The Maiden in the Mirror

by Scott Hamerton

  What about me, Minerva wanted to scream, but was left standing silent and furious. For as long as she could, she endured the torture of the three of them fawning all over her date. Okay, it wasn't really a date, she admitted to herself, but she wanted it to be a date, and they were completely ruining it. When she could stand it no longer, she pushed through with her chin held high and her fists clenched.

  Gunner managed to extricate himself from the mess of swooning women and caught up to her. "Sorry about that."

  Minerva doubted that very much.

  "Seems like I can't walk within twenty paces of that place without at least two of them trying to drag me in."

  "Then maybe you should go back."

  "What? No way."

  "Why not? You done with those girls? Looking for someone new?"

  "I, what, no," he stammered.

  Minerva suddenly didn't even want to see him, much less talk to him. She spun on her heel and began to march back towards Thimbler's. "Take me home," she demanded.

  "Minnie? What's the matter?"

  "The problem is that you're just as bad as Roker!" she shouted, pointing an accusatory finger. "You need a new girl every night, right, so now you've come to me?"

  Gunner looked both stunned and angered, but she turned fast again not waiting for a response. Tears were welling up in her eyes that she didn't want him to see.

  "Hey!" he shouted, spinning her around by the shoulder. "If someone has been telling you things about me and Roker, they aren't true."

  "Yeah, then why do those girls all want you in their arms? Why do they try to drag you in?"

  "I don't know, maybe they like a sailor with his shirt off?"

  Minerva was in no mood for jokes and tried to twist out of his grasp, but he wouldn't let her.

  "Look," he said, with his face rigid and focused, and intensely dire. He gripped her hard and leaned in close. "I wouldn't be caught dead in a place like that. Roker treats those women like livestock, and probably half of them could leave if they wanted to, but they don't."

  "But," she started, struggling to uphold a rapidly fading resolve to hate him.

  "I understand if you feel strongly about Roker and his girls, but that's not me. If someone has been telling you that I trade in women like he does, then I'd like to know who, so I can knock their teeth out."

  Just a stupid little girl, Minerva thought, trying to contain herself. Everything that put her in a rage moments ago had shifted to gladness. Gunner was merely an innocent passerby trying to go about his business, too polite to be rude. Almost too easily, he melted her heart against her will.

  "Come on, let's go shoot something," he said, as a genuine smile graced his face. "That always helps me relax."

  Gunner and Minerva descended through Riggersport together, arriving at a twisted wharf at the very bottom of the canyon. A short distance below their feet lurked a terrifying black expanse of water without a shore, as the canyon went straight up from the edge of the water. Driftwood and foam accented its disturbingly calm surface. Whenever Minerva stared into it for too long, a cold feeling gripped her stomach and she imagined a monstrous creature rising from the blackness to swallow them whole.

  "Shove off!" Gunner yelled, directing his ire at two men sitting at the end of the dock. The men gave him and his holstered weapons an appraising look, and then stood and left.

  Minerva avoided eye contact as the pair went by. "Couldn't you have just asked them to leave?"

  "Soft soil soothes all souls," Gunner said, almost to himself.

  Minerva smiled and her spirits lifted. His words were a quote from her father's favorite book. Colloquially, it meant that nothing surpassed being kind when fostering friendships and easing tension in a relationship.

  "My father says that," she said happily.

  "My mom liked it," Gunner replied, grinning broadly at the unexpected camaraderie in their history. "I always thought it was a weird thing to say, though."

  "Why?"

  "It sounds nice, but soil and souls don't really have anything to do with each other."

  "They do," Minerva replied. "If you're barefoot."

  Gunner squinted in confusion, and cocked his head curiously. "What?"

  "Haven't you ever walked barefoot in soft sand? It's very soothing."

  "Okay?" Gunner replied, failing to understand her message. "I still don't see what that has to do with souls."

  "Soft soil feels nice on the soles of your feet," Minerva said incredulously, stupefied by his failure to comprehend such a simple concept.

  An awkward surprise slapped Gunner in the face, and then he groaned in a strangely satisfied way, smiling and laughing. "Soft soil soothes all soles!" he shouted.

  Minerva nodded along, silently questioning his mental health.

  "I thought it meant souls, like your spiritual soul!"

  For a time, Minerva and Gunner shared a deep joy, until quite unexpectedly, his expression hardened and he frowned painfully.

  "Not around here," he said, drawing the dueling pistols from his satchel. "Around here, you earn respect with a loud voice and a strong backhand. Fighting is part of the pirate life, whether you're fighting for fame or fortune, or just your next meal, us pirates have to fight."

  "Why?" she asked, as he handed her a pistol.

  "Because nobody wants us. We're the damned of the world, and nobody is going to give us anything without a fight."

  "I want you."

  Minerva blushed immediately and felt a rush of dread course through her. She intended to keep that thought inside.

  "No, you don't. I'm not worth it," he said with a frown, clearly not understanding how serious she was. "Anyway, I've been talking to the crew, and we thought that someone should teach you how to fire a pistol. So that you can defend yourself. From what we've seen, you have a straight head on your shoulders when it comes to a hectic situation, and that makes you special. Plenty of good sailors die because they don't act when they should."

  As Gunner spoke, he loaded the pistol. Minerva admired the way he coddled the gun like a child to do so.

  "This might be unnecessary," Gunner said. "But what do you know about gun safety?"

  "Not much," she replied.

  "There's only one rule that I use. Never point it at anyone, including yourself, unless you're aiming to kill them."

  A blast of heat and thunder widened Minerva's eyes as Gunner squared up his aim and fired the pistol, splitting the wood of a nearby piling with a whack. Gunner let out a raucous howl, invigorated by the power of his weapon.

  "Alright, your turn," he said, handing her the other pistol.

  "Is it loaded?" she asked, looking down at the weapon. She couldn't recall if he had loaded both, or only one.

  "I don't remember."

  Minerva felt annoyed at his lack of concern. Without knowing for certain, she bent down and smacked the barrel into the planks at her feet. Nothing happened.

  "Smart," he said, raising his eyebrows. "The wadding would have kept the shot in, but you checked without looking down the barrel, and that's what matters. It isn't loaded, by the way."

  "That's not funny. Why did you say you didn't know?"

  "It wasn't supposed to be funny. That's how my father died."

  Minerva gasped, uncertain of how to reply.

  "He agreed to a duel while he was drunk," Gunner explained. "Drunk enough that he couldn't remember if his pistol was loaded or not, so he looked down the barrel and pulled the trigger. It was."

  Gunner appeared somewhat sullen but not overly upset, leaving Minerva feeling eerily adrift within the conversation.

  "Most people laugh when I tell them that."

  "What? Why? That's horrible."

  "That one there, in your hands. That's the one that killed him."

  What was moments ago a mundane construction of wood and steel suddenly weighed tremendously in Minerva's hands. It was old, but well maintained by hours of love.

  "You kept it?"

 
"The duel was over a gambling debt, and seeing as he lost, he never left me anything. I had already lost my mother and my siblings, so after my father died I had no one to turn to. I stole both pistols and worked my way up from there."

  Gunner's history as an orphan pushed Minerva into a contemplative mindset, particularly regarding her own situation.

  "Would you still be a pirate if you didn't need to be?" she asked.

  "No, but that's the same with most pirates."

  "What would you do if you weren't marked?"

  Gunner smiled apprehensively. "Have a family. A wife and kids. A little house on a hill with a nice view, maybe. Sounds dumb, doesn't it?"

  "I think that sounds wonderful. Why don't you do that?"

  "You say that like it's just that easy. All I'm good at is guns, but there's no way I could join a regiment. I'm marked."

  Minerva wished she knew of a better option for him.

  "See," he mocked. "I'm a pirate, and I'll be a pirate until the day I die. No sense worrying about it. Come on, your shot."

  The conversation had died, and Minerva couldn't think of a way to revive it, so she let him teach her what he knew best. As time went by the wooden pilings of the wharf began to look like badly grated cheese.

  "You're very good for a first timer," he offered as a compliment, as he was wiping down the pistols.

  Minerva felt filthy. Soot and the scent of gunpowder covered her body. "I smell like a gun," she complained.

  "Yeah, that's why it's nice to shoot down here. You can just wash in the lake."

  Gunner strolled over to the edge of the dock and dove into the water. A sense of panic washed over Minerva immediately, fearing whatever sickly monsters might be lurking in the depths. Monsters that at this very moment were undoubtedly about to consume her Gunner. She dropped to her knees, ready to assist in extricating him from whatever gaping maw he had just leaped into.

  Gunner stood up. "Come on in!" he called, throwing back his hair and wiping water from his face.

  "I don't know how to swim," she protested.

  "It's shallow. I can touch the bottom, even in the middle."

  "My clothes will be all wet, and I'm not taking them off," she continued, determined to avoid entering the mysterious abyss.

  Unfortunately, Gunner seized upon her moment of hesitation and hauled her off the dock by the collar. The water was cold. Much colder than she imagined, and it sucked the breath out of her.

  Minerva found her footing in the soft sand of the bottom and pushed her head above water, gasping for air and shivering violently. "It's freezing," she screamed, doing her best to punch Gunner under the water.

  Gunner pushed her away, laughing. "What's the matter? Is the mighty destroyer of Cloudscorch afraid of a little cold water?"

  Minerva splashed his face in response, still adjusting to the sudden chill. They didn't spend much time together in the lake before she could stand it no longer, so she washed fast and got out. The cold made her scars ache.

  Gunner picked up the pack of supplies he brought along and pulled two towels from it. "Here, take your clothes off."

  Minerva's overtly dumbfounded expression prompted him to explain himself.

  "I'll light a fire. Take your clothes off so they can dry. You can wear this towel."

  In a reversal of opinion, Minerva now appreciated Gunner's direct approach to removing any bystanders, and he complied when she demanded that he look away.

  Wearing nothing but towels, the two of them sat down on some low benches at a nearby fire pit, apparently built for the exact purpose of drying off anyone daring enough to go swimming in the frigid darkness. Minerva did her best not to stare at Gunner's exposed back while he crouched down and lit the fire. He didn't seem to mind the cold at all.

  "If you're going to be a sailor you need to get over being bashful," he said.

  "Why? I'm not a boy. It's not appropriate."

  "Appropriate or not, there's not much privacy on a ship. There will be times where you'll have little option."

  "Little option is not no option."

  Gunner glanced over his hunched shoulder and shook his head at her. "They gave you the mate's quarters, did you know that?"

  "What are the mate's quarters?" she replied.

  "Sailors bring all their own gear aboard. Even the hammocks are ours. No hammock, you sleep on the deck. The mates are special, though. Experience and skill earns them the reward of a cabin bed. Except that Captain Glass kicked us out to make room for a girl."

  Minerva quickly discovered the heartache that accompanied a lecture from someone she respected. "Us?" she asked. "Does that include you?"

  "Yeah," he said with a nod. "I don't mean to upset you, but at that point you hadn't done anything to set yourself apart. I'll spare you the details, but you joining the crew was the high point on a bridge between two terrible options. The crew almost mutinied, and I was readying for a bloody fight. It was Olbus that demanded the private cabin, and well, I'm sure you understand why the boys are afraid to get on his bad side."

  Minerva sat in silence, not sure what to say. She felt bad for taking away a reward meant for other sailors.

  "The point is this," Gunner added softly, recognizing her dejection. "If you want to be crew, then be crew. Stop hiding."

  "You mean I should just let the any sailor in the world see me topless whenever they ask to see my mark?"

  "No, not exactly. I realize that you're a special situation, since I've never even heard of a girl taking the oath before, but when a sailor asks to see your mark, show them the same way you showed us. Among pirates, your mark is your only proof that you are who you say you are. It's also a great way to make friends if you impress them, which you will."

  Minerva looked down at her mark beneath the towel, yet again surprised by how far and wide it cut across her chest.

  "Is it really that impressive?"

  "Are you kidding? It's the biggest mark anyone has ever seen. You should have heard the boys that night. You were all they could talk about. For a girl to take the oath was one thing, but to have her mark be, well, what it is. You put us all to shame. Most men do a little scratch, like mine." Gunner puffed out his chest, pointing at his tiny cross-shaped scar. "See, it's barely visible anymore."

  Gunner laughed when she blushed and looked away.

  Minerva's clothes dried quite swiftly once the fire was roaring. Gunner's hair dried quickly as well, and once again flopped about in a very well-behaved manner. Meanwhile, Minerva wrung her own strands out like a mop. She should have brought Nezzen's hairbrush, she thought.

  After that, they enjoyed the heat of the flames and talked until it was late. Eventually they decided it was time to retire, and he escorted her home. All the lights were out at Thimbler's as she and Gunner stood outside the door.

  "Um, goodnight, Gunner."

  "Goodnight, Minnie."

  "Thanks for teaching me how to shoot."

  "You're welcome. I had a good time."

  An awkward silence stood between them until Minerva went into the shop, unable to find a way to drag the conversation on any longer.

  Chapter 39

  Practical Sciences

  "Anything special on the menu tonight?" Thimbler called through the curtain to Minerva, as he stowed the daily earnings. "Or should I just get the usual?"

  "Just the usual stuff, but get a triple," Minerva replied as she entered the back of the sloop. "I want to teach you how to cook for a big table."

  "What are we going to do with the extra?"

  "I'll take it to the Skyraker. I'm sure they'll appreciate it. You can subtract the cost from my wages."

  "If we're making extra, and you're going to be away, well, I don't suppose you could stay out even later?"

  Thimbler paused very uncharacteristically during his question, and Minerva gave him a wry smile.

  "Is Jack coming over?" she asked.

  "I was hoping to invite him, yes. It sounds like he'll be heading off soon, an
d I thought it would be nice."

  "I'll come home late."

  Thimbler thanked her with a smile of his own as she pulled out the cookware. When Thimbler returned from shopping, the prep work was already done, and he was quick to make himself useful. With very little guidance, he completed a heaping meal of food, easily capable of feeding ten hungry sailors.

  Jack arrived just as they were setting the small table. "Wow, Minnie, this looks great."

  "Actually, Thimbler cooked most of it."

  Jack sniggered, clearly not believing her.

  "Seriously," she stated.

  Jack looked at Thimbler, who nodded, and then back at Minerva.

  "Just 'cause he likes men doesn't mean you gotta turn him into a woman."

  "Hey," Minerva snapped, and stomped her foot. "If you lot think you can teach me how to be a pirate, then I can certainly teach you how to be women."

  Jack stepped back and raised his hands in defense. He gave her a charming smirk, and eyed the nearby food. "That's fair. It certainly seems to be paying off," he said.

  Minerva wasn't sure if he understood her point, or if he was merely worried about not getting fed. She put the thought aside as she packed up the food for the crew, including her own portion.

  "You're not eating with us?" Thimbler asked as she went for the door.

  "No, I'll eat with Nezzen. Enjoy your date," she said with a wink.

  Chapter 40

  Food for Thought

  "Oh, Minerva," Captain Glass said with surprise, as he opened the door to greet her.

  "I have some extra supper here, and I thought you might like a home-cooked meal."

  The captain thanked her with a sigh, and stared longingly into the small box as he peered inside.

  "Is it okay if I talk to Lintumen?" she asked, not sure if she should interrupt him. "I have some supper for him."

  "Yes, that's fine."

  Minerva wondered about the protocol of entering Lintumen's cabin as she slid back the bolts. It was a locked cell, but a home, as well. She settled on knocking, and the voice of Lintumen beckoned her inside. The old man sat in a characteristic pose, with a book beneath his nose and a magnifying lens in hand. He shut the book as she shut the door.