Captain Harry asks me to inform you that we will be anchored off Breaker's Ridge the last week of the month, and she would like to speak with your captain then if possible.
I hope that all is well with you and that this letter finds you in good health and spirits,
Agnessa
Letter received June 11th, not far from the reef known as The Grinders.
Agnessa,
I hoped Socrates would cause a stir; he earned his name due to his love for debating, a penchant to sit on the railings and yammer at anyone who passes in his strident, quarrelsome voice. We discovered him floating in some flotsam several weeks ago, half-dead for lack of fresh water, and my friend Jilly nursed him back to fighting strength.
(Jilly wishes to be remembered to your crewmate, Katherine, as do John and Jim, who say they think of her often and fondly.)
After his recuperation, we decided to make Socrates contribute to the cause and be a productive member of society. Hence his training as a messenger, which to all appearances he enjoys. Captain Thomas has been his primary handler, as he has previous experience with strong-minded fowl. I would almost swear the man speaks the feathered tongues; he certainly has no trouble making his wishes understood, and Socrates found you like a shot judging by the date on your last letter.
I finished the Bell book this evening and concur with your sentiments regarding the last third. The interlude with the poor, yet noble, family of a religious bent—who coincidentally are revealed to be long-lost relatives—tried my suspension of disbelief some. But as a whole, the so-called autobiography was engrossing and diverting. Miss Eyre reminds me of you in several ways: firm in her beliefs and opinions, unwavering in her course, kind-hearted and honorable beneath whatever hardness she affects. I was pleased that she had a happy ending, reunited with a man who had finally learned to properly appreciate and care for her.
I will not chastise you for improperly appreciating Dickens. Our tastes, as we already know, are not always similar. Given your recommendation of Bell, I assume you have read First Impressions? I would be interested to learn of your thoughts on that work.
Captain Thomas is adjusting our course as I write; we will be at the rendezvous on time so long as the wind remains fair.
I am, as always, in high spirits—they are at their highest when I receive a new letter from you, so please continue to write. I greatly miss our discussions, and look forward to seeing you again soon. Until I do, best of luck to you and yours.
Your obedient servant,
Hugh
POST SCRIPT: I encourage you to keep Socrates until you wish to respond; he prefers sardines but will take any fish he can snatch—so keep an eye on him when hauling up nets.
Letter received June 18th, the writing much scribbled and the parchment dotted with blots of ink.
Hugh,
Something has happened and we will not make the appointed meeting. We have changed course and are camped on the north side of Laia Island. I do not have the time to go into further details now, but we are none of us hurt and the ship is undamaged.
Agnessa
Letter received June 21st, on Laia Island.
Agnessa,
We will be there in three days. I send all of my strength to you in advance.
Ever yours,
Hugh
*~*~*
He had been trapped in a nightmare for so long that this sudden change must surely be another dream. He moved with a sleepwalker's clumsiness, unable to trust his own eyes. Hadn't they been lying to him for weeks, plaguing him with terrible visions, haunting him with the faces of dead men? His ears, too, had become unreliable. They rang with the whispers of ghosts, with shrieks and sobs, when he knew the ship must be quiet now.
Quiet as the grave. Everyone else was dead—perhaps he was dead. Perhaps he was just a ghost now, shattered and broken and doomed to pace the deck. A revenant.
Through the fog, he felt hands touch him. Was it the ferryman, searching for his fare? "I haven't any gold," he heard himself whisper, the words scraping painfully against a throat that had gone desert dry days ago. "I haven't any silver. I don't even have any copper. I cannot pay for your ferry. I will have to stay here forever."
"He's delirious," a voice said above him in English. "Badly dehydrated. Bring the water here."
Someone was supporting his head and pressing a cup to his cracked lips. The first trickle of water burned his mouth like acid and he coughed so badly he nearly choked.
"Drink," another voice begged, a voice he felt he should know. "Please, you have to drink." It was a woman, a woman pleading, a woman crying. But there were no women on board—not since Celeste, the cook's little girl, had died. Not since her face turned purple and her lips turned black and flies gathered on her swollen, bleeding eyes. The memory made him retch.
"You need to drink," the faraway voice insisted. He couldn't disappoint that voice, though he didn't know why. He forced his mouth to open and swallowed the water tipped into it. Drank and drank until there was nothing more. The cup was drawn away, and then it was back at his lips, and he repeated the process.
"It's alright," the voice said. "It's going to be alright. You're safe now, and I'll take care of you."
"What a nice dream you are," he said as consciousness slipped away.
*~*~*
"It's a plague ship," said Jo.
"Not according to that flag, or the ship's log," Wil said, scanning said log. "The Princess Ilsa set sail two years ago, bound for the Horn of Africa on a scientific survey. A royally-funded mission."
"Not even royal funding helped these poor bastards. Is anyone else still alive?"
"Miss Euphemia and Silence found three down in the hold. Another day and they would've been gone." She closed the heavy leather book in her arms, face somber. "Grim reading in here."
"Everything about this is grim."
The two turned to watch as Katherine and Lizzie emerged from the hold that reeked of death and putrefaction, handkerchiefs tied around their mouths and goggles over their eyes to protect them from the massive cloud of flies buzzing over the hatch. In their arms were two men that already looked like cadavers, wasted away and skeletal, the only sign of life the rasping rise and fall of their chests. They laid the pair down on stretchers and Katherine turned back to bring out the last survivor.
A half a league away, Maddie leaned over the railing of The Sappho and peered through her spyglass. Franky stood beside her, stiff with tension. "It looks bad," she said. "Very bad."
"So Jo was right? Sickness?"
"If I had to wager, yes. Kai said the hull's intact—no other reason a big boat like that would just be sitting in the water, sails furled and nobody moving on deck."
"Any survivors?"
"Maybe. Hard to tell."
"What if they bring someone back and we catch whatever it was?"
"Harry wouldn't have let anyone go aboard if she didn't know a way to prevent that," Maddie said, her trust in the captain absolute. And Harry had called half the crew into the cabin to discuss the situation before the lifeboat had been lowered and rowed over; they'd been in there for close to an hour, so they must have made some sort of plan. "Wait, it looks like they're done. There must be survivors, because I can see Katherine putting people in the boat."
"Why aren't they rowing back here? They're not rowing all the way to Laia, are they?"
"That's exactly what they're doing," Harry said behind them.
Franky jumped. "Oh, Cap, didn't hear you walk up."
"Before they get back on The Sappho, they have to disinfect everything. Including themselves. And those men are in no condition to go into water this deep—they're heading for Laia and shallow waters where they can bathe them properly. C'mon, Mads, I need you up in the nest. I'll be sailing us in after them, and I'm not near as good at steering as Nessa. You'll have to sound out anything that might scrape the hull."
"Aye, Cap'n."
It was a strange party that arrived on the s
mall, black beach on Laia Island's north face. As soon as the landing craft was dragged above the tide line, the women stripped completely naked and threw their clothing into a pile. Four unconscious men were laid out on the sand, likewise stripped, and their tattered, stained uniforms were added to the pile. Wil took a bundle of matches from the compartment in her leg and lit the bonfire.
Then bottles of alcohol and fat cakes of red carbolic soap were taken from the boat. Everyone lathered and scrubbed until every inch of skin stung and their hair was full of suds. The men, too, were washed by hands that were as gentle as possible, but painstakingly thorough. One regained consciousness enough to scream as the disinfectants burned his open wounds, but thankfully subsided back into unconsciousness before he was dipped into the seawater. Wil even cleaned her wooden leg with a cloth soaked in alcohol.
Finally, the boat itself was doused and scrubbed. They would take no chances—they couldn't afford to.
As this was being done, Harry maneuvered The Sappho into place and Marcella dropped the anchor. Hope and Junia finished loading the supplies into the second lifeboat and headed for the beach, where several naked people were in dire need of new clothes and warm blankets.
"Drink three sips of this, each of you, and then pass it to the next," Hope ordered after they had wrapped up the sick men and began dressing themselves. She thrust a large, green bottle into Jo's hands. "And you will wear this—absolutely no argument about pagan witchery," she added, dropping a necklace around her neck. "We must do all we can to keep the demons of sickness at bay."
Each obliged her without a word of protest, bending their heads to accept the charms.
"Set up one tent here," Miss Euphemia told Junia. "Silence and I will sleep in that, with these poor souls, but the rest of you are camping on the other end of the beach. Until we're certain, we need to keep them as quarantined as possible."
"Are you sure you want to stay with them?" Junia asked.
"I'm old and seen enough, girl—if I'm to die of the plague here, then so be it. Better me than one of you girls."
"And Silence?"
"Silence will be just fine," the old woman said firmly.
Silence, in fact, was kneeling beside one of the men with an expression of such rapt concentration that Junia doubted she was aware of the bustle around her. Unlike the others, she was still naked, her long black hair plastered to her back. The sharp bones of her spine stood out prominently in a way no human spine would. Her hands were pressed flat to the man's chest. She had unbuttoned his new shirt in order to touch his bare flesh and there seemed to be a glow radiating from her fingers, a faint light shining through the translucent webbing between her joints.
As Junia watched, the man's breathing became less labored. It no longer rattled in the back of his throat. The deep lines of pain etched across his sunken face were smoothing and fading. An open boil on his neck was shrinking, closing, healing before Junia's awestruck eyes.
Silence sat back abruptly on her heels, head twitching up in an almost birdlike manner, the movement so uncanny and inhuman that Junia took a step away. Eyes as black as pitch met hers and she knew that she would never be entirely comfortable around the siren. She believed the others when they said Silence would not harm them, and she was sympathetic for the barbaric treatment she had suffered at the hands of her own sister. She would always show her nothing but kindness and polite respect.
But like her? That might be an impossible request.
Silence tore her eyes away from Junia's blanched face and scrambled sideways, like a crab, to the next man, where she settled into her previous position and repeated her unusual behavior.
When she reached the fourth man, she hesitated and looked first at the woman kneeling beside him. Agnessa, a blanket over her shoulders, was holding his hand so tightly she was on the verge of breaking bones, but he felt nothing. Like the others, he was insensible of the world around him.
"I'm here, I'm right here," Agnessa was saying repetitively as tears trickled down her face, a face so like the one lying before her. "I won't leave you, Alvar, I'm here."
When Silence tapped her arm—the quickest of touches, meant only to gain her attention—Agnessa startled as if she'd been shot. The siren attempted a smile and pointed at the young man.
"You're going to heal him?" Agnessa said, voice brittle with desperation.
Silence nodded. She was tired from curing the first three; her skin was beginning to burn and felt too tight, and her head ached. But she had strength enough for this last man, the one who was so important to Agnessa. Strength enough, at least, to keep him from death tonight.
When it was done, she crept away to leave Agnessa to cry in privacy. The crying of humans unnerved her. She made it to the shallows before her legs gave out, where she lay in a panting heap, the water splashing over her feet.
Kai was suddenly beside her and she couldn't recall hearing him approach. Perhaps she had slept. Yes, the water was over her hips now. Kai was looking at her with such concern on his face.
"You pushed yourself too hard," he said, sliding a strong arm beneath her shoulders. "Little sister, you need to be careful. Here. Drink."
He held a bottle to her lips, another one of his potions, and she drank until it was empty. Soon her skin was no longer feverish and sweating. Her head and hands stopped aching so badly. She could open her eyes again fully in the bright afternoon light.
Thank you, she signed, swallowing until the bitter taste was gone.
"There you are, child," Miss Euphemia said. She had a white cotton shift draped over one wrinkled arm. "I lost track of you while I was helping with the tents. Here, let's get you dressed. Did Kai tell you that he found us some lobsters for dinner?"
No, he didn't, she signed. What about the ship?
"We're taking care of that tomorrow, or the day after—tonight, we're focusing on those boys and ourselves. And Agnessa will probably need some company, too. This has been a bad shock for her."
He's alive, Silence signed. Her brother. I cured him.
"And that's something she'll never forget. You did a wonderful job today, dear. I'm very proud of you."
*~*~*
By the unsteady light of the fire, with her twin sleeping fitfully on a pad of blankets beside her, Agnessa wrote a short note, tied it to an albatross' leg, and, for the first time in years, prayed.
*~*~*
Well, thought Wil the next morning, at least the worst is over now. My dreams are going to be full of bloated bodies for the foreseeable future, but at least I'm confident that my disinfectant methods will prevent the spread of the disease. Pretty confident, anyway. Relatively confident.
"Is Wil going to eat that?" Tazu croaked, a large yellow eye fixed on the bowl she'd set down by her knee.
"You can have it," she said, the last word drowned out by the crunching of his jaws. "Doubt I'll have much of an appetite for a while."
"Hope, I believe you when you say that stuff will keep away the demons," Zora said between coughs, waving at the incense smoke that hung around the fire like an earthbound cloud. "It'd keep away gods, too. But at this rate, I'm going to hack up a lung from all this smoke."
"Three days," Hope held fast. "The fire must burn for three days. We will all drink three times a day, three sips each, of this potion. And then we will be safe."
"I thought Silence healed the sailors, though?" said Maddie.
"Whatever disease struck that ship—and it wasn't one that I immediately recognized—could be passed any number of ways," said Wil. As was usually the case, her helpfully provided information was more worrying than reassuring. "Through contact, which we did our best to prevent by washing and burning everything, or through the air, or through insects. There were so many flies on that ship, any one of us could have been bitten by one carrying the illness. And if it was passed through the air, we could have been contaminated purely by getting too close to the dead. Which was unavoidable, as we couldn't just leave the survivors."
"If we were more pragmatic and selfish, we could've," said Franky wryly.
"It was Agnessa's brother's ship," said Maddie. "We really couldn't've."
"The chances that any of us are infected are slim though, I think," Wil said as confidently as she could. "Diseases that result in pustules and suppurating wounds usually start to manifest within forty-eight hours of exposure. If we're all fine after three days, we should be out of the proverbial woods."
"And by then, Silence should be recovered enough to heal anyone else," Harry said. She and Kai had had a long conversation at dawn, and she was going to keep a closer eye on Silence in the future when someone required her help. "Until then, we'll just do whatever Hope and Wil tell us to do, try to keep our spirits up, and focus on getting those men back on their feet. Miss Euphemia promised to come and tell me when any of them are coherent enough to talk."
"What I want to know," Jo said thoughtfully. "Is how did they end up here? They were supposed to be hugging the African coast. This is off-course even for a blind, deaf steersman."
"Agnessa's brother was the steersman, wasn't he?" said Maddie. "He taught her, didn't he? So he must be good."
"There must be some reason he brought them out here," Junia said, sharpening one of her swords. She'd found it impossible to sleep and had spent the entire night putting new edges on her blades; it was the only thing that really soothed her. "We'll just ask him when he wakes up."
"What're we gonna do 'bout the Ilsa?" asked Lizzie. "Can't just leave her there, for some'un else to find."
"Burn it," Marcella said.
"Like the Vikings of old," said Katherine. "Perhaps those poor souls will end up in Valhalla and find some peace, then."
"Miss Euphemia always says fire prevents infection," Marcella went on.
"It can be a purifying element," said Hope.
"That strikes me as the best option. No one else should ever set foot on that boat," said Jo. "Taking the bodies off to bury them would be too dangerous."
The Search for Aveline Page 15