The Maiden in the Mirror

by Scott Hamerton

  "Navigator?"

  "Even, sir. Forty-one sailors each."

  Captain Black let out a loud groan. "So be it, as the captain of the ship with the right of plunder, I will cast the final vote."

  Spirited voices sprang into opposition.

  "Would you like to discuss the rights of plunder, sailors?"

  Captain Black's voice reminded Minerva of a father scolding children, and then he eyed Minerva and Olbus, concealing his emotions behind a beard and a scowl. The family connection weighed on his mind. While he sat in dispute with himself, something landed with a soft flop on the deck behind Minerva, and she looked over her shoulder to see a large, tricorne hat. It was a dark, navy blue, with white trim. Pieces of white ash and spattered molten gold still clung to it. When she picked it up and held it in her hands, it felt warm to the touch.

  Captain Black looked up at his crew on the deck of the Phoenix. All of them looked up at the masts of the Skyraker. "Squints?" he asked.

  "Not us, cap'n. It came from th' riggin'," Squints replied, as he pointed up towards the burnt and shattered crow's nest of the Skyraker.

  Captain Black shuffled sideways for a better look. "Boatswain, is your lookout still in the nest?"

  "No, sir. He was lost in the storm."

  "Is that his hat?"

  "He owned many treasures, sir. It appears to be."

  Captain Black gave one long look to the rigging, after which he shrugged. "Is there any man here that objects to the casting of this hat as a vote, on behalf of your fallen lookout?" There probably would have been, if not for the way he asked the question. "Navigator! Tally!"

  Lintumen surveyed the groups again, purely for entertainment, and then proclaimed the results. "Forty-two to forty-one, in favor of the rigger, Minerva."

  Half the crew exploded into cheers and hoots as Luff and Leech hoisted Minerva into the air on their shoulders. Minerva looked up into the rigging and the sails and smiled. She took the hat and placed it on her head, where it fit wonderfully snug.

  "Thank you Nezzen, for everything," she whispered to herself. Not that anyone could have heard her over the din of the men around her.

  Chapter 90

  Quiet Time

  "Three cheers – for Captain Minnie!" the twins shouted, hoisting their drinks into the air.

  "Minerva!" Minerva scolded. "If you're going to say captain, then it's Captain Minerva."

  The twins grew despondent, not even sipping their drinks.

  "But you can still call me just Minnie," she offered with a wink.

  At that, they drank with abandon.

  As the crew danced and sang, Minerva found her way to a quiet side of the galley to hide in her thoughts. She was grateful for the solitude, until her uncle approached her.

  "How are you feeling?" he asked.

  "Fine, I suppose."

  Captain Black eased himself onto the bench beside her, bowing it beneath his girth such that it automatically angled her onto his shoulder.

  "Call me surprised, but you haven't really cried. Myself, I'm a bitter old man, and I've been a pirate for a long time. I've grown accustomed to losing the ones I love. But you, you're young. Last I knew your parents loved you, and you them."

  "I just can't believe they're really gone."

  Captain Black hugged her close, bristling her face with his enormous beard, and she enjoyed it for a moment before pushing away.

  "I think I need to be alone for a while longer," she said.

  Black covered her exit from the galley with his broad side as Minerva wandered out onto the deck of the Skyraker, and soon found herself behind the helm. The moon and stars shone bright and clear, illuminating the disaster around her. The splintered wheel. The scarred and pitted deck. The shattered mast and scorched crow's nest. She felt the pain of the Skyraker as a tangible force in her mind, and she longed to comfort it, as she herself wished to be comforted, but she could not find the way. Broken and bereft, the two of them stood together in the darkness, taking solace in the presence of the other.

  For a time, she sat and gazed out across the mountains and the tops of the clouds. When she was ready for what she knew she must do, she went into the sterncastle, not towards the captain's cabin, but to Lintumen's.

  The bars and locks on the door stood as resolute as ever, and twice she reached for them but twice she failed to unlock them. Much later, Olbus found her sitting on the floor as he let himself into the dark space. She greeted him with a glance and a smile that he did not reciprocate. His open presence indicated to her that he wanted to tell her something, so she waited for him.

  "Lintumen told us what happened. I'm sorry. None of us knew why we went there." He appraised her expressionless face, judging her reaction. "He knew everything."

  Minerva pulled her knees in close and wrapped her arms around them. She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. "I know."

  It was exactly as she feared. Exactly what she had been thinking while she tried to convince herself to open the door. Lintumen knew everything, and told her nothing.

  "They're both in there. Do you need me to escort you?"

  Minerva shook her head and stood up. Then she slid back the bolts, unlatched the locks, and stepped into the cell.

  Chapter 91

  Into the Lion's Den

  Captain Glass jumped from the bed as Minerva swung the door open, but he turned his face to the floor when their eyes met. Lintumen, for the first time ever, didn't bother to look up from his studies. Minerva closed the door quietly and waited for the locks to seal behind her. She didn't know how to start the conversation she desired. In truth, she barely knew what she wanted to say. What she did know was that she wasn't going to say it to someone that wasn't listening.

  "Look at me," she urged.

  Both men raised their faces in the candlelight to meet her gaze. Captain Glass sported a massive black eye and several fresh cuts across his cheeks. Souvenirs from her uncle. He stood hunched and twisted with his arms pulled in close. Lintumen's face was as emotionless as ever.

  "Did you do it?" she asked.

  The captain tossed a sideways glance at her from beneath his furrowed brow, and he nodded once.

  "Did you speak to them before they died, or did you ambush them?"

  He nodded again, and whispered a choked reply. "We spoke."

  "What did they say to you?"

  Glass gasped for words, desperate to avoid answering. Minerva allowed the silence to speak for her.

  "Don't hurt my daughter, your mother said, and I promised. I did. I promised I wouldn't." He spoke slowly, but stumbled on the words, forcing the sentences together.

  "And my father?" she asked, when he said nothing more.

  Glass bit his lip and lowered his head. "Do it, or you're all dead," he said, shaking his head back and forth. "I thought I could do it, but I couldn't. I would have walked away, right then, right there, but I couldn't. I would have let him kill me, but I couldn't do that either, because he would have killed my men. They didn't know. It wasn't their choice. Do it, or you're all dead. What choice did I have?"

  Minerva suddenly understood the source of the strength that gave the weakling captain the power he needed to commit murder.

  Fear.

  "How cruel are the fates to let me make that promise?" he begged. "I promised them the impossible, and they delivered you to my feet."

  Minerva watched him wring his hat in his hands.

  "You know what regret feels like," he continued. "I saw how that day in the forest affected you." Then he lifted his head, but his expression of pain mixed with anger. "But you don't know what it feels like to wake up and see that regret staring you in the face. Smiling and waving and reminding you every day of who you are and what you've done."

  Captain Glass moved in closer, raising his voice.

  "Imagine sharing every day with a child you've condemned to grow up an orphan. Imagine knowing the future that you've denied her, and then imagine watching her fight to
save your wretched life. Now imagine wanting her to just hate you because it would be easier, but she won't, because you're too much of a coward to tell her the truth."

  Every few words, Glass crept closer, and with each step, he raised his voice a little further.

  "But I promised I wouldn't hurt you, and every day you make me earn it! Every day I wake up hoping to die, and every day you deny me! And every time I think it's finally over, that I'm finally free of this torment, there you are saving my life one more time! One! More! God! Damn! Time!"

  At the end of his lament, Captain Glass loomed over Minerva, shouting, but Minerva held her ground until his expression softened and he shuffled back to sit on the bed.

  "Even now, I pray that you've come to kill me, but I know that you won't. The fates are not nearly so kind. I even know what you're going to say, because it's the one thing I cannot bear to hear." Glass closed his eyes and sighed, long and slow, hoping that she would interrupt him. "You're going to say that you forgive me."

  Minerva watched in quiet pity as Glass wiped the tears from his eyes and folded his arms in close. He was right. She had come to forgive him, but could no longer bring herself to say it aloud.

  "I killed a devil for his spoils, and an angel fell from heaven to punish me."

  Lintumen's voice crackled like dry pages in the dim cabin, and Minerva turned to face him, but he didn't shield his eyes from her the way that Glass did. He merely delivered his line and confronted her scrutiny.

  "It's a famous quote," he added. "It's from a book you've probably never heard of," the old man said, as he removed his glasses to clean them with a disaffected nonchalance.

  Minerva already suspected that the real threat in the room was Lintumen. Seeing Captain Glass so wholly stricken with regret only confirmed her suspicion.

  "You sent him there," she said, observing Lintumen closely.

  Lintumen continued to wipe his glasses, feigning disinterest.

  "You found my parents with your magic," she continued, watching and waiting for his characteristic tell. "And then you preyed upon the insecurities of a fragile mind. You said to him what you said to me, that you're a seer. That you can see what others cannot. You promised him glory, and a future that he could not see for himself. Then you showed him the way, and he sought the future you divined from his stars. If not for you, he never would have gone to find my parents."

  There it was. The smile. Tugging at Lintumen's cheeks, striving to remain concealed. Despite the certainty of her claims, he wasn't going to confess his part willingly. He was going to turn his magic on her, and she needed to stop him. She needed to outmaneuver him.

  "You want me to feel stupid," she said. "That's why you used an obscure quote."

  Lintumen smirked, bordering on a sneer. "And you want me to feel guilty."

  "And lo' it rained mercy from its wings," Minerva shouted, in theatrical speech. "My mind flooded, drowned by sorrow, for its rain was love and kindness, unfettered, made to form ravenous beasts, untethered."

  Lintumen ceased wiping and glanced to the side, as if he was trying to recall a memory buried in time.

  "It's from the Odyssey of Hen," Minerva explained. "It was my father's favorite. I know most of it by memory."

  "Was it really?" the old man mused, debating the facts. Then he donned his glasses with a flourish and peered down his nose at her. "Enthusiasm for the classics does not make a man a scholar," he snapped.

  "I think I would be insulted if it did, as my father gave both love and knowledge freely, and the only scholar I know does neither."

  Lintumen leaned back in his seat, clenching his jaw and fixating his gaze upon her. "You think I've taught you nothing?"

  "You think you have so much to teach, because you think you can see everything, but you are blind to that which truly matters."

  Lintumen laughed and flashed his teeth at her. "Is that what you believe?" he mocked.

  Minerva drew a deep breath, aligning her thoughts. "My father taught me to read and write. My mother taught me how to cook and sew."

  Lintumen slumped in his seat, ensuring that she knew how unimpressed he was.

  "Together they taught me about medicine and money."

  "Practical skills, no doubt, but that hardly—"

  "He taught me the value of human life! She taught me independence and dignity!"

  "I gave you understanding!" he retorted.

  "You took those things from me!"

  Lintumen eyed her, as a hawk might eye a rabbit, but she wasn't finished.

  "There are two brothers on this ship that taught me what it means to love a stranger. There is a fat chef with a bad knee that taught me how to show kindness in way most people will never understand."

  Minerva felt her voice crack and Lintumen rose from the table, assuming his full and imposing height, like a viper ready to strike. Consumed by her fervor, Minerva failed to realize that the cabin ceiling should have been too low to accommodate him.

  "A lonely tailor taught me honesty, and an exiled king taught me redemption!"

  Minerva's voice went shrill, and her chest heaved as tears welled up in her eyes.

  "A broken soldier taught me forgiveness! A dead man taught me sacrifice! And I have learned, just now, what true honor looks like!"

  Minerva swung her arm behind her and pointed at Glass, and in response, a raven black quill upon Lintumen's table suddenly washed with golden color, but no one seemed to notice.

  "I gave you wisdom," he argued.

  "I found a sword with more!"

  Several dusty shelves shook themselves clean, without a sound.

  "I showed you the truth," he snarled.

  "I found that in a mirror!"

  The bed that no one slept in wrapped itself in a tidy rainbow quilt beneath a sorrowful captain, who paid it no heed.

  "I gave you magic," Lintumen whispered, as he balled his fists and tensed up, readying himself for the final blow.

  Minerva lowered her voice and frowned. "All you ever gave me was fear and doubt."

  Lintumen's lip quivered, and all the room warmed with the illumination of a forgotten lamp sparked with uninvited life, and he lowered himself back into his seat. "You seek to draw tears from a stone, my dear."

  Minerva frowned, feeling the pain of her own victory. "You also taught me that if I overturn the right stone, it can soar higher than the clouds."

  "There is not a spoken word, winning utterance, or glorious speech in this entire world that could overturn a stone of such magnitude."

  "Then what about a single letter?" Minerva asked.

  An aura of silence draped itself over Lintumen.

  "Ask your letters what they think of you," she urged. "Ask the only source of information you've ever trusted."

  With painstaking grace, Lintumen reached forward and opened the weighty tome before him, never once removing his eyes from Minerva. On the page he revealed, a bold line of calligraphy spread across both pages, like the headline of a scandalous tale.

  The Truth Revealed!

  "Bartleby wasn't the only one who couldn't control it, was he?" she asked. "I can only imagine how much it hurt when they took him. Because you could keep it a secret, but he couldn't."

  Lintumen pursed his lips. "How did you know?"

  "You know too much," she replied. "And you're always reading. Far too much reading for what these shelves can contain. That's how you found my parents."

  Lintumen turned past the headline to the next page, and found a sheet of text that pinched itself together at points on the page, forming multiple webs of words positioned around a series of cocoons. Murder, they read, in the middle of every knot, and the threads that held them called out his lies, from deceit to myth.

  A quick snap of Lintumen's wrist shut the book with a whack. As he did, the drab cushions of the bench on which he sat burst into a dazzling, swirling pattern, changing instantly the way that they had always been.

  "What now?" he asked. "Will you summon your
shadow to kill me, like so many before me?"

  Minerva shook her head. "I don't know yet, and until I do, you shall remain my prisoner and servant, my navigator and purser, or whatever else I choose for you to be, for so long as I am the captain of this ship, or any other. Have you anything to say for yourself?"

  "I do not expect you to ever forgive me, and I will not beg for it with an apology."

  "I never imagined that you would."

  When Minerva knocked on the door and Olbus released her, the cabin she left behind was not the same place that she had entered only moments ago. The dreary space, once colored in plain tones and lit with only candles, now bloomed with all the shades of the rainbow and beamed beneath the glow of many shining lanterns. It was a different space, because the man that made it his home had changed. Without even realizing it, she had altered the entirety of the world and its history with nothing more than the belief in her heart, just to give one man a conscience. It was a feat of magic more powerful than anything that had ever come before, and no one even knew it happened.

  Minerva sighed and stared through the open door into the captain's cabin.

  "That's your bunk," Olbus offered.

  Minerva said nothing in reply as she entered the cabin, allowing the door to swing in behind her, but it failed to latch.

  Olbus stood in the darkness, waiting to leave, but something about the partially open door anchored his feet, and a special memory beckoned him inward. He found Minerva sitting on the bed with her knees to her chest and her arms around her knees, with her face buried in her elbows. He sat beside her and hugged her close. "Tell me about them. Your family," he said.

  The tears appeared slowly at first, but the truth was out, the shock had worn off, and she no longer possessed the strength to restrain her anguish. For a long time, she sobbed in his arms, wailing like a lost child.

  Chapter 92

  Maiden Voyage

  "Are you – sure about this?"

  "Say Captain. I'm at the helm."

  The twins gave Minerva a flustered look as she stood defiant, behind the wheels. "Okay – Captain! Are you certain – that she can even fly?"