by Dani Stowe
Kumiko’s lord may have had wealth and power, but at sea it was I who possessed those things. I had sails, a sword, and the power to strike.
And strike I vowed I would. Justice was coming for her lord and I was sure that was something Kumiko would find different. Very different.
For her, and for me, things were going to be different indeed.
Chapter 6
Kumiko
Shelley flashes a fake grin in my direction as she pins her fiery red hair behind her ear again and pulls at my arm, glossing her eyes over me. I’m ecstatic. She’s finally going to read my palm, except she flinches.
“What’s the matter?” I ask.
Shelley blanches, staring at my shoulder. “Your tat...too,” she stutters. “Your dragon—it’s looking at me weird.”
I look down and sure enough, the creature that should be permanently painted to my arm looks as though it has wound itself differently—further up my arm so it can get a good look at Shelley with its eager eyes and wide-open hungry mouth.
My eyes roll, although my response is all for show. “Pfsst, that’s silly,” I say smugly, despite my dragon looking keen on Shelley, watching her for whatever reason.
“Where did you get that tattoo?” she asks.
“At a carnival. I told you.”
Shelley looks at Henry, who’s intrigued. He raises his brows with a cocky nod and Shelley turns back to me. “Tell me again.”
I slouch. I’m sure I told this story to Shelley before, except it wasn’t as interesting to her the last time because she wasn’t involved with Henry then.
I take a breath. “A witch suggested I get it. When your aunt would not read my palm, I got a bit obsessive about it so I sought out a palm reader. I stumbled on one at a carnival. She claimed to be a witch. She was a black woman—mysterious, but quite lovely. Most patrons seemed afraid of her, walking straight past her tent. She was oddly dressed—very little clothing that revealed her curves. But I got a warm and welcoming feeling from her. I paid her five bucks for my fortune and she suggested I see the tattoo vendor next door. She said my soul was lost—wandering through time, and I needed something permanent on my body to unite the two—my soul to my body, like a beacon. I told her there was no way I was going to allow a stranger to stab me repeatedly with a needle for hours on end. Plus, I wasn’t too thrilled about enduring that kind of pain. But it was her argument on pain that won me over. The witch said she could sense an aching loneliness in my core that lingered since before I could remember anything else. ‘The pain,’ she promised, ‘I would not feel alone.’ She made up some mumbo jumbo about my true love and how he can feel my pain no matter how far apart we are. It all seemed ridiculous and I left more confused than when I went in until I passed the display of tattoo samples outside of the tent next door. The dragon didn’t just appeal to me, it almost seemed to beg to be on me and I endured a whole night of endless torture to be united with the thing.”
Henry wheels his chair closer and runs his fingers over my shoulder. I swear my tat looks like it just blinked and is now wearing a sweet and pleasant smiley face.
It irritates me. This dragon and me have been through a lot together. The witch was right—I don’t feel as alone with it tapering down my arm. But to see Henry manipulating it with his magical, mystical crap pisses me off. I decide to give him a bit of my own funky magic.
I kick Henry in the shin and he grunts as he rubs at it.
“Hey!” cries Shelley dropping my hand. “What’d you do that for?”
“Your boyfriend just touched me,” I smirk. “Doesn’t that upset you?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snaps getting up and walking to the counter to fold more clothes as Henry rolls his wheels to follow behind her. “He was...he was...”
She’s stuttering, which means Shelley’s hiding something.
“He was what?” I get up. “What is going on, Shelley? You and Henry both know something. Read my palm! Why won’t you take a moment to read it?”
“Because I don’t have to!” she blurts. “I already did. Whenever we’re hanging around, your hand is just there and it reads itself to me, like it’s speaking to me.”
“So, what does it say? I demand to know! Stop keeping secrets. Tell me my fortune or—”
“You died!” Shelley cries. “And if you don’t come to terms with what’s happening here, especially with Orphelius—if you don’t start to believe, then you’re going to die again.”
I feel sick. “What...what are you talking about? Don’t you think that’s something you should’ve told me?” I question her, exasperated and confused.
“No,” she whines. “If there’s one thing I learned from my parents it is that we have choices. Death isn’t always the end of everything and if that’s your path, if you should choose it when the time comes, then, as your very best friend, I will respect that. But right now, Henry and I have to leave.”
“Leave?!”
Shelley just dropped a bomb on me—talking about my death or my several deaths, and now she’s leaving? I see two suitcases in the corner and I realize why they’ve been folding clothes with their laundry sprawled about. “Where are you going?”
“I’m taking Henry to see a specialist down south. Doc called in a favor and we have to leave today. Henry is getting worse. He’s losing feeling in his feet and doc says the bullet is migrating closer towards his spine.”
“But I thought his doctor said surgery was not a good option.”
“It’s not but at the rate it’s moving, Henry could lose function of a lot more than just being able to walk.”
“Like his fin?” I sass. “Maybe if he stopped morphing into a fucking fish so he can fuck you how you want it, he wouldn’t be having this problem.”
Shelley sighs. “That’s mean.”
“Yeah, well, so is leaving your best friend alone in this rinky-dink small town filled with creatures from the Black Lagoon. If I could’ve afforded to stay in the apartment by myself, I would’ve.”
“Look,” pauses Shelley staring blankly. “Stay here. Stay in the beach house. It’s perfectly safe. If you run into trouble, just call the sheriff.”
I’m fuming again. “You said I couldn’t trust the sheriff!”
“No, right. Don’t call the sheriff. Call the deputy.”
“So, that’s it? You tell me I died and that I might die a-gain and you’re just going to leave?”
Shelley stops folding and walks to me, putting her hand on my non-tattooed shoulder. “If you really want to know more, you can go to the library and see Athena. But honestly, Kumiko, curse his heart, if you just give Orphelius a chance—”
Curse his heart?
“Curse his heart! Fuck you,” I tell her as I flick her hand away and allow my feet to march me into Shelley’s old bedroom and slam the door behind me.
I walk over to Shelley’s vanity and sit in the little wooden chair before an oval-shaped mirror on the wall that’s frame is constructed of cemented seashells between globs of glitter and sand. I get more irritated when I see my grumpy face in the mirror.
I just don’t get it. I know Shelley grew up here and I know she’s been exposed to a lot of this hocus-pocus, but it all still seems unreal to me. Not to mention now I’m about to be stuck here alone because she needs to take her disabled merfreak to see a damn surgeon.
“I hope that freaky fucker is never able to walk again,” I say to my reflection. “Ah!” Pain shreds through my flesh over my shoulder—it’s penetrating deep into my bone where it throbs. I swear it feels like I just got bit and I can’t help but get the feeling I did.
I look in the mirror. My dragon is looking back at me, looking pissed and angry.
“You know I didn’t mean that,” I say to the cartoon painted on my arm. I feel foolish for talking to it—to myself, but the urge to apologize feels overwhelming. “You know, I love Henry. I’m just jealous of him, or more likely the two of them—stupid lovebirds always hanging out on that co
uch they call the love nest.”
I always thought it would be wonderful to see people in love. I always wished it for my parents—that I could’ve seen them just once loving one another instead of always arguing. I never even saw them kiss and my whole life I wondered what it would’ve been like to see the two in a tight embrace, swapping tongues. But it’s as if they were doomed, doomed from the beginning, as I know in my heart I’ve been since the birth of my existence.
I look the dragon straight in the eyes through the mirror. “You would think that seeing people like Shelley and Henry in love would be soul lifting. But it’s not. Watching people in love sucks!”
I ditch the mirror and decide to lie down on Shelley’s creaky, wooden twin bed. When I lay my head to the pillow, her parents are staring at me. They are in a tight embrace and smiling inside a dusty 3x5 fake metallic picture frame, which I fold back to avoid seeing them.
My gut wrenches. Perhaps I’m being selfish. Shelley’s past has been as tumultuous as my own, if not more. My parents may not be together anymore, but at least they are still alive.
I think of Henry. I’ve never considered his past. I never even asked. Maybe its because I don’t really want to know the history of his current circumstances, mostly since deep down I know it might negate the turmoil I experienced in my life. Fundamentally, I know Henry’s history could be, and probably is much, much worse. He is cursed, after all. Curse his heart...
And now I’m thinking about...
Orphelius.
I wonder if he too can change the way Henry can form his legs. Orphelius is quite handsome from the waist up, but the rest? Yikes.
Well, if Orphelius had legs, I might be interested.
...the fuck am I saying? I’m not interested in tentacle man!
I close my eyes, shutting them firmly and pulling the covers over my head. No more thoughts of tentacles or broken legs or sea monsters and mermen.
Sleep. That’s all I need. A nice long nap and thoughts of...
Rainbows. Those seem safe enough.
Chapter 7
Orphelius
“Good morning, my brother!” shouted Captain Willis Sturgeon, a gray-eyed stoutly devil from aboard the Annabelle. “Have you seen the sky behind you? We’ve been given a good omen.”
I turned around to see a rainbow spreading high into the heavens and the moment I paused to look up, a seagull shit on my shoulder. “What the fuck?” I snapped.
A line of seamen, waiting to be inspected in hopes of becoming a part of Annabelle’s crew, wailed with laughter.
“That’s two good omens in a row,” cried the Captain, slapping his thigh. “Perhaps, we should set sail today instead of waiting on orders. With this much luck, we might find the Fountain of Youth.”
“We have orders,” I shouted back as I made my way up the plank and onto the deck.
Captain Willis lifted his two-horned hat to scratch his head. “How’s that?”
I marched straight to Willis, my Captain, to give him the papers I lobbied for just moments ago. “We are to accompany Captain Porterman to see our majesty’s treasure and ammunition safely to the Americas. They depart this afternoon.”
“What the hell did you do?” Willis asked unrolling the papers. “We don’t even have a full crew.”
I said nothing as Willis read the handwritten cursive until he rolled the papers back up and smacked me on the forehead with them.
I stuck out my chest and lifted my chin. “I’m ready to depart and escorting this ship will be a fine journey.”
“Journey? Who the hell are you and where is my friend that has become like a brother? What’s on this ship that you want so bad, Orphelius?”
“Gold and ammunition and a reason to go to the Americas. You’ve always wanted to go to the new coast. You speak of it incessantly.”
“Not with slaves! Have you seen the shorthanded list on this manifest? There are slaves—expensive ones. Women in chains. We don’t do slaves, or did you forget? Take these orders back and tell them I do not consent and any confusion in the matter is your doing and if you should be punished for it, I will give you the lashings myself.”
“Captain,” I said firmly. Both of my hands had unconsciously gripped my sword and Willis had caught sight of my grip at the hilt. “We must accompany this ship.”
The wrinkle between Willis’s brows furrowed deep. He looked about the ship, as did I. Several seamen were watching. “Orphelius, you look like you’re about to start a mutiny and you hardly even have a crew to do it. If you are desperate to go to America, we will. But not among slaves or in the company of slaves and certainly not today.”
I gritted my teeth. “What is your problem with slave women? You fuck whores all the time.”
“Rarely do I fuck whores,” he replied, still looking about to check who was listening in and he lowered his voice. “Women throw themselves upon me as they do you. But in the rare case I find myself attracted to a woman who is a whore, I pay her well and I do not force her to do anything she does not want to do. But that is not the issue here, is it? Why are you so ready to depart and why, of all the ships, do you want to accompany this ship? It is not like you to seem interested in the details of where’er we are destined. You normally leave that to me...unless?” Captain Will reached under the folds of his jacket and pulled out a handkerchief and handed it to me with a gesture to wipe the bird feces from my shoulder. “There are rumors of a master swordsman who came to the aid of a whore last night. This master swordsman wouldn’t happen to be my Master at Arms, would he?”
I didn’t look at Willis. Instead, I wiped the bird shit. Willis and I, we were—are— more than friends. We are brothers, but he was still my superior and I didn’t know how he was going to feel about what I’d done for the sake of a strumpet.
“I see,” he groaned with suspicion. “I have to say, I’m quite disappointed in you, Orphelius.”
I huffed, finally looking at him. “I only killed two men after they had already murdered one man. I could not wait to consult with you for an order or—”
“I’m not talking about that. I trust you to take justice into your own hands. I’m just surprised to see you could fall in love so quickly. And with a used wench, no less?”
“She’s hardly used. Known only to one other man, a man who abuses her.”
Captain Willis walked away to lean over the edge of the ship and cast his eyes on the men lined up below along the pier. “We will take the first twenty men,” he shouted.
The first twenty men cheered as they raced up the plank while the other men cursed and slouched to walk away, except for one man who yelled with a fury from the back of the line.
“No, wait!” the man cried, racing up the plank with a stomping and leaping over whatever stood in his way to come straight to Willis and myself. It was obvious he was a seaman, but he had never been on a navy vessel—no discipline. “Please, I’d like to join this crew,” he begged.
“We only need twenty,” announced Willis, turning his back to the man to walk away.
The man pleaded. “But, I’m a fine navigator.”
Willis paused, holding up his compass made of gold—the one gift he kept from his father, whom I believe he hated. “I’m the navigator. That’s what being the Captain means and I’m confident I’m a much finer navigator than you.”
“Yes, I know. That’s why I’d like to join your crew. It’s my understanding that no finer adventure awaits than the one navigated by Captain Willis Sturgeon in the company of his friend, Master Orphelius Mayhem.”
I chuckled when Willis turned back to face the lad. I could sense the compliment would earn the seaman a spot on our ship.
“Adventure?” Willis roared with a smile also examining the seaman. “If adventure is what you seek, then why were you at the end of the line?”
“I’m sorry,” he replied, “I was—”
“Seaman,” interjected Willis with a most serious face, his chin up and brow raised. “When I call fo
r help, you are to be at the front of the line. You will be the first to step up, the first to volunteer, and the first always at my side. Is that clear?”
He nodded. “Yes, Captain.”
“Give me your name.”
“My name is Henry,” he replied, straightening his spine.
“Henry,” smiled Captain Willis. “You speak heartily and your legs seem to carry you well. We need strong legs and men with backbone who are not afraid to speak up. Welcome aboard.”
Chapter 8
