by E. J. Foster
I listened as she spent the next few minutes berating me, keeping my eyes forward, focused on the container ship ahead.
I already knew Jules was right. And also, that she was wrong. There didn’t seem to be a good answer. If I had thrown that egg into the bay and forgotten about it, we could be in worse shape. Instead of just one marsh rabbit, all marine life could have been affected.
On the other hand, if I had kept the egg, which Katie did, without my knowledge. Then, we would have gotten dragged into another ordeal. Which is our current situation.
My first order of business was to make sure Finn was safe.
I saw more than a few meteorites splash into the bay, including the big one. I didn’t know what these things were capable of, but if they could do half of what the small one did, then Finn might be in more trouble than I bargained for.
Jules’ tirade began to lose steam, and I had an opening to speak.
“You’re right Jules. But the fact is, we’re in it now, and we’re in it together. Let’s find Finn and get back home, and forget this ever happened,” I said, trying to calm her.
But I wasn’t sure I could forget what happened in Katie’s lab. Don’t I have a responsibility to figure that out? I thought. I wasn’t sure anymore.
As we approached the large ship, I throttled back, and the engines gurgled and echoed off the wall of rusty steel that rose out of the water and blocked our way. The large ship cast a shadow on us, the sunset now blocked. Castle Queen.
“I’ll circle around the other side,” I said.
“We’re right on top of it. The map says they were right here. Right in this spot.” Frustration rattled in Jules’ voice.
I touched the throttle and turned to starboard, heading around to the other side of this massive container ship, and back into the evening light. The sun sat low on the horizon, casting red on Jules’ face that rivaled her mohawk.
“There,” she said, pointing to the ship’s water line.
Sitting in the water, at the bottom of the ship’s rope ladder, Finn’s jon boat was tied off. I steered my unwieldy yacht in the direction.
I killed the engines, and the bay went silent. Only the sounds of water lapping against the steel ship, and seagulls crying in the distance.
“The Jacob’s ladder. I hope they didn’t...” I stopped, frustrated. Finn was known to do some boneheaded things. Sure. But this?
“Who’s Jacob?” Jules asked.
I had forgotten that Jules wasn’t a full-bred island girl. She was learning island life pretty quick, but she was still a transplant. A mainlander.
“A Jacob’s ladder. That’s what they call it,” I said pointing at the rope ladder. “All foreign commercial vessels have to stop here at this spot in the bay and wait until the harbor master calls them up into Baltimore.”
Jules nodded to signal she was following.
“Before they get approved to go any further up the bay, a local captain has to take the helm. The route up to the harbor is too dangerous. They need an experienced guide. A bay pilot.”
“And his name is Jacob?” Jules asked innocently.
I chuckled out loud. “No. The ladder is called a Jacob’s ladder. Every big ship has one. The ladder is how the local captain climbs aboard the ship to take control of it.”
“Oooh.” Jules clearly understood. “You think Finn climbed up that?”
We both looked at the bottom of the ladder slowly tilting our heads skyward until we were looking almost straight up.
“That’s gotta be ten stories tall. I hope not. For one, it’s dangerous,” I said.
“And for two?” Jules asked.
“For two, Finn knows the rules. He’s a waterman at heart. And one of the first rules is, you never ever board another boat unless you're invited by the captain,” I said. “I highly doubt that the commander of this ship invited kids aboard.”
I picked up the radio.
“What are you doing?” Jules asked.
“I’m going to hail the Castle Queen,” I said to Jules, as I tuned the VHF to a known shipping comms channel. I keyed the mic and spoke into it. “Castle Queen. Castle Queen. This is Family Time. Over.”
I flashed Jules a confident look that said, I’m handling this.
After a few moments, I hailed the ship again. No response.
Something didn’t feel right.
Momentarily, the thought of never seeing Finn again flashed in my mind, and my blood went hot. What if he was... I didn’t allow the thought to continue. I had worked so hard and given so much to get Finn and Katie back into my life.
That bile was rising in my stomach again, but not from anger. It was worry that had set in.
I put the handset in the bracket and left the cockpit, headed for the stern. Down the steps and onto the swim platform, I stepped across into the jon boat. The thing wobbled, unsteady under my feet. When it stabilized, I made my way to the rope ladder and stepped onto it, wrestling with the flexibility of the rope sagging under my body weight.
“What are you doing?” Jules asked
“Going to find Finn. Stay here with the boat.”
“What about maritime rules? Permission from the captain,” she reminded me.
“There are exceptions to the rule,” I shouted back before taking my first step upward.
“What exceptions?” Jules demanded.
There were exceptions, and I knew them all. The exception I was operating under was to save a life. But I didn’t respond to Jules. I didn’t want to say it aloud for fear I would speak it into existence. The fact that Finn’s life could really be in danger. And Jessa’s too. It was all too much, and I didn’t want to freak Jules out any more than she already had been.
“Just stay with the boat,” I said and began climbing this mountain of a ship.
Jules never liked to be told what to do. And she definitely didn’t like being abandoned, especially in the middle of the bay.
She looked up to see Brock almost disappear into the sky above her.
Ever since she’d lost her father, abandonment had haunted and tortured her. It was more than discomfort. The feeling was unbearable at times.
Motivation began to rise within her, from places inside her she didn’t fully understand. Without thinking, Jules grabbed her backpack and threw it on. She rushed to the swim platform and hopped across to the jon boat, following the same path that had just been blazed for her. She was operating on pure adrenaline now.
Full of determination, and defiance, Jules stepped onto the rope ladder. She began lifting herself up out of this awful feeling with each step she took, as she climbed toward the last of the daylight that remained in the sky above.
18
Jessa and Finn wound through and down into a labyrinth of steel tubing that made up the network of stairs, platforms and railing. Their footfalls clanged and echoed metallic pings and crashes as they sped farther and farther down until they reached the bottom.
They were greeted with a hatch door. The sign read: Hold #1.
The hatch had no doorknob. Only a lever connected to thick steel horizontal bars as a locking mechanism. The door was a rectangle with rounded corners, the opening of which did not extend all the way to the floor. The contraption looked more like it belonged on a submarine.
“Now what?” Finn asked.
He and Jessa looked at each other for a few heartbeats, before the silence was broken.
Heavy footsteps from above were lumbering down the same metal stairwell from which they had just descended.
Finn’s heart skipped a beat. He looked upward, instinctively, trying to listen closer and determine how far away the footsteps were. When he looked back, Jessa was gone.
The hatch door was open. Finn looked through it to see Jessa disappearing through it.
“Follow me,” Jessa said. Her distant voice warbled as she ran.
Finn jumped through the door, pulled it shut, rotated the lever and locked it.
He turned and ran just in
time to see Jessa’s pink backpack disappear round a corner and go down one of the several hallways that branched off from the corridor.
The hall was long and repetitive. Multiple hallways and alcoves split off on each side of the tunnel, to the right and left, each one with the same appearance. Finn struggled to remember which turn Jessa had made.
Finn slowed to a jog when he neared the entrance.
“Psst.” A voice beckoned from behind him.
Finn turned to see Jessa’s head pop out from behind the previous entrance. He had gone too far.
Finn backtracked and found that this opening was not a hallway like the others; it was only a small alcove. A metal ladder was welded to the wall of the small space and led up through a circular hole in the ceiling. Another submarine hatch.
Jessa’s feet were still dangling out of the hole as she took her last step up and through the portal and disappeared.
Finn hustled up the ladder, climbing through the hole into a much darker space. Jessa closed the heavy hatch door behind him, twisting the lever and sealing it shut. Words were stenciled on the door: Water-tight seal.
When Finn looked up, he was standing inside an entire building that lived inside the belly of this ship. The room he was in was bigger than his school gymnasium. Ten times bigger. Maybe more.
The entire cavern was filled with stack after stack of those colorful shipping containers. It was like a miniature city; stacks were sectioned off into neighborhoods, leaving space in between for streets and alleyways.
Spanning across the ceiling far above was a massive yellow beam that ran from one side of the ship to the other. There were black letters stenciled onto the beam, reading: 50-Ton Crane, with a giant hook dangling from a cable in the center of the beam.
“More Legos,” Finn said.
Jessa’s head tilted back as she looked up at the tall towers.
“Many more,” Jessa said. “What do you think is in them?”
“Christmas ornaments,” Finn said, after a moment of thought.
Jessa wrinkled her nose and narrowed her eyes at Finn, her face asking a new question.
“Well, Joshua Erlich, from school. He says, well, his dad says, that the Chinese trade balance isn’t fair. His dad says we send them smartphones. The Chinese, that is. His dad says all they send us are crummy Christmas ornaments. His dad says it’s not fair.” Finn reported the local news as accurately as he heard it.
He turned to gaze upward at the multi-colored stacks, pondering them.
“It’s probably Christmas ornaments,” he decided.
“Do you think we’re in trouble? Do you think that man will find us?” Jessa questioned, changing the subject.
“You mean the ghost?” Finn corrected her.
Jessa’s face contorted into a question once again.
“That was no man,” Finn explained. “First, he was a hundred yards away, then, the next moment, he was right next to me. Like he’d time-warped or something. He must’ve been a ghost.”
Jessa stretched her face, brows high, as she thought about what Finn had just said, and what she was about to tell him.
“Finn.” Her voice was quiet as she looked down, avoiding eye contact. “I have a confession,” she continued softly.
“About the ghost?” Finn asked.
“About that.” She hesitated. “I didn’t plan to deceive you.”
Finn leaned in, eyes wide and pupils dilated in the dim space. She had his full attention now.
“I don’t really believe in... ghosts,” she finally confessed.
Finn narrowed his eyes, his mouth a straight line.
“What? But this ship... You said it was a ghost ship. The stories in the treehouse.” Finn was piling up the evidence against her. “That ghost back there.” Finn nodded in the direction from which they came.
“I certainly embellished... some of the... details... for effect. I admit it.”
“Why?” Finn was confused. A heartbeat passed between them before Jessa spoke again.
“I have grown fond of our adventures together. I find it quite exhilarating. Do you not?”
Finn didn’t answer. He thought about how much he enjoyed Jessa, and found that, more and more, he wanted to be around her. To be with her, for sure.
Jessa's eyes found the floor again in the silence Finn created.
“And, well, I wanted to have another adventure together. Just me and you.”
When Jessa looked up again, Finn was smiling from ear to ear. Even his eyes were smiling.
The sudden sound of muffled voices disturbed the moment. Adult males, plural, from the sound of it. Finn couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, but the noise was emanating from directly beneath them. They both looked at the hatch, hoping the hatch lever wasn’t moving.
“Do you think—”
“Shhh,” Jessa hissed, cutting him off. She pulled her hair back behind her ear listening with all her might. After a moment, she whispered, “It’s French.”
“How do you know?” Finn’s voice was low.
Her face twisted in derision. “We’re in the same French class,” she reminded him.
“What are they saying?”
“Open the hatch so I can hear them clearer.”
“Are you crazy?” Finn said, more a statement than a question.
“Just do it, please. Slowly and quietly,” Jessa instructed.
Something about the way she asked, the way she said please, the way the tone of her voice turned soft and quiet; it made Finn get right to work, without question.
Finn got down on his knees before the giant circular machinery. He slowly twisted the latch. At the end of its travel, a click shattered the silence.
They both froze, ears pounding. Neither moved. The muffled voices continued below, uninterrupted.
Finn exhaled.
He grabbed the cold steel handle and carefully raised the hatch just an inch, peering down into the lighted hallway below.
Two men in silver jumpsuits stood, talking to one another in fluent French. They both had the same jet-black hair, with a shock of platinum cutting through it. Double Trouble.
Finn started to shake at the thought, and the hatch lid jittered in his hands as he noodled through the current situation. Ghosts. Plural.
The confusion rattled Finn before it finally came to him. Twins!
Jessa leaned in with her ear, listening to every word they spoke.
19
My boots hit the steel deck with a thud. Standing on deck, this high up, brought back a memory for me. The last time I was on a ship this big, it was an aircraft carrier. It was a different time, back when I flew jets in the Navy. A time when I was proud to be part of something bigger than me.
On cue, Jules huffed as she rolled over the gunwale behind me.
“I was expecting you.”
“But...” Jules hesitated. “You told me to stay.”
I just grinned back at her.
“You told me to watch the boat,” she added.
“The only way I could guarantee that you came with me was to tell you not to. You’re bull-headed, just like your old man.”
Another memory flashed. I had flown with Jules’ father years ago. We went to war together. I came back. He didn’t. I always felt responsible for her loss. He was my wingman. Ever since then, I’d sort of adopted Jules as my own.
At the mention of her father, I noticed Jules was having a personal moment of her own. Her eyes were far away in a memory.
“Anyway, I’m glad you’re here,” I whispered, bringing Jules back to the present.
“Why are we whispering? I thought we were allowed aboard... for exceptions?”
“We are, but I’d prefer to get on, and get off, undetected, and avoid having to explain myself.”
Jules and I were still talking when we got busted.
“Vous arrêtez!” An aggressive voice cut through from behind me. A female.
My muscles tightened and I spun to face her.
The last of the golden evening sun painted her stunning face like a sunset. Her high, sun-kissed cheek bones were sculpted out of heaven itself. Dazzling sapphires gleamed in her eyes.
A long mane of blonde hair fell around one shoulder of her silver jumpsuit. A vertical blue stripe of material warped and wandered down one side of the suit, following her natural curves from her shoulder, and extending the full length of her pant leg.
When she met my gaze, the woman seemed to soften. A few heartbeats passed between us, as her pupils widened to take me in. Her cheeks turned rosy, as the low, red sun moved across her. Or was she blushing? The skin of my own face warmed in the moment.
I was transfixed by her full lips as they thickened and parted before she spoke again.
“Bonjour.” Her voice was softer now, inviting.
I finally exhaled a breath I wasn’t aware I had been holding. French wasn’t my strong suit. In fact, I didn’t speak it at all, but I understood that last word. And I also understood the other language she was speaking, with her eyes. I was speaking it too.
“Bonjour,” I returned the greeting.
Jules stepped in front of me to face the woman, her red mohawk acting like a stop sign.
“In English,” Jules blurted out at the woman, the aggression hers now. “Where are the kids?”
I extended my hands, palms down, pumping them.
“Calm down, Jules,” I said. “I’m sure this is just a simple misunderstanding.”
“English? Little speak,” the beauty tried.
The woman’s gaze bounced back and forth between Jules and me, confused, not sure whom to address. I spoke up.
“Kids. Boarded. Over there,” I pointed to the gunwale, where the Jacob’s ladder was attached.
The gorgeous stranger’s face transformed from enamored to anger. Or was it concern?
“Kids. Board. Over,” she said, attempting to repeat the English words, not getting it quite right.