The Wand & the Sea

by Claire M. Caterer

  Chapter 33

  * * *

  The Prince on Deck

  The storm passed after another two days, and when everyone staggered out of the hold, it looked to Everett like someone had thrown a wild party. The deck was strewn with seaweed, and some of the planks were splintered; the bowsprit was a jagged stub; the main staysail had a gaping hole; the railing around the forecastle was broken through, its pieces scattered. Some supplies had been washed overboard, and the mainmast yard had cracked. But all in all the ship was still seaworthy. The weary crew busied itself making the necessary repairs. Kailani was in charge of this duty, and she seemed to be everywhere at once, bellowing at Darcie to count the grain stores, enlisting Innes and Quinn to repair the sail, and getting Oggler and Quelch to sand down the upper deck.

  Morgan kept a constant lookout for land through her spyglass. “If this is the Adept magic we all hear so much tell of, ye can throw it to the sharks,” she muttered one morning. “We need to land and make repairs. Ye’d best make yerself useful, Lady. And soon.”

  “Useful and soon, useful and soon,” squawked Crewso the parrot, who shadowed Morgan’s every step.

  Morgan had already granted Holly one victory, and it seemed she would be made to suffer for it. The two of them had spent a long time talking in the ship’s mess right after the storm let up, and afterward all Holly could say was, “She says Avery can come out.” But Holly looked shaken.

  The prince wasted no time in making himself useful. He bathed, and one of the crew even loaned him some clothes, since his finery was beyond saving. In fact, he managed to look and smell better than anyone else on board. He was up on deck almost all the time now, and even got Darcie to string up a hammock for him there. He wanted to know all about the Sea Witch, and listened eagerly as Everett took him around to the helm and the forecastle, and showed him how the sails were trimmed. He stood with the rest of the crew to haul the braces in to turn the topsails, and beamed when he saw the wind catch them, puffing them up like parachutes.

  “I should like to go aloft as well,” he said to Ben and Everett a week after the storm had passed. They were watching Holly clamber up the rigging to the crow’s nest.

  “You’d have to get Holly or Kai to take you,” said Ben. “That’s not gonna happen anytime soon.”

  “I cannot see why,” Avery said, sulking. When Holly came down, he approached her at once.

  “That’s just what they want,” Holly said. “You’d fall into the sea, and they’d leave you there.”

  “Not if I had your better skill to guide me.” Avery flashed what Everett supposed he meant to be a shy grin.

  Holly was headed to the foremast’s crow’s nest now. Avery trailed behind, wheedling her. “If it please thee, my lady, I couldst grasp thy comely foot to keep from falling.”

  “Oh brother,” Ben whispered to Everett.

  Anyone who had seen Holly’s feet might call them large, a bit brown from all her climbing, callused maybe, but not comely.

  “Stay here,” she ordered. “Don’t you have someone else to bother?”

  “She will agree,” Avery said with confidence as Holly heaved herself up into the ratlines. “Ladies are to a one charmed by me. And soon enough, she will train me in her magic.”

  Everett eyed Holly as she scowled through the spyglass under the bottom edge of the topsail. “I wouldn’t bet on that, mate.”

  Suddenly Avery stumbled into him, and Everett knocked Ben over in turn. When they looked up, Pike was walking by, whistling. He glanced back. “Best get yer sea legs, lads,” he said, grinning.

  “That was a-purpose,” Avery said hotly, righting himself. “He put his hands upon me, I am certain.”

  Pike turned around. “Did ye say somethin’, Yer Highness?”

  He was at least three years older than Avery and a good thirty pounds heavier. He towered over him, blocking the sun. The prince swallowed hard but stood his ground. “I believe you pushed me aside, sir,” he said.

  “It was just an accident, Avery,” said Ben. He coughed to keep his voice from squeaking.

  “My pardons, Yer Grace.” Pike bowed so low that his forehead nearly brushed the deck. “Lemme make it up to ye. I’ll help ye climb the ratlines, if ye like. Impress that fair maiden.” He cocked his eye up at Holly.

  “You have my thanks, seaman,” said Avery grandly. “I wouldst take your aid.”

  “Avery, no!” Everett said. At Pike’s scowl he added, “You were going below to help me with—with—”

  “Our royal manners,” Ben cut in. “He’s giving us lessons.”

  But Avery didn’t catch on. “Another time, squire. As for now, this noble seaman will help me aloft.”

  The prince put a foot onto the ratlines and hoisted himself up a few feet. Pike grabbed on behind him. “No!” Everett said, pulling on Pike’s arm. “He’s not going!”

  Pike jumped back onto the deck. “Ye didn’t just put yer hands on me, lad, did ye?” He pushed his face so close to Everett’s that his foul breath warmed Everett’s cheeks. He gave Everett’s arm a wrench. “I say he is goin’ aloft. So leave it be, unless ye’re wantin’ to go up as well.”

  “Land! Land!” Kailani hollered.

  Pike shoved Everett away from him as Avery scrambled back down the rigging, asking, “Is it the island? Are we to meet the Adepts at last?” He was so excited, he had forgotten he would be better able to see from the crow’s nest.

  “So it would seem, Your Highness,” said Ranulf, who had come up behind them.

  The Island of the Adepts was finally in view.

  Chapter 34

  * * *

  The Island

  “I must say, it’s very exciting,” said Almaric as the crew shared a quick supper of fish chowder. “We shall be there in the morning, I presume, Captain?”

  “Midday, I reckon.” Morgan tore a piece of bread with her teeth. “Mind, I don’t know how many of them we can take at once. Perhaps fifty at most. We’ll have to load more rations.”

  “I don’t understand how we got here so fast,” Holly said.

  “It was that first bit, when we went underwater,” Everett said. “Wasn’t it, Captain? We’re not anywhere near Anglielle.”

  Like going through a wormhole in outer space, Holly thought. She had read about wormholes in a book Mr. Gallaway had given her.

  “The Sea Witch is a ship like none other,” said Morgan. “Once we captured her, we were forced to make . . . modifications, ye might say.”

  “You captured her?” Ben stopped chewing, his eyes round.

  “Aye, on a voyage we made many ages past. She was laden with goods. We boarded her, then took her for our own.”

  “A pretty prize she was, pretty, pretty,” Crewso added. He sat on his own perch in front of a mess of nuts and pulped fruit.

  “What about . . .” Holly hesitated.

  “The crew? What d’ye think?”

  “Did you make them walk the plank?” Ben asked eagerly.

  “Ben, there were people on this boat.” Holly raised her chin at Morgan. “So? What did you do with them?”

  The captain, unruffled, ladled out more chowder for herself. “Don’t be boilin’ yer blood at me. Pike there, on the dogwatch, was one of ’em. And Cook. T’others had no use for the life of a privateer. We locked ’em in the brig and put ’em to harbor at first sight of land, afore we deserted that accursed place.”

  “What sort of place was it? Was it far from here?” Everett asked.

  “A fair piece.” The captain winked. “The Sea Witch goes where none else does.”

  Holly thought back to the bird in the forest in Hawkesbury. “And Crewso? Does he go where none else does?” she asked, but at the captain’s look, she swallowed the question. Instead she turned to the magician. “What will we do, Almaric? When we find the Adepts?”

  “I think it best that Ranulf, you, and I make up an emissary party,” he answered. “Jade, too, naturally. Some of the Adepts I knew personally will st
ill be among the living, and Ranulf’s presence will assure them we are not friends of the king. And they will know one of their own, of that I am certain.”

  “They’ll be surprised to see me.” And hopefully happy about it, Holly added to herself.

  “As were we all,” said Jade, who sat beside her, chewing on a piece of fish. “Perhaps the Adepts will have knowledge of the land whence you came, Lady Holly.”

  “If you don’t mind, Captain,” said Almaric, smiling and twisting his napkin, “I think it may be best if you and your crew hang back for a bit. So as not to alarm anyone.”

  “I sleep on the Sea Witch in any case. We’ll come ashore to replenish our rations and make repairs, nothing more.”

  “Excellent. Then prepare to meet your Anglielle cousins, Lady Holly.” Almaric beamed, but Holly had the feeling she wouldn’t be sleeping well tonight.

  The ship made amazing speed all through the night. When Holly emerged onto the deck at dawn, she could see a small bay that faced a rocky beach. A few brown mountains shrugged out of the land in the distance, and the beach they approached was ringed with trees and a steep dune-covered slope. By noon the ship was anchored, and Holly and the others rowed to the shore by longboat.

  “It does not look to be a large island,” Jade observed.

  “It seems . . . deserted.” Holly stepped onto the beach. Off to one side, a low cliff tumbled to the water, and a boulder jutted into the bay. Wasn’t that where she’d seen the Adept girl?

  Despite Morgan shouting orders to her hunting party and the sailors gathering supplies, an oppressive silence hung over the place. Holly gazed up past the dunes to the forest. A sudden loneliness bloomed in her chest. The tree branches drooped; the leaves were cracked and brown. On her shoulder, Áedán hunkered down onto his belly.

  “This place feels . . . dead, Almaric. I don’t think the Adepts are here. Or if they were, they’re not anymore.”

  The magician sucked in a gasp. “You don’t mean someone’s killed them?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just that . . .” She appealed to Jade and Ranulf. “Don’t you feel it?”

  “It is weird,” Ben said, shuddering.

  “But you saw them at the helm,” Almaric pressed. “They exist somewhere.”

  Holly sat down on the cool sand, pulling her knees up to her chin. A breeze flicked her braids around her face. “I’m sure I saw them here. But they’re gone now. I’m sorry.”

  Morgan’s tall figure blocked the sun. “Crewso will find out for certain if this island be inhabited,” she said. “If not, we sail on. In the meantime, we’ll replenish our stores and make repairs to the Sea Witch.” She nodded to the parrot, who flew off into the brown trees.

  Almaric patted Holly’s shoulder. “The captain is right. Perhaps the Adepts’ island is a bit farther on. Let us enjoy our time on land, if we may.”

  It didn’t look like a place that invited enjoyment. Holly wanted nothing more than to sail away from it. She couldn’t say why, but the thinning trees and burned, brown plants worried her. “If the crew is going hunting, we can at least look for water or maybe berries to eat.” She stood up and gazed into the dense copse where Crewso had vanished. “I’m going for a walk.”

  Chapter 35

  * * *

  The Silent Meadow

  For a few minutes there was a lot of tedious argument. Almaric objected to Holly wandering off; Ranulf insisted he should go along as protection; and Everett said he was going with her whether she liked it or not. The captain was displeased to be losing so many hands that could be used for other work, and Ben said even if Everett wasn’t staying to help, he would. In the midst of this discussion, Crewso returned and confirmed that the island was uninhabited. So in the end, Holly grudgingly let Everett and Ranulf come along because she couldn’t stop them. Jade followed her everywhere anyway. So what she had hoped would be a bit of solitude turned into something rather else.

  And yet, as their small party climbed the hill off the beach and wound their way through the desiccated trees, Holly’s annoyance lightened. The sense of abandonment she’d felt was keener now that the sailors’ voices had faded behind them. Every once in a while she had to look down to make sure Jade was still at her feet, and that Everett and Ranulf were still following behind.

  It was an odd sensation; she could see everyone, but they were like films or holograms, not real living beings. A minute ago she’d wanted a little quiet more than anything, but now suddenly she wanted to talk, if only to reassure herself that her companions were real.

  “So,” she said to Everett, “you’ve been hanging out with the prince?”

  He blushed. “Well, yeah.”

  “I wish we could just send him back where he came from.”

  “He’s decent,” said Everett. “He did all right by us in the castle. He could’ve sided with the king.”

  “You make it sound like he’s joined us, when really he’s just running away from home. If he’s not spying on us.”

  “I agree with Her Ladyship,” said Jade.

  “Wow, big surprise.”

  “His Highness may know a trick or two you are not aware of,” said the cat. “And you do not know this land.”

  “Nor does Holly.”

  “I think Jade just means that we have to be careful who we trust,” said Holly.

  “Talking of trust, I’m not all that keen on this crew,” Everett said in a lower voice. “The captain seems in it for herself, and I think Pike would throw Avery overboard if we gave him half a chance.”

  Holly stopped. They had come out of the brush and into a broad meadow crackling with brown grass. A copse of trees lay at the far end, spilling yellow leaves around their roots. She had just noticed something.

  “What is it, Your Ladyship?” Ranulf asked in a low voice. His sword was drawn, and Holly took out her wand.

  “Don’t you hear it?” she asked, and everyone was still.

  “The birds,” Jade said after a moment. “There are none.”

  “No birds, no anything,” said Holly. The silence weighed on them like a heavy blanket. She strained to hear the chittering of a squirrel or the rustling of a snake or rabbit, but even the brown grasses waved in the wind without making a sound.

  “It’s like . . . it’s just dead,” Everett said softly. “All of it.”

  Holly knelt and parted the grass. There was not an ant, not a beetle. The soil had great, yawning cracks in it. She waved her wand, stirring the dust, but still nothing skittered out of the holes. “I don’t understand.” She looked up at Ranulf.

  “Something is very wrong here.” The centaur moved in a circle, twitching his tail, though no horseflies plagued him. “We must go back and find the others. Sail at once if we can.”

  “But we need to find water. A lot of our casks were washed overboard.”

  “There can be no water here,” said Jade. “Even these trees should be dead.”

  It was then that Holly caught something on the breeze. The faintest of sounds. “There! Did you hear something?”

  The others froze for a moment, then shook their heads.

  “It came from . . .” Holly peered across the meadow, at another stand of near-dead trees. “Over there. It was like . . .” She heard it again. “Like a trickle. A stream.”

  She saw the look Jade gave Ranulf, and she stood up. “Well, I’m going to see what it is, anyway.”

  “I advise against it,” Ranulf said sharply.

  Holly walked into the meadow. “I know. But I’ve got my wand. And Áedán.” Although she noted that, despite the arid place, the Salamander felt sluggish and not as warm as usual on her shoulder.

  “You shall not go alone.” The centaur started forward, and the others followed.

  But then a curious thing happened. The others were only a few paces behind Holly, and she heard the grasses rustling as they walked, but a moment later they had fallen at least twenty yards behind her. It was as if the meadow had grown, stretching behind
her a good ways, although the grassland before her looked the same.

  Holly frowned. “Hurry up, if you’re coming,” she called, but her voice sounded oddly flat, as if she were inside a closet instead of the open air. She turned around. Everett and the others kept moving their legs, but they weren’t making any headway.

  “Ranulf!” Holly called. “Are you guys okay?”

  She started back, but no matter how far she walked, she never got any closer to them. Her feet flattened the tall grasses in front of her, but the path behind her hadn’t lengthened at all; and the others looked to be walking on a treadmill.

  Jade tried to leap over the tall grass, and Ranulf slashed at the meadow with his sword. Everett cupped his hands and seemed to be calling to her; but it was like they were behind glass. Once again the world had gone silent.

  She peered again at the copse of trees on the far side of the meadow, then back at the others. Holly raised her wand at the tall grasses and whispered:

  Clear the way.

  At once the shaft warmed in her hand, and the familiar current zoomed up her arm to her heart and back again. A jolt of power shot from the wand, but almost at once a backblast knocked her off her feet, as if the spell had rebounded off a stone wall. She stood up, unharmed, and scrabbled around to find Áedán, who crawled onto her palm and then up to her shoulder.

  Holly picked up the wand, which trembled, hummed, and bent like a divining rod. It pulled her toward the copse of trees.

  There was nothing for it. She couldn’t go back, and the wand was calling her on. “It looks like it’s just the two of us, Áedán,” she whispered to the Salamander. She pointed the wand in front of her, much as Ranulf wielded his sword, and turned her back on the others.

  Chapter 36

  * * *

  The Well

  Áedán and a steady, cooling breeze were Holly’s only companions. Not even a grasshopper crossed her path. Within twenty steps, she reached the copse of trees and stepped between them.