she blame him for reacting the way he had? So, instead of knocking him overboard and leaving him for shark bait, she nodded at his knee.

  “Get off me.”

  The boy scuttled backward, crablike, still staring at her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t . . . you’re a . . .”

  “Girl. Yes. Observant.” Scarlet rolled her eyes, used to this routine. Blah blah unladylike, blah blah petticoats. Blah. She hopped up and offered the boy a hand. He eyed it the way she herself might eye a plate of slimy oysters and scrambled to his feet without her help. Then he glanced around at her crew members, who surrounded them, still cloaked.

  “So if you’re a girl, then none of you are really . . .”

  “Come on, mates,” Scarlet said. “Off with the hoods. Stop confusing him.” She turned back to the boy. “What’s your name?” Of course, she already knew, but telling him that would likely scare him even more. She wondered what had happened to his uncle Finn and why she hadn’t been able to find the man during her quick search of the Dark Ranger.

  “Jem. Jem Fitzgerald.” He watched incredulously as Scarlet’s crew members began to peel off their hoods, revealing a motley gang of children with identical mischievous grins.

  Scarlet turned to look at her crew. There were twenty-three Lost Souls in total: small ones and gangly ones, pale ones and dark ones, dirty ones and—well, they were all in need of a good bath. There were Lost Souls with loose teeth and Lost Souls with lisps and even a few who could turn backflips across the deck. She surveyed them all and nodded, satisfied.

  One about Jem’s size stepped forward. “Timothy Sanders,” he said and presented his hand. “Quartermaster and resident nautical genius.”

  “But you can call him Drivelswigger,” a taller one with sand-colored hair piped up, shrugging off his heavy cloak. “Or Swig for short. That one spends far too much time with his head in the books.” The boy welcomed Jem with a wide grin and a wink. “I’m Smitty, but you can call me Hurricane Smith.”

  “If you can say it with a straight face.” Scarlet gave the boy a friendly nudge. “None of us can. He’s just Smitty.”

  A freckled, ginger-haired brother and sister duo shed their cloaks and slipped forward to introduce themselves. Liam and Ronagh Flannigan. Jem looked surprised at the sight of another pirate girl—a reaction that Scarlet had seen countless times among new recruits. Especially those fresh off a boat from the Old World. And Jem Fitzgerald, as Scarlet knew from earlier observation, could be the spokes-boy for the Old World.

  One by one, the Lost Souls uncloaked and introduced themselves, until only two of Scarlet’s crew members remained hidden under their hoods. Lucas Lawrence and Gil Jenkins, of course. But before Scarlet had to repeat the order, Lucas pulled off his hood to reveal a blockish head and limbs that looked like they belonged on an adult rather than a thirteen-year-old boy. Lucas’s skin stretched tight over his bones, as if trying desperately to stop them from growing even more. He stuck
out a large hand, calloused from carpentry chores, and muttered his name. Gil Jenkins followed suit, always imitating his much larger companion’s manners. In Scarlet’s opinion, Lucas Lawrence was the last person on earth anyone ought to imitate, but she kept those thoughts to herself. Most of the time.

  “So you’re a ship of . . . children?” Jem asked once the introductions were over. He still looked like he’d been walloped in the gut.

  “Speak for yourself, lad.” Smitty stuck out his chest with pride. “I just turned thirteen.”

  “We’re all between thirteen”—Scarlet gestured to Smitty, Lucas, and a few of the other boys—“and eight.” She nodded at little Ronagh, who wrinkled her nose. “I’m twelve,” Scarlet added. She didn’t have to look at Lucas to know he was sneering.

  Jem looked at her but avoided her eyes. “I didn’t get your name,” he told her chin.

  “Oh. Well, I’m Captain McCray. But everyone calls me Scarlet.” Once again she stretched out her hand, and once again Jem only stared.

  “You’re the captain?” he said.

  Smitty clapped a hand on Jem’s shoulder. “You’ll get used to it, Jem. This one’s no damsel in distress. Don’t even think about holding a door open for her.” Scarlet swatted him upside the head. “Now, mates,” Smitty continued, “we’ve got a jolly bounty, which those pirates so kindly donated to our cause. And we’ve got a new crew member. I’d say it’s time for a midnight celebration.”

  The Lost Souls cheered and broke from their huddle to scatter every which way across the deck.

  “Someone check the sails first!” Scarlet hollered after them. Then she turned to Jem, ready to offer him a dry spot on the floor in one of the cabins. He must be exhausted, being kidnapped and rescued all in a day, she thought. But Jem had suddenly turned a sickly shade of green, and it occurred to Scarlet that they might have consulted him before making the “new crew member” announcement.

  The sound of Liam Flannigan’s pipe flute and Smitty’s off-key warble twirled on an easterly wind that teased the sails of the Margaret’s Hop. Ronagh Flannigan and the younger pirates sat cross-legged on the deck with a small feast in front of them, including dried herring smothered in strawberry preserves—both stolen from the pirates. Tim and a pair of pale twins named Emmett and Edwin stood nearby, examining the spectacles they’d lifted off the whiny little captain with the impossibly long name. Tim clapped his hands in time with Liam’s tune as the ship’s unofficial musician hopped around, flute to his lips. Smitty followed Liam’s steps, singing tunelessly over mouthfuls of fresh oyster, also pinched during that evening’s raid and despised by everyone else on board. “Ain’t it plunderful to be a pirate?” Smitty sang.