The Search for Aveline

by Stephanie Rabig

  "You did better than most," Jo said to appease the stranger's wounded pride. Empty glasses covered the table between them. The man looked on the verge of coma. And the first mate of The Sappho just brushed back a wayward braid and debated on risking Violet's shepherd's pie, which at least had something normally tended by a shepherd in it. All of that beer and rum had given her an appetite.

  "See, I told you," said Maddie to an impressed Franky. "Nobody can drink Jo under the table."

  "Amy, lass, have you been blue?" asked the unlucky drinker's bosom friend, a man that looked like he was carved from aged teak. He stretched out a hand to the wench passing by with an empty tray. "Ah, c'mere, girl."

  Amelia settled on his knee, eyes tired, but face calm. "What'll it be tonight, Bruce?"

  "I'd pay a shilling just to see you smile, love. Here. Thatta girl." He pressed a positively chaste kiss to her cheek and a coin into her palm. "And another five for a song. You sing pretty as a bird, Amy."

  "Any requests?"

  "'The Moon She be Bold and Bonny'," called a man with a Highland brogue.

  "'The Gates of Jerusalem'," suggested another.

  "'The Lady of Shallot'," requested the golden Hugh Dawkins.

  "Nah, nah," said Bruce, waving these lesser songs away. "Do 'Annabel Lee', Amy. You always bring a tear to my eye with that 'un."

  With her arms around the man's neck, Amelia sang in a piercing, flute-like tone. The room fell utterly silent, the drinkers and gamblers and dart-players all turning to stare at the dark girl with mismatched eyes. Jo sat back in her chair with a remote, unreadable expression, her hand inching towards her flask.

  Harry turned to look at her. Their eyes met for a moment, dark and heavy with understanding, and then Jo looked down. Bowed her head and drank deeply.

  "Poor Jo," Maddie said, when the last wavering note had died and the babble of ribald conversation picked up again. "She always gets like that when she's been drinking and someone sings. Especially that song."

  "Why, do you think?"

  "Miss Euphemia says she must have had her heart broken by a singer."

  "I think I know who," Franky said quietly. "I think when Harry lost her sister, Jo lost her lover."

  "You think so?"

  "I saw her face when they told the story."

  "That would explain an awful lot," mused Maddie. "Poor Jo. Poor Harry."

  Franky was suddenly tired. The room felt too hot and crowded, too full of emotion and old ghosts. And the smell of beer was starting to make him queasy. "I think I'm off to bed. Coming?"

  "Alright. It is a lot to take in," she added as they climbed the stairs, hand-in-hand. "Bogo, I mean. It can get overwhelming."

  "There's only one way I want to be overwhelmed right now, love," Franky said firmly, closing the door to room six and shutting out the crowd below. "Come here."

  "Thought you were tired."

  "The day I'm too tired to make love to you, Maddie, is the day you can shovel dirt over my head. We haven't shared a proper bed yet, and I intend to make the most of it."

  Downstairs, Violet worked the taps and joined in the shanty with a gusto, her voice a brassy baritone. Her old dad and old man had both been sailors, and she knew more of the limericks than her customers. By the fire, Agnessa and Hugh Dawkins had progressed to their opinions on poetry, and the dark-haired helmswoman had pulled her chair closer to his. Hope was reading palms in the corner and handing out charms to anyone who asked. Lizzie was arm-wrestling with a sailor twice her size, her blacksmith's muscles bulging with effort. Marcella had pulled out her bone flute and was accompanying the shanty singers alongside a man with a tiny, creaking accordion and a reedy voice.

  And Harry brought a plate of pie and a loaf of bread to Jo's table, where the pair sat and ate in silence.

  Night Terrors

  Silence was having nightmares.

  She would wake in the dry darkness. Why was she sleeping on cloth, why wasn't she in her tide pool padded with fresh kelp? This wasn't the cave she shared with her sisters… She would gasp and cry, longing for the release of a scream. But her throat was too scarred for even that, and she would fumble out of the cot and curl up on the hard, wooden floor and shake.

  Sirens did not dream. They did not have nightmares. The experience was altogether new and incredibly terrifying. What was happening to her? Was this the result of the foul poison her sister had poured down her throat? Was it her constant proximity with humans; had some of their strange ways somehow rubbed off onto her like a stain? Was it her distance from the water, the punishment she must endure now that the ocean had repudiated her?

  Miss Euphemia would find her lying beneath her cot, cheek pressed to the floor and black tears on her face, and would draw her out with soft sounds of encouragement and gentle, kind hands. Silence still did not like to be touched by humans, but Miss Euphemia and Maddie were different. Their hands somehow did not feel so rough and alien on her skin, though one had the dry parchment flesh of the old and the other was much callused from hard labor.

  She would allow Miss Euphemia to pull her out, like a pearl from a half-closed shell, and drape a soft blanket over her bare shoulders. The old woman would take a bowl of water and a rag and wipe away the inky tears on her face before trickling some of the water over her shoulders, onto the blanket, and the dampness would soothe her as nothing else could. She could no longer swim freely in the water, could no longer put her maimed head beneath the waves, but she was still a creature born of the ocean.

  "Why don't we try something?" the patient teacher said one night as she led her to the desk. "Here is a pen, and here is some paper. Why don't you draw me what is making you cry?"

  Silence sniffed loudly and nodded, taking the pen she was just becoming comfortable with holding. Such strange things the humans had and such strange uses they found for them. She bent over the desk, nose close to the paper, and began laboriously etching lines.

  Miss Euphemia sat beside her and hummed, as she often did. She was reading a large book covered in cracking red leather. Silence could almost understand the letters stamped across the cover in gold gilt. The first snake shape was an 'S'—the same letter that began her new name.

  She turned back to her drawing: she had already depicted her sister, and the bone knife in her hand. Then there was the man with the black hat. He had only one eye and a wicked smile. And here was the monster fish, the one that was in the room where they threw her before she was dragged on deck and forced to drink the poison. Silence drew the creature's teeth with a shudder—there was not a big enough sheet of paper to do it full justice. Each tooth had been longer than her arms; the gaping mouth was big enough to swallow her whole.

  When she had seen it in the murky half-light, that terrible day on the black-sailed ship, she had cowered away and pressed to the wall with a scream. It seemed to be coming through the ship itself, a mottled green and bloody red. It gave off no smell, it did not move—not even with breath—and she had been transfixed in pure horror until hands had grabbed her and pulled her out of that awful room.

  Somehow, impossibly, it was even more frightening to her now than the remembrance of what her sister had done. It had achieved a sort of symbolic importance—it represented all of the pain and depravity she had experienced that day.

  "My word, what a nasty thing," Miss Euphemia said when she looked over Silence's shoulder. "I'd be having nightmares, too, if I had faced down such a Leviathan. What are you doing now, dear?"

  The act of drawing her nightmare had proved cathartic and Silence was feeling much improved. Perhaps if she got every detail out onto the paper, it would no longer haunt her sleep. Encouraged by this thought, she was laboriously, but carefully, curving and slanting her pen beneath the monster.

  "What's this? Why, this is a word—Silence, do you know what this means? What you've written here?"

  The siren shook her head, eyes blank.

  Miss Euphemia carefully picked up the paper—the poor girl had pres
sed her pen down so hard that it had pierced it in several places. "This is that scoundrel Wrath Drew," the old woman said. "A most accurate depiction of him, my girl. And is this—is this the one that hurt you?"

  Silence nodded quickly, putting a hand to her mouth and throat. She made another gesture that Miss Euphemia didn't understand.

  "Wait just a moment, dear," she said, struck by inspiration. She hurried out of the cabin and across the deck, down to the dark berth full of snores and rustling, where she reached up confidently in the dark to tug at someone's blanket.

  "Wha, whassit?" Zora mumbled, rolling over.

  "Zora, come with me," Miss Euphemia said in her best schoolmarm voice, a tone that demanded attention. The darker, younger woman pushed herself up and blinked. "I need you to translate for Silence. She's trying to tell me something, and I think it's important."

  "Alright, keep your hair on," she muttered, reaching for the ladder and sliding down, clutching a blanket around her shoulders.

  "Go on, Silence," Miss Euphemia said when they had returned, Zora dropping down onto the edge of the cot with a squeak of abused springs and a wide yawn.

  The siren made the gesture again.

  "She said 'sister'," Zora said. "She wanted something to call Maddie that was stronger than just 'friend', so I taught her 'sister'."

  "This is your sister?" Miss Euphemia said, pointing at the picture. Silence nodded, eyes sorrowful and lips pressed tighter. "Good Lord. Oh, you poor thing. How absolutely dreadful."

  "What?" Zora demanded, finally fully awake.

  "It was her sister who did those awful things to her," Miss Euphemia said quietly. She reached over and put her hand on Silence's knee. "I'm so sorry."

  Silence nodded, dry-eyed.

  "So, if that's her sister, and that's obviously Wrath," Zora said, having stood and come around Euphemia's chair to look down at the picture. "What in the nine hells is that? And why did she write 'BARRA' underneath it?"

  "Where did you see this monster, Silence?"

  Silence made an encompassing gesture with both arms that took in the entire room.

  "It was in a cabin like this one?" Miss Euphemia asked shrewdly.

  Nod.

  "That doesn't make sense, though," Zora said, scratching her cheek. "Why would there be a giant fish in a cabin?"

  "Zora, these are all things she's actually seen," Miss Euphemia said. "On the day Kai rescued her. On that evil bastard Wrath Drew's boat. She's been dreaming about this because it was all so terrifying. What was this monster doing in the cabin, Silence?"

  The siren stood and walked to the wall, putting her hands against the wood.

  "It was on the wall?"

  She made a gesture.

  "Through the wall, she said," Zora said, confused. "It was coming through the wall?"

  "Perhaps not—maybe it was a trick of the light. Silence, did this monster make any sound? Did it move? Did it try to attack you?"

  The siren shuddered, then shook her head. She made a series of abrupt gestures.

  "She says it stared. That it looked hungry. She says she was too scared."

  "I think I understand," Miss Euphemia said. "I think I see. Zora, can you go wake Harry and bring her up here?"

  "Really?" Zora said, fixing her with a look. "You really want me to go and drag Harry out of bed? Now?"

  "Zora, use your eyes and brain," Miss Euphemia said tartly. "Look at the monster and pair it with the letters Silence has written."

  Zora looked again—and paled visibly. "Oh. Oh, God." She turned and hurried through the door, blanket billowing cape-like over her shoulders.

  Silence looked at Miss Euphemia in concern, and the woman was quick to sit beside her on the bed and take her hand to pat it gently. "It's alright, my dear," she said. "You've done absolutely nothing wrong. Do you feel better now?"

  The siren nodded and leaned against the frail human. She smelled of paper and wax candles, and though the scents were strange to her nose, they were also oddly comforting.

  "What is it, what's happened?" Harry demanded a moment later, hair wild and clothes in disarray from sleep. "Everything alright?"

  "We're fine, Captain," Miss Euphemia said. "I'm sorry if Zora's abrupt manner startled you. It's just that I think we've uncovered something you might like to know."

  "Yes?"

  "It seems that Silence was put into the cabin of The Charon before her torture," the old woman said calmly and plainly. "And she was terrified by what she saw hanging on the wall there, half-covered in shadows." Miss Euphemia held out the sheet of paper. Harry had barely glanced at it before she made the connection. She looked up with fire in her eyes. "Yes, dear. I believe you've finally found The Barracuda you've been searching for all these years. I'd wager a year's gold that Captain Luis' backstabbing first mate was none other than Wrath Drew."

  The Clan of the Black Rocks

  "You know, I think the lizards on this island may be quite unique," Wilhelmina announced at breakfast. The others would be setting sail tomorrow—Kai included—and she would be left alone for at least three weeks, probably more. Privately, she was looking forward to the solitude. She loved her crewmates, and she was by nature gregarious in company, but sometimes a woman, and a scientist, to boot, just needed to be left alone with her thoughts and her work.

  "That so?" Maddie yawned, nearly spilling her mug of tea. Up all hours of the night with Franky, if Wil had to guess. She hoped that Hope would be wise enough to restock certain herbs before they returned.

  "Overlooking the obvious fact that they have dorsal frills uncommon in iguanas and a sixth claw on their front legs when there should be only four, they seem unusually intelligent. They also have the chameleon's talent of shifting the colors of their skin. I observed one from afar the other day and saw it shift through six different hues. Such a thing is unheard of in the larger reptiles."

  "Fascinating," Zora said dryly, rolling her eyes as she nibbled a biscuit.

  "You should talk to Kai about them," Agnessa suggested helpfully. "Before we leave. Maybe he has some insight to share."

  He did indeed. "Are not all mo'o like this?" he asked. "I have often talked with them here in the lagoon. You could not find a better pearl diver than Malicky and his clan."

  "So you can actually converse with them?" Wil asked eagerly, making a note in her ever-present leather journal. Kai looked up from the piece of seaglass he was shaping with a strip of dried sharkskin.

  "Yes," he said, bemused by her excitement. "They do not speak human tongues, of course, but a simple form of ocean pidgin. Mo'o are not as skilled at mimicking sounds the way my people or, say, parrots, can. But they manage some of the more basic songs in rougher tones."

  "Could you teach me some of the language?"

  "It's a very difficult tongue," Kai warned.

  "I mastered Latin in two months, and Russian in three," Wil said confidently. "And the Cyrillic alphabet is nothing to sneeze at."

  "Wait here," Kai said after a moment's thought, sliding from the rock and sinking into the lagoon. He surfaced a moment later with a curled shell, which he blew into like a horn. The whistle echoed through the palm trees, sending a flock of jewel-toned parrots into cackling paroxysms of annoyance.

  A few minutes passed and then an unusual delegation scampered out of the ferny undergrowth. Three large iguanas with mottled green bodies and bright red frills appeared, then froze, fixing unblinking yellow dragon eyes upon Wil as their blue tongues flicked out nervously.

  Kai made a series of strange chirrups and croaks and the wary trio finally came closer. "Wil, this is Malicky, the Chief," the merman said, gesturing to the foremost and largest lizard, which was easily five feet long and had a crimson frill that stood a foot high. "His brother, Coti and his son, Tazu. I've told them who you are and that you're interested in learning more about them."

  The one called Malicky croaked hoarsely at length in what had to be quite a speech. Then the smallest of the three, at a mere three fe
et long, Tazu, crept forward.

  "Malicky says that his son will teach you their language as best he can, because he is young and patient and has the time to waste, but that it may be too difficult for a hairless pig to learn. He means no offense," Kai said quickly. "It's just what they call humans."

  "No offense taken," Wil said, smiling like a giddy child on Christmas morning. "I've been called worse. This is incredible. Amazing, even. You called them mo'o—is that what they call themselves?"

  "They call themselves The Clan of the Black Rocks," Kai said with a laugh. "You are very excited."

  "Kai, no human has ever encountered a species of lizard like this," Wil said breathlessly. "Not even Mr. Darwin. This is—this will fundamentally change the way people look at reptiles. I mean... I could die happy after this. Well, after my paper's been verified and published, anyway. Finding this island almost makes me believe in Fate, and Destiny, and God Himself. Brilliant! Just wait until my father hears of this! Wait until the British Herpetological Society hears of this! This'll wipe the smug smiles right off their blasted faces!"

  Malicky of the Great Claws exchanged a glance with Coti Half Tail. "Hairless pigs," he hissed. "Very strange creatures. Very crazy."

  "I like it," Tazu Three Tones said with the burble that signified laughter. "It's funny."

  "Good that you like it," Malicky told his son. "Because it is your responsibility. It is friend to Good Kaimana, who will be cross if it comes to harm. So take care with it."

  "When did this island get so crowded?" complained Coti. "Not like when I was a hatchling. Could walk from Fire Mountain to Yellow Beach and not even a snake in sight. Now all these hairless pigs and fish pigs at every turn, a body can't sun himself in peace..."

  "Tazu likes you," Kai said, holding back a laugh at Coti's curmudgeonly attitude.

  "Kai, thank you," Wil said, impulsively hugging him and kissing his cheek. "You've made my whole bloody year."

  "You are welcomed?" he said, surprised, as she stumped over to the lizards and clumsily sat down on a rock a polite distance from them.