by S. M. Welles
“I’ll try.” She gave me some standing room.
“Do you want some coffee, Captain?”
“I better not for a few days. Do we have any electrolyte powder?” I slipped into my customary spot at the table and felt immediate relief from getting off my feet.
Mido headed for the pantry. “Be right back.”
“Just keep it out all week. And on top of that, I’m gonna need extra food.”
“Why?” Jessie said. She took a seat opposite me, unafraid.
That was new to me, but a good new. I went on to explain how my curse’s healing powers worked, then added, “And speaking of healing, you two look like you’re sporting quite a few injuries.
“Just my forehead,” Jessie said, pointing to a strip of surgical tape covering the width of her forehead. “Everyone else needed a lot more suturing and bandages.”
Mido set a tall glass of water turned red thanks to the electrolyte powder. I steadily sipped the whole thing down while my company made themselves some wonderful-smelling coffee that called to my tastebuds. The day I stopped feeling woozy, I’d happily oblige. “What happened to your elbow, Mido?” Besides a heavily wrapped elbow, he sported several nicks and cuts that had scabbed.
He gave me an embarrassed smile over his mug. “Nothing heroic. I dodged an attack and bashed my elbow into the railing. Cancer says I bruised the bone.”
I winced. “How’s he holding up?” I held out my glass with a shaky hand and my cook mixed me another round.
“Worn down but unharmed and thoroughly relieved he didn’t have to put anyone in a body bag. Rammus protected him and Scully during the fight.” He set the glass in front of me. “You think you can hold down any food? You’re really pale.”
“Go ahead and start on breakfast. I’ll take some crackers for now.”
“I’ll get them,” Jessie said, getting up. She brought me a sleeve of crackers from the pantry, peeled one end open, and set it in front of me.
Mido, who was gathering quiche ingredients, said, “Thanks, Jessie.”
I looked at the package, then at her. I knew what I was supposed to say but I rarely expressed gratitude for people doing what I told them to. Everyone’s reward for following my orders was a smoothly-run ship and big paychecks. But… I hadn’t told her to do anything just now. “Thanks.”
“Wow,” Mido said with a grin. “You got a ‘thank you’ out of Captain. That’s a rare feat.”
Jessie shrugged as she returned to her coffee sitting on the table.
“Yeah, yeah,” I said flatly. I finished my electrolyte water and got up. “I’m gonna go check on everyone and see how they’re doing.” Crackers in hand, I munched on a few along the way to the cabins, my spirits low.
I checked the left side first, using a palm lantern to illuminate their bunks. Most woke from the light intrusion, and I gently shook the others so they’d roll over and I could see their faces. All of them were thrilled to see me up and about again, and they all admitted to feeling a bit weirded-out by my recovery after seeing me shot in the head. “Just one of the perks of my curse,” I said with no enthusiasm as I worked my way to Scully’s bunk.
“Still,” Ed said, “it’s such a relief to have you back.”
“I’m glad to be back.” As much as I wanted to lift my curse, I couldn’t deny that I wouldn’t have enjoyed dying on them like that. Jacobi, Sam, and my three techies put on clothes and gathered outside Scully’s cabin. Cancer and I went in and he paused, giving me a studious look.
“It’s pretty gruesome, Captain,” he said. “He’ll live but he’ll be explaining what happened to him to everyone he meets.”
“Go ahead.”
Cancer pushed aside the curtain and carefully removed the bandages mummifying Scully’s head, then he stepped aside.
I held up my palm lantern and winced at the sight. “Ouch.” One side of his face looked like a red potato that had been gnawed on by rats, then sewn back together. He had one semicircle of sutures that went from the corner of his mouth, to eye, to ear. He had a second semicircle half the size, along with a line of sutures circling his ear. His face was moderately swollen but at least full of color.
“You did a good job patching him up, Cancer. Hopefully he’ll look badass, instead of bad, once it scars over.”
Sam said, “He’ll be gettin’ more ladies than Jacobi after he tells them his story.” The others chuckled.
“We’ll see about that,” Jacobi said in good humor.
It got a smile out of me. “Has he woken yet?”
“Yes,” Cancer said, “but I’ve been drugging him to sleep through every night. He’s gonna be in agony for another week or so.”
I sucked in air through my teeth. “Go ahead and wrap him back up.” I sidestepped out of his way and faced the others, all of them with their heads in the doorway. I ached with empathy but I hid it with a serious gaze. “Is Tethys and his entire crew dead?”
“Yes,” Sam said as the others nodded. “They got what they deserved.”
“That they did.” Even with justice meted out, it brought no joy, no grim satisfaction. Instead, I felt hollow. These men kept piling on the scars for doing honest work. At least we’d never have to deal with Tethys again. “Sam, are we fully supplied and ready to head for Dakar?”
“We are, Captain.”
“Is everyone mentally ready as well?” I made eye contact with each of them in turn. They were all bruised, cut up, and sore, but that was often part of the job description.
Ted said, “Definitely, now that you’re back.” The rest voiced their agreement.
“Good,” I said. “Go ahead and start showering. Mido’s working on breakfast. We’ll push off after we eat and get back on shipping schedule. Let’s go make some money.” My crew visibly brightened up with the morale boost and headed for the showers. Nothing like a healthy routine to bring things back to normal. We all needed it to keep us distracted from thinking about Australia. I headed to my bunk with my half-eaten package of crackers and started rummaging around my cabin for my gun and its holster. I felt incomplete without it and I couldn’t carry it on my person until my trench coat was washed, but for now I just wanted to know where it was.
Once I concluded that it hadn’t been stowed in my cabin, I headed to the weapon crate sitting against the wheelhouse. I pushed around swords and grenades in search of a wrapped-up bundle but I couldn’t find it. Panic rose in my chest. My rising heart rate wasn’t helping my wooziness.
Footsteps headed down the wheelhouse stairs. “Whatcha lookin’ for, Captain?” Sam said.
“My gun. Where’d you put it?” I pushed aside a few grenades and found the bottom of the crate. When Sam stayed quiet, I looked up. He was frowning. He ran a hand through his greying hair. I slowly stood, filled with dread. This silence was bad. “Sam? Where is it?” I had a sinking feeling I already knew.
He swallowed. “Gone.” He took a breath and sighed through his nose. “The quasis took it.”
I stared blankly at him. It couldn’t be gone. After two hundred years of carrying the thing around, it couldn’t be gone. I shut the crate and looked at it, my mouth ajar. It just couldn’t be…
“They jumped in right after he fired. You just hit the deck. It’s probably for the best.”
I shook my head, then more plopped than sat on the crate.
Sam put a hand on my shoulder. “Think of it this way: now we don’t have to worry about quasi-children anymore. The whole crew can relax about that. All we have to deal with are other humans and your curse.”
“Sam, I—” He didn’t understand. I reclined against the wheelhouse, my heart sinking to a new low. Amphitrite could’ve told me right then to wait a thousand more years before trying to lift my curse and I would’ve felt less depressed, so long as I had my gun. “Where do you think my mind goes after I sustain a fatal injury?”
“I don’t know.”
“Take a wild guess, and when you pick something, change it to something ten
times worse.” The nereids’ cackling echoed in my mind.
Sam lapsed into silence as he scrunched his brows. He studied me hard. “A really bad nightmare? I don’t know, Captain. I haven’t the imagination to guess such things.”
I looked out over the lightening port. “I don’t know where it is exactly but I’m certain it’s nowhere on Earth—at least not on this plane. I go to a cavern called a cenote, and it’s full of aquatic monsters. They tease and taunt me, and kill me over and over just for fun. I’ve been there four times now. Each time they try to keep me there as long as they can. On top of that, they try and force me to transform, which I have to do in order to escape that place. It’s twisted irony.
“I learned this the hard way when I committed suicide long ago. I thought I could beat Amphitrite at her sick game and just kill myself between lockdowns so I wouldn’t have to deal with the waking world. Instead, my soul ended up waking in that cenote. At first I thought it was a bad dream. I didn’t believe what the nereids told me. But once it dawned on me that I really wasn’t going to wake up, they told me how to leave their place.” I looked up at Sam. “It’d felt like only hours had gone by, but by the time I recovered, five years had slipped away. This time I’d been there maybe minutes but days went by for all of you. It’s so jarring to come back to a world where so much time has gone by without your awareness of it.”
“I’m sorry you’ve gone through all that.”
“Don’t apologize. Amphitrite is the one who owes me that. I didn’t ask for this, or for her to save my life in her own twisted way.”
He nodded. “Well now I understand why you try to avoid dying as much as the rest of us.”
“Which brings me to why I’ve kept the gun all these years.” I heaved a weary sigh, gearing myself up for the confession. I spoke haltingly. As much as I wanted him to know, it was still hard to admit. “I’ve been keeping the gun just to use it once.” I looked up to gauge his reaction so far. His bushy brows were scrunched with confusion. I turned my gaze back to the port. “Holding onto it gave me hope that I might get my curse lifted one day. If that day arrives, I’d use the gun to finally help myself die, like all men are supposed to. I’d put an end to my unnaturally long life.”
Sam stared at me, eyes wide with horror. He blindly groped for the stairs behind him, then found the railing and sank onto the second step. He blinked a couple of times. “You wouldn’t.”
I let out a long sigh. “You’re probably right.” I looked out over the harbor. “I’m not a quitter like that, but I want something about my life to change for the better. I guess using the gun was more of a daydream, an escape from my cursed life, and finally out of Amphitrite’s tormenting reach. But still…”
“I can see where you’re coming from, Captain,” he said in a tight voice. “But from my perspective I hope you’d be willing to at least live out the rest of your days with us. A few years as a man free to die wouldn’t hurt.”
I looked at him, considering his advanced age. “If I’m not cursed, I’m not sure I want to run the risk of outliving another person ever again.”
“It’ll be different when you’re the one who goes, but I hear you.”
“Rammus can take over as captain, if that day ever comes. Keep the Pertinacious going and everyone employed.” I patted the crate and right then it dawned on me how much I’d miss my ship just as much as my crew. Maybe I would try to scratch out a few years as a regular human, or maybe I wouldn’t. I didn’t know. “Keep her one of the leading cargo ships sailing all over the globe. Let the Pertinacious be my legacy. I’ll make it a final wish if I have to.”
“We’ll see what happens.” Sam put his hands on his knees and pushed to his feet with a grunt. “One thing at a time, and that means Australia first.”
“Fair enough.” I stood as well. “It’s not like I’m guaranteed to have my curse lifted this time anyway. And I might even want to stick around to enjoy being just a regular human. I don’t know right now. I might’ve confessed all that for nothing.”
“I still appreciate you telling me. I won’t tell anyone else.”
“Thanks.” I put a hand on his shoulder, the closest I could bring myself to show open caring. I cared about every last crew member. I wasn’t buddy-buddy or best friends with any of them; I was always their authority figure, except during brief moments like these. I was still human. “Now go shower. You smell like you need one.”
Sam popped a guilty grin. “Sorry, Captain. Got a little lax while I didn’t know what happened to yeh, but Rammus left you a present in the wheelhouse.” He patted my back and took his stinky hide below deck.
I headed up the stairs to see what he was talking about. At first I guessed it might be driftwood shavings from his latest project, as a bit of a joke to lighten the mood, but the floor and chair were spotless. However, sitting atop neatly stacked nautical charts was a carved object. I walked over and picked it up. A koi fish, the symbol of strength and courage in the face of hardship, the same thing I’d given Jessie when she’d given her sneakers a sailor’s funeral. And now the symbol had been passed on to me while death weighed heavily on my woozy mind. My throat constricted and my eyes stung, but I swallowed and took several deep breaths. Here I was seeking help to lift my curse so I could die, while my entire crew believed they were helping me lift it so I could live in peace. I dropped into my chair, clutching the gift in one hand, and leaned on the counter with my forehead in my free hand.
As much as I hated it, he was right. I needed to find the strength to keep trying, even if this impeding visit yielded no results. I had to stay strong not only for my crew, but for myself.
* * *
Jessie and crew spent the next two weeks sailing to Dakar in Senegal, located on the midwestern coast of Africa. They nursed injuries along the way and went about business as usual. Sam hobbled around on crutches while keeping the cargo hold organized and supply list contemporary, and everyone but him, Scully, and O’Toole helped in the engine room until Ed, Ted, and Sauna could keep everything going on their own. Jessie helped Mido with even more cooking, since his elbow reduced him to one arm for the most part. They shared no more than kisses and one-and-a-half armed hugs when no one was looking. By the end of every day, the entire crew was exhausted and sore, including them, so cravings for intimate contact were almost nonexistent. Jessie’s head ached constantly for a week after Alexandria and it wasn’t until they reached Dakar that Mido regained full range of motion in his elbow. Scully was gingerly walking around by then, too, earning him the nickname “Mummy Man.” He took it in good humor and even tried to startle people now and then by jumping out of hiding places. He was thankful to be alive, as were the rest of them.
The crew only offloaded, resupplied, and picked up a new shipment in Dakar that needed delivering to Cape Town, South Africa. Dakar was way too dangerous to vacation in, especially with all of them still healing to one degree or another. One pirate ship chased them shortly after throwing the lines but Dyne crippled it with a solid Harpy shot to its wooden hull. After that, a week of smooth sailing and lots of healing followed.
The day Mido’s elbow stopped gnawing at him with pain, he gave Jessie another cooking lesson. This time it was a pasta dinner of chicken and broccoli with Alfredo sauce made from scratch. Nothing real complicated but it was one of her favorite dishes.
They set to work on preparing enough just for two after everyone else ate dinner. They’d snacked on fruit to keep their appetites from being distracting, then cleaned up while the rest of the crew trickled out of the galley. Once they were alone, they boiled water, steamed broccoli, and grilled two chicken breasts. Mido taught her to add just a bit of salt and butter to the boiling water before adding penne noodles, how to lay the broccoli crowns so they cooked evenly, how to know when chicken was thoroughly cooked, yet still nice and moist, just by looking at it, and also how to slice the meat fast and evenly with the metal spatula. He made it look effortless as he made each slice exactly the
same width. They laughed at Jessie’s valiant attempt. Hers came out uneven and lopsided, making hers look pathetic next to his practiced perfection.
Once the chicken and broccoli were done, they moved on to the Alfredo sauce. Mido stood behind her, his body pressed to hers as he guided her hands through the pouring and stirring of the heavy cream into the melted butter. He added a few seasonings, including black pepper, but he wouldn’t tell her the rest, explaining it was a secret for now. He moved so quick and deftly through everything that it intimidated Jessie; however, she tried to keep up as she helped stir the sauce to the right consistency and balance of seasoned flavor. Mido dipped a finger in the sauce and let her lick it off.
“Tastes great to me but I don’t know what you’re aiming for.” Jessie sucked on Mido’s finger a second time, then dipped her own finger in, flinched at how hot it was, then let him get a taste. He held her hand and sucked on her finger like he’d done to other parts of her body. He slowly pulled her finger out, it feeling like he was trying to suck the blood out of her finger, then he smacked his lips and thought a moment. He had a dreamy look that conveyed his thoughts weren’t entirely on cooking.
“Needs just a bit more.” He poured in a dollop of cream and let Jessie stir it.
“How do you know?”
“Practice,” he said, resting his hands on her hips. “It’s good the way it was but it’ll be just the right creaminess with what I added.” He nuzzled her head. “Okay, that looks great. Now to add the chicken. Some people toss only the noodles in but I like to coat the meat as well.”
He guided her by the hips to the griddle and Jessie added the chicken, one breast at a time, their bodies shuffling back and forth like dancers. He took the spatula and spoon out of her hands, then guided her through tossing the meat in the sauce. How he managed to not splatter the stovetop as he sent the food in the air with deft flicks, she had no idea. She held her hands limp while Mido leaned into her and did all the work. She could feel his chest muscles flexing against her back.