They're becoming a right terrible twosome, thought Harry privately. "Thank you. Mads, I'll pick you out a nice hat, alright? Franky, Wil, if there's anything you need, just say the word. And, Kai," Harry turned as he slid back out of the water, several spiny sea urchins protruding from the bag over his shoulder. "Would you stay close to the beach while the rest of us are gone, in case they need you or your medicines?"
"Of course," he agreed readily. "Now, Katherine." He pulled an urchin free of the netting, breaking a needle-like spine from it. "Which one would you like the markings on? The right or the left?"
"Surprise me," she grinned, pulling her shirt off completely and sitting down before him amidst peals of laughter.
Silence
Silence had been on board for several days, but everyone was still on edge about it—including Silence. She had hidden herself away in the darkest corner of Miss Euphemia's cabin and stared out with bright, almost luminous eyes whenever someone approached her. She understood they meant her no harm, that they had in fact been instrumental in saving her life, but she remained skittish and wary.
"All wounded, frightened things want to hide away," said Wil. "It's a natural preservation instinct to find a defensible position and go to ground until the pain goes away."
"She's not an animal," Maddie protested.
"Yes, she is," countered Wil. "And so are we. Humans, sirens, merfolk—we're all animals, like imps and fish and sheep. We just happen to have more sophisticated ways of communicating and more complex social rituals."
"When you get all intellectual like that you sorta sound like a ponce," Maddie said in frustration. "Miss Euphemia, can I take her supper?"
"Of course, dear. But don't crowd her. She'll come out in her own time."
A plate of diced, raw fish in one hand and one of Kai's potions in the other, Maddie carefully climbed the ladder out of the galley and made her away across the darkened, quiet deck. Marcella was keeping watch up in the crow's nest; Maddie could hear the plaintive whistle of her bone flute. Tucking the bottle into the crook of her elbow to free her hand, the girl knocked softly before unlatching the door, to give the siren fair warning before she pushed it open with her foot.
To Maddie's surprise, Silence wasn't hidden in her usual corner. Instead, she was sitting on the bed, back pressed to the wall and knees drawn up under her chin. She also wasn't alone. Zora was sitting in a chair, legs tucked beneath her and hands frozen in mid-gesture.
"Hullo," Maddie said, stepping inside and nudging the door closed behind her. "Am I interrupting anything?"
"I've been trying to teach her signing," Zora explained.
"Signing?"
"Talking with your hands. My older sister is deaf and mute. I thought it would be helpful for Silence. Learning how to sign is a lot easier than learning how to write, I always thought, and Kai says some merfolk communicate this way."
"And how's it going?"
"Silence," Zora said slowly, making the corresponding gestures with her hands. "This is Maddie. She is nice. She brought you fish for supper. Are you hungry?"
The siren stared for a long moment, eyes flicking from Zora to Maddie. Then she hesitantly lifted her fine-boned, webbed hands. Yes. Hungry.
"She's clever as a cat," Zora said, pleased and proud.
"Here you go, Silence," Maddie said, holding out the plate. "It's tuna, just caught today, and I made sure no one cooked it this time. And this is one of Kai's drinks, for your throat. "
"Medicine for your mouth," Zora signed/said. "From Kai."
Kai, Silence signed. Maddie. Thank.
She turned away as she ate, for which Maddie was privately grateful. She had seen how sharp and serrated her teeth were, and knew how awkward eating solid food had to be for her now. When the plate was clean and the bottle empty, Silence turned back to look at Maddie with her huge, expressive dark eyes.
Maddie. Thank.
"You're welcome. I'm glad you're feeling better, Silence."
Silence looked around the cabin. Pointed at Miss Euphemia's parasol.
"Do you want to know where Miss Euphemia is?" Maddie asked.
Silence nodded.
"She's in the galley with the others, finishing supper. I could take you to her if you like."
Silence looked apprehensive at such a suggestion.
"You don't want to see so many people at once?" Zora asked quietly, making the gesture for too many.
Silence nodded firmly.
"Alright. Then how about I give you a tour of the ship instead? The others are bound to have a bit of a tipple while they discuss tomorrow's course. Everything else will be quiet and empty for a while."
She hesitated, then nodded.
"Well, first things first," Maddie said with a smile. She was often tasked with giving new crewmates the Grand Tour, and she liked to do the thing properly. "This that we're in is the captain's quarters. See, Cap'n Harry used to sleep in here, back when she and Jo first got the ship, but the crew was a lot smaller back then. And when Miss Euphemia joined up, Harry immediately gave this to her. As the official ship's scribe and teacher, she needed all the built-in-bookcases, see? And there's her little desk, which is nailed to the floor, so even in rough seas, it doesn't get toppled, and there are little secured containers for all of her inks and quills and parchment. And Miss Euphemia being a bit older and frailer, she needed the bigger, nicer bed with a real feather mattress. Sometimes this is also the sick bay, because there's space for another cot, like the one we put here for you, and for the nurses to move around their patient and things like that."
Maddie set the plate and bottle down on the desk and opened the door, urging Silence to follow her. The siren carefully unfolded her long, elegant limbs and crept after her, nearly hugging the wall.
In the evening darkness, the moon hidden behind a large cloud bank, the still and empty deck of the ship looked positively ghostly. Water slapped rhythmically against the hull. The sails fluttered quietly, half-furled for the night, and the looser bits of rigging swayed pendulum-like in the breeze.
"The crow's nest is up there," Maddie pointed up the huge main mast. Silence craned her pale neck to follow the gesturing finger. "That's usually my spot when we're sailing. I've got the best long-sight of anybody, so I usually see other ships and reefs way before anyone else. It's my job to keep a lookout and shout down anything approaching. Are you afraid of heights?"
Silence shook her head.
"That's good. That's a good skill to have when you sail on a big, masted ship like this 'un. Maybe tomorrow you can come up to the nest with me and see what you think. The whole world looks different up that high, and I've made the nest into a cozy little nook. That's the big wheel that steers the boat; this little platform here is Agnessa's domain. You know which one Agnessa is?"
Nod.
"She's a tiny thing, but up here she's a queen. She tells The Sappho what to do and she does it, no questions or arguments. I tried to turn this wheel once and it fought me like the Devil himself, but Agnessa knows just how to manage it. It's like magic. Right beneath us is the gun deck; it’s a sorta half-deck where we keep the cannons. If you look over the railing right here, you can see the holes they fire from. I don't really like cannons. They're too loud and their smoke burns my nose. But every pirate ship's gotta have 'em, and they're Katherine's responsibility."
Silence made a sudden, unexpected gesture, stretching her hands high above her head and balancing on the tips of her bare toes. Maddie laughed. "Yeah, that's Katherine. She's the giant with all the tattoos. She could probably pick up one of those cannons all on her own. Don't let her size frighten you, though. She's really a big mama bear. And this little room is where we keep all the messy, smelly things, like the tar and pitch and lime. The main hatch, over there," Maddie pointed down the deck. "Leads straight into the galley. And the big hatch in the middle, near the mast, goes into the cargo hold. But this one, here, goes down into the sleeping quarters." The girl lifted the wooden door and
started down the steps, confident of her footing, even in the darkness. Silence followed slowly and carefully, a hand pressed to the wall.
Her eyes really did glint in the dark, Maddie saw. Red like a crocodile's. It was a little unnerving, but she rallied quickly.
"Most ships, the crew just sleeps in the cargo hold, in little hammocks strung out above the crates and casks. But Harry doesn't like hammocks—she calls them 'infernal torture devices' and 'a waste of perfectly good rope'. So instead, we've got this," Maddie said, striking a match and lighting a nearby oil lamp, illuminating a very strange room. Built into the walls on either side were several niche beds, stacked on top of one another, the higher niches accessible by fixed ladders. In the middle of the wide room were two more ascending frames of similar beds, unusual pillars stretching from floor to ceiling. Each bed was just big enough for one person to lie down and roll over comfortably, but not spacious enough for anyone to sit up straight. Then again, this was a space solely intended for sleeping, meant for people who had plenty of space to be active during the day. By evening, all they wanted to do in here was close their eyes.
"See that bottom bed in the middle?" Maddie said with a grin, pointing. It ran nearly the full length of the room where the other beds only took up half the space, and had more headroom than the others. "That's Katherine's. She had to have the bottom one, because she sleepwalks."
"This next little room is Hope's workroom. She needed her own space for all of her bunkum. Hope's a fortune teller and a witch," Maddie said in a secretive undertone.
The glorified closet smelled strongly of incense. A delicate mobile of red paper lanterns and silver bells dangled from the high-above ceiling. Runes and Chinese characters had been painted around the door frames in white, and a plush, satin pillow took up most of the floor space. "She doesn't like anyone coming in here, so we'll just hurry through. She's got all these little drawers in the walls for her spices and magic ingredients, and that scroll there shows all the phases of the moon and the names of the important stars. Hope can read palms and chicken bones and tell your future just based on the planets. She's always carving little charms out of seashells and she only wears red, because red is supposed to be lucky and ward off evil. Hope's really big on warding off evil," Maddie added. "So don't be alarmed if you seeing her making the sign of the evil eye or chanting foreign lingo or if she tells you to turn around three times before throwing a cup of tea over your shoulder or something. She's always like that."
Maddie opened the next door and there was a sudden sense of great space. "This is the cargo hold—Jo calls it 'the belly of the beast'. It's pretty empty right now, since we just unloaded all of those supplies and things on the island. But we've always got the big casks of water and ale; that's the most important thing, not to run out of either of those when you're sailing. You can go a lot of days without food, but not very long without water or ale. Do you drink ale?"
Silence made a confused, questioning gesture.
"Ale's like beer? It's mostly water, but it's got other things in it, too. Alcohol and herbs and that. It fills you up in a way water doesn't, and it can be safer to drink. Sometimes water goes bad, you know? Makes you sick? Wil says all sorts of swimmy, invisible things live in water—when she told me that, I didn't drink water for a week. But because ale has alcohol in it, it's safer. Apparently. Though if you drink too much ale, you can get sick, too. Just a different kind of sick. It's confusing, I know.
"And over here's where we put all of Lizzie's big tools. This thing's called a lathe, and that's a press, and she's even got an anvil. Lizzie's family have been smiths for a couple generations—when her Pap died, she inherited all of his things and signed on with us. It's been real handy having her on board, cause smiths make all sorts of things: wagons and horseshoes and weapons. She repairs swords when they get bent or chipped, and rigged up that pulley system for the lifeboat so Kai can haul himself onboard whenever he wants."
Silence turned and was greeted by a wall full of knives and strange implements. She stepped away sharply, the back of her legs striking a long table bolted to the floor.
"Oh, it's okay, don't worry," Maddie said quickly. "That's all Marcella's stuff. She's sorta our seamstress? She tans leather and turns animal skins into felt. Those big needles are for repairing sails and making holes in leather belts. She's even taught herself how to make boots and hats, though they're not very fashionable-looking yet."
A burst of raucous laughter echoed into the mostly-empty space. The two turned to the last door. Lamplight was gleaming through the cracks and edges.
"That's the galley," Maddie said. "Sounds like someone's telling a story—and sounds like Harry let them open a cask of rum. I can show you the galley later tonight, once everyone's asleep, if you want. It's where we keep all the food. That's Wil's domain. She's our cook."
Silence put a hand to her leg.
"Yeah, that's right; she's the one with the wooden leg. Once you're feeling better, she'll probably have all sorts of questions for you. Not many people get the chance to talk properly to a siren."
Silence's hand rose to her throat.
"Well, maybe not actually talk," Maddie amended quickly, flushing. "Sorry. I don't think a lot before I speak."
Silence put one hand over the other and made a wiping gesture. Then pressed a palm to her chest, over her heart.
"Does that mean 'it's alright'?"
Silence nodded.
"Thanks. Do you want to go back to the cabin now?"
Silence hesitated, glancing at the last door. Then she pointed, face pale and eyes wide, but determined.
"You want to go ahead into the galley? Are you sure?"
Nod.
"Alright." Maddie knocked firmly at the door before cracking it open. "It's Mads. I'm bringing Silence in—she wants to see the galley."
The burble of conversation promptly ceased.
"Don't gawp at the child," Miss Euphemia said suddenly, breaking the tension with her raspy-yet-kind voice. "Being stared at by you lot would give anyone the collywobbles. Hello, dear. Feeling better? I'm glad you've come down to see us."
Silence moved quickly to the old woman in the lace-fringed dress, reaching out an unsteady hand. Miss Euphemia took it with a warm smile, patting the back of it. "There, there, it's alright."
The conversation picked up again, some turning away, so the siren no longer felt like the center of attention. The sole male in the crew, Franky, still stared openly at her—but no, perhaps his focus was more on Maddie next to her.
Silence could smell the pheromones between them. They must be a pair bond. And the one called Wil was looking at her with open curiosity, but it wasn't threatening; it felt more like when a youngling sees something new for the first time and is concentrated on sizing it up. She was also sitting with her hands in plain view, laid flat over her knees, which was reassuring. Silence wondered if she understood and was doing that on purpose.
Now that her heart wasn't thrumming so painfully in her chest, she found herself admiring the long, crowded room. There was a metal thing built into the wall that exuded heat, and heavy pots and baskets full of leafy vegetables hanging from the ceiling. A giant cauldron sat in the corner, and boxes and bags and casks were stacked everywhere, giving off a number of interesting and strange smells. There was even a large cask in the corner from which a small lemon tree was growing—Silence looked up and saw that there was a latticed hatch above it that could be thrown open during the day, so the plant could get enough sunlight.
The crew was gathered around two long trestle tables, sitting on benches bolted into the floor, and there were wooden plates, cups, and metal cutlery spread before them. It must have been a very large tuna to feed everyone, though they had eaten their servings cooked and rubbed with spices.
"Would you like anything, dear?" Miss Euphemia asked.
Silence looked at her with wide, questioning eyes.
"Anything else to eat or drink?" she said.
&nb
sp; She shook her head. Most of the smells here were interesting, but unappetizing. She had been content with her raw fish—would have been more content had she caught it herself, but she was learning to make adjustments.
"Did Maddie give you the grand tour?"
She nodded, the edges of her lips curling up. The blisters were almost completely healed: the smile didn't even hurt.
"Maddie's a good girl, isn't she? She likes to feel useful and help people. You ever need anything, you can always ask her."
Someone slid down the bench towards them. "How's the patient doing tonight?"
Silence stared at Jo, with her solemn, dark face and many narrow braids, and felt a little flip in her stomach. She ducked her head shyly, pressing a palm to her chest.
"I think that means she's doing well," said Miss Euphemia. "Did Zora show you that?"
Nod.
"I didn't know Zora knew signing," said Jo in surprise.
"Zora yet has some unplumbed depths. She has a deaf sister back home. You know how to sign?"
"A little. You pick the oddest things up at ports. I'm glad you came to see us, Silence," Jo said, making the accompanying gestures. The sign for her new name was the first two fingers of the right hand pressed to the lips. Jo had very full lips, Silence noticed breathlessly.
"Franky, Maddie, Lizzie, you're on dishwashing detail tonight," Harry announced. "Everyone off to bunk. Jo, can you go relieve Marcella?"
"Aye," a chorus of agreement sounded out. Maddie flashed a grin at Silence before she started gathering up plates and forks.
"How about we go over your letters before bed, eh?" Miss Euphemia asked, leading Silence up the ladder. "You're doing very well. You like Jo, don't you, dear?"
Silence nodded.
The old woman smiled. "She's a fine lady, our first mate. There are worse folks to set your cap on. Just... don't get your hopes too high." At Silence's glance, Miss Euphemia sighed and patted her arm. "Her heart broke a long time ago, and I don't think it's ever really healed. First love can be like that sometimes. You never truly recover from it."
The Search for Aveline Page 5