‘They just started to turn,’ the Boatswain said. ‘They usually move slowly. I’ve never seen anything like this before.’ He ran his hand through his hair.
‘What do you think is making them––’ Scoop began. But before she could finish, she blinked.
As she closed her eyes, she felt the cold wind rush through her again. It was stronger than before. In her mind’s eye, the world flickered and began to change, speeding up. She saw the sun rise and set, the sea rage and quieten, winds strengthen and wane. She glimpsed the crew of the Black Horizon skimming across the ship, fleeting impressions, appearing and then vanishing. Sails were furled and unfurled, the deck was scrubbed, meals eaten, maps studied, lanterns lit, watches changed, all in the blink of an eye.
With a gasp, Scoop’s eyes sprang open. Instantly, time slowed again. The stillness was unnerving. The world had transformed. It was night now, clear and cloudless. A high moon threw a pathway of light across the sea. Scoop stumbled backwards, looking for the Boatswain, but he’d gone. She stared at the chronometer. Its wheels were still spinning. ‘What?’ she said. It felt as though she’d woken from a deep sleep. Her stomach gurgled and she clutched it. She looked around, trying to make sense of what had happened. She was still on the ship, but the deck was deserted.
How’s it night?
She tried to calm herself, to think rationally. Something’s going on with time, just like the pirate said. She looked up to where she knew someone would be on watch. Nib was looking down at her from the crow’s nest. His face was pale. He clutched the rails, looking weary.
‘What just happened?’ Scoop called up. ‘A moment ago, I was talking to the Boatswain. It was the middle of the day. We were on our way to the Southern Ocean––’
‘That was days ago,’ Nib interrupted. ‘We entered the Southern Ocean days ago.’
‘Days ago, but––’
‘Listen – you won’t have long before you jump again.’
‘Jump?’
‘Yes. From your question, I’m guessing that’s the first time you’ve come up for air?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘You will.’
‘What are you talking about? You’re scaring me.’
‘I’m sorry. It’s just …’ Nib shook his head. ‘It’s hard to hold on.’
‘Just tell me what’s happening.’
‘I don’t know! It’s just as the pirate warned. Somehow time is jumping. This is the third or fourth time I’ve surfaced – that’s the best way I can describe it. A moment ago, I was studying a map with the Dark Pirate. He said we’d been sailing the Southern Ocean for days. And then the next moment, I found myself here in the crow’s nest. I watched you come up from below deck.’
‘Below deck? I don’t remember coming up from below.’ Scoop was panicking. Had she blacked out?
She felt another rush of wind. It roared. She doubled over, breathless.
The world sped past again. Her stomach lurched, as though she were being thrown forward. Frost spread across the ship and retreated, birds shot across the sky, stars appeared and then vanished, clouds skidded overhead.
Scoop opened her eyes again and gulped a big breath of icy air, coughing. She knew what Nib meant. This was like having her head forced into a vat of water, being held under and then yanked out again. It was like drowning.
She realised she was standing at the side of the Black Horizon. Her hand was on Sparks’s back. Without warning, Sparks doubled over and vomited down the side of the ship. Instinctively, Scoop rubbed her back. She couldn’t take in what was happening. Everything was moving too quickly. It was daytime again. Icy wind bit her face. She was wearing a winter coat, snowflakes having settled on the fur around her hood.
‘Urgh,’ Sparks said, wiping her mouth. Scoop breathed deeply, trying not to vomit herself.
‘What’s happening?’ Sparks snivelled. ‘What’s going on?’
‘I don’t know. Something’s happening with time.’
‘The ageing curse!’ Sparks looked terrified.
Scoop wanted to tell her it wasn’t, but she couldn’t. ‘I don’t know. I was just with Nib. It was night. And now I’m here.’
‘I’m scared.’
‘Me too.’
Sparks shot round, scanning the ocean. ‘Have we lost them – the Red Hawks?’
Scoop turned. Behind them, its sails billowing, was the Falcon galleon – it was still there.
‘Oh no,’ Sparks sobbed. ‘The pirate was wrong! They’ve not turned back! They’re going to catch us! We’ll never escape.’
Scoop reached out to comfort her, but as she did, another blast of coldness hit. Again, she closed her eyes. Wind roared around her. She could see the Falcon galleon. It closed in on them. It was relentless. There was a large, black bird too, perching on the rigging, pecking crumbs from the ship’s rail, flying in the Horizon’s wake.
‘Admit you were wrong!’ a voice shouted. It was Freddo.
Scoop opened her eyes. The ship was in uproar. The whole crew were gathered on deck. An argument was raging.
‘They’re still following us,’ Freddo yelled, his face red.
‘We need to hold our nerve,’ the Dark Pirate snarled. He looked tired. Scoop noticed grey among his mop of black hair. ‘They will turn away. They will not be able to cope with the time instability.’
‘I’m not sure we can cope,’ Rufina said. There were dark rings under her eyes. ‘How long has it been since we crossed into these waters?’
‘We don’t know,’ said the Boatswain. ‘It could be days. It could be months. We’ve no way of telling.’
Days? Months? What? Scoop noticed the snow had gone. It was now a warm, summer’s day, the sails billowing against a clear blue sky.
‘Could it be years?’ asked Nib.
Everyone stared at him.
Years? It can’t be. Surely! This is insane.
‘Don’t blink,’ said the pirate.
Rufina shook her head. ‘What?’
‘Don’t blink. That’s when time leaps. Not every time you close your eyes, but that’s the trigger.’
‘Oh great.’
‘Well,’ the pirate corrected, ‘to be precise, it’s not actually time that’s leaping.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Nib.
The pirate thought for a moment. ‘Imagine skimming a stone across a lake. The lake is always there but the stone only comes into contact with it every few feet. It’s the same with us – time is still there – we’re still sailing the ship, still fleeing the Red Hawks – but our consciousness only connects with that reality fleetingly.’
Nib nodded. ‘So, when we blink, we disconnect from time. And when we open our eyes again we reconnect, but further on.’
‘Yes.’
‘Like when you’ve slept,’ Alfa added. ‘It feels as though only a moment has passed, but actually a whole night has gone.’
‘Exactly.’
Scoop turned to Nib. ‘That’s why you saw me coming out from below deck just now, even though I couldn’t remember it.’
Nib stared at her. ‘That was ages ago, Scoop. That was last winter …’
‘Last winter?’ Scoop felt weak. ‘But it was just a moment ago.’
Nib shook his head.
‘A moment, a month, a year, we just don’t know,’ said the Boatswain.
‘Will it ever stop?’ asked Sparks.
‘I think it will,’ the pirate replied.
Freddo thumped the mast. ‘You think?’
‘I know as much as you! But yes, I think it will. Just as with the stone. The jumps will get shorter, more frequent, until …’ He stopped.
‘Until what?’ Freddo asked.
Nobody spoke.
‘Until what?!’
‘Until we sink,’ Rufina said, quietly.
The pirate shook his head. ‘I don’t know. We can’t say what will––’
There was another rush of wind. Scoop gagged, doubling over. She’d been
trying not to blink, but the more she tried, the harder it had become. With a cry of frustration, she shut her eyes.
As the world sped by, Scoop could feel something deep in her flesh. It prickled and throbbed. Something in her was changing. She looked at her hands. Her skin was darkening. She became aware of hair tickling her shoulders. She reached up. It was growing. I’m getting older, she thought.
She emerged from the maelstrom to find herself in a huddle of people around the mast. There was a commotion. Alfa was next to her. As Scoop saw her friend, her gut twisted. The First Year looked different. Her face was longer, her hair thinner. She was losing her youth. She reminded Scoop of how she herself looked.
‘Get help,’ Alfa said, seeing Scoop staring.
‘What?’
‘He’s fallen again.’ She signalled to where Mr Snooze lay awkwardly on the deck, his silver hair long and thin. He looked so much older than when Scoop had last seen him. Alfa pointed. ‘Get the pirate!’
‘Oh. Yes, okay.’
Scoop rushed off, but before she’d got very far, there was another rush of wind.
They’re coming more regularly now – like waves.
‘There they are,’ said Fletcher. His voice was deeper than Scoop remembered. She looked at him and flinched. Time had jumped forward, almost without her noticing. Fletcher’s skin was weathered and sun-stained, and there were new lines around his eyes and mouth. He was standing at the prow of the ship, staring across the ocean. Ahead, a thick storm cloud hung over the sea. It swirled and seethed, as if alive. Rising from it were two tall rocks, each perfectly flat on one side. The flat sides of the rocks faced each other, forming a corridor in the ocean.
‘The South Bookend Isles,’ Fletcher said.
Scoop shuddered. The cloud that clung to the rocks looked somehow familiar. ‘That cloud …’ she said, slowly.
‘We’ve seen it before,’ Fletcher finished.
‘Yes.’ With awful recognition, Scoop realised where. ‘At the wedding banquet.’
‘Yes.’
The two apprentices gazed in silence. Scoop recalled the night of the banquet. It seemed a lifetime ago. She remembered how the cloud had appeared in the Great Hall of Alethea, summoned by Grizelda, how it had morphed into a terrible creature that threatened to destroy the castle. That evening, it had been defeated by a firebird, forced away, out to sea. Scoop had hoped she would never see it again. Now, here it was. And they were sailing directly towards it.
‘We’re going to sail into it, aren’t we?’
‘We are,’ replied Fletcher. ‘The pirate says it’s the only way to lose the Red Hawks.’
‘Yes.’ Scoop’s voice was flat. The pirate was right. It was the only way to lose the Falcon galleon. They wouldn’t follow them into the cloud.
She wanted this to be over. She stared at the seething mass and then deliberately shut her eyes.
The rushing knocked her from her feet, as the world slipped into blackness. The cloud was there. An eye appeared in its swirling ash. She saw claws form in the darkness. They swiped at the ship. The creature wanted revenge. And then from the shadow she heard a name. It hissed on the breeze.
‘The beast,’ it whispered.
Scoop could feel rain on her skin. It was icy. She opened her eyes again. Wisps of dark vapour slithered around the Black Horizon. Other than rain hammering the sea, it was deathly quiet. The ship drifted silently forward. They were entering the cloud. Scoop could see the Boatswain standing at the stern of the ship, staring back across the ocean. She joined him.
‘The pirate was right,’ he said. ‘They’re not entering the cloud.’
Scoop looked. The Falcon galleon was behind them, its port side facing. It was turning away. Mist swirled, and the galleon disappeared. Icy rain soaked Scoop’s hair. They had escaped the Red Hawk threat, but she couldn’t shake what Rufina had said about the stone. She pictured a pebble sinking down through the sea, finally coming to rest on the bed of the ocean. A terrible dread gripped her, a dread she was too scared to name.
Chapter 15
The Cloud
The ribbons of cloud that twisted around the ship thickened, until slowly, the Black Horizon was consumed by fog. Rain churned the ocean. Despite this, the air was unnaturally quiet. The wind had died down and the sea was flat. The ship cut, almost noiselessly, through the water, its creaks and groans eerie in the stillness. The crew drifted to the sides of the vessel, staring into the murk. Nobody spoke. Each stood alone, looking for something, anything, a landmark, a gap in the cloud, a sign of life. But there was none. Scoop shivered. This place was deathly.
They sailed on for a while, exactly how long was hard to tell.
There was a knot in Scoop’s gut. She was so alert, so focused, she hardly noticed the rain soaking her clothes and running through her hair. For a moment, she thought she caught sight of a shape in the mist – a darker patch in the gloom. She leaned forward, peering out, but the shape vanished. She squinted, trying to pierce the fog. It felt as though the cloud was watching, biding its time, toying with them.
Then, through the rain, there was a noise. A gentle sloshing drifted across the water. Without taking her eyes off the sea, Scoop moved across to Fletcher, who was standing nearby.
‘I heard something out there,’ she whispered. ‘Listen.’
Fletcher turned his ear to the sea.
After a moment, the sloshing came again.
‘See? Did you hear that?’
‘I did.’
‘What was it?’
‘I’m not sure. I think, perhaps … it sounded like an oar moving through the water.’
‘Do you think there’s another boat out there?’
‘I don’t know. I’ll go and get the Boatswain.’
Fletcher disappeared into the gloom, leaving Scoop alone.
She listened again. For a moment there was nothing, just the constant thrum of rain.
Just as she was wondering if she’d imagined the noise, a thin, reedy sound floated through the mist. It was ghostly.
What’s that?
The sound died away.
Scoop strained to listen, her breath swirling in the mist.
After a moment, the noise came again, fragile and broken.
It’s a voice. Somebody’s calling. She tried to make out the words.
‘Hel …’ she heard it say. ‘Help.’
Somebody’s in trouble.
‘Help. Have mercy. Somebody help.’ The voice faded into the darkness.
There was movement behind Scoop, and she spun round. Fletcher and the Boatswain stood behind her, pallid in the gloom.
‘What did you hear?’ asked the Boatswain.
Scoop steadied her breathing. ‘Someone’s out there … I think it’s another boat. We heard an oar. And …’ She paused, nervous to name what she’d heard.
‘And what?’ the Boatswain prompted.
‘And … I heard a voice, calling.’
The Boatswain glanced apprehensively at Fletcher. ‘What did it say?’
‘Help,’ Scoop replied. ‘Someone was calling for help.’
The Boatswain and Fletcher moved to the side of the ship and stared out. The fog swirled, twisting around them, shapes forming and dissolving. Scoop had lost all sense of direction. She couldn’t tell where they’d come from, and it was impossible to get a sense of where they were headed. The world had lost its boundaries.
‘I can’t see anything out there,’ said the Boatswain.
‘There’s someone there. I know it.’
‘I can only hear rain on the—’
The Boatswain stopped. Out of the dark, a sound like the ragged whine of a sea creature, drifted across the water. It was definitely a voice.
‘Help,’ it called. ‘Please help. Don’t leave me here.’
The Boatswain turned to Fletcher. ‘Get the pirate.’ Fletcher nodded and disappeared.
There was a wary look in the Boatswain’s eye. ‘What’s out there?’ he muttered.
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Scoop pointed. ‘Look.’ In the cloud, a dark shape was forming.
The Boatswain gazed into the fog. ‘It’s a boat.’
Sure enough, out of the mist, a small skiff emerged. It drifted towards the Black Horizon, one moment visible, then obscured by cloud. It drew closer, its sail hanging limply from its mast. Scoop could make out a figure standing at its prow, holding an oar, every so often paddling to keep the skiff moving.
‘Help,’ the figure called again. ‘Please, help. Don’t leave me to perish.’
By now, the pirate and a few of the others had gathered, news of the sighting having spread.
‘Who is it?’ asked Freddo.
‘I have no idea,’ replied the Boatswain.
The pirate stepped forward. ‘Keep your wits about you.’
The skiff was only a mast’s length away now. Scoop could see the figure more clearly. They were hunched over, dressed in grey robes, a hood concealing their face.
‘Who goes there?’ called the pirate.
The figure stopped paddling and looked up. ‘Just a poor, old man,’ he croaked. ‘The Storyteller bless you, sir. I thought I was going to die out here.’
‘It is just an old man,’ said Pierre. ‘We should help him aboard.’
‘Wait,’ growled the pirate. He eyed the stranger, suspiciously. ‘What are you doing out here, alone in the Southern Ocean?’
‘If you please, sir, I was abandoned. They left me to the cruelty of the sea.’
‘Who? Who abandoned you? And why?’
Nib laid a hand on the pirate’s back. ‘Why don’t we question him when he’s aboard? He’s drenched. He doesn’t look well.’
‘Let him answer.’
‘Whatever his answer, we can’t leave him. He’ll die.’
‘If he answers this, we’ll bring him aboard.’
Nib nodded.
‘I ask again, who abandoned you in these waters?’
Scoop was torn. Nib was right. They couldn’t leave the old man to face the elements. And yet, there was something about the stranger she didn’t trust.
‘If you please, sir, I was aboard the Red Hawk galleon, the one pursuing your ship. But they didn’t appreciate my … my honesty.’
‘Honesty? What do you mean?’
The Firebird Chronicles Page 8