“You can’t leave,” Peggy said. “The ship chose you. It’s your des—”
“If you say it’s my destiny to be on this clunker, I’m going to overload the power supply so you’re all dead in the water, do a backflip off this ship, and swim to Port des Morts. I swear I will.” I looked at Commander Hollander. “I’m leaving because you stole me away from my parents. I’m making it right by going to the Far Island. I don’t owe you anything. Not time, energy, respect, manners, and certainly not my afterlife.”
I tossed my hair and stormed out, but limping footsteps behind me made me turn around, then roll my eyes. Commander Hollander was bracing himself on the bulkhead as he lurched out of the sick bay. “Wait,” he wheezed. “Don’t… don’t…”
“Dude, go back to bed,” I said, lowering my voice. “Don’t die just to boss me around. Peggy! Come get him!”
He came to rest a few feet in front of me, a hand on his injuries. “You have to stay,” he said, breathing hard. “There’s a weak point right by Virginia Beach. It’s where they were sailing from when they hooked up to the Taft. Something’s going to happen in my hometown.”
His hometown?
But…
But…
But Virginia Beach was my hometown.
“You’re from Virginia Beach?” I asked.
“Yes. And I know I don’t have any right to ask, but please stay onboard and help the ship upgrade. Please join the crew. My family could be in danger.”
I gulped, unable to meet his eyes. “What’s your alma mater?”
Maybe he was lying. This would be a quick acid test.
“I went to high school at Norfolk Collegiate, and then graduated through Old Dominion University’s NJROTC program eight years ago.”
Several sailors walked past us in the passageway, only sparing a glance at the injured officer and the nuke.
“Norfolk Collegiate.” I let out a long breath, carefully choosing my words, laying my trap. “Did you have Mr. Stern for math? He was cool.”
He straightened, not even wincing. “Did you go there, too? Mr. Stern taught World Lit when I attended.”
He wasn’t lying. Well, I’ll be.
I nodded. “No, you’re right. He taught World Lit, not math. I graduated two years ago. Salutatorian. I was in the prom queen’s court, too. President of the Jewish Student Association in my senior year. Did that partnership program with Eastern Virginia Medical School, you know the one, where students can shadow a doctor for a day?”
“My best friend’s little brother did that! His brother’s name was Daniel Levinson. He might’ve gone there when you did.”
Talk about a small world.
“Danny was the president of the JSA when I was a freshman. I thought he was cute. I don’t think he ever knew I was alive.” Though he definitely would’ve heard I was dead. We’d attended the same synagogue.
We stared at each other. I hugged myself, then said, “I bet you looked up at the jets whenever they flew over when you were a kid, didn’t you? And you said, that’s gonna be me one day.”
His large eyes were wet. “And you looked out at the ocean and said, I’m going to go out there one day.”
“We ran in the same social circle, even. We’re the same. Same high school, same friends, same call to the sea.”
“Yes, and—”
“So you’re not better than me, sir.” A sob escaped my chest as I said it.
He gasped. “Rachel, I don’t think I’m better than you.”
“Then why won’t you apologize?”
We were two Virginia Beach natives, born and raised under the same sky. We’d gone to the same high school. We’d known the same people. We’d walked the same halls, studied under the same instructors, breathed the same air. I was him, and he was me. It was only a quirk of fate that he was an officer and I was enlisted, and that quirk was that I’d been so desperate to stick it to my parents that I’d driven to the recruiter’s office at eight in the morning on my eighteenth birthday.
I could’ve been an officer. I could’ve been a Navy doctor. I could’ve been in command of a ship one day. And had I been all of these things, I never would’ve strode around an engine room and called the engineers nerds, and I never would’ve been so lofty in my thinking that it never occurred to me to take ownership of a mistake that had killed twenty-five people.
Because he never had. He’d simply insisted that it was all an accident, that he hadn’t meant to—as if that somehow excused the damage he’d wreaked in a single second. Drunk drivers never meant to kill their victims, but somehow they ended up in jail all the same.
My father had probably forgotten his terrible parting words to me the second he’d said them…but I never would. I couldn’t. They were a part of me, as much as my curly hair and overbite. They’d sunk into my soul, and now my soul was all that I had. Was all that I was.
Commander Hollander placed a hand on my shoulder, his breath coming in little puffs from the pain he was in. “I’m sorry,” he said, so softly I could barely hear him. “I’m really sorry. I don’t know what I did, but I must’ve done something wrong, because the rest of the guys in the air landed. I’m so sorry, Petty Officer. It was my mistake. I just wish I knew what it was.”
The pain in my chest shattered, shards of regret and anger flying everywhere inside—but the resentment began to drain away. I’d just wanted an apology, an acknowledgment that he’d harmed me.
I rubbed my eyes and looked at him, and though I was still unhappy that I was dead, seeing his face did not make me want to dropkick him anymore.
He gave me a sad half-smile. “Will you sign the book? We need all the nukes we can get, and the ship does need an upgrade. It’s hardly ocean-worthy anymore.”
I sniffed and shook my head. “I’m going to wait for my family. I’m their only child. I’m all they have.”
He sighed, then nodded. “I understand.” His leg wobbled, and he fell to one knee.
I helped him to his feet, and he staggered as his leg gave way again. I caught him and threw his arm over my shoulder. “Did Peggy explain why some things injure us, but Commander Muree’s bullet didn’t hurt you?” I began to help him into the sick bay.
He placed a hand to his chest and sucked in a shaking breath. “Magical weapons, and magical attacks, can’t hurt the people who create them, or their allies. Scylla is a beast of untold power, and she’s definitely not my friend. Peggy and Dot are doing the best they can, but the ship isn’t fitted for this kind of wound.”
I helped him into bed again, a new lump forming in my throat.
“But if it were to upgrade, it might be,” Peggy said from the doorway. “You’re being very selfish for not signing the book.”
I ran from the room, slamming the door behind me. I leaned against the bulkhead, pain pulsing in my temples as if Peggy had struck me.
I was not selfish. I was not selfish. I was not selfish. I was going to meet my parents, and nobody had any right to shame me for making the choice.
When I’d gotten my heart under control, I hurried down the passageway toward the female berthing. When I was inside, I slipped underneath my scratchy wool blanket and squeezed my eyes shut.
I’m not selfish.
10
“And you’re really not going to join the crew?”
I resisted the urge to step on Dot’s foot. This was all beginning to border on harassment. “Yes, for the millionth time, I’m sure.”
We were idling in the hangar bay while other sailors set up the covered gangplank, which obscured our view of the landing area of the port. Only the wings of the beach, far to each side, were visible. Any additional view was blocked by a neighboring ship in the next pull-in spot at the port. The Royal Canadian Navy’s ghost ship, the HMCS Sérendipité was a large battleship, and if the waving sailors were any indication, they were very friendly. It was impossible to miss how run-down the ship was, though. Parts of it had been patched up with wooden boards.
S
he fiddled with the cuff of her sleeve, her eyebrows drawn together in deep concern. “But… Port des Morts is dangerous, Petty Officer. And I’m sure you’re very courageous, but it takes more than bravery when you’re dealing with the people who live there.” She pointed a slim finger toward a remote area on the shore.
The place she indicated looked like a campground. Tents dotted the small hill, about fifty in all, and small campfires were burning even though it was daytime. Tiny people milled around the area, though I couldn’t tell if they were men or women. Children were dashing here and there, though, so there were probably a few families.
“What is that place?”
“A refugee camp. Please promise me you’ll stay away from the fairies. Most of them are fine, but there’s always a few malcontents from the war, and you have no way to discern who is whom.”
I watched the children run around a little more, then turned to Dot. “I promise.”
“And don’t fall in love with one just because he’s good looking. They’re all just trouble.”
Real laughter bubbled out of me. “I promise, no fairies, no ill-advised romance.”
“Liberty call!” One of the chiefs waved a clipboard around in the air. “Sign out on this sheet! Everyone has to be on board by eighteen hundred, no exceptions!”
“Except me,” I said, slinging my seabag over my shoulder. “Thanks for everything, Dot.” I gave her my firmest handshake, then joined Bickley and Torres in the line.
“Name and rank,” the chief said when I reached the gangplank.
“Rachel Goldstein, no rank. I’m getting off.”
He looked up from his clipboard. “You’re disembarking for good?”
“Yes.”
He looked at Bickley and Torres, his eyes darting back and forth between them worriedly. “Are you two going with her?”
“Only for liberty,” Bickley said. “But we’re part of the crew. We’ll be back tonight.”
The chief stared at me for another second, then dug around in his pocket for a few seconds before removing three silver coins. “Take these,” he said, placing them in my hand and folding my fingers over them. “And stay away from the fairies, okay?”
Stay away from the fairies. If it was worth repeating, it was worth remembering.
“I will, thanks,” I said softly. I put them in my pocket and hurried down the gangplank, determinedly not looking back at the ship that had been my home for a few days.
I walked off the gangplank, taking my first hesitant step onto the land of the undead. It was an underwhelming moment—land felt the same here—but as soon as I truly focused on what was around me, I forgot all comparisons.
Port des Morts was unlike any port city I’d ever seen. Marseilles, Palma, Rhodes, Lisbon, Dubai, Naples, Southhampton, Bahrain… I’d seen them all. But none of them had anything on Port des Morts, the “port of the dead people.”
I walked around with my mouth open, agog at the endless rows of booths and stands. People crowded around them, swapping silver coins for fruits unlike any I’d ever seen, in odd shapes, with bizarre little bits sticking off of them. Some of the fruits were even moving. An old man was peeling purple paisley bananas and feeding slices to a parrot-like bird. The bird swallowed, and its feathers became purple paisley, too.
An old lady caught my eye and held up a beautiful necklace, the lapis lazuli pendant glinting in the sunlight. “Pretty bauble for the pretty girl?”
I rubbed my Star of David and shook my head, moving on before she should argue. I hadn’t taken more than three steps before I ran into a small stand selling the loveliest dresses I’d ever seen, all cut from a material that shimmered with rainbow fire, like opal cloth.
“Did you see that?” Torres asked suddenly. “Someone was watching us from behind that kiosk.”
I looked, but there was nobody there.
“It’s crowded,” Bickley said. “Let’s keep moving.”
The farther end of the market dealt in living, breathing goods, such as squawking birds in cages, cats with multiple tails, snakes with diamond-encrusted scales, and lizards that blew fire from their nostrils.
Another kiosk offered tiny blown glass balls with moving lights inside them. Upon examination, I realized that they were alive—tiny little winged creatures, darting around with gauze-like wings and emanating a light from their insides as fireflies did. I reached out to touch one, but a gnarled hand on mine stopped me. It was an old lady with emerald-green hair and eyes. “Don’t touch,” she said, her voice raw and rough.
I backed away.
The final part of the market was foodstuffs, and I had to remind myself that I didn’t need to eat. Dripping meats on spits were being sliced off and stuffed into bread, and fresh fruits were being squeezed into pewter tankards. Delicate, spindly candies were as tempting to me as they were to the throngs of small children looking at them with big eyes.
Such delights for a sailor such as myself. Alas, I had only the three coins. Common sense dictated that I move on.
I walked beyond the port market into the city proper…and saw at once why it was the Mos Eisley of this world.
Rowdy bars filled with young men lined much of the street, their drunken inhabitants fighting outside them, sleeping in corners, or stumbling around. Every few doors, young women in shocking outfits beckoned to passerby, cooing at them and fluttering their eyelashes. The few businesses that weren’t bars or houses of ill repute were shuttered and dimly lit, their true purposes left to my imagination.
Only one such business had a sign above the entrance: The House of the Setting Sun. From the doorway, a handsome man about my age, hooded and cloaked, pointed a gloved finger at me. “Sailor. You wish to go to the Far Island.” A shaft of light fell across his face, causing sparkles around his eyes to reveal themselves.
I stopped in the middle of the road, foot traffic flowing all around me. I had no particular destination in the city, though I needed to find some kind of shelter, and this guy seemed to have answers.
But I wasn’t stupid. Guys in hoods who knew stuff I hadn’t told them were trouble. Always.
I held up a hand. “No thanks. Just passing through.”
He smiled enigmatically. “I’ll be here when you return.”
Another hooded man brushed past me, stopped in the doorway, and spoke inaudibly to the man who’d spoken to me. They both nodded once, and then the second man hurried inside.
The first man looked back to me. “You should leave, sailor.”
I backed up. Yeah, okay. Doing that now.
Bickley and Torres caught up with me and pulled me away. “Don’t talk to anyone,” Bickley ordered. “I just saw a guy with a revolver. Let’s assume everyone’s armed and none of them are your friends.”
Torres pointed ahead. “There. I see a restaurant, I think. It doesn’t look too creepy. Let’s go there.”
Bickley put his arms around the both of us, and we hustled along the busy street until we were at the doorway of “Aurora’s.”
Aurora’s was a small pub, quiet compared to the other establishments on the street. Through the gabled windows, people sat in huddles around rough-hewn wooden tables, eating food from pewter plates and drinking from large flagons. A roaring fire lent it a distinct cheer that the rest of the street lacked.
My hand was on the wooden door when I noticed three more men in cloaks down the street, watching us without any pretense of looking occupied.
I wanted to go back to the ship.
But I pushed open the door, and we went inside. A few patrons looked up from their food, but nobody greeted us or otherwise acknowledged that we were there. We sat at a corner table.
Torres leaned forward, her hands on her head. “Rach, please. You can’t stay here.”
Yeah… I had already come to that conclusion myself, but what option did I have? I’d told everyone I was leaving, and I wasn’t going to waltz back on the ship and be like, “Psych! Changed my mind!”
It wasn’t a simp
le pride issue, either. It was a core value issue. The US Navy’s Sailor’s Creed demanded that I “represent the fighting spirit of the Navy”—and what kind of sailor ran from a rowdy port? US sailors lived and breathed rowdy ports. I was self-evidently a spirit, and now it was time to prove that I had fight left in me.
On the other hand, I had a rack waiting for me on the Saint Catherine, and I was reasonably sure nobody would rob me in the middle of the night there. I was brave, but I wasn’t a moron—I knew that a lone woman out of her element was an easy target. The men in cloaks were probably part of a local organized crime outfit, and they’d made me their next mark. I’d have to watch myself, and my seabag, very carefully.
A middle-aged woman in a shimmery dress and a leather apron came up to us. She was plump, and her eyes bore the same sparkles that I’d seen on the hooded man’s face. Her raven-black hair fell to her waist. The whole effect was that of someone trying to be human and failing miserably.
“Are you Aurora?” I asked.
“Yes, this is my tavern. What can I get you?”
I held up one of the silver coins. “What can this get me?”
Her sharp eyes locked onto the coin. “Drinks for you and your friends, and a place to stay for the night.”
I placed the coin in her outstretched hand, and she wandered into a back room. Through the door, I could see her speaking to two men. She shot several furtive looks our way.
I looped the strap of my seabag around my leg.
Torres leaned forward. “What do you think they eat here? I wouldn’t mind testing out the food just for curiosity’s sake.”
“I don’t know,” Bickley said, “But earlier I saw some fruit that looked like it could bite me back. Let’s just eat in the galley.”
The door opened again, and this time two men in black pants and blue shirts came in. They spoke briefly with the man behind the bar, who nodded and slid two flagons of a foamy, amber-colored liquid at them.
Torres stood partially. “Those men are in the Royal Canadian Navy. Check out their flag insignia.”
Bickley caught their eye and waved, and the men came over with their drinks. “Hey, what do you know?” the taller one said. “Haven’t had a drink with the US Navy in an age. How are you guys doing?”
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