The Ship of Lost Souls 1

by Rachelle Delaney

  “Die peacefully!” the Lost Souls cried.

  “Go on now, go!”

  Scarlet and the twins scurried off, deeper into town. Lucas, meanwhile, made a show of yawning, stretching, and scratching his chest before he ambled off in the opposite direction. Smitty sneered at the boy’s back as he walked away.

  “Forget him,” Tim said, and Jem made a mental note to find out exactly why Lucas seemed so unwilling all the time. Later. Right now he had to focus on more pressing issues. Like not getting caught and shackled to a weight at the bottom of the sea.

  “All right, men,” said Smitty. “Follow me, but keep a safe distance. Hurricane Smith’ll show you how it’s done.”

  Tim let out a soft snort but followed, anyway. He and Jem sauntered into the street, looking as casual and innocent as they could, while Smitty darted between bodies and buildings. His zigzagging didn’t exactly make him inconspicuous, Jem thought. He murmured this observation to Tim, who laughed.

  “He’s just fooling around,” Tim said. “To be honest, Jem, sailors in port hardly ever notice us. They assume we’re lowly cabin boys or swains and only see us when we’re in their way. You’ll see. Doesn’t do much for your self-esteem, but it makes robbing ’em pretty easy.”

  As they wound their way through crowds of strangers, Jem could see that Tim was right. Sailors stomped all around, sizing one another up, but never glanced down at the boys.

  “What’s a swain?” Jem asked. Although he’d spent two months on a schooner, there was still so much he didn’t know about ship life.

  “A swain’s basically a servant—the boy in charge of the captain’s cockboat, which takes the captain to and from the ship. It’s the lowest possible rank on board.” Tim gave a little chuckle. “That was me for nearly a year.”

  “You? For the King’s Men?”

  Tim nodded. “My father got me on board. He was a midshipman. Not much higher in rank than me at first. But he learned fast and became lieutenant, then captain. Too quick, you might say. The admiral—he’s higher in rank than the captain, see—the admiral didn’t like how Father would take me to the captain’s quarters and teach me all about navigation. He sent me to another ship, where my new captain treated me like bilge.” Tim’s eyes grew suddenly stormy, and he shoved his hands in his pockets. “Anyhow, I escaped soon enough. Met up with these lads—and ladies. Everything’s jolly, especially now that we’re on our way to find”—he lowered his voice—“the treasure. We’ve all been wanting this for a long time.”

  Jem wanted to ask what happened to Tim’s father, but Tim seemed done with that topic. Strange, Jem thought, how so many of the Lost Souls didn’t like to talk about their pasts. He’d had to prod Scarlet to tell bits of her story, and Smitty acted like he didn’t care much at all for the family he’d left.

  Tim snapped his gaze back to the street. “Where’s that Smitty? Call him Aloysius sometime, will you? See if he answers. Oh, there he is, the scalawag. Watch, Jem. He’s about to strike.”

  Jem watched as Smitty sidled up to a merchant’s stall just as one of the King’s Men slid two doubloons across the table to pay for a sack of tobacco. There was a moment—a mere instant—when the sailor looked away to size up a trio of passing pirates, at the same time as the merchant crouched to fill his sack. At that very moment, Smitty’s spindly fingers reached in and swiped their prize. A second later, the doubloons were gone, and so was Smitty.

  Tim laughed and nudged Jem. “Watch.” The merchant and the sailor, after they’d both realized that the coins had disappeared, immediately took off after the three pirates.

  “Come on,” Tim said. “Let’s go find Smitty.”

  “Did ya see that?” The little bandit was practically prancing when they caught up with him around the next corner. “Forget Hurricane Smith. Call me Quickfingers!” He proudly displayed the coins in his palm, then snapped his other palm over the top and danced a quick jig.

  “All right, all right.” Tim rolled his eyes. “No time for gloating. We’ve got to find a knife for Jem.”

  “Right.” Smitty pocketed his coins. “I know just the place. Follow me, lads. Follow your uncle Quickfingers.” He pranced off.

  Tim shook his head and followed, muttering, “Quickfingers—ha! Percival, maybe. But Quickfingers?” Jem took up the rear, hoping his task would indeed be as easy as Smitty made it look.

  They stopped in front of the tavern and peered through its single cloudy window. The interior was dimly lit and nearly empty, except for a few sailors seated around a long table in the middle of the room and a few more at tables along the wall. By the disheveled looks of them, these sailors were pirates, not King’s Men. The ones at the long table seemed to be haggling over a pile of coins and jewelry.

  “We’re not going in here, are we?” Jem asked. “They’ll notice us for sure.”

  Smitty shook his head. “Just stick to the walls and don’t make eye contact with anyone. Let’s take a look around.” With that, he darted into the tavern, with Tim close behind. As he, too, ducked inside, Jem couldn’t help but remember the cutlass that had hung on Iron “Pete” Morgan’s hip. Such a shiny and well-sharpened blade. He wondered, just briefly, whether pirates’ cutlasses were ever used to lop off the arms of clumsy thieves. Then he tried to imagine what Master Davis would do in such a situation. The obvious answer was that Master Davis wouldn’t have gotten himself into such a fix in the first place.

  Inside, the tavern smelled much like the one where he and Uncle Finn had dined on flying fish in Port Aberhard. Smoky and sour. Jem took Smitty’s advice and slunk along the wall closest to the door.

  Over at the long table, the pirates’ voices rose and fell, peppered with curses and authentic-sounding pirate grunts. There was evidently some disagreement over who got to keep a giant ruby set in gold and fastened to a thick chain. It sparkled in the lamplight, and Jem found himself so transfixed by it that he walked into a chair and stubbed his toe. He stifled a cry, and Tim and Smitty both turned and raised their eyebrows to shush him.

  “It’s rightfully mine!” A pirate spat on the floor near Smitty’s feet, and the boy took a slow step back. The three Lost Souls pressed their backs against the wall, a few yards away from the pirates.

  “Yers? Don’t flatter yerself, ye lily-livered lout,” a pirate with an eye patch jeered. “I’m the one who cut off the man’s head and plucked the jewel off his neck. It’s mine if it’s anyone’s.”

  “But ’twas me father who found it in the first place, I swear! I’d know that jewel anywhere. It fell right from the sky, nearly landed in his lap, years ago. Ye’ve heard the tales of rubies falling from the sky, haven’t ye?”

  A third pirate guffawed. “Tell ye what then, Deadeye Johnny,” he said, addressing the one who’d beheaded the jewel’s unfortunate owner. “I’ll give you this ring and a sack of doubloons for the ruby.”

  “Deadeye Johnny,” Smitty whispered. “Now there’s a grand pirate name. Think I could be Deadeye Smith?”

  Tim turned with his finger to his lips, then paused and shook his head. “You’ve still got both eyes.”

  Smitty considered this, then nodded. “It’s a problem, isn’t it?”

  Jem silenced them both with a glare.

  “Don’t insult me,” Deadeye Johnny was saying. “A ruby’s worth a hundred sacks of doubloons these days. The King’s Men’ve torn up the islands for ’em but come up with nothin’. Except those that fall from the sky.” He snorted. “This is a treasure in itself.”

  “Forget his offer, Deadeye,” the first pirate said. “I’ll give ye me knife for the jewel.” And he drew out a long pocketknife with an ivory handle inlaid with delicate, silver curls. “Belonged to Cutthroat MacPhee, it did. Long, long ago.” The other pirates’ eyes widened as the silver curls glinted.

  Smitty turned to Jem and mouthed, “A knife!”<
br />
  “Obviously!” Jem mouthed back.

  “Your knife!” Smitty mouthed, pointing for emphasis.

  “Jem,” Tim whispered under his breath, “be as quick as you can, but stealthy. Smitty and I’ll distract them if you need us to.”

  Quick but stealthy. Quick but stealthy. Cold sweat dripped between his shoulder blades as Jem flattened himself against the wall and tiptoed—quickly and stealthily, he hoped—toward the table.

  Jem dropped to his knees. The pirates were clustered at the far end of the table, so he crawled underneath the opposite end, grateful for the shadows that seemed to be keeping him hidden. He crept along the floor, his hands sinking into puddles of rum and small, scattered crumbs, then stopped a few feet away from the pirates’ boots. Above, the men haggled on.

  “Come on, Deadeye. Cutthroat MacPhee’s prized knife for yer little jewel.”

  “Throw in that big sack of ara feathers ye stole from the commodore last week, and ye’ve got yerself a deal.”

  “Me feathers? Never!”

  Jem glanced back at the wall and saw Smitty gesturing wildly in the shadows. His windmilling arms seemed to indicate that the knife lay right above Jem on the table.

  He drew a breath and reached up, slowly, next to the pirate with the knife, praying that hands small enough to slip out of knotted rope would also go undetected under a pirate’s nose. He crept his fingers along the table ledge, then looked over at Smitty again. “There!” the boy mouthed, nearly poking Tim in the eye as he pointed. “Right there!” Jem stretched his now-aching arm a bit farther . . . and his fingers connected with cool, smooth ivory.

  Suddenly there was a clatter as Tim dropped a tin mug on the floor. On purpose, of course—to divert the pirates’ attention. Jem clasped the knife handle and slipped it off the table, then began to back out the way he’d come. Quick but stealthy, quick but stealthy, he chanted in his head to the beat of his whomping heart. Almost there.

  Just then, his hand slipped in a puddle of rum. He looked down to right himself. And when he looked back up, his pounding heart nearly stopped. There, staring back at him under the table, with the perfect pirate scowl on his round, one-eyed face, was Deadeye Johnny. For a moment they simply stared at each other. Then the pirate’s good eye blinked.

  “Get that boy!” he hollered.

  Without thinking, Jem rolled away from the table and toward the wall just as Smitty and Tim jumped out of the shadows, yelling and waving their arms like crazed apes. Tim knocked over two chairs, and Smitty stuck out his foot to trip one of the pirates, who was running toward Jem, yelling, “Get him! He stole Cutthroat MacPhee’s knife!”

  “Run!” Tim hollered. The three boys dashed to the door and out into the blinding sun.

  “Split up!” Tim called.

  Still clutching the knife, Jem swung to the right, just barely out of Deadeye Johnny’s reach, and took off down the street.

  “Which one do we follow?” one pirate yelled.

  “To the right!” another answered, followed by the now-familiar shing of a cutlass being unsheathed.

  “Blast.” Jem ducked his head and ran harder, rounding another corner and hurdling a wheelbarrow full of coconuts. He dodged a group of King’s Men squabbling with a merchant, splashed through a gigantic puddle, and kept running, all the while listening to his pursuers stomping behind, cursing as only true pirates could possibly curse. And to think, just yesterday he’d questioned their very existence!

  Jem dove into an alley, hoping to find a place to hide, but instead ran headlong into a skinny woman with a great nest of red hair and a boa constrictor wrapped around her neck.

  “Come to see Voodoo Miranda, have you, boy?” Her eyes widened and her scarf writhed and hissed.

  “Um, no.” Jem did an about-face and sprinted back out of the alley, just as the pirates entered it. They took one look at Voodoo Miranda, yelped, and stumbled backward over one another to get away from her deadly accessory.

  In the next alley, Jem found an empty barrel and crawled inside, pulling the lid tight overhead. The barrel reeked of old rum but felt safe. Jem let out a sigh and rested his head against the wall. They wouldn’t find him in here. It wasn’t possible. He listened for footsteps but heard none. Safe. He ran his thumb over the pocketknife’s ivory handle, now slippery with sweat. Despite everything, he couldn’t help but feel proud. He’d nabbed a most beautiful knife and evaded a trio of bloodthirsty pirates. Not bad for his first time out. And it hadn’t really been that scary. As a matter of fact, it was kind of fun.

  He was just slipping the knife into his trouser pocket when the lid flew off his barrel and Deadeye Johnny reached inside and grabbed him by the collar. The pirate pulled him up, kicked over the barrel, and gave Jem a toothy leer. His functional eye twitched.

  “Gotcha, boy. Now I’m going to make ye pay.” Jem squirmed and tried to wriggle out of the pirate’s grasp. “Oh no, ye don’t,” Deadeye said, pulling Jem close enough that their noses almost touched. “We’re going to start by cutting off both hands with a dull blade, then move on to yer ears. Or maybe yer nose—”

  Jem gave one last great wriggle and kicked the pirate in the gut as hard as he could. As Deadeye keeled over, Jem tumbled to the ground, then scrambled to his feet and took off running again.

  He took back that last thought. This was not fun. Having his ears cut off by a one-eyed pirate could not, under any circumstance, count as fun. “Whose grand idea was this, anyhow?” he growled. “Scarlet . . .”

  He barely noticed Lucas Lawrence as he sprinted past the boy, focusing instead on a door in a mossy brick wall. He opened it and hurtled through, praying for a safe place to hide. He found a dark corridor. Damp. Empty.

  Trembling, Jem inched back toward the door and squinted through a crack in its wooden slats. Deadeye Johnny and one of the other pirates stood a few yards away on the other side of the door, looking winded as they scanned the street. Deadeye was rubbing his stomach.

  Then, to Jem’s great surprise, Lucas Lawrence sauntered over to the pirates. He began to speak to them as if striking up a friendly conversation with the deadliest pirates around was an everyday occurrence, like cleaning one’s ears. Jem pressed his ear, which hadn’t been cleaned since he left the Old World, against the crack to hear what he was saying.

  “Lucas!” Deadeye Johnny panted. “Ye seen a scrawny cabin boy run by?”

  Jem wasn’t sure what disturbed him more—being called scrawny or the pirates knowing Lucas by name.

  “A scrawny cabin boy?” Lucas repeated, lowering his voice a few notches and rubbing his chin. “There’s a lot of those around, Deadeye. Haven’t seen one today.”

  After a pause, Deadeye squinted at the boy. “Ye wouldn’t be lying to us, would ye now, Lucas?”

  Lucas laughed. “You know me better than that, Deadeye. If I see your boy, I’ll wring his scrawny neck.”

  Bewildered, Jem watched as Lucas shook Deadeye Johnny’s hand and pat his shoulder before the pirate stumbled off.

  Jem slumped against the door and was still leaning on it a few minutes later when Lucas pulled it open. He tumbled out and looked up at his rescuer, who stood with his fists on his hips. At least, he hoped Lucas had just rescued him and wasn’t about to turn him in.

  “I sure saved you.” Lucas pressed his hands together and cracked his knuckles one at a time. “What’d you do to them, anyway?”

  Jem eyed him warily, then shrugged as casually as he could. “Stole a knife.”

  Lucas snorted. “Deadeye’s one of the fiercest pirates around. What were you thinking, stealing from his crew?”

  Jem shrugged again and touched the ivory handle in his pocket, resenting Lucas for looking so smug. He’d gotten away with it, hadn’t he? And he probably could have done it without the older boy’s help.

  “How do you kn
ow those pirates so well?” he asked instead of answering Lucas’s question.

  “Look, I saved you and that’s all that matters,” Lucas was quick to reply. “And you’re welcome, by the way.”

  “Oh. Well, thanks,” Jem said, for in a way he had forgotten his manners.

  “You’re welcome,” Lucas repeated, then jerked his head in the direction opposite to that which the pirates had taken.

  “Come on. Let’s stick to the alleys. If they catch me with you, I won’t be able to save you again. I’ll have to hand you over. They’ll probably take your nose first.”

  As they wandered through the alleys, Jem tried to find logical answers for the many questions that had sprung to mind since he’d spotted Lucas with Deadeye Johnny. Finally he asked, “So, um, pirates from different ships generally get along?”

  “What?” Lucas snapped, looking down at him.

  “Well, I just thought that . . . since you and Deadeye Johnny seemed to be on, you know, good terms, that—”

  “Of course not,” Lucas replied. “Pirates from different ships can’t be friends. That’s stupid. Defeats the purpose of being a pirate.”

  “Oh. Right. Of course.” Now Jem was very confused. Because if that were true, then this meant . . .

  “You know,” Lucas said, “it’s Scarlet’s fault that you’d be missing your nose now if I hadn’t saved you. I knew she was making a mistake, sending you out pillaging on your first day. I would’ve said something myself, but Miss McCray never listens to me. Never listens to anyone, really, even when she knows she’s wrong.” Lucas’s hands curled into fists at his sides. “And I’m not the only one who sees that. Just between you and me, Jem, Scarlet’s a terrible captain. But you’ve noticed that, I’m sure. You look like a bright lad.”

  Jem wasn’t sure what to say. Scarlet, a bad captain? A little bossy, sure, but she seemed to run a tight ship. “I hadn’t noticed,” he said.

  “Well, you will—”

  “Jem! Jem!” Lucas was interrupted by the other Lost Souls running toward them, shouting and waving. “Did they catch you? What happened?”