by Opal Edgar
“This is my mark,” he said, as if tattoos were totally fine. “Now, there’s sand in the pouch. If you want to see me, just—”
His sentence was cut by a lugubrious wail. We both jumped and looked to the horizon: where the silhouette of a black galleon had appeared. The village erupted into a frenetic cacophony. Heads popped out of windows. People emerged from shadows. Flying creatures zipped past. The boardwalk shook under an army of running footsteps. A woman jumped from a roof, showing off a pair of green boots. She came back up with pistols and a fierce smile.
“Oh no, this is not what I had in mind, and Elise still isn't here. Keep this for me,” Lil’Mon said, shoving a blue thread on top of the pouch.
“What do you mean Elise? She’s coming here?”
One blink he was there, the next, only a dash of sand remained on my shoe.
Chapter 5
Brushing Sleeves With Slavers
I turned on the spot to make sure, but there was no doubting the empty space. Lil’Mon was gone. A squeaky sound stopped me from spinning round again. The villagers were pulling cannons onto the sand. They were literally the size of elephants, each needed a dozen adults to point them at the sea. I turned again to look at the waves. The galleon was certainly not a wanted visitor.
“Ready!” yelled a couple of parrots from the honey-fruit trees. “Fire!”
I barely had time to throw myself to the ground. The cannon balls hurled through the air, whistling and smoking, and falling short of the ship by a good 50 metres.
“What is wrong with you?” I yelled. “You tried to blow me to smithereens!”
“So what? Get out of the way if you don’t want to turn into a puzzle,” the parrots yelled back. “Second round, people! Correct aim! Ready! ... Fire!”
I crawled on my hands and knees away from the madness. I guess they couldn’t kill me, but in that case why bother shooting at people at all?
“If he’s got no ship, he’s got no way to escape, does he now?” The woman wearing the green boots said.
I blinked at her in surprise. How did she know what I was thinking?
“Telepathy,” she said, not looking at me. “Get out of the way, swabbie, because it sucks getting sewn back together. If he lands, this pirate is the booty collecting type. You’d better hide.”
But I couldn’t. Any moment, Lil’Mon was going to drag Elise here. What was wrong with that kid? I wanted her nowhere near pirates! The galleon was much closer now, close enough that the black holes of its own cannon stared at us like mean eyes. Thunder broke. Toxic clouds of smoke erupted from the ship, swirling in the wake of fire balls.
“Uh-oh.” Green-boots plunged to the ground.
The beach turned into a tidal wave of sand as the cannon balls struck. We were propelled up into the air with monumental force. My skin was pulled back from my face. Dirt and glass and fish floated all round us. Everything was in the air. We kept moving up, above trees and houses and calling birds. Everyone squirmed and kicked and yelled like terrified cats. I held tight onto the pouch and the thread.
“Merlin! Damn it! How do I get Lil’Mon to come back?”
A fire blazed into existence, fizzing like fireworks. Burning heat kicked me in the back, blasting me further. The screaming redoubled as the smell of singed hair permeated the air. And then we all started to fall back down. Gaining momentum, plunging towards the crystal sea—
Sss-wing!
The impact was surprisingly bouncy, and dry. No time to look. I was thrust back up and crashed into a hairy chest on his way down. He shoved me out of his follicles with gorilla arms – even his face was hairy. He had a bear’s head: all teeth and growl. I pushed away, but, as soon as we were down again, the net closed, keeping all of us intimately mingled.
A foot kicked me in the back. A knee lodged itself into my stomach. I tried to push the hairy beast away from me, but a bouncy bottom was in the way. The most I could do was grab a handful of netting and hoist my face towards it instead.
The land disappeared on the horizon. Flapping sails rushed us away. Beneath us, the dark planks of the galleon’s deck swayed in rhythm with the waves. The pirates had kidnapped us. But why?
I pulled on the net for a better view. There wasn’t a soul from prow to stern, except for us sad slobs hanging here. I twisted round, checking I still had my pouch and thread. If I wiggled a little more I could work my arm to my pocket and stuff it all in. The net spun round. The knee dug deeper into my stomach and someone grabbed my arm to avoid sinking their heels into a hedgehog-like creature. My pocket mission had failed, but now I could see the captain’s deck. Not that he was there. The ship’s wheel turned by itself, abandoned. I’d always thought captains were glued to that thing.
“No one’s steering,” I said.
White knuckles appeared under my nose. Real knuckles, no skin, tendon or joints: just bone.
“Steering is overrated,” a man said, bringing his face closer.
I looked straight into his black empty orbits. The ivory of his polished skull shone in the sunlight, despite the large brim of his feathered hat.
“A skeleton pirate!”
“I beg your pardon!” he exclaimed, his jaws and teeth clicking. “I am no pirate! I am the very respectable Captain Pieterson of the Burning Lady Elisheba frigate, and I am here today to accomplish the proper purge on you people of low moral fibre. You are to be sacrificed today for a higher purpose! Rejoice in the chance to serve the grand design of the humble Monster that I am, and heed the call of the God of the depths!”
He pulled off his huge black hat, sweeping it across his chest, ostrich feather and all, and pointed it to the ocean. It was grandiosely over the top, like a theatrical actor waiting for his applause. People yelled incoherently and, as if in answer, the trap door leading to the lower levels, exploded open. Monsters poured out onto the deck. They spewed forth so forcefully that a barrel was hurled at a mast. Fibrous sauerkraut sprayed the deck, splashing us in vinegar, and still the boat kept spilling its guts. Playing cards erupted in a whirlwind round the mob. They were followed by crates and dried anchovies skewered on lines.
A giant glob of goo flew out and splashed onto the face of a fish-headed man. Fish-man took out his sword and hacked at the goo, which laughed as it reabsorbed each of the falling bits. Crew members were having a go at each other everywhere, tumbling in locked fist fights, obliterating crates under them. It was chaos.
The mob toppled to the side where we were hanging, and the boat tilted abruptly. Cases of dried fish tumbled and overturned. Sailors slipped on the deck as the ship rose higher out of the sea. The fallen men were trampled into the perfect carpet for those who kept fighting. The net swayed over the waves as we reached an almost perpendicular angle to the horizon. People with me yelled in fright.
“I can’t swim!” I cried, provoked by the mass hysteria.
At the last moment, the crew dispersed. The galleon flopped back down. Water sloshed inside, washing the deck almost clean. The free creatures laughed and kept at it. They punched each other in jest, and answered with vicious sword jabs.
The captain slowly shook his wet boots, his face was unreadable: skeletons don’t really have the muscles needed for facial expressions. He turned to appraise his crew. His tall black clad silhouette broke the horizon like a whiplash.
“Who wasted our food?” he asked, voice flat.
And despite his voice not reaching a quarter of the decibels of his fighting crew, everything stopped. Swords remained pointed at the sky. Feet were poised mid-air, ready to trample the enemy. Crates balanced precariously in sailor’s hands. The only noise to be heard was the creaking of the net. Three sailors were kicked forwards by their mates. They blanched and dropped their improvised weapons. One dropped to his knees, while the other two begged, and all three of them trembled.
“Overboard,” the captain said, quieter still.
The sailors turned to run back into the crowd for protection, but hundreds of limbs where in t
he way. The sailors yelled. Without mercy they were grabbed, picked up, and surfed away on the lifted hands. Left, right, low and high. They zoomed past and off the ship. Three splashes echoed eerily as the other captives tensed round me.
“Cut them down,” the captain said.
A machete flew low, grazing the bottom of the net. We spilt out like fresh cement: thoroughly mixed and grey at the gills.
“It’s your lucky day,” the captain said. “I’ve just had the misfortune of losing three crew members. So, my good people, you have a choice: serve the magnificent, never equalled, Burning Lady Elisheba, or join those poor sods in the greedy clutches of Poseidon!”
The villagers looked at each other. The glint of hope burned crimson in their eyes. A first cry lifted on the ocean breeze, and I got ready for more tumbling. But, on cue, the door from the captain’s personal quarters swung open.
A beautiful girl with long coal black hair and dazzling dark blue eyes swept onto the deck. She strode out, corseted in a huge dress that would have been right at home in a fairy-tale. It was a lighter blue than her eyes, gave her the tiniest wasp-like waist, and flared so she could hide at least four tigers under the skirt if she wanted. It was totally impractical, and amazing.
“I beg your pardon!” she exclaimed.
My jaw dropped as I recognised the girl from the shadow corridor.
“Elise? What are you doing here?”
She directed her dazzling smile at me, and, all round, people paled with envy.
“Sir Tosho! The Little Monarch, you might know him under the abbreviation Lil’Mon, did something very foolish. I am henceforth at your service if you desire a travelling companion. And I seem to have arrived just in time to stop a most unacceptable crime.”
She turned dark eyes at our skeleton captain. His knuckles clicked as he crossed his arms defensively.
“Do I make snarky comments when you run your world, young lady?” he said.
“You don’t need too, Father, ’tis run with uttermost care and fairness.”
No! That couldn't be! This was Elise’s father? This was where she lived?
Elise’s dad drew himself upright, gave a curt bow, slapped his hat on his head and stalked to his cabin: skull, ostrich feather, black silhouette and all. The door slammed shut.
People clamoured and jumped. Then the kidnapped islanders and the pirate crew sized each other up. A sideways glance got a crude gesture in return. A punch punctuated the exchange and immediately the fight started again – villagers against sailors. A man with barnacles growing on his face grabbed one of the skeletons in the crew and ripped his arms off. He used them to bash a creature made of teeth and claws. I lost track of who belonged to each camp.
“Shameful.” Elise grimaced, turning an angry crimson colour.
She hoisted herself on a miraculously intact crate. Something crabby-looking missed her by an ant’s breadth. She pulled her corset away from her body to breathe in. A frightening determination shone in her face. Sticking her thumb and index finger in her mouth she whistled. It was loud enough to pierce the ears of deep water morays and raise all the inhabitants of the deep out of their slumber.
Heads turned – hundreds of monstrous faces growling and ready to turn their claws against her. But their faces became slack as they saw her furious scowl.
“Any of you, wretched souls, continue this display and I’ll throw you overboard myself! ’Tis appalling! Now drop your armaments, give everyone their limbs back and clean this foul mess up!”
The beastly crowd blinked, and mops suddenly replaced the weapons. The deck was littered with smelly detritus, but none complained. They swept the mess overboard while the prisoners rearranged their clothes. I stared dumbfounded. The threat came from a 16-year-old girl in a big dress. What could she possibly do to them to make them so obedient? Elise let the remnant of her temper blow into the wind. She smoothed her skirts and smiled at me. I barely remembered to close my mouth.
“I’m most ashamed you had to witness that folly. My father is a slaver and a murderer. I profoundly detest him. I have tried multiple times to alter him, but nothing will do. All I can manage is raiding the ship from time to time and freeing his prisoners. We all have our burdens, don’t we?” she confessed.
My heart beat faster as my brain filled with images of my own father. She hopped off her crate.
“He used to be a good man, would you believe. He imported tulips. Flowers were my mother’s passion. But ’twas a bad year. The cargo rotted and we lost everything except the ship. Father didn’t tell us – he thought he could get enough money to start up the business again if he made a deal with the slavers … just once, he thought, but then there was the tulip collapse … and mother found out about the slaves. The shame killed her. She threw herself in the ocean. My father couldn’t abide our life anymore: our house, our village and the whole of Holland reminded him of her. He moved us to the Americas. But they didn’t grow flowers like in Holland. They didn’t care. Slaves on the other hand ... and by that time my father didn’t care about anyone’s pain but his own.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I,” she said.
“They’re still fighting?”
“Who?” she wondered.
I pointed at the captain’s door with my chin. I hadn’t seen her mother anywhere near the boat, so I guessed she hadn’t swam back. Elise looked down, the anger falling away from her, leaving behind a pit of sadness.
“When I died, I thought I would be joined with her again. I didn’t yet know the rules. The drowned belong to Poseidon, you see. He fashions their bodies in his image, fish tails and gills, then plucks their souls and reshapes it into foam and waves. I haven’t talked to her since her death. Mermaids are elusive.”
“Your mother’s a mermaid!” I exclaimed, louder than I’d intended.
“She is. ’Tis father’s obsession: getting her back, even if he has to drown half the coast and sew legs onto her himself. Mermaids cannot be contacted, they cannot come out of the water and they cannot be traced because their souls are not inside of them anymore, but on their outside. Do you understand?”
I nodded vaguely.
“This ocean we rogue over, it is all a soul soup. Only Poseidon can free my mother, if he desires.”
When she looked up, a tear trailed down her cheek, but her lips smiled. I pretended to believe it.
“Let us not dwell on the past, ’tis but a bag-O-sorrows. Let’s adjourn while the crew remains civil. I loathe them so.”
We dodged zipping sailors and hauled fish. It turned out that the deck’s planks weren't black. I marvelled at the polished wood peeking out under the efforts of the sloshing buckets. Nice sturdy oak: a workman’s pride.
“I still don’t understand anything that’s going on. There are actually rules to this place?” I asked.
“Of course!” Elise reassured me. “’Tis very simple—”
My foot was sucked backwards. I fell flat on my face. Cheeks burning, I entangled a black sack from round my ankles. But the more I pulled away, the more it unravelled. The more it looked like a cape, the more I grew uneasy. It reminded me of something bad. Elise lifted a flap with two careful fingers. A tiny black bottle dropped out. It rolled to her slipper. She crouched and picked it up. The cape fluttered back down and I stepped away, not wanting that thing anywhere near me.
I walked into an ornate oak door. Carved in the middle of it was a beautiful woman’s face. It was wooden and smooth, with delicate slit eyes and a crimson mouth opening on black teeth. It almost looked real. Its shiny black hair swayed round the oval of its face. Horse hair was the norm. It didn’t look German, but we had our share of carnival masks, and I had carved my own witch head last year. But the hair looked too silky to be horse mane. I lifted my hand to check.
“Don’t!” Elise shouted.
Too late. My fingers brushed the fine grain of the wood … and stayed glued to it. The red mouth opened into a savage smile and the mask unhinged it
self from the door, flying towards my face. I shook my arm, trying to get it off. Now, it was attached to my whole palm!
“What’s going on?” I yelled.
“’Tis a mask!”
“I can see it’s a mask!”
“Don’t let it anywhere near your face!” she screamed.
I backpedalled as the mask pushed forwards. It fought to come closer and won centimetres every second. How could something without a body be so strong? I threw my other arm out, grabbing tight onto the mask to stop its progress. Now both hands were stuck to it. And still it was inching towards me faster than I could wrestle it away.
Elise grabbed a plank. I threw her a worried look.
A pearly mist sprouted from the mask, growing into a human shape: a woman, all tense muscles stretched over a solid squat frame. The mask was her face. We rolled on the deck, anchovy-stink sinking into our clothes.
Elise ran, swinging the plank over her head. I tried to hold the mask-woman up, but she was having none of it. Her nails, sharp as surgical tools, pierced into my side. I grunted, propelling her towards the railing of the boat. The mask-woman was getting dangerously close to my face. Of course, I could have kicked her in the solar plexus, but that might have shattered ribs. I didn’t want to shatter her ribs.
“Please!” I said. “Just stop! I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Sir Tosho! She is going to hurt YOU! Don’t waver!” Elise said.
I tried spinning towards Elise, using the wall behind my shoulder for momentum. But the misty woman knew what I was doing and didn’t fight it. We twirled round and I hit the railing hard with my back. Air whooshed out of my lungs. She pounced. Well, as much as you can pounce when both your cheeks are held at arm’s length by the person you’re trying to get to. She flew over my head in a backflip, over the rail, the momentum dragging me with her. Overboard we went.
