Cecilia wavered for a moment then nodded once. Pepin turned and climbed the stony rise leading from the beach to the rickety quay. The entire crew had gathered there, pointing cutlasses, daggers, pistols, and muskets at him. Pepin swaggered toward them, heaving a great, long-suffering sigh.
“A party, mes garçons? You know that’s not allowed until your chores are done,” he drawled, swatting aside a sword that was a breath from his throat.
The sword swung back toward his face. The shadows of Pepin’s face twisted in a smirk. The owner of the sword growled, baring his slimy teeth. It was Jack. “We don’t want any part of this, Captain,” he said, liquid dripping like blood from the sharp ends of his canines. “The Fee may have given you powers, but you’re spent. You can’t fight all of us at once. I reckon we could even take the girl from you.”
The rest of the sailors swore their agreement, surging toward Pepin, though they retained a ring of distance between themselves and the captain. Pepin heard a muffled whimper, and his gaze slid to the side, spotting William and Frank with cutlasses pressed to their necks. Pepin acknowledged this with a chuckle. “Scared of William and Frank? I expected more from you, Jacques.”
Jack took a step closer, his sword level with Pepin’s chin. “You’ve been using us. Don’t think we’ve forgotten how you trapped us in the mirror room! Don’t think we’ve forgiven you. We all want to be free. What gives you the right to liberate yourself with the girl?”
Pepin flicked invisible specks of dust from his coat. “It may interest you to know that, should my plan work, we might just free all of you.” He watched Jack carefully from the corner of his eye.
The men guffawed. Jack sneered. “I’m sure of it.” He waved his free arm. The crowd parted, and the ghost who had been curtseying so prettily earlier that day came forward, carrying a large sack that writhed and wriggled as something inside struggled to escape.
Pepin felt his grin disappear and his control slip. The port darkened, and the men closest to him staggered back a step.
In a fluid motion Jack sliced the sack, and a strangled cry escaped. The sacking fell away, revealing Curly, gagged, his cheek and shoulder bleeding red from the cut. The boy thrashed and squirmed, but his hands were tied together and his legs still caught up in the sack. His gaze met Pepin’s, and Pepin knew that the boy had been crying. Vaguely he heard Jack saying something, and he saw the sword move from his own throat to Curly’s.
Everything went black. An energized, rippling force like a gale lit by flashes of lightning surged through Pepin. He felt it draining him, hurting him, but he did not stop. His vision filled with something like fire, and he forced all the energy building up inside him to channel into a single terrible blast.
Jack dropped his sword. He saw what was coming, and his eyes rounded in terror. He turned and started to run through the crowd but knew already that he was too late. The captain, though not as strong as he had once been, was not as weak as he had guessed.
Jack took no more than four steps. The world surged, and he heard strange noises—screams, wind, laughter, storms, a weird lullaby, and more screams.
Then . . . silence.
Light filtered back through her vision, and she realized she was not actually closing her eyes. Cecilia blinked. Her eyes felt scorched, heated red dots blinding her. She gasped and clapped her hands over her face, breathing heavily, forcing herself to face one problem at a time. First breathe, then see.
She lowered her hands and slowly lifted her eyelids. Her head burned, but it was bearable. Her vision cleared.
A blue wall arched above the wharf in a crescent. For a moment Cecilia thought she was back on her father’s ship surrounded by the Fee’s magical water. But no. This wall was different.
It was the crew, stacked like bales of sagging hay, sleeping soundly. Even Curly slept, though he looked much more peaceful than the crew, despite the gag and the rope. She could see the rhythmic waves of their breathing, but none of them made any effort to move.
Except for William and Frank. Those two were standing, mouths agape, staring at the pile of men all around them. As if united in thought, they pivoted suddenly, but they didn’t face Cecilia.
Cecilia followed their gazes. She covered her mouth with both hands to stifle a scream.
Pepin lay on the soaked wharf, panting. Droplets of crimson throbbed in his chest, outlining the pulsing squid-like heart that had heretofore been indiscernible from his shadowed figure. Red lines tore across his body, pooling in places like bruises after a fight. His fingers were creased with them, as if blistered from a punch. They slid down his chest and legs, giving fatigue a color. But worst of all were the pools around his eyes. Black eyes rimmed in red shone from their sockets, giving him the aspect of a demonic skeleton.
Cecilia forced herself to look at him, slowly lowering her hands. Her mouth hung open. She tried to think of something to say, but the only words she could recall were red, black, and beast.
Pepin heaved himself to his feet. The red pulsed brighter before fading. “Get Curly,” he snapped at Frank and William. “All of you hide on the island. I doubt the rest of the crew will be feeling up to a sociable natter and a spot of tea when they awaken.” He chuckled dryly, though he didn’t sound amused.
“But, sir,” Frank protested, “we can’t walk on the land. It makes me go all . . . all runny.”
“Sacrebleu, must I do everything for you imbeciles?” Though his words were as biting as ever, they lacked Pepin’s usual vitality. He staggered a pace or two, drew himself up, and latched hold of William with one hand, Frank with the other. “Ready, mes amis?”
“Um,” Frank gulped, and then both of them yelped as ripples of black shot through the captain’s arms, passing from his hands into the two of them, flowing up to their shoulders and on into the rest of their bodies. Even as Cecilia watched, their watery outer forms solidified until they were almost, though not quite, as dark as the captain himself.
Gasping out a string of French expletives, Pepin stepped back, his heart heaving red once more from the effort. “Now!” he gasped. “Pick up the boy and go!”
Not waiting to be told twice, Frank and William, slightly unsteady on their newly solidified limbs, scrambled past the pile of men on the wharf. Frank hoisted Curly over his shoulder, and dashed around Pepin and onto the rocky ground, stumbling over boulders and rocks until they disappeared around the curve of the hill. They didn’t look back.
Cecilia suddenly wished she could go with them.
“Allez, Mademoiselle,” Pepin said. He stumbled off the wharf, heading in the direction opposite to that taken by his friends, moving at a jerking, uneasy pace at first, but slowly gaining speed and strength. Soon he was striding along with his shoulders back, assuming his familiar jaunty attitude, though Cecilia suspected it was no more than a feeble show. Lines of red pulsed from his heart out through his limbs, like veins made visible through the shadowy skin.
Cecilia cast an almost longing glance back at the Rose, but the glare of the red ship only reminded her of the strange transformation taking place in Pepin. She shuddered and ran after the captain, pausing only to shove her feet into her shoes. “Where are we going?”
He pointed to the highest peak of the craggy rocks that made up the island then dropped his arm to his side wearily. “The cabin is at the top. No one has been able to enter it, but as I said before, I think a Solid person might be able to. I don’t know what’s inside, but it is the only hope we have.”
Cecilia paused. “You realize that if this doesn’t work those men will kill us?” Somehow she wasn’t frightened, but she knew she would be frightened as soon as a sword was pointed at her throat the way Jack had pointed his sword at Pepin. Her heart trembled at the too-recent memory.
“Well then, we had better hurry to ensure that they are still asleep when this fails. Then we can take the Rose and run,” Pepin said over his shoulder.
Cecilia’s brow wrinkled in a worried frown. This was complete in
sanity. If she had known that the entire crew was ruthless enough to threaten a little boy like Curly, she would have . . .well, she would have . . .
She would have come anyway. The captain was right. They had no other choice.
But what about Curly? a voice in the back of her head whispered. He’s different. He’s changing. Why didn’t it work for the other men? Were they too evil? No, William and Frank . . .
It didn’t matter. She had promised Curly she would try, and this was their only hope. Pulling her hair back from her face, she darted after Pepin. He stumbled now, and his breath came in deep pants and stifled grunts.
“Are you well?” Cecilia asked, tentatively reaching out her hand.
He wrenched away from her. “Fine.”
Cecilia frowned at him but didn’t press the issue. Offering comfort to a pirate who had professed to love—or nearly to love—her felt unnatural anyway. Besides, she had no wish to touch the swirling black-and-red-ness.
Questions burned through her head like a forest fire, and though she wanted to stop herself, she couldn’t help but ask, “What did you do back at the wharf? How did you make all of the men fall asleep?”
Pepin did not turn around. The red in his back pulsed brighter. He continued to climb.
“They mentioned some sort of . . . power?” Cecilia pressed, ignoring the voice in her head warning her to leave well enough alone. “Is that what happened? Why do you have that power and they do not?”
“Had,” Pepin said, his voice sounding strained but otherwise normal.
“Pardon?”
“Had that power, not have that power,” Pepin corrected. He shook his head and tsked sadly, but Cecilia was not about to be so easily put off.
“You don’t have the power anymore?” she demanded.
“J’en ai marre!” Pepin burst out, causing Cecilia to start and stumble on the boulder she was struggling to climb. She opened her mouth to demand an explanation, but he simply waved his hands dramatically in the air as he ranted. “Why does no one listen to me? I am brilliant! I am a genius! I have the answers to every single problem, and still nobody gives me the respect I deserve.” He sighed, resigned. “I suppose it is my humility. It entices people to tread all over me. Like a doormat. Or a dead slug.”
Cecilia shook her head in disbelief as she pulled herself onto the boulder. “You are avoiding my question.”
Pepin tilted his head sideways as though deeply considering her statement. “I suppose I am. And look! There is my reason!”
Despite herself, Cecilia let her gaze follow his pointed finger.
It was the cabin, or rather, a shack. The walls slanted inward, and the whole thing balanced upon a precarious ledge, placed unevenly along the rocky terrain. The middle of the roof sagged heavily, as though just waiting for the slightest excuse to collapse and end its miserable existence. Forcing herself not to scramble away at the sight, Cecilia realized that they stood on a crusty cliff high above the ocean. If they fell, they would die.
She glanced sideways at Pepin. The eerie, frightening red remained pooled around his eyes, though it had faded everywhere else. She shuddered. She would die, certainly. She would go to heaven to join her dear mother. She could not guess what would happen to Pepin.
For some reason this thought caused her to forget the drop and the water and the cliff.
“Shall we?” she said, brushing past Pepin and striding toward the shack.
The door appeared to be the only section of the shambling structure that was unlikely to collapse upon touch. It stood firmly bolted with a bejeweled chain and lock unlike anything Cecilia had ever before seen.
“This is the key the Fee said would unlock the door. But only to a Solid person. It has not worked before,” Pepin said, reaching into his satchel and pulling out a key, which glimmered in the pale sunlight, flashing starkly against his red-streaked hand. “Perhaps you could touch the lock as I try to make it work? I do not know what else to attempt.”
Cecilia set her hand on the lock. It felt completely normal, cool and slightly damp, with flecks of almost-unnoticeable rust scratching her fingers. Slowly, reverently, Pepin placed the key into the lock. He paused for a moment then twisted.
The chain clattered to the stone. The door opened with an ominous creak.
The inside looked exactly as the outside implied: dank and falling in on itself. Cecilia made to enter, but paused when Pepin did not move. He bowed slightly and gestured toward the room. “Apologies, but I do not know if I can enter first. The Fee implied that horrifically horrible punishments would ensue should this law be disobeyed.”
Cecilia shivered, but nodded and tentatively stepped through the doorway, the moldy floorboards shuddering beneath her feet. She stood in the center of the shack and heard Pepin enter the cabin behind her. Nothing happened. She stared deep into every corner, wondering if there could be an invisible chest hidden here like in the mirror room on the Rose. But she saw nothing on the floor or walls. “Captain, I don’t think—”
The door slammed shut behind her.
Cecilia spun. Pepin leaned against the door, arms folded casually, but the intense pulsing of the blood-like streams through his body screamed danger.
“Captain Pepin?” Cecilia took a step toward him. “What is happening?”
He didn’t answer for a moment, but when he did Cecilia wished he hadn’t. The redness pooled around the bottom of his face, shaping into a mouth. A gaping, skull-like mouth made of dripping liquid. “To you or to me?” he asked finally, his voice coated with his customary amusement and arrogance.
“What . . .” Cecilia found her mouth suddenly so dry that she could scarcely form words. “Please tell me.”
He leaned his head back against the door. The mouth disappeared, as did the overlarge circles around his eyes. “What is happening?” he whispered. “I am betraying you, Mademoiselle Lester.” He reached into his satchel and pulled out the mirror. The mirror with the beautiful diamond frame, the very mirror her father had stolen, the mirror that had caused all her subsequent trials, flashing as though with its own inner light. Pepin pointed it at Cecilia.
Cecilia’s eyes burned and burned and burned, as though they were melting out of her head, and she screamed at the pain.
A harsh wind roared behind her. Cecilia’s head whirled; everything went blurry, colors that didn’t belong in the shack streaming together, and her eyes throbbed. The walls shook, and the roof clattered, flashes of dim sunlight slicing through its loose boards. Something blue twisted in front of her, growing and growing, spiraling all around her. Water droplets hit her skin. Cecilia tried to run, but she couldn’t move. She couldn’t look away. The water stretched closer to her, always spinning. Her soaking dress pulled down on her shoulders.
“Pepin!” she screamed.
He didn’t come.
The whirlpool touched her. The stillness shattered. She thrashed around, her arms flailing wildly around her head. Her vision started to blacken, and the last image she saw was the captain kneeling on the cabin floor, the shadow fading from his body and his features coming into focus, his skin becoming healthy flesh and his hair a flaming red.
Chapter 10
SOUNDS DRIFTED THROUGH Cecilia’s mind, morphing into colors, the colors into feelings, the feelings into memories. She couldn’t quite reach complete coherency, but she kept thinking of her mother, and her head hurt terribly. The pounding grew worse in her temples, scattering the frail images and echoing the sounds. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to hold onto the remnants of the dream, but it was too late. Her head hurt too much.
The sounds disappeared at last. Moaning, Cecilia opened her eyes. She found herself lying on her stomach, arms stretched over her head, with her face pressed against a cold marble floor. Blinking, she pushed herself upright and scrambled to her feet.
She was surrounded. The Fee circled around her, floating above her. No, not floating—swimming.
Cecilia’s eyes widened and she held her breath
, twisting around and struggling not to scream. She stood in the center of what appeared to be an underwater court, as if a king’s castle had been built upon sea foam and sunk completely unharmed to the ocean floor. The Fee continued to swim around her, their eyes identically cold and their faces identically beautiful. Cecilia’s throat began to burn. She looked up. A ceiling painted with infant merpeople hung above, dipping slightly in the center where an ornate chandelier floated, its weird candles glowing under the water.
She couldn’t swim up. Cecilia let go of her breath, her lungs heaving for air. She expected to drag in a lungful of water. She expected to die. Instead she found that she could breathe. And this was almost as terrifying as the prospect of death.
What is happening to me? The desperate thought screamed through her mind even as she took a second shuddering breath. Slowly she lifted her hands toward her hair, which was floating in front of her face, her dark locks acting like a blindfold. Cecilia paused then grabbed all of her hair and twisted it violently, securing it in a knot. She seemed able to move freely in this place, and her feet remained solidly on the floor.
“Why am I here?” she asked the Fee. Her voice seemed to flow a bit more slowly underwater but otherwise sounded weirdly normal in her ear.
They stopped circling. The one directly in front of her undulated forward, a familiar smirk twisting her serene features. Cecilia recognized her. She was the silver Fee who had spoken to Cecilia’s father . . . Was that only two days ago?
“You are here because Adam Brown fulfilled his omen and completed his bargain with us,” the silver-haired Fee said.
“Who?” Cecilia asked.
The Fee continued: “His full name is Adam Pepin Brown, but he prefers his more ostentatious moniker.”
Adam Pepin Brown? Cecilia’s thoughts swirled. Pepin had used the mirror to alert the Fee to her presence, causing the whirlpool to appear and bring her here. He had said he was betraying her, his voice so hard and cold. He had changed back into a human. For fulfilling his omen.
Five Enchanted Roses: A Collection of Beauty and the Beast Stories Page 7
