The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea

by Maggie Tokuda-Hall

  Evelyn had never seen a dolphin, so she allowed herself to be guided. “Where’s Florian?” She was surprised by how much she missed him. They’d become fast friends, after all, and she had a new story she was itching to share with him.

  “Traded me duties. He’s off cleaning the guns. It’s filthy work — you’ve gotta scrub vinegar all in it, and it makes your hands burn. Me, I’d rather see a fine lady around the ship than smell like pickles, but then I’m just —”

  Evelyn felt like she’d been slapped. He’d traded duties? Was this a permanent switch? She let her mind sift through her memories of their time together, frantically scanning for the moment when she had overstepped, when she had offended him. But then, maybe it was every time. Maybe she was being too forward. Her mother always warned her of this, hadn’t she, of her casual nature with servants. Evelyn certainly hadn’t intended to force her friendship on Florian; she’d simply wanted to teach him to read. But that was about her own rebellion, too, wasn’t it?

  She wanted her mother to be wrong so badly, but then, where was Florian? She tried to push the hurt away, or at the very least, out of her voice.

  She let the shield of her politeness come down around her, put on her familiar mask of interest. She could play this game. She’d played this game her whole life.

  “There are guns aboard this ship?” she asked. Not so much because she cared — she didn’t. But it was something to talk about. Boys liked guns, and she could tell this boy was all boy. Not like Florian.

  “Yes, my lady. As a precaution. Pirates in these waters, after all.”

  “I’m glad to be in safe hands,” Evelyn said politely.

  The boy laughed far louder than was proper, necessary, or sane. His aim was off, indeed. “Let’s take a look at those dolphins!” He was practically shouting.

  A few sailors who were busy swabbing the decks looked up, leering at her. Evelyn could see why Captain Lafayette had assigned Florian to her, and she could not help but think that she agreed with his choice. It was not that Florian didn’t look at her. He did. But it was not so predatory.

  “I remember the first time Florian saw one, I thought he’d shit his pants.” He looked as horrified as Evelyn was amused the moment it escaped his lips. “Begging your pardon, my lady. I’m not used to chatting with the upper class. Especially not girls. Women. Ladies. You’re a lady. My lady.”

  Evelyn laughed. “Please, it’s fine. Refreshing, honestly.” She scanned the horizon for dolphins but saw nothing save the rolling sea and the shimmer of sunlight on water. “You’ve known Florian for a long time?”

  “His whole life. He’s my brother. Little brother, that is.” The pride in the boy’s voice was unmistakable. Now that he said it, Evelyn could see it. For one thing, they were the only two black sailors aboard the Dove, that she’d noticed anyway. But they held themselves totally differently. Florian was all square shoulders and chin up. This boy was, well, looser. But their eyes. The light-gray cast of them, the way they shone like gunmetal. Odd eyes.

  Florian hadn’t mentioned that he had a brother on board. But then, Evelyn thought with a pang, Florian hadn’t done much of the talking, had he? Except to comment on a story now and again. Or to tell her she was smart. She turned those memories over in her mind like stones. She knew the exact shape of each of them, each kind word, each comment. But what had she missed, just below them?

  Before she could think of something appropriate to say, a weathered hand fell on the boy’s shoulder, causing both him and Evelyn to jump.

  “Thought the captain ordered Florian to accommodate the Lady Hasegawa,” the man said. Evelyn did not like the sound of her name in his mouth, and she could tell from the way he said it that he didn’t, either. He was thin but wiry, with a shock of red hair, and the look on Florian’s brother’s face frightened Evelyn.

  The boy gulped. “Yes, sir,” he said. “But begging your pardon, Rake, sir, Florian asked to switch duties, sir, and I figured if we stayed abovedeck, sir, there would certainly be no worries of —”

  “It’s not a problem, really,” Evelyn interrupted. But the man’s eyes stayed fixed on the boy, who trembled under their gaze. How rude, she thought, to be treated as though she were invisible.

  “Arjun!” the man called. A bedraggled man with a patchy beard stepped off the rigging and stood at attention. “Go fetch Florian.” Arjun hobbled off, mumbling.

  “Stay here until Florian returns,” the man commanded. The boy nodded wordlessly, his face pale. “Both of you are to report to me while the Lady has her supper.”

  “Yes, sir,” the boy managed. He sounded as though he were sick to his stomach.

  “My lady,” the man said coldly to Evelyn. He left, barking more orders to other men as he went. Evelyn watched in amazement.

  “Who was that?”

  “The first mate. Rake.” The boy’s voice was still shaky with fear. “Second in command to the captain.”

  “Lafayette.”

  “Pardon? Right, yeah.” The chattering, laughing boy of only minutes before was gone. Why was the post as her guard of such great importance anyway? She didn’t need guarding, even if she longed for company, for a friend. She’d been grateful for that. But then, they weren’t friends, were they? They stood in uncomfortable silence.

  When Florian did join them, he looked grave. “Alfie, why? How? All you had to do was stand outside her door.” His voice was unfamiliar to Evelyn, all sharp edges.

  The boy, Alfie, shrank back, visibly abashed. “She called me out straightaway — there wasn’t any denying it.”

  “It’s true,” Evelyn interjected.

  Florian turned to her, his eyes burning. “If you’d pardon us, milady, this is between brothers.” His voice was cold, but it sent a flash of heat through Evelyn’s chest. She felt herself scowl at Florian, her hurt transmuting to anger.

  “It’s actually my lady,” Alfie said, his aim off again. “If you’re trying to be proper.” He tried a laugh.

  “I don’t know why I thought I could trust you.” Florian shook his head.

  Evelyn found that she was actually proud of Alfie when he responded with anger. Good. Now they were united against Florian.

  “Listen, don’t blame me for your —” He looked at Evelyn, as if trying to decide what could be said in front of her. “Don’t ask for my help, then be mad you got it.”

  “It’s not his fault you wanted so badly to get rid of me,” Evelyn hissed at Florian. “This is your fault. You disobeyed your orders, and now you’re just mad you got caught.”

  “Please, milady. Don’t talk about things you don’t understand.”

  Evelyn thought she might actually spontaneously burst into flames, her fury was so great.

  “You think the world of men is so complicated? It isn’t. You’re all the same. Weak, and small, and eager to push your own failure off on others while pretending I couldn’t possibly understand the great forces at work that forced your hand. Half of a woman’s life is spent pretending she doesn’t notice just how stupid and prone to failure you all are!” Her father’s face appeared in her mind, and for a moment she wasn’t sure whom she was yelling at — and she was yelling — Florian or her father. “I understand just fine. You failed. And you’re mad at everyone besides yourself about it.”

  Distantly, she was aware of the sailors watching. A couple of them laughed. She didn’t care. The insult of Florian’s rejection, of his lectures, of his pretension! She left the brothers on the deck and returned to her cabin. She did not need to be escorted.

  She slammed the door of her cabin shut behind her. There, on her casket, was a pile of papers meant to be Florian’s next lesson. She had been planning to teach him how to write, so that they might stay in touch once the voyage was over.

  The sight of it — the papers, the two quills set out expectantly — was too much. Evelyn undid the lacing of her corset as she sank to her knees, crying frankly. She did not know which humiliation was worst. The one-sided
friendship. Her dashed hopes. Or knowing that, even here, so far away from her home, her mother had been right.

  How stupid she’d been to think she mattered to him at all.

  The walk to the captain’s cabin was a long one, which Flora and Alfie made in silence. Flora had not said anything to Alfie since Lady Evelyn had admonished her so aptly. Confusion clung to her like a cloud. What did Evelyn care if either she or Alfie watched over her? Surely, she’d had a long parade of servants in her life.

  Flora had never been to the captain’s cabin before, but she’d heard that it was the most luxurious on the Dove. All gilded details and treasures. Cushions and silks. She hadn’t ever wanted to see it — men who had seemed to have a low survival rate — but Alfie did. Not like this, though. Men who kept their fingers and throats did not visit the captain. How he could sleep in a room where so many had died was beyond Flora. Surely, he could feel the ghosts that hung like spiderwebs in the air — invisible, but clinging. She hoped she would not soon join them.

  She did her best to stow her fear.

  The cabin was, in fact, garish from floorboard to ceiling, full of fine objects that Flora couldn’t even identify, with windows, actual windows, that looked out onto the sea. Everyone else made do with tiny portholes, pinpricks of light that hinted at the great world beyond the Dove. These windows were like standing on a cliff’s edge.

  Perhaps that explained Flora’s vertigo.

  A painting of a mermaid, bare-breasted, with an explosion of resplendent ebony hair, loomed enormous on the wall behind the captain. Her face was so happy as to be ludicrous. No one, not even a mermaid, ever looked that stupidly, deliriously happy on the Dove.

  With a sting of hindsight, Flora kicked herself for speaking so freely in the hammocks. As second in command, surely Rake could have negotiated for a better sleeping berth if he’d wanted it. Likely he chose to sleep close to the men so he could stay aware of their murmurings. How foolish Flora had been. Rake must have heard everything.

  The captain sat behind a large, dark wooden desk, toying with a quill made from a giant, flamboyantly red feather; Flora wondered for a moment what kind of bird would have such a feather, Rake stood next to him, stiff as ever, with an impatient eye toward the quill.

  “Ah, the Dove’s most unusual brothers,” the captain said, his voice grand. He stood with a flourish, still holding the quill, and pointed it at Flora. “I did not think I’d ever have cause to call you in here, Master Florian.”

  “Nor I,” agreed Rake.

  “You, on the other hand” — he pointed at Alfie — “I’m neither surprised by nor interested in. You may leave.”

  Alfie paused, his mouth gaping like a fish’s.

  “Immediately.”

  And Alfie was gone. That was fair enough. This was not his fault. Evelyn had been right. And he’d taken enough punishment for them both aboard this cursed ship. Still. She felt all the more afraid, left alone with these two men.

  “Give me your blade,” the captain said.

  Puzzled, Flora handed it over. It was the blade Alfie had given her years ago. Short and silver. The blade she had killed Mr. Lam with. The blade that made Florian Florian.

  Florian, she told herself. Florian, Florian, Florian. A spell for strength and courage.

  The captain examined the blade for a moment, then handed it to Rake, who held it over the flame of the candle that burned on the captain’s desk. Flora watched him curiously. Rake kept the blade in the flame, his eyes on her.

  The captain lowered himself back into his fine chair, his eyes unmoving from Flora’s face. He reminded her of the cats that lived in Crandon’s streets, the way they looked while hunting the mice and rats that were ubiquitously available to them. The way he didn’t blink. The stillness of him. “Florian, do you know why I have let you serve aboard the Dove? It wasn’t my goodwill or pity. I have very little of either. It certainly wasn’t due to Rake’s endorsement.”

  “It certainly wasn’t,” Rake echoed.

  Thanks.

  “I have plenty of scrappy orphans begging for work, so why you? Why an orphan who’d make things so very, very complicated?” He looked at Flora expectantly, but Flora didn’t answer. If the captain was discomfited by her silence, he didn’t show it. He smiled placidly and continued. “I thought, here’s one just ripe for training. I thought, this one’s got potential for true piracy. I can see it! This one’d impress the Pirate Supreme, even. I thought, give this one a chance and I’ll have an ally for life.” He nudged Rake with his elbow. “Eh? Pretty good idea, right?”

  “Yes, sir. But only if you have a true ally.” He turned the blade over in his grip. The side that had been in the flame glowed orange. A strange chemical smell, like metal and fire, filled Flora’s nostrils. She wanted to spit the smell out of her mouth, it was so strong.

  “Ah, there’s the rub,” the captain said. “Due to your unique constraints aboard this vessel, I expected your total and unwavering allegiance could be assumed. And with the Lady Hasegawa aboard, I reveled in the opportunity for unsullied merchandise, being as you lack the tools to disassemble her maidenhood. So I thought, have Florian guard the good lady.”

  “A reasonable choice,” said Rake.

  “You would think so, wouldn’t you? I’m not a betting man, but if I were, I’d have bet on you, Florian, to be her ideal chaperone while on the Dove. I’m not a man who puts much faith in anyone, so you can imagine my sincere disappointment in you when it was called to my attention that you had abandoned your post.”

  He let out a long, dramatic exhale through his nose.

  “And let your moron of a brother attend to it.” Another pause. “I gave you a direct order. You did not obey it.” The captain’s voice was hard now, like rigging gone taut. “Give me your hand.”

  Flora held her left hand across the wooden desk with as much stillness as she could muster. Her fingers trembled mutinously.

  The captain stood and took her hand. His skin was shockingly soft for a man of the sea. He pressed his lips against her fingers almost sweetly, then pressed her palm down flat on the desk.

  “The blade,” he said. As Rake handed it to the captain, the dawning realization of what was about to happen hit Flora.

  “Wait,” she pleaded.

  “Wait,” the captain mimicked. He shook his head. “Fire always reveals the true man,” he hissed at Flora. Then, to Rake: “Hold her.”

  Rake’s grip was like a vise on Flora. She could not move. The smell of the heated metal was nauseating; the fear was nauseating. Flora thought she might be sick.

  As a child, Flora and Alfie had spent enough days in temples bowing before statues of the Emperor, feigning piety in exchange for an hour’s warmth. She’d heard the priests’ descriptions of the world that awaited sinners and traitors to the Empire. It did not scare her then the way it scared her now.

  This is what death smells like.

  This is what death smells like.

  In her fear, Flora tried to pull her hand away, but Rake’s grip on her arm was too strong, he was too strong, and even when she tried to curl her fingers in, Rake pulled them flat once again, his fingers rough.

  “Please,” she begged.

  But the captain brought down the blade anyway.

  In two agonizing cuts, the bulk of Flora’s pinky finger was gone, just below the first knuckle. The room swelled and ebbed, but Rake held her. Maybe she heard a voice, his voice, whisper. “You’re all right,” it might have said, but she could not be sure. Black spots exploded before her eyes. The captain held the blade, wiped clean of her blood, to the flame once more. Then he held it against the wound to stanch the bleeding.

  Flora prayed for unconsciousness, but it did not come. Instead, she remained horribly awake, reeling from the pain and nausea that overtook her. There was nothing in the world but her pain, nothing left. She saw a dancing reflection of the captain in the puddle of her blood and was very nearly ill.

  “I expect you back a
t the Lady’s side before the moon is high tonight,” he said. “Go have Cook bandage your finger. And pray you never disappoint me again.”

  Rake practically carried Flora to the kitchen. Cook was an old hand at bandaging up pirates. He’d lost a few of his fingers to the Nameless Captain himself. This was no comfort to Flora, though, not while her hand throbbed, her legs weak from the pain of it. And besides, he was out of the kitchen when they arrived, leaving Rake and Flora alone in the smoke from the fire and the steam from the rice.

  Rake deposited her on a spare chair and Flora let her head hang over the hand she clutched, still bleeding, to her chest.

  “Do you understand why.” It was not a question so much as it was a command. To tell him she’d never fail him or the captain ever again.

  “I disobeyed an order.” Her voice was soft. Rake said nothing, so she repeated herself, louder this time. But Rake shook his head.

  “You disobeyed, yes. This happens. You may have received a simple lashing for that, one or two, even.”

  Rake turned her chin so that she faced him, faced his burning eyes, faced the full brunt of his anger. She’d never seen him so angry, not in all her years aboard the Dove, not at her. She’d always been obedient, always did as he said.

  “But you disobeyed because your heart has softened. For an Imperial.” He practically spat this, his red eyebrows knitted in disgust.

  Despite herself, despite the pain that nearly overwhelmed her, Flora felt her own anger grow to match his.

  “The Lady Hasegawa is not like the Imperials who took Quark.” It was, she knew, an incredibly foolish thing to say. Rake did not suffer speech about his home country, not even from the captain. She could see Rake’s face darken at the mention of it.

  “What do you know of Quark?” Rake asked. His voice was deadly calm, but Flora could feel his fury beneath it, churning like a tempest. She was too weak to care, though, her body still in shock from the loss of her finger.

  Flora said nothing. She knew Quark had been colonized by the Imperials, just as most of the Known World had. Quark was the last of the Cold World to be conquered. Only a few spare island countries and Tustwe remained free. Battles were fought in Quark and won by the Emperor. She had seen battle in her life, knew its terrible bloody truth. That there were no heroes in battle, only the lucky. But she had never seen a battle rained down upon an entire city. On an entire country.