Bell Weather

by Dennis Mahoney

  “Worse than I expected,” Mr. Knacker said beside her, choking on the words until he coughed, and coughed again.

  “Cup your hands around your mouth,” the second mate instructed.

  Molly did so. It kept away the thickest of the vapor, and she finally got a breath and felt her heart begin to calm. The temperature had risen ten degrees in half a minute and the air smelled of gardens after heavy summer rain.

  “It’ll be clearer in your cabin,” Mr. Knacker said, “at least until it settles. Can I help you find your way?”

  Molly clasped his elbow and breathed through her hand. He had bragged to her once that he could walk the deck blind, and now he proved it: she could see only an arm’s length away. They shuffled to the hatch, where he guided her below. Before he wished her well and shut the door above her, Molly saw the waterbreath pouring down the stairs, where it spread upon the floor and pooled ankle deep.

  Hurrying to her cabin, she passed Mr. Fen. He was lying in his hammock, dozing it would seem, but she felt as if his eyes opened slightly in the dark.

  The atmosphere was thickening; the walls began to sweat. All the moisture would be ruinous to Nicholas’s lungs. She entered the cabin, went to her brother’s side, and tucked his blanket more securely, hoping to keep the air from dampening his clothes.

  “The most extraordinary fog is filling up the ship,” she said, smoothing down his cowlick and kissing him over the eye.

  Nicholas looked at her and frowned, seeming puzzled by her face, as if she might have been a figment of an ongoing dream. He dropped his head and closed his eyes, possibly asleep. She cupped her hands above his mouth but couldn’t feel him breathe and took them off again, fearing she would stifle him completely.

  Molly’s skirts hung heavy and her lungs felt full. She crawled beneath the blanket in her own swinging cot. Waterbreath slipped through every crack and filled the cabin. It was only midday but dark had come upon them, and despite her fascination and her fear, she fell asleep, terribly fatigued from drowning in the air.

  * * *

  She woke beneath a solid weight, unable to open her mouth and thinking, in the gloom, that her head had gotten tangled in her own sodden blanket. When she tried to throw it off, her arms refused to move. Every part of her was pressed down tight against the cot. There was just enough light to see the waterbreath around her, like a dark foggy night with an inkling of the moon. Hot, putrid air pulsed around her throat. She heard a moan and thought it was Nicholas, but no—the moan was with her, and the pressure on her chest was someone else’s body.

  The shock made her struggle and she almost freed her face. Mr. Fen’s palm tightened on her mouth.

  “Quiet,” came his whisper, “or I’ll suffocate your brother.”

  Molly wheezed through her nose. Had he really said “brother”?

  Mr. Fen’s lips were just below her ear, but he had forced her head sideways and Molly couldn’t see him. He groped her breast and squeezed his legs, slippery bare, around her stocking. She could tell that he was dressed in nothing but a shift. His nether part was firm and slid above her knee, up and down, back and forth against the muscles of her thigh.

  She saw it clearly in her mind and longed to shrink away, but a deeper sort of weight had paralyzed her limbs. He ground against her leg. She struggled not to cry.

  She thought of Elise in bed with the chimney sweep, remembering their joy, and then she prayed, small and wordless, that he wouldn’t push inside her. Mr. Fen’s balding pate rubbed softly on her cheek.

  She looked for Nicholas but couldn’t see his cot through the mist. He was safe in his oblivion. She hoped he wouldn’t stir.

  Between the sweat and the oppressive saturation of the air, she and Mr. Fen were tangled in a sticky mess of limbs, and once he spasmed, growing rigid when he flexed upon her thigh, she felt his body soften like a jellyfish around her.

  After a long spell of silence, Mr. Fen raised his head and whispered in her ear. His voice was too sibilant and close to understand. All she heard was “secret.” Then he peeled himself away. He tipped the cot climbing out and righted it with care, steadying its movement like a father with a cradle.

  Molly watched him go. He vanished in the fog. When she finally reached down to pull the blanket over her legs, she felt the fluid on her thigh and rubbed it with her fingers. It was slippery as an egg white, copious and smooth. The darkness didn’t cover her but held her there, exposed. She wished the waterbreath were rain, never-ending rain.

  Chapter Twelve

  Molly woke and couldn’t remember falling asleep. She tried to convince herself that Mr. Fen’s assault hadn’t happened, that his body weight had simply been her own heavy limbs, his whispers mere delirium induced by the fog. But the smell of him had lingered, sulfurous and sweaty, and the cloth with which she’d cleaned her leg was crumpled on the floor. The waterbreath had thinned and it was easier to breathe. She could now see Nicholas distinctly in his cot. She changed her clothes before he woke, but even her extra shift had dampened in the night and every inch of her was sticky, every part of her was fouled.

  She went to Nicholas’s side, rubbed his arm, and woke him up. He looked at her and sighed but the sigh became a cough, so phlegmy that it choked him for a moment till he swallowed. He regarded her with no apparent knowledge of the night, as if she’d only just arrived to tell him it was foggy and he hadn’t spent the intervening hours in oblivion.

  “Good morning,” Molly said, grateful he was sick; in health, he would have recognized the falseness of her smile.

  “G’morning,” Nicholas wheezed, and gestured for a drink.

  She gave him sips of wine and talked about the waterbreath, worried Mr. Fen was listening at the door. What if he could hear the muffled conversation? What if he suspected she was saying something more? Molly raised her voice, enunciating her words, speaking of the fog and of the Serpentine Current. Nicholas chewed a biscuit and appeared to pay attention, but the air in the windowless cabin remained oppressive and he dozed again, his face slightly pinker from the wine.

  She took his spare clothes to dry on deck. Mr. Fen’s door was closed when she passed it and she hesitated, worried he would hear her creeping past. She thought of returning to her cabin for Nicholas’s safety but, desperate for a walk among the crew, told herself that Mr. Fen had only meant to frighten her into silence.

  The waterbreath was gone, the day was clear and bright, and a rich, warm wind fluffed the sails to sunny life. The vessel raced along the waves and all the seamen were delighted, calling out and laughing, and the morning air revived her as she hung her brother’s clothes to freshen on the shrouds.

  Mr. Fen appeared thirty feet away, partially concealed by the cross-hatched rigging. He looked at her intently, didn’t waver, didn’t blink. His stare was like a candle flame pausing in its flicker, turning for a moment into a sharp blade of light. Molly’s vision swam. She felt as if the fog were in her lungs again. He didn’t speak or gesture but she understood him fully: I am watching every moment. Not a word or I will kill him.

  Nicholas’s death would hardly be suspicious after weeks of constant illness. She could tell the crew directly and the sailors would believe her: she was popular and Mr. Fen was generally disliked. They would flog him and confine him all the way to Floria. But Captain Veer distrusted her and might dismiss her claim. Lacking any proof, Mr. Fen could walk away.

  Refusing to cry or look afraid, she turned from his unwavering stare and walked to the stern of the ship, wobbly as a lubber who had just come aboard.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Smith!” said Mr. Knacker, doffing his hat. “The Cleaver’s grown wings and we are flying ’cross the Serpentine!”

  “Good morning,” Molly said without her customary cheer, continuing ahead as though he were a stranger. She registered the hurt in Mr. Knacker’s falling features but she longed to be alone and couldn’t risk conversation, not with Mr. Fen assuming she’d accuse him.

  The gleaming sea, luscious gr
een with rippling sun and white-capped waves, was too alive and colorful to look upon today. Molly sat below the rail against a weatherworn barrel, found a short length of rope, and practiced a knot she had learned from one of the midshipmen. It was an octopus knot, named for its appearance and extraordinary hold, and she tied and untied it dozens of times as various members of the crew discovered her there, and greeted her, and asked whether she was well.

  “Yes,” she said to each without looking up.

  The wizened second mate approached her and said, “Beg pardon, Mrs. Smith, but there’s a large pod of mourningfish racing off the bow. They’re marvelous quick and sad. It’s said their great intelligence causes them to grieve.”

  He invited her to watch. Molly sullenly declined, and when the second mate returned to the crew with news of her indifference, the sailors were so concerned—she could see them in a huddle, speaking lowly, glancing over—they themselves lost interest in the mourningfish and went about their work, serious and quiet.

  She had been sitting alone for an hour when a shadow moved beside her. Molly recognized his boots and how they planted on the deck, but she didn’t acknowledge his presence when he loomed there above her, studying the ocean with his customary glower.

  “You’ve done it wrong,” Captain Veer eventually said without looking down, as though he sensed a faulty knot just by standing in its presence.

  He was right. She had been tying it incorrectly every time, but when she double-checked her loops and turns, she couldn’t spot her error. She loosened the rope and tried again, concentrating fiercely. He followed her attempt out of the corner of his eye. She failed and tried again, fumbling and annoyed, until he turned and said, “There. Pull the bight through the left.”

  “Yes, of course,” Molly said, admiring the difference.

  “The other way appeared to be correct,” the captain said, “but would tighten up demonically as soon as it was wet.”

  She finished the knot, felt its strength, and loosened it with ease. It seemed a miracle, the way its whole complexity unraveled. She remembered how severely Jeremy used to bind her, and how completely they had caught him in their own tight snare.

  Captain Veer walked away before she realized he was leaving.

  Molly stood and said, “Sir.”

  He stopped and turned around. The wind blew his shirt against his chest and showed his ribs, as well as a scar like a cutlass wound just below his throat. His breeches flapped. He’d grown an inch of beard during the voyage and reminded her of a pirate, dangerous but gallant.

  She noticed Mr. Fen watching from afar.

  “Thank you,” Molly said.

  The captain answered with a bow.

  “At your service, Mrs. Smith,” Captain Veer replied.

  He paused as if intuiting she needed something more.

  Molly took her knot and went below to sit with Nicholas.

  * * *

  She lay awake in her cot that night, dressed in all she owned, including her cloak and double stockings, underneath a blanket tucked tightly at her sides. She was attuned to every sound, down to the faintest creak of timbers. Shortly after two bells, she heard Mr. Fen creeping through the door and looked to Nicholas beside her, too far to reach and sleeping on his side, and hoped he wouldn’t wake until the worst of it was done. Mr. Fen stepped between them in his dull gray shift. He checked on Nicholas himself and lifted Molly’s blanket, smiling at the extra clothes she’d worn to keep him out.

  “Hush,” he said.

  He opened her cloak and laid himself upon her. Every inch of her contracted when he hiked up his shift, letting the blanket fall so Molly saw his plump, hairless buttocks.

  “No,” Molly whispered.

  “Then I’ll smother him,” he said.

  He forced his hand between their bellies to the middle of her legs. Next he peeled her stocking down and rubbed against her thigh, presumably afraid of getting her with child and content to find his pleasure in a less invasive manner.

  “Wait,” Molly said, taking hold of his erection.

  It was softer than expected, given its rigidity, and tacky with his sweat when she gripped it in her fist. Mr. Fen did not object but repositioned himself at once, allowing her to cup her other hand around his balls.

  “Move it up and down,” he said. “Nicely, up and down.”

  She did as she was told until he shut his eyes and moaned. Molly worked faster. He relaxed in his distraction. She was amazed that such a motion—little effort, little grace—could render him as helpless as a child in her power.

  Molly reached beneath her back, still stroking with her fist, and found the octopus knot she had hidden in the cot. It was warm. It was wet. She had tied it incorrectly. Mr. Fen didn’t notice when it looped around his scrotum.

  Molly let him go, seized the dangling ends, and cinched the knot tight enough to hold a rolling cannon.

  Mr. Fen constricted and he looked at her, aghast. The whiteness of his face turned furiously red and his sounds were otherworldly, like a corpse made to groan. He clapped his hands around the knot and tried to roll away. Molly felt the sway, held the cot, and stayed within it when he tumbled off and thudded to the floor.

  He struck his elbow and his head and wobbled to his knees, as astonished by the mass of wet rope between his legs as by the fact that she had done it—by the fact that she had dared.

  She’d expected him to flee; she panicked when he stayed.

  He turned to Nicholas, enraged, to carry out his threat.

  Nicholas had woken up and knelt beside his cot. He aimed the pistol from the trunk at Mr. Fen’s chest. His eyes were clear and bright, his arm an iron bar. Only a dead man risen would have bettered the effect and Mr. Fen shrank, buckling over in his fear. He didn’t move until Nicholas fully cocked the gun, and then he lurched toward the door and hobbled to his cabin for a long, hard night of wrestling with the knot.

  Nicholas collapsed. In her haste to help him up, Molly tumbled from her cot. She banged her knee, got a splinter in her thumb, and crawled to reach him. Once she had him on his feet, she tried to take the pistol but he wouldn’t let it go until she’d eased him into his cot again. The effort had fatigued him and he struggled to raise his head.

  “I have to tell the captain straightaway,” Molly said. “I couldn’t prove myself before, but now the knot—”

  “Proves nothing”—Nicholas winced and coughed—“but that you had him at your side.”

  “He knows we’re brother and sister.”

  Nicholas revived. “How?”

  “He guessed. I tried to lie. I didn’t tell him! But we have to tell the captain what he did. Don’t you see? He’ll follow us in Floria and ruin all our secrecy. He has to be arrested.”

  “He’d be punished and released.”

  Molly groaned in agitation, flopped down, and bumped her tailbone. She prodded at the sliver in her thumb. “What can we do?”

  “Keep the pistol in your cot.”

  “And then?”

  “Let me think,” he said.

  “No.” Molly stood. “I’m going to the captain.”

  “Stay,” Nicholas told her. “We have time enough to answer this. Tomorrow you will see it in the clear light of day.”

  * * *

  Early next morning, something was amiss. Molly’s ears popped. She blew her nose and yawned to work the pressure out. The Cleaver’s rises and falls were longer, more profound, and urgent shouts and footsteps sounded overhead. She’d grown accustomed to the sea but now her stomach felt the plunges, and the air had a cold, gray smell of greasy metal.

  Nicholas hadn’t moved since returning to his cot. After convincing her not to speak to Captain Veer about their trouble, he had given her the pistol, lain awake thinking, and eventually fallen asleep without another word. She’d tucked the pistol under his arm—she hadn’t trusted herself to use it—and had slept until the strange new atmosphere awoke her.

  Now she had to get them food and learn the
state of Mr. Fen, and so she left her brother alone and crept through the hold as subtly as she could.

  The door of Mr. Fen’s cabin stood open and she paused to peek inside. Mr. Fen was gone. His book was in the hammock and his lantern hung above it, throwing just enough light to clarify the room. She entered warily and double-checked the shadows in the corners. The octopus knot lay severed on the floor, slightly bloody near the cut as if he’d nicked himself slicing through the fibers with a razor.

  Molly hurried on deck where the day was scarcely brighter than the heavy dark below. The sea astonished her. The waves were vastly taller than she had expected. She’d have felt the motion more except that the Cleaver, taking longer to traverse the broader swells, rose and fell at wider intervals and seemed more controlled. In truth the sturdy ship was little better than a cork. It bobbed along, largely at the mercy of the ocean, and amazement took her breath when the bow began to crest.

  They’d been sheltered from the gale by the great surrounding waves. Now the wind filled the sails and Molly felt the lurch. The humming of the rigging sounded like a choir, one of long-dead women keening for their lives. There were gray-black valleys. There were mountains spewing foam. The sky bulged low, swirling and contorting, ironclad with scraps of brighter mist whipping by. The bow began to dip and Molly tilted with the pitch. Down they went, falling smoothly, till the waves were all around them, taller than the mainmast and quieting the wind.

  She heard the sailors then—she hadn’t even noticed they were with her—shouting from their stations, swearing at the clouds.

  Mr. Fen was not in sight. Molly walked the deck with concentrated effort, asking everyone she passed if anyone had seen him.

  “No,” they said in turn, focused on their duties.

  Each of them impressed her with a warning, gravely spoken: “Get yourself below.” “Use the privy, now or never.” “Ask McGiverns for a rope and tie yourself down.”