by Seven Jane
“He’s not dead,” came a growl from the other side of the cabin. I thought it was Winters’ voice, but I could just as readily been my father’s, or Dunn’s. It did not matter. Whoever it was, his words did not reach me. I felt a draining emptiness tug at me, sucking the life inside of me away in greedy pulls so that deep, hollow ravines were trenched in the recesses of my soul, and I did not fight against it, but let myself be emptied sip by sip, surrendering to sorrow. My father had spoken of the curse of Jones, and the death of Tom Birch was my penance, a price on the heads of men who loved women of the sea and for which everyone paid. Whether I willed it or not, I was to blame for his death, and that knowledge was more than I could bear.
A hand came down firmly atop my shoulder, but I ignored it. After a moment the hand’s mate rested atop my other shoulder, both of them rubbing me in a supporting, comforting kind of way at first, then becoming more insistent and less consoling, until I became aware that the fingers of the hands were pressing into my skin as they attempted to pull me away from Tom’s body. I strained against these cursed hands with all my might, gripping the fabric of Tom’s shirt tighter as I struggled to relearn how to breathe in the wake of this new reality, the one that did not include the sweet, charming boatswain that had befriended me, perhaps cared for me as I had grown to care for him. If I were to be removed from his body, then it would be by force. I would not allow it to be dumped overboard like waste the same as the navigator’s had been. Tom Birch deserved so much more than that.
The fingers grew impatient, digging painfully into the tender space below my shoulder. A stinging, bitter pain came then, the slicing of fingernails into my flesh as they bit through the cloth. The pain was sharp and immediate, but it cleared my head of the swirling torrent I’d been trapped in. To this was joined the unmistakable voice of Brandon Dunn as it arrived against my ear. I felt the sensation of his head as his hair brushed against mine, his breath sweet with brandy and cigar smoke when it filled my ears.
“The captain be right, lass,” he whispered edgily as his stinging fingertips pulled at me again, not bothering to clarify which captain he referred to. There was a tremor in his voice, a slightly uplifted twinge that caught my attention more than any words that could have been said. It resounded within me, this unbelievable note that sounded remarkably like hope. “The man ain’t dead yet,” he continued, his warm breath still sweet against my ear. He smiled and it was a bitter smile; I could not see it but I could feel the edges of it as they curved upward against my cheek from where his face hung above mine. “There may still be a way to save him.”
At this, I pulled my face from Tom’s chest, a matter that was no small feat under the weight of my grief. Blinking back the wetness that swam across my vision, I tried to focus my eyes on the men standing stoically about in the room wearing serious, unsympathetic faces—all except for Dunn, who wore an expression of apprehension and urgency that was a poor substitute for sorrow. How did they not feel this, this overwhelming grief? A life at sea was a harsh one, yes, but did they feel nothing, these heartless pirates? How could they gaze upon the body that had belonged to Tom Birch and not feel as I did, empty and broken? My eyes found Erik Winters and I stared angrily at him, forgetting for once that he was my captain, that he was the man I had watched with my own eyes as he’d run his blade through Rabbie’s heart at the merest hint of insolence, the man I’d pledged to follow and obey, come what may in times of peril. This death was as much Winters’ fault as it was mine—he who had his desire to reclaim Evangeline before the lives of his crew, who had known the storm into which we sailed and said nothing … done nothing. He returned my stare, his cold, unfeeling eyes locked on mine. I loosed my grip on Tom’s shirt and shoved Dunn aside, and then stood resolutely with my body between Tom’s and the rest of the room. Fueled by grief, I rose to challenge the captain.
My hand found the hilt of the shell guard hanger on my belt and gripped the short handle of the short sword. I could handle a sword well enough, thanks to the men on Isla Perla who’d thought me boy enough to teach me the art of fencing, but my skill was piteously far below that of any of the men in this room. Even so, the look of amusement that crossed through the captain’s eyes infuriated me and I used that fury to free the blade from its sheath, brandishing it in the air before me. It wobbled once or twice, but I gritted my teeth and planted my feet until both the glinting blade and I were steady. Meanwhile, Winters said nothing, but continued to meet my gaze, staring at me from his perch atop his desk. I watched angrily as he lifted an unlit cigarette to his mouth, and then in intentionally slow, unhurried movements he struck a match against the edge of the desk and lit a candle. This he brought to his lips, touching it lightly to the tip of the cigarette and inhaling a lungful of smoke that he pushed out of a slightly parted mouth with the small red triangle of his tongue—all without breaking his stare.
When he spoke only his lips moved. “Lower your sword, girl,” he stated in a toneless voice.
I did not, but my eyes passed to my father, who was also staring at Winters. He was silent and unmoving, and if it weren’t for the coils of his hair—which writhed in the air above him like a collection of small, angry grey eels jerking and snapping with sharp, pointed tips as they twitched uneasily—he might have been a statue in the corner of the room. His large, brown eyes had hardened into amber stone as he watched the other captain, and his hand was on his belt. It was clear that neither had any fondness for the other.
Once more Dunn had his hand on my shoulder, pulling at me. However, my eyes had fixed back upon Winters and his smooth, expressionless face, and I would not be moved any easier now than I would before. “Put it down, lass,” Dunn muttered softly in my ear, his voice hushed like it was only meant for me. “And listen to me. Birch ain’t dead, not yet. But we be wasting precious time with this now.”
“Take another look, Mister Dunn,” I snapped, resettling both of my hands around the hilt of the sword, which was beginning to feel heavy in my grasp. I did not take my eyes away from Winters and I did not believe the quartermaster—I could not believe him. I had felt the stillness in Tom’s chest myself, had heard the silence where his heartbeat should have been and knew death when I saw it. Even now I knew that coldness was creeping over him, transforming the softness of his skin to the icy stone of a corpse’s shell. I shivered even though it was warm in the cabin. “If he is not dead, then can you be so kind as to explain what he is? There is no life within him. He draws no breath, his skin is cold to the touch. How can he possibly not be dead in a state as this?”
“He ain’t dead,” Dunn repeated flatly, his voice firmer this time as if there could be no disagreement. I studied the captain’s face as I felt Dunn press closer, his body so close it nearly touched mine. His claim made no sense, but while I knew the quartermaster to be secretive and shrewd and even suspicious at times, I had never known him to be a liar. On the contrary, his words, often unbelievable, had been true thus far, and from Charybdis to Davy Jones, no one had contradicted him. I considered this as I allowed his hand to lie on the flat part of the blade and push it down until the point tapped the floor. I could not be certain, but I suspected I saw the captain’s frozen eyes thaw as he glowered at me over the fiery tip of his cigarette. He did not speak, and my father did not take his eyes from him.
“Bullet is right. Young Mister Birch is not yet dead. He is trapped in a place that passes between, love, a state that is worse than death,” said Davy Jones then, stepping up in front of me so that he towered above Dunn and I like a grey shadow that eclipsed my view of Winters. His face was unreadable, and haunted, and I could learn nothing from his grey expression. “The sea has not yet claimed his soul. She is letting it wait here.”
“For what?” I challenged, but lighter this time. Immediately I thought of her—the woman in the cove. She was connected to all of this, although I wasn’t sure how, just that she was. She was the sea, and somehow she was holding Tom Birch’s soul in ransom.
/> “You.” Captain Winters’ voice brought the answer from his place at the far end of the room. My father stepped aside with a noise like the frustrated rustling of sea grass, positioning himself by my side so that I could see Winters again. He stayed close, one of his grey arms rising protectively across me as though he did not entirely trust the other captain.
“This does not concern you, Erik,” Jones snapped.
A lesser man might have cowered, but not Winters. “The fuck it doesn’t,” he returned. Throughout all of this, Winters had remained perched atop his desk, watching with his arms crossed tightly over his chest and chewing at his cigarette. Now he looked off to some point in the distance, and when his eyes returned to mine there was something in them I had not seen before. I could not name it, but it was a similar look I had seen in Claudette’s eyes when she said her final good-byes outside of The Goodnight Mermaid. He touched his fingers together over the candle flame, snuffing it out so that he was lost to shadow. The piece of shell at his neck, the same as the one on my hand and around my father’s neck, shone faintly in the darkness of the cabin as if influenced by its own inner light. He stalked toward me in the dimness of the cabin, the blue of his eyes catching the light of the stone and sparking fiercely, like steel scraped across ice.
“You can save him, Miss Jones,” Erik Winters said, his voice a rasping echo that reverberated inside of me. “And you alone.”
“How?” It was the only question that mattered.
“No,” my father’s voice cut in. I jerked in surprise but Winters did not as he advanced. My father inserted himself with the same protective posture as I stood in front of Tom between the oncoming captain and me, standing sideways between the two of us so that the pair of his hazel eyes could be divided to watch us both. The two men faced each other, locked in a silent debate of history and loyalties of which I had no part. I could feel the tension between them and it was suffocating. “I will not allow it, Erik. She will not bind herself to him. You and I both know all too well the consequences of such an action, and I will not allow my daughter or this boy to suffer it. No!” The last was a roar.
“What you will or will not allow means nothing.” Winter voice was a low, predatory snarl as he stopped no more than a sword’s length away. He was roughly the same height as my father, and so their eyes bored into each other as they faced one other, each of them just as fierce and unyielding as the other. They were two unearthly forces—my father as grey and cold as stony statue, and Winters, fire and lightning made flesh.
“She is my daughter,” Jones said, his voice stern and definite.
“And this is my ship,” Winters countered, and his voice stabbed heavily on the last. “I am the captain here, and she is a member of my crew. That boy is my charge. You know as well as I do the reason Tom Birch has spent his life on this ship, Jones.” The captain’s voice took on a jocular tone, but the look on his face was that of an unmistakable threat. “Or have you forgotten?”
Something flickered across my father’s face, but he was not moved. If anything, he stood more solidly, more resolute in his decision. “None of that matters any longer. He belongs to the sea now. Merrin cannot save him.”
“It has already started.” Winters pointed an incriminating finger in Tom’s direction. “You know it as well as I do. Look at him, and see it for yourself.” He turned his eyes to me and looked at me intently with an expression that was as commanding as it was unsettling. I would have been made uncomfortable by his hostile expression had it not been for the growing passion that pushed itself urgently against the inside of my chest.
Dunn contributed a small grunt of confirmation. “I’m ’fraid it be so,” he said in the tone reserved for moments of dire diplomacy. “She still be possess—”
“No,” Jones snapped, and the word thundered in the small space of the cabin, the octave of his voice rising so loud that I clapped my hands to my ears in fear that they might shatter from the noise of it. He did not look at Tom, but I did, and I saw nothing more than what I had already observed before. Whatever these men might see, I saw only death.
When I returned to them, Winters was in Jones’ face, anger seeping through the cracks in his stoic façade. “I will not allow the boy to die, Jones,” he said in a venomous voice that paused between each syllable. “Not while there remains the power to save him.”
My father brought himself to his full height, rising inches above the only slightly smaller man so that he stared down at him as if from a lofty height. “You are powerless to do anything about it, Erik,” he replied with a snarl. “Or do you wish to condemn his soul to the same hellish fate as yours?”
“What do you know of hell?” Winters’ voice was a deep, menacing growl. “You who have condemned us all.”
A tension as thick as quicksand settled upon the room. For a moment it felt like my lungs were collapsing, and try as I might I could not find the strength to draw in a breath. The pressure continued until the edges of my vision blurred, causing the room and the men around me to become slightly out of focus as they breathed metaphorical fire at each other, each as unwilling to break as the other.
And then finally came Dunn’s voice, breaking through the tension like a wave crashing down upon land. “Enough!” he demanded with an expression of pure exasperation on his craggy, sea hardened face. “It will no’ matter either way if the boy passes while the two of you fight abou’ it.”
“Tell me how to save him,” I demanded as I slid the blade of my sword between my two captains, putting myself between the two titans as best as I could manage. Three pairs of eyes—one blue, one black, one brown—turned to gaze upon me and they all featured different emotions. “Tell me how, and I will do it.”
My father gave a strangled, rasping sound and red flared in his cheeks despite their ghostly pallor. He shook his head as if genuinely disappointed. “You know not what you do. The boy will die. I wish it were not so, but it must be this way. It is not your choice.”
“In fact …” I began, diverting my eyes from one captain so that I stared into the cold, blue eyes of the other. “In fact, it is very much my choice, whatever this choice be. If I am the one to make it, then the decision lies with me.” I sucked in a deep breath and returned my short sword to its sheath, giving my back to the three men as I turned to face Tom’s body. He had paled to a skeletal grey, nearly the same color that painted my father. “If it will spare Birch’s life, then I choose it.”
When Winter’s spoke again his voice sounded proud. “You have the same spirit as your sister,” he remarked, and I got the impression there was more to his words than what he said.
I had no clue how I might save him—what this binding was the men had alluded to—but somehow deep within my bones I knew that it began with laying my hands upon Tom, and so I made to do just that, reaching forward so that I could rest my palms on his chest. Ancient words that my lips had never spoken formed on my tongue, little more than phonetic imitations of their true form, and I felt my eyes close as I opened my mouth to say them. There was a scuffling sound of feet then, and a hand closed around my wrist as I reached to touch Tom’s forehead. The hand that held me was grey, and flecked with glittering, iridescent scales. “There may be another way,” Jones confessed, although he did little to hide his misgivings. “I can’t save young Mister Birch, not exactly. I cannot restore him, but I can give him a place aboard my crew.”
“What does that mean?” I asked. “What does it mean to sail with Captain Davy Jones?”
“It means that he will not die,” answered my father, and there was resignation in his face. “But he will not live. He will be part of the crew, part of the curse, until such time that the sea decides to set us free. And if there be anyone left who can break this curse, it be you, love.”
“That’s not good enough,” Winters snarled. “You cannot do this, Jones. You cannot consign Tom Birch to sail with the dead any more than you can your daughter to free them.” There was movement again, and
I could feel but not see what took place behind me. Whatever it was, Winters did not come forward again and I thought perhaps Dunn had managed to stay his hand though I could not imagine how.
“Jones,” Winters barked again from somewhere behind my back.
“There is no other way,” said my father as he knelt down beside the cot where Tom Birch lay. “If she binds him to herself now, we might lose the advantage we need to escape this hell. The sea will react without giving Merrin a chance.” I looked once more at my father, and then over my shoulder to the other men, and to this I saw Dunn nod as Winters tightened his jaw, unconvinced but permitting.
Jones pressed the palm of his right hand, fingers splayed open like the points of a star, on top of the dead man’s chest, and I watched in amazement as a pale green light erupted beneath his hand, spreading outward so that it washed over Tom’s form completely. A swishing sound—like a soft ocean breeze—moved within the light, quickening Tom’s body with conscious life as I saw his chest rise and fall with newfound breath. Color returned to his body, or it started to, the pale pink of living flesh blooming in the skin of his face, recasting the lifeless blue of his lips, and paling to a soft sandy yellow that encircled his hair before it dulled to a faint, watery grey, leaving Tom’s body unfinished, like a charcoal portrait to which no color had been added.
