Into the Hourglass

by King, Emily R.

  Jamison devours five kelp pods in a row, shoving them down so fast that I doubt he tastes much. My nerves are too jumpy for me to choke down more than a few bites.

  Radella perks up and points out the window. I run over and see one of our longboats rowing for the docks. A good-size party is aboard, including the unmistakable silhouette of Captain Redmond.

  “Jamison, the captain is leaving with one, two, three . . . eight crewmen. Now’s our time.”

  “Plan two it is, then.” He sweeps his arms at the door while stepping aside. “Laverick, if you’ll do us the honor.”

  She shoves the dulled chisel into the keyhole and then wriggles it until she springs the lock.

  Jamison grabs the knob. “Ready?”

  Radella nods with her whole body, zipping up and down. Laverick and I remove the wooden stakes from where we shoved them down our backs. I ripped the back wall panel off the grandfather clock and cut out makeshift weapons with Neely’s chisel, using the flat end of the hourglass as a hammer. A third weapon, the largest carving I have ever crafted, is tucked into the waistline of my trousers.

  Jamison opens the door. Directly outside, lying with its head and teeth facing us, is the captain’s crocodile. Jamison shuts the door again.

  “Damn. We’re on to plan three. Radella, your turn.”

  The pixie picks up her wooden stake, a smaller version I made for her. Jamison opens the door and she zips out, flying right for Tattler. The croc lunges and snaps at her, but she whizzes through his open jaws, loops upward, and jabs him in the eye.

  The crocodile growls and waddles off, his tail twitching.

  “Go.”

  I slip out, followed by Laverick and then Jamison. The decks are quiet and unoccupied. We cut across the main deck, Radella ahead of us. She pulls up short, but we’re too late. Neely is seated atop a group of barrels, reading. Behind him is the last longboat.

  He lays his book down in his lap. “You shouldn’t be out of your room. You’re going to make trouble for yourselves. Go on, then. Go back to where you belong.”

  “Neely,” I say, “we’re leaving.”

  “You know I can’t let you do that, poppet. The captain has gone to shore to meet the trader. Because of you, he’ll finally be able to buy back his grandfather’s pocket watch.”

  My mouth goes as dry as sand.

  “I like you, poppet,” Neely says, shutting his book. “I don’t wish to hurt you or your friends.”

  “I don’t want to hurt you either, Neely.” I pull the carved pistol from my hip and aim it at him. “Let us pass.”

  “That pistol doesn’t look real.”

  “Are you certain?” I ask, aiming it between his eyes. “Seems like a big mistake for you to make.”

  Neely hesitates, and in that beat of indecision, Jamison and Laverick rush past him for the longboat. Radella stays with me, and although her pixie dust is mightier than the fake pistol in my hand, I wish we were a more formidable team.

  The giant releases a cavernous sigh and gradually stands. My hands are clammy, but my grip on the wooden pistol doesn’t waver. He grabs the end of the pistol in his huge hand, squeezes down, and crushes the stock.

  Jamison and Laverick pause from untying the boat, and we all gape as the broken wood pieces rain down on the deck. Having no fourth plan, I improvise.

  “Radella,” I say, “your turn.”

  The pixie flies at Neely and buzzes around his head. Jamison and Laverick go back to preparing the boat for the water, tugging the ropes and working the block and tackle. I try to slip past the giant while he’s distracted. But Neely bats Radella hard, sending her spinning into a sail. He swings his arms to grab me, and I jump back and draw my stake.

  “Poppet,” Neely says gruffly, “stop this ruckus and return to your cabin with your friends, or I’ll throw you in the brig and tell the captain what you’ve done.”

  Across the way, Jamison and Laverick work faster. Radella has recovered from her crash, her open wings ready to take flight.

  I plant my feet before the giant. “You have to catch us first.”

  He swings his arms to catch me, and I raise my stake to jam it into him. Someone above us whistles, halting us both and drawing our attention upward.

  A shadowed figure stands in the sails and releases a black ball. About the time I realize a cannonball is plunging at us, it strikes Neely in the head. A sickening crack echoes across the deck, and then the giant tips over and lands flat on his back.

  “Holy elderwood,” I say.

  Neely’s head is bleeding. He’s unconscious but breathing.

  Osric drops down from the rigging beside me. I aim the stake at him.

  “No tricks, Everley,” he says, his hands empty of his own weapon. “You’re halfway to escaping. Don’t let me get in your way.”

  I remain on guard, prepared to lunge. Jamison and Laverick are frozen in shock, and Radella peers down from the boom above, her stare incredulous.

  “You’re letting us go?” I ask.

  “Setting Prince Killian free was the captain’s idea, not mine. I want Killian gone for good. We can help each other, but you have to go. Mundy will trade you if you stay, and then it will be impossible for me to help you race Killian to the sword.” When I don’t move, Osric’s voice pitches higher. “Didn’t you hear me, woman? I said go!”

  I keep my wooden stake tight in hand in case he changes his mind and run to the longboat.

  “Go straight to shore,” says Osric, following me, his step urgent and authoritative. “Tell the wharfman you need to find the Lazy Lizard Tavern. He’ll direct you, but if you get lost, listen for the music. The barmaid will know my name, so sit and wait for me.”

  “How do we know we can trust you?” Jamison asks.

  Osric draws his cutlass and lays it on the deck by his feet. “I swear by the Creator by whom my people swear. If I break my oath, may the land open to swallow me, the sea rise to drown me, and the moon fall upon me.”

  He steps away from the weapon. Jamison scoops up the blade and aims it at him. The first mate still has his short sword, but he doesn’t draw it.

  “All right,” says Jamison, “but we get Killian. We need to deliver him to our queen.”

  “She cannot hold him.”

  “Let that be our problem.”

  “We can discuss what we’ll do with Killian later.” Osric steps around Jamison and begins maneuvering the ropes that secure the boat to lower it into the water. “Lord Callahan, I need your assistance.”

  Jamison slowly passes the cutlass to Laverick. She aims the blade at Osric while he and Jamison swing the boat out over the water. The Fox climbs in and I follow her.

  “Once you reach the tavern, go inside and wait for me,” Osric says. “Don’t try to flee or you’ll draw attention to yourselves. Humans aren’t thought of very highly in Eventide and don’t last long unattended. I need to tie up Neely and go belowdecks to ensure that the rest of the crew don’t escape their locked cabins before I meet you.”

  Jamison pulls himself into the boat next to me. Osric need only lower us into the water, yet some of the rigging is snagging on the block and tackle lines. Radella flies over the loose ropes and sprinkles her pixie dust, disappearing the troublesome portion and distributing the weight to the free lines.

  The first mate lowers us into the sea. “Find the Lazy Lizard. Stay together and blend in.”

  After we drop from his sight, Laverick says, “Everley, can we trust him?”

  “I don’t know what choice we have.”

  Jamison and I pick up the oars and row for the docks. No one chases us or sounds an alarm as we maintain a steady pace across the bigger waves into the glassy lagoon.

  As the night sky yawns, thousands of little blue lights begin to glow below us. A few of them float by, and I see they are tiny shellfish. Shadows dart among them, some small, but many big as us. Jamison and I row faster, keeping an eye on the shore while Laverick observes the Undertow. When something bump
s the boat, Radella dives into my pocket.

  “You’re her new favorite,” Jamison notes of the pixie.

  “That’s because I don’t call her names,” I reply, and he arches a brow. “At least not so she can hear me.”

  We row up to the dock, and Laverick jumps off. Jamison tosses her the rope, and then we disembark while the Fox ties off the boat. We start down the dock for land. No one else is here, at least not any other land dwellers. Shadows swim below, and every so often, fins or fish tails break the surface. The glowing blue lights reveal sinuous bodies, yet none of them rise from the shallows to acknowledge us. A different world exists underwater, and we’re not part of it.

  The sandy shoreline is set back from the lagoon, and up a path from the beach and dock, the white clay buildings reflect the soft silver moonlight. Eventide is a quaint seaside village that, if in our world, families would visit and fishermen would hail from, but it seems deserted compared to the constant movements in the sea.

  An elf hefts a pail of sea snails down the beach, and a giant pushes a wheelbarrow full of fish up the steep incline to the village. They are the only people in sight, and neither one appears to be the wharfman.

  Jamison pauses to evaluate the path up the hill. “The tavern can’t be far.”

  Though I would rather wait for directions from the wharfman, I do agree that, in most villages, the taverns, favored havens for sailors, aren’t far from the docks.

  Jamison puts on the tricorn hat that he found at the bottom of a chest in the day cabin, and I lower the hood of my cloak down over my forehead. Laverick ties on one of the pirate’s red head scarves, turning it inside out to hide the image of the sandglass over the skull and crossbones. Radella peeks out of my pocket but doesn’t come out. Together, we climb the path to the village.

  Cool air pours in from the sea, wrapping itself around us in a chilly embrace. We crest the top and stop before a maze of roads that weave uphill. The roads are not cobblestone like they are at home but made up of crushed seashells and coral.

  Everyone must have gone in for the night, because not a soul is in view. The structures closest to us are huts, too small to be public taverns. We all stay close and watchful, gripping our weapons, and start up the widest street.

  Most of the homes and shops are shuttered so tightly that barely any candlelight shines through. About every third building has been boarded up and abandoned. The wind funnels down the closed-in roadway, tearing past us at wicked speeds. My ears roar so loudly that I don’t immediately hear the music until after Jamison turns down a narrower road.

  The melody leads us to a single-story building with a large outdoor terrace full of people. We duck down an alley across the road between two dim shacks and peek out at the lively outdoor gathering place.

  Rigging has been strung above the terrace, resembling fine latticework. Candles burn on the mismatched tables made from trunks and barrels, and three fiddlers play in a corner, their song intermingling with the voices and laughter of patrons. Carved into an old set of oar paddles that make up the entry archway is the name, “The Blood Moon.”

  Except for a group of gnomes sitting on an old chicken crate, most of the creatures are elves or finfolk. I should have assumed the latter could live on land, since their bottom halves are anatomically like ours.

  The crewmen from the pirate ship have clustered together for drinks. Opposite of them, Captain Redmond shares a table with two seedy characters—a burly giant that outsizes even Mundy and an elf wearing a white wig. They are in discussion with the captain. I assume they are the traders.

  My back and hands grow hot and begin to perspire. Although Osric gave us directions to meet him at the tavern, I want to get as far away as possible. Mundy is telling more people about me, about my clock heart.

  Jamison gently grasps my hand and rubs a circle across the back with his thumb. “Let’s keep going,” he says.

  I set off at the front of the group, creeping past the tavern until the music fades out of range. We venture higher, through more shuttered houses, and our view expands of the blue-lit lagoon and the Undertow anchored in the harbor. Farther ahead, the road turns again and again in switchbacks up the mountain, perhaps even to the lookout.

  Over the howling wind, I hear music coming from a two-level structure backed up to the hillside. The crooked sign near the boarded front window reads, “Lazy Lizard.”

  Radella dives into my pocket, and my neck tingles with a shiver. Even though I can hear the music playing inside and Osric said it was safe to go in, this place doesn’t look habitable. Jamison and Laverick guard my back while I tread up to the main entrance and push inside.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Lazy Lizard smells of stale seaweed and spilled grog. A stairway by the entrance leads to the upper level, the staircase unlit and uninviting. We follow the candlelight and the sultry music into the open dining area.

  Tables are set in the center of the tavern. I locate one near the outskirts of the room and cross to it, evading eye contact with the bartender, barmaid, and seated patrons. Radella hisses in my pocket as we pass the bar, at what or whom I cannot tell.

  The slower music switches to a swinging beat. Onstage, in a tub full of water, a female merrow sings a melody different from her peers’ summons of enchantment. She lies on her back, gripping the sides of the tub with her slim green fingers and black nails. Her opaque tail fin drapes over the bottom of the tub, and her hair cascades over her shoulders and outside the basin. Her tresses are duller when dry, gray green like the northern hills of Wyeth, and the scales of her lower body glimmer from green to blue to indigo with an undertone of violet. Her ears stick out like fins, and her onyx eyes gaze emptily into the audience. Outside the tub, also on the small stage, two elves play a toe-tapping beat on drums.

  Jamison has paused in the alcove. I go ahead of him, assuming he will follow, but he is stalled in the doorway, fixated on the merrow. Laverick pulls him along to the table. He slides onto my bench and she sits across from us. He hasn’t removed his focus from the merrow. Her tune is different than the one the merrows sang to call us to the sea, and none of the other patrons appear influenced by her voice.

  I raise my hood and set my hand on Jamison’s knee. “Is she enchanting you?”

  “No, but I’ve no trust that she won’t.” He grips my hand so hard his knuckles bleed of color.

  At the next table, an elven gentleman in satin, the first elf I have seen with gray hair, keeps company with a lass in an olive gown. Other groups are scattered throughout the dining area, some in parties of three or four. As far as I can see, we are the only humans.

  A barmaid arrives at our table to take our order. Radella hisses at her, and I sit back, startled by the girl’s bare feet and shapeless burlap sheath. Her most stunning feature is her long silver hair that hangs to the floor. She squints her pale-gold eyes at us.

  “Did you go out alone?” asks the barmaid. “We don’t serve unattended humans.”

  “We’re waiting for someone,” I say. “First Mate Osric of the Undertow.”

  “Oh, Osric! He’s so handsome, isn’t he handsome? I’ll bring you some whiskies. And what can I get your pixie friend?”

  Radella hisses at her. The barmaid woofs gruffly like a dog in return and storms away.

  “Did you hear her bark?” asks Laverick, her tone touched by amazement. “I think she might be a selkie.”

  She may be right. Selkies are seal people, men and women who change forms between a seal and a human depending on whether they’re on land or at sea. Most sailors and seafarers have heard of them, though they are rarely seen in our world. According to myth, selkies shed their sealskins to become human. Whoever owns their skin owns them.

  “I don’t care what she is,” I say. “Radella, you’re being rude.”

  The pixie trills at me and juts out her chin.

  The barmaid returns with three glasses of whisky and a thimble full of pink fluid. “Flower nectar for the pixie,
” she explains curtly before leaving to serve another patron.

  I pour the entire cup of whisky down my throat in one go. It’s flavorful, though a tad watered down. Radella flies from my pocket to the table and samples her drink. Her wings perk up at the first taste, and then she pretends to glower as she glugs the whole thimble.

  The merrow’s tune changes to a sea chantey, a story about a woman who left her lover for the land of the giants. The older elf and his companion near us get up to dance, as do more and more couples. Jamison swallows his whisky and bangs the glass down.

  “Everley, come dance with me.”

  “But your knee—”

  “Is fine.” Jamison stands and offers me his hand. “Osric told us not to draw attention to ourselves, and most everyone is dancing, so we should try to fit in.”

  I look to Laverick for help.

  She gives a one-shouldered shrug. “He did say not to stand out.” She shoves at me. “Go on. Radella and I will keep an eye out for Osric.”

  I accept Jamison’s outstretched hand. He leads me to the dance floor and pulls me in close. “We never danced on our wedding night,” he remarks.

  “That’s because I wanted to throttle you.”

  He chuckles and tugs me closer, holding me close despite the lively music. We rock gently, hitting every other downbeat. After our escape from the ship, the slower pace is about all my tired clock heart can withstand.

  His voice curls into my ear. “Did you ever imagine this day would end with us dancing?”

  I never would have thought that I would accept his invitation, but we should maximize the time we have together before we return to our old lives.

  “Did I say something wrong?” Jamison asks.

  “Not at all.” My clock heart beats faster, but still too softly. I rest my head against his shoulder. “You’re a fine dancer, Lord Callahan.”

  “As are you, Lady Callahan.”

  I wince instinctually at his use of my title. He doesn’t seem to notice. His ideas for what our lives will be like when we go home will be spoiled eventually. For now, let him have his dreams, and honestly, I am flattered they include me.