Her eyes remained closed and yet she could see that she was traveling through the air at a furious rate of knots — out across the dock and the harbor, out to the harbor wall and through the Academy arch, out beyond into the open ocean.
The speed of her motion was as exhilarating as it was giddying. The craggy coastline rushed past in a blur, the weather changing from sun to cloud and rain and then, just as quickly, back again. She continued to breathe deeply, letting this strange tide carry her wherever it wanted. She was unsure whether she should be fearful or excited about this journey.
She came to a point where she lost all sense of speed and she found herself swathed in a soft white mist, through which nothing was visible. The giddying sensation gave way to a deep calm. She felt safe. She sensed she was being looked after, held and guided by unseen hands. She waited.
Gradually the mist lifted and she was exactly where she had hoped to be — back on the deck of the Vampirate ship. She was standing up and yet she could not feel the deck-boards beneath her feet, nor the rocking motion of the ship. It made her understand that she was not really there, not wholly there — not in any normal sense. Grace thought of Darcy’s visit to her cabin on The Diablo. Somehow, she had managed to make her own spirit journey! How had she done it? How was she going to get back? She brushed the questions aside for a moment, just thrilled to be here.
It was daylight and the deck was deserted, as she would have expected at this time of day. She stood for a moment beneath the ship’s dark, winglike sails. A breeze was blowing and they billowed above her. Grace reached out a hand toward the strange leathery material. Her hand could not touch it — just as Darcy’s hands could not touch anything during her visit to The Diablo. Grace’s fingers moved through the sail, as if it were a hologram. Even so, as they passed through it, a spark of light shot up through the veins of the material. Grace watched the light rise and spark like a firework. It filled her with wonder and delight. It was so good to be back.
She walked over the familiar red deckboards to the very front of the ship. Beneath her, Darcy — in her day-light incarnation as the ship’s beautiful wooden figure-head — stretched out over the waves, watching the horizon with her wide painted eyes. Grace leaned forward against the deck-rail, but here there was an invisible buffer, preventing her from touching the rail itself. The breeze was strong and strands of her hair flew back into her eyes. She brushed them away, looking down at the perfect painted hair of the ship’s figurehead.
“Hello, Darcy,” she called, unsure if her friend would be able to hear her above the roar of the breeze and the noisy flapping of the ship’s sails.
“Grace!” She heard Darcy’s cockney accent and her heart leaped. “Grace, you came back. You shouldn’t have! I told you not to... but I’m glad you did!”
“Me, too,” Grace said, her voice suddenly choked with emotion. “How are you? How is everybody?”
There was a pause. Then perhaps a sob — or it might have been the slosh of the waters below.
“Things are worse and worse, Grace.”
“Why? What’s happened, Darcy?”
“It’s not...it’s not for the likes of me to say, Grace. Besides, I can hardly hear you at the moment. My head is filled with the sounds of waves during the day. My ears and mouth are only wood until it grows dark. It’s not easy to talk until after nightfall. What’s more, the captain was ever so angry when he found out I’d been to visit you.”
“Angry? Why was he angry?” Grace asked.
“He says we must leave you be. That this ship is for creatures like us, not girls like you. Says we must let you be free to get on with your life.”
“But how can I?” asked Grace. “How am I supposed to just carry on when I know that you are suffering ...that Lorcan is suffering?”
“That’s what I told him, Grace,” said Darcy, “but he got angrier and angrier, until he threw me out of his cabin and told me I was ...troublesome. That I was nothing but a troublesome piece of...,” she sobbed, “piece of driftwood!”
Grace was shocked. She would never have expected the captain to have spoken such cruel words. She wondered, with a shiver, what he would say when he found out she had come back to the ship. Perhaps he already knew. Little passed on the ship that he was unaware of. How much time did she have left here?
“Darcy, I’m going to look in on Lorcan.”
“All right, Grace. But be careful!”
“Careful of what?”
“Just careful, Grace.”
Grace felt a deep sense of foreboding. But what was the point in coming here, if not to see Lorcan? “I’ll see you later, Darcy,” she said, turning back across the deck.
The door to the captain’s cabin was closed, she noticed. She walked past it and instead opened the door that led into the main corridor. The lights were on — though dimly — and she eased her way down toward Lorcan’s cabin. As she turned the corner, she saw a couple of unfamiliar faces — a tall, well-built black man with short silvery hair, and a slighter, rather jaundiced man, his head covered by a cowl. She quickly identified them as vampires not donors. They were locked in conversation with each other and didn’t appear to notice her even as she brushed past them to proceed along the narrow passage-way. How strange!
She paused outside Lorcan’s cabin, suddenly nervous to enter. Summoning her strength, she raised her hand to knock. She failed to make contact with the wood but, nevertheless, the door opened. She stepped forward into utter darkness.
“Hello?” she said, her eyes struggling to adjust to the gloom.
There was a pause and then a familiar voice spoke. “Hello, stranger.”
“Lorcan!” she said, feeling a strong surge of emotion but trying to fight it. “It’s so good to hear your voice.”
“Yours, too,” he said. “Yours, too. How the devil have you been?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “I just miss you — all of you — so much.”
“We miss you too, Grace.”
His voice trailed off.
Her eyes were adjusting to the darkness, but still she could only just make out the outline of his head and body. His bed was a four-poster, with hangings, making it hard to see inside. She walked around it but, whichever angle she glanced through, his face seemed to be turned away from her, as if he didn’t want her to see him. Tentatively, she sat down on the edge of the bed. Much like when Darcy had sat on the bed in Grace’s own cabin, she found herself hovering — albeit quite comfortably — a inch or so above its surface.
“Darcy told me that things have been difficult since I left.”
“Sometimes, Darcy might think more and speak less.” His words were suddenly stripped of the sunny tone he had adopted before.
“No, Lorcan. If something’s wrong I want to know about it. I want to help.”
“You’re so kind, Grace.” His voice was weary now. “But I’m afraid this time you cannot help. Even the captain’s powers are being tested as never before.”
“What do you mean? Is this to do with the rebel Vampirates?”
“What do you know about them?”
“Darcy told me,” she said, “that Sidorio wasn’t the only Vampirate to rebel against the captain. That he was only the first. But now others challenge his authority. They want more blood. They want more Feasts.”
“Grace, you mustn’t interfere in such things. You mustn’t even think of them.”
If only he would turn toward her, or at least light up a candle. “But I want to help,” she said. “You were so good to me. All of you . . . but especially you and the captain.”
“It’s best you leave us to find our own way,” Lorcan said, his voice heavy with defeat. “You were only ever a visitor here. You know only a little of our world.”
“Yes, but I want to know more.”
“It’s too dangerous. You came closer than any mortal ever has. I don’t even know how you managed to come back...like this.”
Grace took a deep breath. Had she wille
d herself back here? “I think I journeyed back here because I care.” Her voice cracked with emotion.
Lorcan sighed. “Then you must stop caring, Grace. You must let us go.”
“How? How am I supposed to do that? Should I just extinguish any feelings I might have and forget all about you?”
“Yes.” His voice grew weaker each time he spoke. Her urge to see his face was impossibly strong.
“Lorcan, do you have a taper? It’s so dark in here. If you could just light one of the candles —”
“No, Grace,” he said, with sudden ferocity. “No candles. There’s the difference between us. I need the darkness, not the light.”
“Lorcan, please don’t talk this way. I thought you’d be pleased to see me.”
His only answer was another sigh. It was almost as though words were too much of an effort for him now.
“Lorcan, aren’t you even a little pleased to see me?”
Still, there was no answer.
Suddenly, the room was filled with smoke. No, it was too cold to be smoke. It was the mist again. And, as much as she fought through it, it only grew thicker and thicker. Filled with frustration, Grace waved her arms about, trying to cut through the screen that separated her from her dear friend.
But it was no good. She had only been a visitor and, however she had got there, her stay was not in her control. The mist took hold of her, filling her eyes and ears and nostrils. And then she was traveling again, this time backward. Flying off the deck of the ship, light as a seagull feather — pulled back over the ocean, so the rocks and reefs and lagoons all rushed by in a blur that made her head spin. Until finally, there was darkness and stillness once more, and a heady scent, which, though familiar, she couldn’t immediately place.
Grace opened her eyes and found herself staring into the blue. It took her back to her first arrival on the Vampirate ship, when she had looked up for the first time into the intense blue of Lorcan Furey’s eyes. But this blue was differ-ent. As her gaze steadied, she watched the color separate into the trumpet-like shapes of flowers. Now, she remembered. She was lying on the seat beneath the jacaranda tree. She propped herself up, letting out a breath, wondering at her strange journey. Had she really been on the ship or only imagined it? It had all seemed so very real.
“Grace.”
The voice was soft but close. She twisted her head.
Cheng Li was sitting beside her, holding a small bag which hovered over Grace’s forehead.
“I brought you this ice-pack,” she said. “Nurse Carmichael thought it might be soothing to you. She recommended that I take you back to your room so you can get some rest. Do you think you might be able to walk there, with my assistance?”
Grace drew herself up. She actually didn’t feel too bad, just a little shell-shocked and confused, her head swimming with unanswered questions.
“I’ll be fine to walk,” she announced.
“Good,” Cheng Li said, taking her hand. “Come along then.” They stood face to face for a moment. “And, on the way, you can tell me exactly what’s going on.”
“What do you mean?” Grace asked, looking at Cheng Li in shock.
“You’re not suffering from sunstroke, Grace,” Cheng Li said. “There’s something far more complicated going on with you. You’ll feel better if you let it out. Secrets have a way of eating away at us from the inside.”
Grace shuddered at the thought, imagining all the secrets of her time on the Vampirate ship — secrets she had only shared with Connor — eating hungrily away at her insides. The gnawing sensation felt all too true. And then there were the fresher secrets that even Connor didn’t know — that she could communicate with the Vampirate ship and journey to it, in her mind at least.
Cheng Li smiled softly and looped her arm through Grace’s. “Don’t look so anxious, dear. I’m not going to force it out of you. It’s fine if you don’t want to tell me — if you still don’t think you can trust me.” Cheng Li’s smoky eyes bore directly into Grace’s. “I think you should know, Grace, I am an excellent listener — if I do say so myself. If and when you do decide to talk, you could do a lot worse than talking to me.”
Could she trust Cheng Li? It would be such a relief to share her secrets. And the older girl had shown her nothing but kindness, so far.
“Thanks,” Grace said, as they began walking. “I’ll bear that in mind.”
They walked on up the hill in silence. Grace still felt exhausted but exhilarated by her first journey back to the Vampirate ship. She was excited too by the possibility of unburdening her secrets upon Cheng Li. She badly needed someone to talk to — if only as a sounding board for her own questions. But her thoughts kept circling back, like a school of sharks, to one very big question. Could Cheng Li be trusted?
When they came to Grace’s door, Cheng Li said her good-byes. “Get some rest, Grace. You’ve clearly been through some kind of ordeal today, but you’ll want to be on your best form for the captains tonight.” She patted Grace on the shoulder, then turned to walk away.
“Wait!” said Grace. The word came out more forcefully than she had intended. Cheng Li turned, one eyebrow raised in surprise. Grace took a deep breath. “Why don’t you come inside?” she asked. “There are some things I’d like to talk to you about.”
Cheng Li nodded, looking very serious all of a sudden. “I regard your trust as a great gift,” she told Grace. “And, of course, it goes without saying — but I shall say it nevertheless — whatever you tell me will be in the strictest confidence. Just between us two.”
17
THE GOOD LISTENER
Once Grace started speaking, she found it incredibly easy to talk to Cheng Li about the Vampirates. Frankly, it was a huge relief to talk to anyone other than Connor, who was so overprotective and so ready to condemn the Vampirates — every last one of them — without even trying to understand their ways.
Unlike Connor, Cheng Li did not interrupt Grace with her own judgments. Instead, she listened closely, only interrupting very occasionally to ask for clarification of one thing or another. For the most part, Grace talked and Cheng Li listened, nodding supportively and encouraging Grace to share more and more of her experiences.
Looking at the clock by her bed, Grace realized she had been talking solidly for over an hour and a half. There was still so much to say. Initially, she had intended to censor the more extreme things that had happened to her during that time, but she decided that if she was going to confide in Cheng Li, and seek her help, then she had to tell her the full story. Either you trusted someone the full one hundred percent or you didn’t trust them at all.
And so Grace found herself recounting everything, from her first arrival on the ship to her realization that Lorcan, dear Lorcan, was not a seventeen-year-old boy but a seven-hundred-and-nine-year-old vampire! She told Cheng Li about breaking out of her cabin and going to confront the Vampirate captain himself — and finding out that he was far from the monster that she had expected. And then she told Cheng Li the full story of the Feast and the donors and her horrific encounter with Sidorio.
“He sounds fascinating!” Cheng Li said. “Terrifying, but fascinating all the same. I wonder where he is now?”
“I dread to think,” Grace said. “I hoped that when the captain banished him, he would just disappear into the wilderness. But I have a feeling that hasn’t happened. And now there are other rebellions aboard the ship. I just wish I could help.”
“But Grace, what could you do?”
It was a question worth asking. Grace thought hard. “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know. But I just have a feeling, deep inside, that I could help them. I really want to.
You see, I think in many ways I’m responsible for what is happening.”
“How?”
“Well, Sidorio was exiled because he attacked me. If I hadn’t been aboard the ship, he might still be there.”
Cheng Li shook her head. “No, Grace,” she said. “You’re being unfai
r to yourself. Sidorio wasn’t only banished for holding you hostage and threatening you. He killed his donor, remember? That was his open challenge to the captain’s authority. From what you’ve told me, the captain would have exiled him for that, whether you had been on board or not.”
Grace felt a sense of release at Cheng Li’s words, but then the heaviness returned. “That may be true, but what about Lorcan?”
She told Cheng Li about how Lorcan had protected her when Connor and the pirates came back for her, how he had stayed out after the Dawning Bell had sounded. And now she told of her two mysterious visions involving Lorcan, and the way he had acted during her spirit journey to the ship.
“Well, I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but I agree with you,” Cheng Li said. “It sounds like Lorcan did injure his sight when he stayed out in the light.”
“If he did, then it’s my fault,” Grace said.
“You’re being so hard on yourself. He knew the dangers, Grace. He must have. He made a choice . . .”
“To protect me!”
“It was still his choice.”
They sat in silence for a time, thinking over each other’s words. Then Cheng Li spoke again. “How did his eyes seem to you when you journeyed to the ship?”
Grace shook her head. “It was hard to see. His cabin was dark and he kept his head away from me, hidden by the bedding.” She smiled, ruefully. “It was as if I had the sight problem.”
“Grace,” said Cheng Li, at length, “I think your journey to the ship took you by surprise — as well it might have. You did well to get there. But, for your own reassurance, next time you journey there, you must ask more questions. Find out the truth about Lorcan’s sight. Find out if you can help. Perhaps they know how. Perhaps that’s why they are calling you back like this.”
Grace looked at Cheng Li curiously. “You really think they are calling me back?”
“Yes, of course,” said Cheng Li. “Don’t you? First, Darcy makes a spirit journey to you. And then you have these two visions of Lorcan . . .”
“But they came through the ring,” Grace reminded her. “I touched the Claddagh ring and it heated up and that’s when I had the visions. In fact, the ring grew warm before Darcy came, too. I felt really sick. And when I opened my eyes, there she was.”
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