by Jason Letts
Looking up through her faint lines wafting over the sand, her perspective was similar to floating down a river. Sun-scorched palm trees drifted overhead. Noise from the construction reached the faint lines of her ear. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see her sister trudging through the sand. She appeared in deep thought, and Clara wondered at the pressure she put herself under.
“You know what to do, right?” Mira asked without looking at her.
“Relax. Just leave it all up to me,” Clara replied, though Mira didn’t appear reassured in the slightest.
“And you’re sure there’s no other way we can do this? Couldn’t you just snoop around the mountain camp with Will? That sounds much safer,” Mira said, keeping her voice low.
Clara closed her eyes and tried to change her location. When she opened them again, they only received light for a split second, in which she looked directly at Mira’s face. But the strain of appearing in the open air became too much, and she vanished just as Mira noticed her and stopped. Opening them again, she had moved into the waves that were crashing against the beach and rolling back down into the ocean. It wasn’t until she spoke that Mira noticed where she was and started walking again.
“Why’s it gotta take so long?” she griped. “Ain’t nothing worse than being weak. They’d know it was me for sure if I went poking round there. Then they’d gimme the drugs again.”
“Right,” Mira nodded. “Well just keep yourself outta…out of sight here too. It won’t be good for either of us if they think someone’s been watching over their shoulders. Can you see it yet?”
From inside the crashing waves, Clara strained to view the massive galleon under construction. A mishmash of steel and timber, one half of the hull had been completed. It stretched high into the air, heavy supports holding it in place. The different floors were now under construction, filling the inside with planks and rods forming the different chambers. Countless members of the construction crew were crawling around inside.
“Gosh! How long till they patch it up done?” Clara asked.
“I don’t know,” Mira replied, “but it can’t be too long. We can’t lose any more time figuring out what it’s for.”
Clara left the surf and drifted out along the surface of the sand to follow Mira toward the ship. The banging and clattering became louder, and people started to pass by them. Clara closed her eyes and opened them from within the strands of hair over the left side of Mira’s forehead. Up ahead, the workers used a ramp to haul materials inside.
As they approached, someone dropped in front of them from on top of the ship. The sudden flash and thud made Mira stop abruptly. Aoi wiped her hands off as she got up and came closer so she could whisper to Mira. She must’ve dropped at least fifty feet.
“What are you doing here? You’re going to get us in trouble,” Aoi said, concerned.
“I’m not alone,” Mira whispered back.
“Oh.” Aoi started to look around until she finally found the strange curves in Mira’s hair. “Most of the others here are already spooked out as it is. Just don’t let her close any doors or knock anything over.”
“She’s not here to look at the ship. Clara, do you see the compound over there? The shipbuilders should be drafting in there right now. Get to it,” Mira urged.
“There’s one thing you should know though,” Aoi added. “They usually don’t care what materials we’re using for the galleys, but there’s one room in the back they say has to be all metal. And it’s a big one.”
Someone walked by, forcing Mira to tilt her head and Clara to look at the ground. She cleared her throat and waited a moment before responding.
“That’s interesting. I’ll have to have a look myself. OK, let’s go!”
“It’s really not a good—” Aoi began, but Clara closed her eyes to manifest her consciousness within the shipbuilders’ compound.
Pairs of candles hung on the walls of a dingy drafting room filled with empty wine bottles and fishing equipment. The flames of two candles hollowed out enough for Clara to see through them to a group of bearded sailors huddling over a table. The lively group gestured back and forth, pointing to something on the table, but Clara could neither hear their words nor see over their shoulders. Frustrated, she scanned the room for a better location.
Taking shape within some green netting on the wall, the blast of their boisterous discourse struck her ear, but she could see little more than their drunken, gleeful faces above the flat surface of the table. Anxious to find out what they were working on, she tried to sort out their jumbled voices.
“Aye, a buxom lass if ever I saw one!”
“Glory be the creator of such a well-endowed treasure. What I wouldn’t give for a fortnight triste aboard a two-seated dingy.”
“And what have you to give other than your barnacle breath and rotten teeth?”
Rolling her eyes, Clara concluded that nothing the shipbuilders were working on would be of any value. Looking around the room, she did spot a dresser with papers poking through the closed drawers. Passing through the knots and grain of the wood, they were all too dark to allow her to view the contents.
Transporting herself back into the open room, her eyes found a home in the skull of a fish, which faced the doorway. Just as she noticed a sheet of paper hedged under the table, the door burst open and Crimshaw appeared.
“Have any of you lot seen Mira? She’s not at her desk. What are you doing now? Put away this filth and get back to work!” he barked.
“Ain’t nothing left to do but build the bloody thing,” one of them scoffed while the rest joined in with jeers.
“I’ve never seen a more slovenly bunch of good-for-nothing bums,” Crimshaw spat.
“Tell us how you really feel!” one of the group laughed.
As Crimshaw turned back to the door, he looked directly in Clara’s direction and squinted. Trying to act like a fish skeleton, Clara froze until he briskly exited and slammed the door behind him. Knowing she had to warn Mira before Crimshaw found her, Clara couldn’t leave without checking that paper under the table. It had some kind of design on it, but she couldn’t make it out from this angle.
Moving her point of view to the stains on one of the sailor’s pant legs, she peered at the paper while her host twitched and swayed. Though it was dark, she could tell the design had two poles with big hollow orbs on the top. Wires trailed from it into a round turbine.
From the diagram, the hollow orbs had bars running through the middle and holes on the sides where they faced each other. This contraption looked so complex and confusing, and there wasn’t anything written to give away its purpose. Clara took one more hard look before she vanished from that place to try and warn Mira about her imminent encounter.
She opened her eyes somewhere outside of the compound. Facing the galleon, Crimshaw stalked into her field of view. He stopped a ragged-looking slave, who pointed him into the vessel under construction, and then went right for the ramp leading inside.
Beating him there, Clara inhabited the shadows and the sawdust sprinkled throughout the ship’s expansive interior. Since only the frames were in place, the workers navigated a maze of sturdy planks and ropes to get from one end to the other. The place was crawling with people, but none had the same brown hair and figure as her sister.
Skipping around through the shadows, Clara tried to find Mira and keep track of Crimshaw, who worked his way through the ship. He marched with such force that a frightened slave chose to leap for another beam than risk getting in the way. His arms caught it and the rest of him dangled over the precipice a few stories above the ground. Crimshaw’s attention didn’t stray in the slightest.
It didn’t help that someone had noticed her while she watched this, and soon everyone knew she passed among them.
“It’s the ghost!” someone shouted.
Soon the cries echoed throughout the ship, chasing Clara wherever she went. Changing decks and rooms as fast as she could blink, she searched f
or her sister and for a safe vantage point. Finally, down below, she saw her sister standing on a large sheet of metal, the only room that had a floor. Shutting her eyes, she brought the image of that place into her imagination and opened them to realize herself there.
But as soon as she formed within the shadows of this dim and secluded corner of the ship, Clara knew she had come too late and the confrontation had already begun. Instead of turning to her, Mira turned toward the wooden walkway and the angry brute storming closer. His boots reached the metal flooring with harsh clanks.
“You know better than to be here!” Crimshaw snarled.
But Mira only reacted by crossing her arms.
“I can’t work on the plans unless I know what I’m looking at. I was just taking a few measurements. If you want this thing to float then you’d better relax and stop breathing down my neck every time I’m trying to do what you want.”
She spoke calmly and evenly, and her tone seemed to rub off on him. Though still displeased, most of his rage had subsided.
“That doesn’t mean you can just break the rules. Now come on, you’re done for the day,” he hissed, grabbing her by the shoulder and tugging her away. But Mira noticed Clara in the shadows and gave the tiniest shake of the head.
“What? What is it?” he asked, looking in the same direction, but Clara had moved to the other end of the room.
“What’s what? You’re not starting to believe there’s a ghost too, are you? Maybe you’ve been spending too much time with us lowly peons,” Mira jabbed as he dragged her away.
Clara closed her eyes to follow them, but she felt something touch her in a way that was impossible in her projected state. When she opened her eyes, she looked out from the shadows onto a small cavern lit only by a candle in the hands of a frail, blonde-haired young woman. Clara’s own body, shackled and chained near the rock wall and underground current, looked asleep or dead. But Roselyn continued to rustle at her shoulder.
“I gots something to tell ya,” Clara hummed through the darkness.
Roselyn, shifting her attention to the shadows, stepped out from behind the body to listen. She looked like she held herself together by a thread.
“The ship’s got itself some kinda machine there. I ain’t gotta clue what it’s for, but it’s gots these two empty balls standing on poles with holes on the sides. Nothing’s in them except a little bar. Then they rigged the whole thing up to a motor or something. Strange as heck. I ain’t never heard a nothin’ like it.”
Roselyn nodded her head, but the look on her face gave away how unconfident her understanding was.
“They was probly…how far apart? Put your arms out, girl,” Clara suggested, and Roselyn held her arms out to her sides. “Probly a bit further out than that. A notch higher too.”
Roselyn looked out to the ends of her outstretched arms before lowering them.
“Leastways, Mira’s got her head wrapped ’round this boat and its mission. But if I know anything ’bout what they is thinking then it probly ain’t nothing but finding more people to take over. Sure got the run o’ the place here. Bored I bet. But I’d be telling all this to Mira, but looks like she’s got herself in a heap of trouble. Not to mention every last numskull got their eyes out for me. Best wait a time for it to quiet before going back.”
Roselyn nodded again with a little more vigor. Holding the candle closer to the wall, she spied the tiny stream flowing in a crevasse along the rock. Dumping the gooey medicine and letting it wash away, she returned to Clara’s body and pulled out a small sack from inside her waistband. The sack contained apple slices.
“OK. I’m ready,” Clara murmured, and she pulled her jaws apart so Roselyn could insert a piece into her mouth.
“So’s you three doing all right?” she asked from the shadows while she chewed.
Roselyn hesitated for a moment and then nodded. She pulled up her sleeve to reveal a deep scratch on her upper arm.
“My parents?” she asked, and Roselyn shrugged. “When the Warlord’s in your ear, it’s hard to hear your own thoughts. He’ll bury y’all in an avalanche of grievance till it looks like you can’t never get out. But there’s a ways outta every problem. You just gotta help ’em find it.”
Roselyn looked up at the darkness but didn’t try to respond. When it came time, she fed another slice of apple into Clara’s mouth. Without the drugs bloating her, Clara had started to return to a healthy weight. Soon all of the apple slices were gone.
“Best run along now, girl. Can’t be rousing any more suspicion. Get to drawing that machine so the other two know. The sooner we figured this out, sooner we gonna be free.”
Clara watched Roselyn tuck the bag into her waistband. She expected her to skit away along the wall with the candle in front of her so the dark could consume her all the more quickly, but it surprised her when she reached her arms out to embrace her cold and dirty body.
Touched by the sweetness of her gesture, Clara left the darkness so she could feel the warmth from within her own skin. She tried to move her stiff, atrophied body but mustered little more than a slight groan and a tilt of the head toward the girl. Her heavy eyelids lifted over her glossy eyes for just a moment before collapsing back down.
Roselyn pulled her arms back and gave one last look at Clara before exiting through the cave to the nearby mountain camp. As she left, Clara felt a strange sort of tingling that remained ever after Roselyn had stopped touching her. Even though she was beginning to understand what it meant to have family, she realized until now she might never have known what it meant to have a friend.
A fierce shove knocked Mira onto the dirt path leading from the boatyard, making her hands and her face sting. Before she could get up, Crimshaw squatted beside her, looking down on her with impatience. Twisting her neck, she knew no rationale could overcome their insistence that she simply not know.
“You’ve been valuable, Mira, and so we’ve given you a lot of leeway. If you were anybody else, there wouldn’t be healer in the land who could help you. But as it is, if I find you where you don’t belong again, there won’t be any mercy left for you.”
His frank, almost sweet tone frightened her all the more. She saw him squeeze his thick fists just inches away from her face.
“I’m beginning to think even you don’t know what you’re doing,” she sniped, peering at him from the corner of her eyes.
“Is that so?” he chuckled. “You can’t fathom my reasons. Now run along. Remember, this is your last warning. Don’t disappoint your parents.”
He stood up and Mira got to her feet. Sharing one last glare, they each imparted their seriousness. As she walked away to the conclave of huts and tents, she could tell he watched her until a bend in the path took her out of sight.
Rubbing the dirt off her face, Mira kicked herself for not being able to figure this out. She looked around for traces of her sister but quickly concluded she had abandoned her. Clara must not have had any better luck. They had so many clues now, about Arent and the source of his power, but none of them could tell them what he was doing.
Mira thought about going to her own little tent to get some sleep, but these successive failures made her shun the idea of being alone. The workday wouldn’t last for too much longer, meaning the only person she could find now was Vika. Hoping to see her get into another playful exchange with her children, Mira turned down along the path to her hut.
When she arrived, Vika seemed to be in the perfect mood to play. Elated, she grabbed Mira and pulled her inside, giddy with excitement.
“What is it?” Mira asked, catching the infectious amusement.
Before answering, Vika peeked through the window by the door and then sidled right up to Mira and craned her neck to her ear.
“He’s showing!” she squealed.
Vika hobbled over to Knoll, who was crawling around on some blankets in a pen against the corner. She lifted him out and started to carry him to the table, where some of Chucky’s fruit sat. Though M
ira had sometimes pretended that this child was just like her, she knew the day would come when he would prove otherwise. But seeing the baby smiling right alongside his mother made it impossible to be anything other than curious. Of all things one could imagine, what power had this child been given?
Giving Mira a look of nervous excitement, Vika set Knoll down on the wooden tabletop next to an orange cut into quarters. She put one of the quarters into his hand, and the baby’s head immediately shifted to the other pieces. Crawling with the orange piece in his hand, crushing it on the way, Knoll grabbed the other pieces one by one and brought them together. Soon he had assembled them into one severely beaten up orange. The baby laughed when the pieces fell apart and looked up at his mother.
“Did you see that? He puts things together!” Vika crowed, unable to restrain herself. She swooned into a chair while the child patted around in the juice.
“I’m not so sure,” Mira said after a moment’s pause, causing Vika to leap out of the chair.
“Not so sure? What do you mean? Wasn’t it plain as day?” she wondered, now huddling close to Mira.
The joy drained from Mira’s face, and her breath quivered. She put her hand to her heart and held a solemn look in her eyes. Taking a deep breath, she approached the table and the baby crawling around the edge. Picking up a small blade and some grapes, she started to slice them and drop the halves onto the ground. After slicing five of them, she cut one more and tossed one half out the window. Her hand shook as she set down the knife and reached for Knoll.
Setting Knoll down on the ground in front of the sliced grapes, she finally handed him the other half of the last grape. Mira took a step back, held her breath, and watched.
Knoll ignored the nearby grape slices and immediately began crawling for the open door. Mira’s eyes started to well up and Vika’s mouth dropped open.
“Where is he going?” she gasped.
“No,” Mira whispered, making almost no sound at all.
The baby, without showing any signs of hesitation, dragged the grape half right through the doorway. Vika leapt to the window, watching him home in on the half Mira had thrown. Awestruck and amazed, Vika ran through the door and snatched up her child just as he snagged the other half. While she carried him back in, he smushed the two pieces together.
