‘And that’s a fact,’ agreed Treasure.
Will laughed and went in to wash up for lunch. It was cosy in the dry, sweet-smelling house, with the bowls of frangipani and passionfruit flowers on the table. Soon there’d be pumpkin pie and banana fritters for dessert.
Will was glad to be useful. But with each wild-weather day, he worried a little more about his own home, and wondered if his mother was making her way towards it.
In all this time there’d not been a skerrick of news. And since the weather set in, Honey hadn’t been able to get to market. The rain was too heavy and the winds too strong, and they heard there’d been a landslide in one of the northern valleys.
In the fourth week of rain a fisherman came by to see if they’d like some salted cod he’d been keeping for the rainy season. Honey was glad of the fish and the company, and they sat around the table scooping up tasty slabs of white fish with fresh baked bread and butter.
‘And who’s this fine lad then?’ the fisherman asked, after he’d told them about the health of his family and his own strapping boys. ‘Haven’t seen you around here before.’
Will stared at the man blankly, the red rising on his cheeks.
‘This here’s my third cousin Will,’ Treasure said quickly, ‘come to see us from the Mainland. He works in a cobbler’s shop and has to make eleven pairs of shoes a day or he’s sent to bed with no dinner.’
Honey looked at Treasure with raised eyebrows.
‘You’ll have to excuse him,’ Treasure went on. ‘He’s not used to company, on account of the fact that he spends most of his time in the workshop, cutting and hammering. The master is a terrible slave-driver with red eyes like a demon and great suppurating boils on his neck.’
Will had never heard Treasure tell such a story, except when she was reading to him from a book, and he couldn’t help grinning.
‘Aye,’ said the fisherman, ‘I used to work for a man like that and soon as I could, I lit out and bought my own boat. Never been happier. When he gets older, he should do the same. Start saving now, young Will, and you’ll be sitting pretty.’
The fisherman went on to give more advice about the working world, and Will nodded wisely, trying not to let the bubble of laughter inside escape. But when the man got up to go, he said something that shook the fun out of the day.
‘Hear about that bad business at Turnabout Hill?’ The fisherman clicked his tongue. ‘The woman who lives there, you know, makes the clay pots for market? Disappeared, just like that,’ and he snapped his fingers.
‘Yes,’ said Honey quietly.
‘I passed by there the other day, making my rounds – I was shocked to see how the place has gone to ruins. Half the roof hanging off.’ He shook his head. ‘I mean, the lady kept herself to herself, but she always had a friendly word and she did fine work. My wife loves her clay pots, like most other folk hereabouts.’
After the man left, Honey put an arm around Will’s shoulders. ‘That fisherman’s talk wasn’t easy to listen to, I know. But remember, you’re safe here and this is your home now.’
Will winced.
‘Only until your mother returns,’ Honey added quickly. ‘And when she does, we’ll all be along to set your house to rights.’
But late that evening after dinner, Will thought about the fisherman’s words. His mind turned again and again to his crumbling house; he saw the roof torn off, his mother’s precious things open to the ruinous skies. He remembered how in the last two years, since he’d got taller, he’d helped her nail down the tin sheets before the hurricanes hit. He’d helped prepare for the storms just as he’d done for Honey.
A cramp clutched at his belly. The boy in the book he was reading had to leave his sick little sister at home to get help. Only the boy hadn’t been able to return to his house because he was captured by villains …
Will felt hot with shame. He hadn’t been captured by villains, had he? What excuse did he have for not taking care of their house? How would his mother feel when she returned and found he’d left their home to rot?
Enough! he almost shouted. Pickle me toes and pour rum up me nose – I’m going back to fix it, and nothing is going to stop me.
He repeated the words under his breath while he went to fetch the tools. The saw was freshly oiled and the hammer and nails in good condition; he wouldn’t have time for blunt equipment. He’d have to be back in his hammock before light broke.
He threw a coil of rope into the sack and took the lamp from the kitchen. As he headed for the door, he slipped on his shoes. They won’t protect him very far, he heard the Wise Woman whisper. Never go back to Turnabout Hill.
A trickle of dread started in his chest.
Gritting his teeth, he started down the path. But when he got to the end of the garden, with the wilderness of the forest before him, a fog drifted into his mind.
He shook his head, trying to clear it; he rubbed furiously at his eyes. But no matter what he tried, his thoughts were blurring. The way ahead, only minutes ago shining bright, was meshing into cloud. And still the fog inside him was rising.
His steps slowed to a drag. His feet became clay, as if all the heaviness of the night were pooling in his toes. And a terrible dread gathered inside him.
The fog was thickening, whispering to him. The whisper became a voice, and it grew to a roar that pounded behind his eyes. It welled up from the soles of his feet and broke in waves over his head – go back go back – until it washed over everything else.
Will clapped his hands over his ears, but it didn’t stop. He tried to become a thing instead of a boy, blocking the noise, cutting it off at the root. He focused on the regular rhythm of his legs, working them like the pendulum of the clock on Honey’s wall.
He left the path and trudged on, trying not to hear, trying to notice each real thing he passed: the clump of palms, the silk cotton tree, a mongoose feasting on a snake. Soon I’ll be there, he told himself. But when he looked down the hill there was always further to go.
And now, at his feet, a darkness was spreading. It seeped like water, staining the night that had been bright with moonlight. He could no longer see a path ahead and the roaring turned to a dread that stopped him dead.
Will sat down on the ground. He couldn’t go on. The noise wouldn’t let him.
He took off the shoes and lay them beside him. And he listened to the quiet …
The sweet breath of the night, the call of a bird. Deep inside him, only a sighing was left after the roar, like the wake trailing a boat.
Peace.
He stood up and tried a leap into the air. His knees obeyed him. The little springs in the balls of his feet tightened and released as they should. He gave a wild shout and began to run. The earth underfoot was sharp with small stones and roots but he ran so lightly, it was as if his feet hardly touched the ground.
The moon was silvering the edges of leaves, gleaming in a bird’s eye, a dew drop. He leapt down from rock ledges and hurtled over logs, passing through the night like a shadow. He imagined he was a hummingbird, flying over the treetops.
Not once since his mother had vanished had he felt so free and strong – he was in the right place, doing the right thing. And no one could tell him any different.
When he got to the river he slowed his pace through the mangroves. No breeze stirred the water, and his feet splashed still pools of moonlight. Luck was with him – even the weather was holding for the job he had to do.
And yet as he wound around the bend, his unease grew; the night was almost too calm. He remembered his mother calling him in at times like this. There’d be the eerie green light over the river, a strange hush. Don’t get caught in the calm before the storm, she’d warned. She called it the giant’s eye.
The moon was low in the sky. Soon there’d be the bloodwood trees and the tightrope and the climb up Turnabout Hill. If a storm was coming he’d just have to be quick, and make it back before the rains hit.
But as he neared the top of
the hill, he couldn’t draw a deep breath. Now it was hard to face what lay there, even without the shoes. Keeping his eyes lowered, he crept along the path up to his house.
It was bad. Just as the fisherman had said, whole sheets of tin had slid away from the corners of the roof. When he crept around to the back, he saw that a great tree had fallen across, causing the tin to buckle into a gaping hole.
He made himself walk through the front door. A broken window had let in rain. Mounds of mud and leaves were spattered on the floor. He stood for a moment in the middle of the kitchen. Moonlight shone down through the hole in the roof, puddling in the dirt at his feet.
The house was a ruin.
His eyes moved around dully. He knew he couldn’t fix it. It was a nightmare – the snapped-off tree lying crazily on the roof, the tin sheets splintered. He could climb and hammer and tie down ropes, but he didn’t have the strength to haul a tree. He was just a boy.
He sat for a while at the table, thinking about nothing.
But his muscles twitched. Couldn’t he do something? Maybe he’d start by boarding up the window. He could drag out some buckets to stand under the leaks, roll up the mats that were rotting … If his mother came back – when his mother came back – at least she would see he’d tried.
He chewed his lip. His head was so heavy on his neck, he might just lay it down for a little while on the table. Just a little rest. Then he’d make a start.
Chapter 6
If Will had known how the path of his life would change in those next dark hours, he’d have turned around and raced back through the forest to Treasure. It’s easy to see the wrong turnings when you look back from a distance, but right then, Will was just at the beginning.
He straightened up with a jolt. There’d been a wind moaning at the edge of his dream. He listened to the night outside. Something was growing; a whistling swelling into a howling that rattled at the door and threatened to burst in. Through the hole in the roof he saw clouds scudding through the sky.
A storm was coming.
Leaves and branches were whirling by. Will ran to the window, then to the pantry where the buckets stood. He picked one up, put it back. He couldn’t make up his mind what to do first – nothing was right. There was no time.
You’re safe here with us, said Treasure in his mind. We’ll be all right.
He hovered near the window. What could he use to patch it? He couldn’t think with the wind screaming at him. It was high-pitched as if blowing through a tunnel. Then a low crashing note came, like a tree thudding down. Fat splotches of rain blew through the cracks. He could hear it banging on the tin roof. The moon was rocking in the wind like a boat in the sea. Soon the gale would be so strong it’d pick him up like a leaf and send him flying.
But another sound was riding the air – a squabble of words, a shouted curse. Or was it a trick of the wind? The sounds grew louder, nearer, separating themselves from the whooshing of the wind.
Humans, whispered Treasure.
Pirates, whispered his mother.
He stood frozen at the window.
Then through the broken glass he saw the dark shape of a man. A bolt of lightning lit up his head and shoulders. Will hadn’t seen many men, but this one seemed twice the size of the fisherman who’d stayed for lunch. As a cloud clutched at the moon and let it go, Will saw he held a long silver sword in his hand.
Will flung himself under the table. He tucked up his legs and his blood beat loud in his ears.
The door crashed open and a pair of black boots came striding across the floor.
‘Where is the little varmint?’
The boots kicked a stool just a thumb’s length from Will’s knee. He gasped, then clapped a hand over his mouth.
Will watched as slowly, like a dream, the tops of the boots sank level with his eyes. Then came trouser legs patched at the knees, a belt engraved with a skull-and-crossbones, and finally the whole man was squatting on the floor, peering under the table with his beefy face only an inch from Will’s.
‘There you are,’ he cried. He shot out a hairy fist to haul Will up and as he reached across there was a loud crack of bones. ‘Oh me flamin’ knees!’
Will slithered out the other side of the table and ran for the door. He was on the path with the wind on his face when something blocked him. The clouds parted for a moment and in the terrible white moonlight Will saw another man, leaner but quicker than the first.
The man grabbed Will by the wrist and pulled him into the house. ‘You nearly lost ’im, you great bungler!’ he said to the first man as they tumbled back inside. ‘Lucky you had me on the job.’
‘Watch it, Squid,’ said the big man. ‘I’m in charge ’ere an’ I’m the oldest too, so you oughta show some respect. The Captain made me First Mate this morning, remember?’
Squid made a face. His breath smelled of rum.
‘A … Are you pirates?’ whispered Will.
‘Where’s Dogfish?’ the First Mate went on, ignoring Will as if he were a fly they’d just swatted. ‘I wanna get out of this weather and back to the ship soon as we can.’
Squid shrugged. ‘He was complaining about his stomach again, belchin’ like a volcano. Musta ate something that didn’t agree with ’im,’ and he smirked. His tongue sucked on the black hole where his front tooth was missing.
Will’s stomach heaved. He tried to tug away, but Squid still had hold of his wrist, and the man’s fingers were as sharp as claws.
‘Where’s your mamma then?’ Squid asked him suddenly.
Will was looking at the iron pot on the table. It was just inches from his free hand. A clout over the head with the pot would surely make this Squid loosen his grip.
‘She’ll be back any moment,’ he said quickly. ‘And she’ll be bringing my … my third cousin who is a … a wood chopper with eyes like a demon and suppurating boils on his neck, and he’ll be bringing his axe.’
‘Oooh,’ hooted Squid, ‘now I’m really quakin’ in me shoes.’ But as he pretended to shiver, his hand lost its firm grip and Will scooted around behind him. He dodged an upturned chair and slid on the mud across the floor. Leaping up, he almost fell into the arms of a third man walking through the door.
‘Pickle me toes and pour rum up me nose,’ the man cried. ‘But he’s a lively one!’
Will stood still. ‘What did you say?’
‘Eh?’ said the man.
‘Are you my father, sir?’ asked Will.
Chapter 7
The man’s eyes widened with surprise. He looked younger than the others, even though his belly swelled out from his shirt like a pumpkin. But the other men just laughed and shook their heads.
‘Come on, get him now before he runs for it again,’ said the First Mate. ‘I don’t wanna spend the night chasin’ fleas.’
Squid grabbed Will around the waist and hoisted him into the air. He came down whumpf over Squid’s knobbly shoulder, his legs stuck in a grip as tight as a cork in a bottle.
‘So none of you is my father then? Is that right?’ Will managed to ask, his face squashed into the man’s back. ‘Are you pirates or not?’
The men were striding around the room, opening cupboards, examining the kitchen. They seemed intent on collecting various cooking utensils, together with anything they could eat.
‘Well, if none of you is my father,’ Will went on, ‘how did you know I was here? I mean, it was me you were looking for, wasn’t it?’
‘Your daddy told us all about you, an’ those were ’is last and final words,’ the pumpkin-bellied man sighed sadly, as he closed the cutlery drawer.
‘You mean, my father is dead?’
‘Aye, he told us to look after you when he was gone. And we promised.’
‘I don’t remember makin’ no promise, Dogfish,’ said Squid.
‘You are pirates!’ Will burst out.
‘And you’re sharp as a blade,’ sneered Squid.
‘A promise to a pirate on his deathbed oughta be kept til
l the end,’ Dogfish reminded Squid, fixing him with a narrowed eye. ‘So we ain’t gunna hurt a hair on the lad’s head, right? He’s a pirate’s son, and we treat ’im like one of us.’ Turning back to Will, he whispered, ‘You’ll be right as a ship’s rat in a galley with us lookin’ after you.’
‘Aye, eatin’ maggot jerky and weevil bread,’ Squid sniggered under his breath.
Will was trying to find a way to wriggle out from the pirate’s arm and digest this awful news at the same time. He didn’t think the hole inside him full of missing people could get any bigger. But it just had.
‘What was he like?’ he asked. ‘My father?’
Dogfish grinned. ‘He liked a joke, your daddy. Always playin’ tricks, tryin’ to liven things up on board. An’ he had an eye for the ladies. But he jumped ship to woo your mother. Blimey, did we ’ear all about her. A real beauty, a lively lass if ever there was one. And she was right sweet on him, too. He’d have stayed with her till the end, changed ’imself into a landlubber even, if the bloomin’ Captain hadn’t interfered. Black as thunder the Captain was, lashed into a fury by the whole affair. In my opinion, he wanted her for—’
‘Will yer take a squiz at this!’ Squid cut in, holding up a bottle of rum. ‘Did yer mamma like a drop then?’
‘No!’ cried Will. ‘That was my father’s. She never opened it. She hated the stuff. But it was the only thing she had left of him.’
‘Then we’ll open it now,’ said Squid. ‘What a piece of luck!’
Will shut his eyes. He smelled the sickening fumes as Squid popped the cork one-handed and took a swig. He remembered his mother saying she hated the way drink made his father careless …
‘Oi, leave that now,’ the First Mate said, grabbing it from him. ‘It’ll come in handy for snuffin’ out the Captain’s lights when he’s in a rage.’
‘Parbuckle me timbers,’ cursed Squid. ‘Why does that devil always have to get the good stuff? It ain’t fair!’
‘So how did he die?’ Will asked. ‘He wasn’t very old was he?’
Wicked's Way Page 4
