Sea Witch (Sea Witch Voyages)

by Helen Hollick

  Tiola laid down her knife and fork, her food barely touched, took a sip of wine. “I think there may have been a compliment hidden in there somewhere?” She asked shyly.

  Pouring a glass for himself, Rue confirmed there was. “Jesamiah is a man I respect. If I must admit to it I think of ‘im as the son I never ‘ad. Nor ‘ave I ever ‘ad cause to doubt ‘is judgement. ‘E was the one who did not want to go to Nassau, ‘e said ‘e smelt a rat, ‘e was right. I – we – were wrong. Although the rat turned out to be ‘is brother, not the Governor.” Abruptly he scraped the chair back, stood, offered his hand to Tiola accepting what she had told him and what she intended to do. Use her Craft to find Jesamiah.

  Tiola took the gesture as it was intended and placed a kiss on his cheek. A seal of friendship.

  “Night is coming,” he said, gruff, to conceal the sudden emotion filling him. If Jesamiah was the son he had always wanted, then this lass was most assuredly the daughter. “I ‘ave to be on the quarterdeck. Not that we can go any slower than we already are, but to ‘elp you stay safe I will reduce sail, let ‘er idle as much as I can. You ‘ave my word none shall disturb you. I ask you, though, for the sake of God – and for Jesamiah’s – to be careful. There is a reason the bowsprit is called the widow maker.”

  Ais, she knew. Young Jasper had already told her.

  Twenty Five

  The Atlantic rolled, grey and sullen and bored beneath the languid patches of dismal fog. In the occasional pockets between, the night sky was scattered with countless stars, their brilliance soon swallowed again by the next curtain of mist. Sea Witch eased her way forward, her compass heading north until she could safely swing north-west. Until then, they had to suffer the fog.

  The first day at sea Tiola had removed her silk stockings, the brocade gown with its tight sleeves and lace cuffs and the impractical layers of stiffened petticoats and tightened stays. She preferred the simple, everyday wear of her plain underskirt and bodice. Before leaving the cabin she slid her arms into Jesamiah’s buckram long coat which was saturated with his smell, and folded its warmth – his warmth – around herself. Put her hand into a pocket and discovered another of his ribbons. As she looked at it, tears choked her. Weeping, she tied a lock of hair with it, as Jesamiah did, and made her way out on to the deck and forward to the bow. There was no spray, barely any movement.

  She regretted not having better light from the stars, but where she was intending to go no star would be of service anyway. Not Sirius or Orion, nor the blaze of the Sun itself – even were it to defy every law of existence and shine by night.

  Darkness covered the ship, the only light glowing from the two stern lamps atop the taffrail and spilling up through the open scuttles and the gratings above the lower deck, making pools of yellow comfort in surrounding blackness. Below, men were amusing themselves with their evening entertainments of singing bawdy songs accompanied by the scrape of fiddles and shrill of tin whistles. Their good humour drifting upward with the swaying rays of the lanterns, to amble away over the rails and be swallowed whole by the yawn of the fog.

  The bowsprit stabbed its way forward at the front of the ship, pointing uncompromisingly ahead, the slanted pole sprouting upward from the deck at an angle of 30°. More than eighty feet of slender, wooden spar, a maze of rigging and furled rolls of sails. Nothing below except the vigilant wooden gaze of the figurehead, and beyond her, the black sea sliding past.

  To hesitate would be to become too petrified to move, either forward or back. Tiola’s bare feet felt the solidity of the deck, her hand rested on the bowsprit. It was no different than the fore, main or mizzenmast except for it pointing forward not upward. Topmen ran up the masts without a second thought, as if they were climbing stairs, no matter what the weather or wind might throw at them. Men ran out here along the bowsprit, sometimes several times a day to take in or drop sail. Jesamiah would not have thought twice about stepping up, of striding out over the flying sea beneath. He had once told her he often stood out there, especially when the sun was rising or setting. “It gives a grand view, and a grander feeling. The nearest a man will come to flying. To feeling as free a bird.”

  Yet as young Jasper had explained, it was not called a widow maker for nothing. The spar was narrow and slippery; the rigging salt encrusted and wet and the sea a long, long, way down. With no coming up again for those who fell.

  As Rue had promised Sea Witch was making slow headway, her bow easing the sea apart as she progressed forward, the sound of the water glugging as it meandered by. Tiola glanced over her shoulder along the length of the deck. Unlike a normal human, with her ability she could see the outlined form of Rue standing beside Isiah Roberts at the helm quite clearly, despite the fog and the distance. Partially, she regretted telling Rue what she planned to do. Had she remained silent she could return to Jesamiah’s cabin and none would be the wiser of her failure. Except herself and Jesamiah, for if she did not do this they may not find him.

  Taking a breath of fortifying courage, she hoisted herself upward as she had seen the men do. Felt the light breeze pulling at her hair, teasing the shorter strands into tendrils that patted her cheeks and neck. The salt air stung her face and the cold sent a shiver down her spine. She was glad of Jesamiah’s warm coat. Ahead, only fog. Around her, nothing except the sound and smell of Tethys.

  Walk quickly, best not run; nor was it wise to feel ahead gingerly with her toes. A matter of balance and to imagine this round pole was a wide, flat surface. As wide as a cobbled street. Look ahead, not down! Her fingers touched the manropes rigged at waist height, although they would do little to save her should she lose her footing.

  She reached the cap, the thick block of wood which connected the bowsprit to the narrower spar of the jib-boom and stopped, her heart thudding, teeth chattering; her breath sobbing in her chest and her courage dissolving. To go further she would have to walk out along the footropes rigged beneath, and then grab the fore topmast stay to step up on to the very end of the spar. Willingly, she would have turned back – except she was too frightened to move. In her head, a low, hushing laugh that could have been her imagination or the scorn of the sea itself rolling past, deep, black and endless.

  Tentative, Tiola felt with her foot, touched the rope – and slipped! With a gasp of fear her hand curled tighter around the manrope, but she was overbalancing – falling – there was nothing beneath her except the ocean. Desperate, her fingers grappled the lines, her legs kicked…and Sea Witch lifted slightly, rising to the next wave, lifted and rolled to leeward – and she shrugged Tiola upward, as if tossing a horserider into the saddle.

  With her footing regained Tiola stood in the fog-shrouded darkness, her body quivering, legs shaking, her eyes closed. Tears of despair trickled from beneath her lashes. I cannot do this! Oh Jesamiah, forgive me – I cannot do it!

  The sea sounded loud in her ears, the roll of the waves, the hush of sound as Sea Witch parted the water with her bow, sending it laughing and gurgling its glee along her keel. The ocean, mocking Tiola’s fear.

  And then the rustle of familiar voices, whispering as wind scurries through the leaves of a tree on a warm summer’s day, the guiding voices of Tiola’s maternal ancestors, of all those of her past speaking within the spirit that was the peace and the courage of her soul. Above them all, the stronger, younger, presence of her grandmother.

  ~ Tiola. You have already endured desolation. You have already conquered fear. Nothing can harm you. Nothing. ~

  Without conscious thought Tiola stepped down and walked forward as easily as if she were standing on the solidity of the quarterdeck; stepped lightly up on to the very tip of the forward thrusting spar and hooked her arm through the fore topmast stay.

  Standing tall and proud she stared ahead – and the fog rolled back, the domed vault of the star-studded sky arched above her. A trail of delicate silver touched everything; sail, rigging and sea, shimmering and beautiful. Sea Witch dipped her bow in reverence to the majesty of
the glory of night.

  The Atlantic trundled beneath the keel and with her mind Tiola entered into the creaking and swaying existence of the ship, becoming one with the rhythmical shift and sway of movement; aware of every nuance of sound, of every constructed part of her.

  Sea Witch was not a dead object, she was made from living things that had once been nurtured by the caress of the sun, soothed by the wind and washed by the soft touch of rain. Oak from an acorn that had grown a shoot green and strong and become tall and solid, spreading a canopy of branches and leaves towards the sky – as the ship had masts that billowed a canopy of sail. Masts that also thrust downward, cleaving through the wood and caulking of the decks to where they rested in the blackness of the hold as roots had once plunged into the dark earth. A small, secretive part of the Sea Witch had never forgotten her past, that time of living, of breathing, of being. She opened that small remaining spark of her soul and invited Tiola to step inside, enfolding her with a wide embrace of joyful welcome, absorbing her as a leaf absorbs the sunlight. Within this secret place, Tiola felt the ache of grief, the feel of loss; a great empty space that wept for Jesamiah, so wanting him. So wanting him to come back to her!

  ~ Soon my dear. We shall find him soon, ~ Tiola soothed. ~ Together, you and I, Sea Witch, together, we shall find him. ~

  Closing her eyes Tiola felt the light wind pushing against the fore topsail, pressing it forward. The braced foremast that took the strain and weight of canvas, held upright and rigid by hawsers, cables, shrouds and rigging; all of it complaining at being bound so tight and so restrained. She felt the upper deck, the planks smooth and blanched by the endless beat of the sun and scoured smooth by the crew scrubbing with the holystone blocks of sandstone, the gaps between water-tight, sealed by oakum, a mixture of old, shredded rope and tar.

  Tiola was aware of the great guns, ominous death-bringers, slumbering, fire-breathing dragons, their iron cold and silent beneath her touch. By contrast, the men were delighting in loud jesting and the bravado of outrageous tale-telling. Some were playing dice or cards, mending their clothes, braiding their hair. One man was pricking a tattoo into another’s shoulder. Tiola’s watching mind lingered a moment. She would like a blue-inked tattoo, perhaps a ship under full sail rippling on her forearm, or an oak leaf and an acorn, for Jesamiah? Either would be appropriate, but she did not know the men well enough to ask for it to be done. Maybe when Jesamiah was here?

  A few of them were already in their hammocks, an arm or a leg dangling over the side; mouths open, snoring,

  In a separate area, away towards the stern, it was dark and deserted. The powder magazine, kept safe behind a draped curtain of wet canvas. Away for’ard, Finch was diligently ensuring the charcoal inside his galley-stove was raked of ash and the door secured for the night; the iron stove-pipe within the brick chimney properly cooling now the cooking was done. Tiola felt a shudder of fear ripple through the presence that was Sea Witch. Fire was the dread aboard a ship. Comforting her, Tiola salved the flickering shadow of horror. ~ Fire shall not harm you, my dear. Not while I am here to protect you. Nor when Jesamiah returns to care for you. ~

  Below again, going deeper down. Tiola’s mind from where she stood, alone and encased by darkness on the jib-boom spar, tiptoed into a place blacker still.

  The hold.

  Barrels of brackish drinking water, salted meat and weevil-infested flour and grain; butter already going rancid, all stored on layers of rock and gravel, the ballast at the very bottom where the rats scurried, gnawing their way into the food. She touched that other place, the bowels of the ship – the cable tier. Smelt its rank, mouldering dampness, the combined foul odour of dead rats and the musk smell of their live companions. Of stagnant water, rot and decay. A place where a man, caught here, would sell his soul to the Devil to see one last glimpse of blessed sunlight before he died.

  Unintentionally Tiola’s tentative feeling mind slipped sideways to connect with the same place on a different, red-hulled ship. She heard Jesamiah whimper and abruptly pulled back. For his sake, not hers.

  The hull, the keel; the cold sweep of water surging past, the overwhelming sense of slimed, clinging weed, the itch of sucking barnacles and the discomfort of boring worm. The wide deep ocean. In daylight the sun would have filtered down, bathing everything green, but the stars had not the strength to light these depths and soon, very soon, as Tiola went deeper and deeper still, everything became black. But not silent. The ocean whispered and echoed with life; the call of the mother whale to her calf, the clicking of the dolphin to his mate, the snap of a shark’s cruel teeth and the hurried, flustered swirl of darting fishes. The lazy flap of the ray’s wing or the stroke of the turtle’s flipper. The restless rush and murmur and groan and boom of the sea itself.

  The seabed, the scuttle of crab and starfish. Sand and rock, and coral and shell and weed. The scatter of bones – the gaping corpse of a fish another of a seal. Of drowned men and wrecked ships.

  A forest of swaying weed, taller, thicker than a ship’s mainmast. A place where it was difficult to decide what was plant and what were the tentacles of a giant squid or octopus. A chasm opened below her, zigzagging across the sand floor, ominous and black. Pitch black, where no light could penetrate. Yet, as she descended, Tiola could see, in the eye that was her mind, as clear as if a flare was illuminating everything with an eerie glow of translucent light.

  Deeper! Down deeper! Going down and down to where even the reddish light faded and only flutters of iridescent weird creatures pulsed in the blackness. Where monsters lurked and night was never day. Where such things as stars and moon, sun and sky, wind and rain were distant dreams from an age long, long forgotten.

  And through it all, from the foaming surface to the fissure that was the deepest rift of the deepest ocean, Tethys watched. As she watched everything and saw every movement in and around her elemental, ethereal, existence. Every birth, every life; every death. She saw the whelk and the whale, the shark and the shellfish. Had seen the seas when they were silver acid and molten lead. Had witnessed her daughters, the rivers and the lakes and the rain turn to ice and cover her sister the land. Had seen the first creatures live, thrive, and became fossils of stone. Rejoiced at the first birth. Mourned the first death. Witnessed the reptilian beasts drag themselves from the mud and impassively watched them evolve into the terrible lizards they were to become. As, in the passing and passing of time – no more than a rippled sigh to her – she also watched them die.

  She had seen the rocks of the ocean bed heave themselves upward to form mountains so high they touched the airless sky. Had seen the great plates of the continents split apart and grind together in earthquakes of destruction, while volcanoes spumed lava to form new, fertile land. She had been there when the world had began. Would be there when it ended.

  Tethys.

  ~ Who are you who dares enter my realm, mortal? ~

  ~ I am Tiola Oldstagh, Lady. And I am no ordinary mortal. ~

  ~ You are from the creation that is Man. ~

  ~ We are, all of us, created from the stuff of the stars. We are all made from the same breath that created the first simple life, therefore we, both you and I, Tethys, must be kindred of the race called man. Yet, we are not mortal. ~

  ~ I helped create that first life. ~

  ~ As did the knowledge of Craft which I possess and carry. You are therefore my sister, and as your kindred it is my right to enter your ocean realm without the asking. As it is my right to beg your help to find my mate, my lover. Your son. A son who is one of the sea. ~

  In another part of her being, Tiola heard and felt the chasms of the depths of the oceans shift slightly; the bottomless fathoms begin to open like a toothless mouth to swallow something down. Tethys, annoyed, was sinking, preparing to take Tiola with her into the abyss of eternity.

  The unseen but oppressive presence of Tethys mocked Tiola’s awareness.

  ~ You fear me. ~

  ~ I fear nothing except
being too late to save my lover. ~

  ~ I can destroy you. ~

  Tiola’s turn to mock. ~ You cannot. ~

  ~ You have not the strength to fight me, Witch Child. ~

  ~ I have no intention of fighting you, Water Woman. Nor do I fear you. I fear nothing and no one, for I have already survived fear. It is those who know they can survive who are to be feared, Tethys. We are the ones who are dangerous, because we have conquered fear. Therefore it is you who fears me, my Lady Tethys. ~

  The sea rippled, a wave rolled, driven by no earthly wind. Scurried across the surface of the ocean, gathering speed and power.

  ~ I can destroy the ship. ~

  ~ You can. But you will not. ~

  ~ Will I not? It is my right to take those ships and sailors whom I fancy for my own. It is the price they must pay for molesting my Being. Those I choose must pay the passage for those I reject. ~

  Tiola felt the wave of water rise up and crash over her and the bowsprit, a deluge of wild spray that sent Sea Witch yawing to larboard, the sea rearing huge, washing over her decks. Tiola heard, from a great distance, Rue shouting urgent orders for men to get their arses on deck.

  ~ You will not destroy the ship Tethys, because she carries men who admire your wisdom and respect your power. ~

  ~ What care I for men? ~

  ~ You care for one of them, Tethys. This ship is his ship. Destroy the Sea Witch and you destroy him. ~

  ~ I have no care for pirates. Nor for witches. I rule the sea. I am the sea. My word, here, is what shall be and what shall not be. ~

  ~ You are the currents, you are the surf and the tides, the spindrift in the wind and the foam upon the shore, but you cannot control me or tear this chain of silver anchoring the soul that is mine to the soul of the Sea Witch. Through the power of my Craft I have become one with her, as she is also one with her master, my lover. And your jealousy, Tethys, cannot divide us. ~