The Adventures of Lettie Peppercorn

by Sam Gayton

  She stood there wondering until Noah came up to her. “The Wind’s still blowing us away from Albion. Shall I draw in the sails? Or do you want to ask it where we’re going?”

  Lettie looked at him sideways. “Do you really believe the Wind is leading me places? I don’t even know if I believe that myself.”

  “It’s not the strangest thing about you,” said Noah. “You live in a house on stilts, where spoons change to twigs. You’ve had an invention made for you called snow, and your joint best friend is a pigeon.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Of course!” He looked up at the sail, taut and white against the dark sky. “I’m a sailor, Lettie, I go where the Wind takes me. And it led me to you, didn’t it? I was born ten thousand miles away, but the Wind brought me to Barter, and now we’re friends. We’re on this boat for a reason.”

  “You’re right, Noah. It helped us catch Blüstav, rescued us from the Walrus and the Goggler, and now it’s leading us somewhere else.”

  “But where? Can you ask?”

  Lettie frowned and shook her head. “It doesn’t really work like that. I can talk, I can ask questions, but the only answer is a tug in the right direction.”

  “Oh,” Noah said. “But what question have you asked, Lettie?”

  Lettie turned to watch the waves rush past, sending up spray. “Where’s Ma?” she whispered. “That’s the question, Noah. Da doesn’t know. Neither does Blüstav.”

  Noah nodded. “But the Wind does.”

  “How can it know?”

  Noah shrugged. “It just does. And soon, we will too.”

  Lettie had a strange feeling in her chest. Since before she could remember, there had been an emptiness inside her, like a hunger. Now, for the first time in her life, she felt it shrinking. She hugged herself and shut her eyes.

  “Are you all right, Lettie?” said Noah.

  She nodded. “I just really hope we’re going to find Ma, because now that I’ve started thinking about her, I can’t stop.”

  “We are,” said Noah. “I know we are.”

  “What is that, over there?” said Blüstav up above.

  “What is what? Over where?” said Lettie.

  Blüstav pointed back in the direction of Albion.

  Rising from the sea was a black line. Lettie watched in fascination as it drew up and up. Then another line started the same way: scribbling on the blank slate of sky, like God was writing a message.

  “Two,” she counted. “No, three. What are they?”

  The lines began to smudge at the end, and she realized what they were.

  “Smoke plumes,” said Noah.

  Heart hammering, Lettie fumbled in her pocket for her telescope. “Smoke means funnels and funnels mean a ship and a ship means . . .”

  She put an eye to the telescope.

  “It’s a whaling boat from Barter,” she said to Noah.

  Four Drops of Æther

  “What’s the ship’s name?” Noah asked grimly. “Is it the Bloodbucket?”

  Lettie looked for the name, splashed in white paint across the rusty hull. “Yes.”

  “That’s Captain McNulty’s boat; he’s the whaler we saw in the Clam Before the Storm.”

  “I know.” Lettie could see the red-bearded captain on his deck, standing next to . . . the Walrus and the Goggler.

  “The crones are there too, aren’t they?” said Noah.

  Lettie nodded. “We knew they wouldn’t give up. They’re chasing us.”

  “I’m done for!” wailed Blüstav, his face white with fright, as well as frost.

  “We all are,” said Lettie. “Noah, can we get away?”

  Noah bit his lip. “I thought we’d get more time.”

  “I know!” she cried. “I’ll ask the Wind to blow them back to the jetty!”

  Noah shook his head. “The Wind can’t stop them, Lettie. They have propellers, and engines, and big piles of coal to stoke in a furnace.”

  Lettie knew what he was saying: there was no escape. She needed a plan, and she needed it now.

  “What do I do?” she whispered.

  Lettie tried to feel the pull of the Wind, but she could only feel it tickling her nose. Maybe she had a cold coming on. She shook herself and tried to concentrate, but it was impossible. There had to be a thousand sneezes stuffed up there! And as the tickling grew, so did an idea in Lettie’s head.

  Lettie Peppercorn, that’s mad!

  But the idea stayed with her all the same, niggling away.

  Maybe. Just maybe . . .

  She dug around in the corners of her pockets for anything she could find: dried spice, old coriander, chili. Her fingers rolled over something coarse and round: a single peppercorn.

  Lettie smiled. That would do. It might be an impossible plan, but it was worth a try.

  She had the peppercorn, now she needed one more thing.

  “Blüstav!” she called up to him. She paused. “I’d ask you politely, but I don’t have time. Give me your æther!”

  “An alchemist never surrenders his potions,” Blüstav sneered.

  “I thought that’s what you’d say,” she smiled, motioning to Noah. Together they took hold of the rope tethering him and began to reel him in. Blüstav wriggled and whined, but he was helpless to stop her from plucking the æther bottle from his pocket. Noah let go of Blüstav and he soared back into the air, bobbing on the end of his rope like a cork in water.

  “Thank you,” said Lettie, shaking the vial. There didn’t seem to be much left. She unscrewed the lid, hoping it would be enough.

  “Are you sure you know what you’re doing, Lettie?” asked Noah.

  “No,” she said. “But here goes, anyway.”

  She stuck out her tongue and squeezed a drop of æther from the pipette. It was like swallowing all of winter. The numbness tumbled down her throat, and the warmth around her heart vanished.

  “Stop it, Lettie!”

  “What’s going on?” wailed Blüstav from above. “If you use up the last of my æther, I’ll start defrosting! My snow cloud will be ruined. The slightest change in temperature can be disastrous. Once, in the tropics, it heated up ever so slightly and made nothing but thunderstorms for a week.”

  Lettie ignored him and drank another drop. Her heart beat and beat like it wanted to leave her chest. Her knees shook, her teeth chattered, and ice began to form between her toes.

  “Halfway there,” she muttered.

  A third drop. Little icicles were forming, starting from her eyebrows and down over her eyes.

  “Just one more . . .”

  “Don’t!” said Noah. “One more drop, and you’ll never be warm again.”

  “Don’t be stupid, girl,” called Blüstav. “No one’s ever taken that much æther.”

  Noah grabbed her shoulder, trying to take the bottle from her. He yelped as if he’d been stung: Lettie was already freezing.

  But it wasn’t enough. She had to be more than freezing, colder than even Blüstav.

  “Just g-g-get the hot-water b-b-bottle ready when I get b-back,” she managed.

  And her fingers squeezed the pipette, and the fourth drop fell.

  It was the worst feeling she’d ever felt. Her bones were brittle as glass, her blood barely moved in her veins. There was not a shiver of warmth in her whole body. All the heat had been squeezed out and now she felt nothing but the grip of the cold, the cold, the cold . . .

  She dropped the almost-empty bottle into her pocket and stepped toward the side of the boat. She jumped the rail and tumbled overboard.

  “Save her!” she heard Noah shout. “She’ll drown, she’ll freeze, she’ll die.”

  Lettie realized he was pleading not with Blüstav but with the Wind. She tried to speak, to tell him it was all right that this was part of her plan, but there was not enough time. She hit the waves with a slap.

  Lettie hit the waves but didn’t sink. She skipped across them like a stone, until she tumbled, bounced, and skidded to a rest,
her eyes frozen shut.

  Lettie Peppercorn, don’t you die, she told herself.

  It took her a while to pick away the ice gluing her eyelids shut. When she finally opened them, she saw the sky. She lay on her back. Struggling up onto her elbows, Lettie looked around her and managed a smile. Her plan had worked!

  She hadn’t sunk into the sea: she had frozen it.

  At her touch, the waves directly below her had turned to ice. Shakily, she got to her feet and stood on her little island of frozen sea, looking up at Leutha’s Wood. Noah leaned over the rail, staring openmouthed, holding an inflatable life ring. She still couldn’t speak, so, as fast as her frozen body would allow, she lifted her hand and waved.

  “Lettie Peppercorn, get back up here!” said Noah. He was trying to be angry, but he just sounded relieved.

  Lettie shook her head, turning toward the Bloodbucket. She wondered if walking was a sensible idea, but it didn’t really matter either way. She had to try. She put one foot lightly on a wave. It froze before she even stepped on to it. She exuded the cold, like an aura. The ice was slippery but firm.

  She took another step, then another. It was hard walking with the ground constantly shifting beneath her feet, but she was doing it. She was walking across the water.

  “Wait there!” called Noah. “You’re walking the wrong way!”

  Of course I am, she thought. Someone’s got to get rid of those old ladies.

  She began to head across the sea, toward the Bloodbucket.

  An Itchy Nose Saves the Day

  With the Wind roaring in her ears, Lettie bounded over the waves and skittered across the swells. Skipping was the fastest way to move, she quickly found. Up ahead, the Bloodbucket drew closer. It bristled with funnels, trailing smoke. Its iron hull had a harpoon gun bolted to the front and a great crane—for lifting dead whales into the cargo hold—saddled on the side. From every plank and rivet came the stink of rot and blood.

  The crones stood on deck. The Goggler looked through her scopical glasses, while the Walrus held on to an oversized wig that covered her spout and the hole in her teapot head.

  Lettie drew up to the side of the ship. The stench was so strong she could taste it. Her stomach clenched like a fist and she gagged. She wished she was back on Leutha’s Wood, with Noah taking care of her. Cups of khave, thick blankets, and hot-water bottles . . . The yearning for warmth inside her was so strong that she had to choke back a sob. She held the peppercorn in her hand. She couldn’t afford to cry, not if this was going to work.

  The engines whirred and sputtered and died as the ship slid to a stop. The Bloodbucket was eerily silent. Lettie peered into a porthole studding the side. She jumped: a sudden face appeared on the other side of the glass. It was coal-blackened Stoker Pete, scowling at her.

  Lettie stepped away and looked up at the deck, trying to speak, but her jaw was still frozen shut. Eventually, though, her chattering teeth worked her mouth open, and she managed a: “H-H-Helloooooo!”

  A man with bloody gums and a wiry red beard leaned over the side, scrutinizing her through a huge telescope.

  “Whatever it is,” said Captain McNulty, “ ’tis alive!”

  “I’m n-not an ‘it’—” began Lettie.

  Captain McNulty grinned and spat something green into the sea. “And it talks.”

  A voice said: “It’s a mermaid, then.”

  “Blubber Johnson, stop your postulatin’,” said Captain McNulty. “It ain’t no mermaid, it ain’t got a tail. Looks like a young girl.”

  Another voice said hopefully: “Aye? A beautiful young girl?”

  “Nay, rather plain,” Captain McNulty answered. “Come see for yerself.”

  There were several clanging steps, and a sailor whose nose was swollen with carbuncles and pustules leaned over the rail to squint at Lettie. He said: “Then it ain’t no sea siren. Sea sirens be very beautiful.”

  “Get back to yer post, Grot-Nose Charlie,” Captain McNulty muttered, and the other sailor vanished.

  Lettie glared at the captain. “I’m not a mermaid, I’m not a sea siren, and I’m not plain: I’m Lettie Peppercorn, and I want to speak to your passengers.”

  Captain McNulty polished the end of his telescope vigorously, and studied Lettie further. “Lettie Peppercorn? So you are,” he said. He turned and called: “We found yer landlady! She’s bright blue!”

  Lettie gulped as the Goggler and the Walrus appeared over the side. Their eyes were truly terrible now: red with rage and no sleep, green with greed and seasickness. Lettie stared back as bravely as she could.

  “Grab her with the crane!” cried the Goggler with glee. “Grab her!” With her remaining hand, she made pincer movements.

  Lettie saw that almost all the gold rings had vanished from the old crones’ fingers. So that was what the Whalers were being paid with: gold. Lettie wondered if there was a grown-up alive who didn’t care about getting rich.

  “Grot-Nose Charlie!” screamed Captain McNulty. “Bring her up!”

  Grot-Nose Charlie worked the levers, and the crane creaked and swung toward Lettie. The rusted claw lowered down toward her and tried to pluck her from the waves. But Grot-Nose Charlie was used to fishing dead things from the sea, and he couldn’t catch Lettie as she skipped backward and out of reach.

  “I’d rather stay where I am, thank you.”

  The Goggler narrowed her eyes and whipped out her silver pistol. She flicked down a lens on her scopical glasses with black crosshairs painted upon it. “We are in charge here! You are our prisoner!”

  “Careful!” warned the Walrus. “She’s taken æther. She’s up to something.”

  Yes I am, thought Lettie. In her hand she crushed the dried peppercorn between the pestle and mortar of her frozen thumb and palm, grinding it into a fine dust.

  Keep them talking, she thought. Just a little longer.

  “I know you want the snow cloud . . .” she began.

  “Of course we do!” cried the Walrus. Then the crones began listing all of the many things they wanted; things they would cross oceans to get.

  “We want the diamonds!”

  “And the æther!”

  “I want my hand back!”

  “I want to turn him into a pot of tea!”

  “But more than all that, we want the snow!”

  “And we want it now!”

  Lettie ignored them. She held her handful of pepper dust.

  Lettie Peppercorn, get a move on. It’s now or nevermore for you.

  Raising her hand to her nose, she sniffed it all up.

  For a second, Lettie hung just above the water. In her head the pepper itched and burned. She took in a great gasp of air, and:

  “Aaaaaaaaaaa-CHOO! Aaa-CHOO! Aaa-CHOO!”

  Out came the three biggest sneezes of her life. The force of each one made her stumble backward.

  She opened her eyes and wiped away frozen tears. Had her plan worked?

  “Yes!” she cheered, doing a little victory skip-and-a-hop on the ocean.

  The sea around the Bloodbucket had completely frozen. Lettie’s subzero sneezes had shot out of her nose and made a whole iceberg. Now the whaling ship was utterly trapped inside it. The Walrus’s wig had been blown from her head and the Goggler’s scopical glasses lay skewed across her face. They blinked, stunned. The Bloodbucket had keeled over to one side, encased in the block of ice that nearly reached up to the deck.

  “Reverse the engines!” Captain McNulty bellowed. “Reverse!”

  The funnels belched smoke, the propellers squealed, the ice boomed and cracked, but the Bloodbucket was completely stuck.

  Lettie laughed. It had worked. The whalers would have to chip themselves out of the iceberg with harpoons. It would be days before they’d be free to chase Leutha’s Wood. Now she could head back to Noah and a huge, steaming cup of khave.

  She turned and began to skip lightly over the ocean, toward the little wooden ship in the distance.

  Noah Grows a Blazing P
ip

  Three things put Lettie in a bad mood on the way back to Leutha’s Wood.

  One: Noah wasn’t there to clap and cheer.

  Two: He wasn’t there to help her out of the sea, either.

  Three: Blüstav didn’t even say “thank you.”

  Lettie Peppercorn, why did you bother?

  She clambered onto the boat all by herself, stomping over the deck, pulling her feet from her frostprints all the way.

  “Get me a hot-water bottle, a blanket, and a cup of tea!” she shouted, barging open the door of the tiny cabin.

  “It’s nearly done,” said Noah at his stove, boiling up a pan of water.

  Lettie felt the air around her crackle. “Well, I want it now!”

  Noah’s stalk shed a leaf as he looked at the floor. She instantly felt terrible for losing her temper. She turned away, biting her lip until she could feel it.

  “Sorry, Noah. I sounded just like the Walrus then. I don’t mean to be in a grump. It’s this æther, it’s this stupid cold.”

  He shrugged and stoked the stove. “I know. It doesn’t matter, Lettie. You were stupendous out there. You were a hero.”

  Lettie felt even more awful after he said that, but a little warmer too, knowing that she had just saved Noah. Now he was there to save her. He motioned her into a chair in the corner, where she sat and waited, watching.

  It was a dark little room, full of cozy shadows and comfy smells. Under the scent of candle wax there were other aromas: sawdust, smoke, and cinnamon spice. A shelf was piled with pots, forks, wooden cups, and, of course, her beer-bottle da. The small stove Noah stood over was in one corner, beside a bucket full of dirty dishes. On the far side was an unmade bunk bed; on the wall above the pillow were strange words and symbols drawn in chalk that Lettie decided might be Noah’s dream-spells or prayers.

  By her chair was a low table, strewn with maps of constellations Lettie had never seen before, as well as strange coastlines with routes and crosses drawn over them in orange and green ink. A plant, hanging in a canvas basket, was humming softly to itself above the porthole window. Lettie studied it for a while, watching as the Wind blew down through the cylindrical leaves, making them sing.