Anton and Cecil (16 page)

Hieronymus considered this. “Do you think so?”

“Nothing against you, but rodents always do make me sick. I can't bear the taste. And you're not exactly any cat's idea of a meal. There's no meat on you.”

“So you won't accept my offer.”

“You saved our lives, gnawing through that barrel. You said yourself, we're friends. Well, I don't eat my friends. Forget this idea of sacrifice. It's not in your nature. What would Great-Granduncle Portymus say?”

“You're right. I can't give up,” the mouse said. “It's not in my nature. There must be a way to save us both.”

“If there is,” Anton agreed, “I trust you to find it.” Then he yawned widely, showing all his teeth. “I can't stay awake,” he said.

“I'm going back on deck,” said the mouse. “I'll keep an eye out for fish.”

On deck Hieronymus found that the weather had changed, as so often happened at sea. The sky was cloudy, and the air had cooled noticeably. A light breeze played in the sails, not enough to fill them, but they rustled beneath the spars. As he looked up at the moon, which was shrouded in clouds, a thin beam of light broke through and seemed to shoot across the water to the ship. Then, as the mouse watched wide-eyed, the clouds parted, forming the pale lids of an enormous eye. It seemed to contemplate the ship, the deck, the mouse. Hieronymus felt the fur on his face tingle, and his spine shuddered. “The cat's eye,” he murmured. What did it mean?

Where the eye sees the eye,
he thought. That's what Anton was waiting for. It meant what was lost would be found. And weren't he and Anton lost? He rushed to the rail and looked out over the water, but it was dark, and though the moon shed upon it a pearly light, there was, as far as he could see, only water, water, and more water.

A profound sleepiness came upon Hieronymus as he turned back toward the cabin. He should tell Anton about this eye. He would want to know. Hieronymus made his way down the gangway and into the cabin, where Anton lay on the cushion snoring sonorously. “Anton,” he said softly. “The cat's eye.”

But Anton was deep in sleep and it seemed a shame to disturb him.
I'll tell him when he wakes up,
Hieronymus thought.
I'm so tired all of a sudden. I may as well have a little nap.
And so the talkative, brave little mouse, the last descendant of a noble clan, curled up between the paws of the cat and fell asleep.

CHAPTER 14

Where the Eye Sees the Eye

T
he small dinghy crew grunted in surprise, looked back at the
Leone
in the distance, then squinted again at the ship before them. It sat motionless in the channel, its sails hanging untrimmed. Nobody at all was on deck—it appeared to the sailors to be completely abandoned.

“Er, what do we do now?” one of the men asked the first mate.

The first mate glanced at the two islands and back at the ship in front of them. He nodded straight ahead. “Let us have a look aboard, shall we? Could be easy pickings, it could.” The other men chuckled and resumed rowing. Strange islands gave them the creeps, but an abandoned ship—that was much more to their liking.

Cecil was infinitely relieved. As the space between the islands came into view he had watched the Eye carefully. It had not moved and now was fixed directly above the ship. He felt sure it had been over the ship all along. From beneath the bowsprit, a blue horse's head and forelegs surged forward, so it was not the ship Anton had left on, but Cecil still felt strangely drawn to it. The prickling feeling extended to his paws.

As they rowed strongly through the waves, Cecil was the first to notice something moving in the water near the ship, just below the surface, creating a shallow sort of current as it went. Whatever it was moved in a constant slow circle around the ship, the V in the water above it charting its path. Eventually a crewman saw it, too.

“What's that, eh?” he asked, craning his neck. “Not a shark I hope?”

Oh, cat's whiskers,
thought Cecil with a pang in his belly.
I know what that is
.

“Dolphin, maybe?” said another.

On the next pass, the first mate saw what Cecil had already figured out.

“It's a whale,” he said tersely. “Stop rowing. Be still.”

The crew froze in mid-motion, no sound but the lapping of the waves on the sides of the dinghy. Cecil stood on his hind legs with one front paw on the edge, straining to see the whale, wondering if it could possibly be the same one he'd seen twice before. All the fur on his body felt like it was sticking straight out. The whale's huge head rolled into view, and it seemed to Cecil as if time slowed down. He saw the blue-gray skin and wide white jaw. He saw the deep blue eye with the crust of barnacles over it, looking out, finding him, filling him with that same sensation of wisdom and serenity that he remembered from that day on the schooner so long ago.
The eye,
thought Cecil with a kind of dreamlike clarity. Then the whale's eye looked straight up at the mysterious cloud-shrouded Eye in the sky. Cecil let out a little squeak.
This is it!
he thought.
This must be the other eye! The messenger. Of course.

The whale turned and dipped below the surface again, the shallow current changing course and now moving directly toward the little boat. Suddenly the current vanished into a swirling eddy at one spot, and Cecil realized the whale must have dived straight down. One of the younger sailors stood up and screamed in terror, almost swamping them before the others were able to pull him down to his seat again. Cecil kept his balance and watched the water intently, trying to see under the waves.

The whale surfaced forcefully some distance behind them, and the panicked sailors paddled furiously toward the abandoned ship until they were even with it. Two pirates grabbed onto the ropes hanging limply over the side and shimmied up hand over hand, then secured more ropes and threw them over to the others. Cecil steeled himself to try another desperate rope climb, remembering all too well how the one on the side of the
Mary Anne
turned out, but the first mate swiftly slipped a hand under Cecil's belly, tucked him into his blue vest, and began to climb up. Shivering and grateful, Cecil looked straight up into the sky to see the Eye above them.
The lost shall be found,
he thought anxiously, and he wished with all his might that the old saying would turn out to have a little bit of truth to it.

Although Cecil was hopeful about the chances of something good happening on board, the crewmen were decidedly more wary, even fearful. They were a superstitious lot in general, and an abandoned ship was an odd thing for a pirate. On one hand, there was nobody to have to fight and everything available for looting, which was good. On the other, there was the pesky question of
why
it was abandoned in the first place. Where could the crew have gone? Was there a battle with another vessel? A terrible storm? A plague? Or was it something even more sinister and mysterious—a creature from the deep with many eyes and long tentacles, attacking the ship and making off with every last passenger? They would never know, but these kinds of thoughts made the dinghy crew tread carefully about the ship, speaking in low voices and glancing behind themselves often.

Cecil, however, jogged briskly from deck to deck searching for evidence of any living being. As soon as he had wriggled out of the first mate's vest and dropped onto the wooden planking, he thought he caught a familiar scent. Very faint and washed out, but here somewhere. The main deck was curiously empty of the usual stacks of barrels and crates. A feeling of vague alarm grew in his brain with a fog of worry.

The pirates found a stash of shiny implements to eat and drink with and stuffed them into bags, as well as clothing and a few small swords. Cecil paced impatiently until they opened the hatch to the hold, but there was no smell of Anton down there, and Cecil began to wonder if he wanted to find his brother so badly that he had imagined the scent to begin with. In the galley, two crewmen were rummaging through the shelves when Cecil stepped in.

“Why, would you look a' that,” said one, pointing to a tall water barrel with a wire clasp on the top. “Gnawed clear through, ain't it?” he said, fingering a rough hole in the face of the barrel. A pool of water had gathered on the floorboard.

Cecil stared at the hole in the barrel as well, with a sinking feeling in his bones. That looked like the work of some rodent to him. If Anton were here, he wouldn't have let mice run wild on his ship. Cecil turned and trotted up to the main deck again. He searched the map room, peered down into every coil of rope, even climbed the rigging all the way up to the crow's nest in case Anton had been stranded up there, but it was just as unoccupied as everyplace else. Cecil looked up and found the Eye again, floating mildly in the misty clouds. It seemed more distant now, though surely he was closer to it, and in his frustration he felt as if it mocked him with its presence.
Where is he?
he thought furiously at the Eye.
Tell me what to do now!
But the Eye merely glowed silently.

Making his way slowly back down the lattice of rigging, which was much more difficult than climbing up, Cecil crossed the deck and went back below. He could hear movement in the hallway of the officers' quarters. In the largest room, with piles of rolled-up maps on the table and a fine long coat hanging on a stand, Cecil found his rescuer and another sailor on their knees on the floor, trying to pry open a large sea chest.

“It's no use, sir,” said the sailor, leaning back on his heels and breathing heavily. “We can't budge it.”

The first mate rested one elbow on his knee and noticed Cecil sitting quietly in the doorway. “And what of you, Lucky Black?” he asked Cecil. “Where's your luck now, eh? Supposed to be findin' somethin', you are.”

Cecil gazed at the man. He had no idea what he was saying, but it was clear that he was interested in the chest. Cecil stretched his neck, looking over the problem, and saw that the lid was carved all over with fishes, just like the one he'd once opened. To the surprise of the men, Cecil leaped on top of the chest and began pressing and pressing the fish with his paws. The first mate laughed and said, “Well, it seems our Black has gone fishing,” but Cecil ignored him. Was it this one? Or this one, maybe near the corner, then, BINGO, he felt a fish give beneath his paws. The latch released, and as Cecil leaped back to the floor, the lid snapped open.

The sailor gave a shout. “I'll be shivered,” said the first mate. “Did you see that? Black, you've got more than luck on your side. I'm thinking you've got brains.”

Cecil could see the men were excited, but he had no interest in the chest. It had no scent of Anton. As they pulled the lid open and stood looking wide-eyed at the contents, Cecil hurried off down the hallway.

He passed a bedchamber and stopped to look in. This one contained a larger bed as well as a smaller one to fit a tiny human. There were several tall pieces of furniture, with drawers on the front and bottles and containers lined up on top. Cecil didn't want to try to jump up on one of them blindly, but he saw a box standing on end in a corner that would give him a better view. He sprang up on the box, turning to catch his balance as it wobbled unsteadily under his weight. As he faced the room again he saw a flash of movement at the far wall. He snapped his head and focused his eyes—it was a cat! His heart pounded crazily in his chest. One, two, three seconds passed before he recognized the feline, but it was not Anton. It was Cecil himself, his furry black reflection staring back at him in a “meer” like the one he had seen on the ship with Gretchen. The glass was attached to the wall across the room, and Cecil saw that he looked just as bad as he felt. He sat back slowly and began to breathe again, closing his eyes and dropping his head as disappointment poured over him in a great wave. It sure smelled like his brother in here, but he was nowhere in sight.

Maybe Anton
was
here, but he left with the others,
Cecil thought.
Maybe I'll have to find out what happened to them.
He swallowed with difficulty. This could not be the end of his search—
it would not be
. He opened his eyes to try to clear his head and focus his thoughts, and was surprised to see a tiny flicker of light somewhere beneath him. It was strange, like a reflection in water, pale green and still. He shuffled his paws back and lowered his head, squinting down. There were narrow slats in the box, and it seemed like the glint of light was coming from inside, down near the bottom. Cecil lay one eye directly on the space between the slats and peered in, and the pale green light blinked.

It was a green eye, looking up at him.

In an instant Cecil had bounded to the floor and dashed around to the open back of the crate. He stood with his legs wide apart to steady himself, gulping in air and laughing. “Hey!” he managed to gasp out, his eyes bright with tears. “Where have you been, little kit?”

Anton lay in the crate, his chest rising and falling, gazing intently at Cecil. “Wanted to see what it is they sing about,” he whispered, smiling. He tried to get to his feet but slumped back into the cushion. Cecil realized with another shock how thin and frail Anton was. He stepped closer and touched Anton's nose quickly with his own, breathing in the familiar scent of his brother.

“Mother sent me to find you,” Cecil said. “I promised her I would.”

Hieronymus crept slowly out from between Anton's paws and tried to fix his eyes on the large cat looming above him. Cecil wiped his face with his paw and looked down at the mouse.

“What's this? A little snack,” he said. He popped out his claws.

Anton held up a paw feebly. “That snack is a friend of mine. He saved my life.”

“It's true,” Hieronymus squeaked up at Cecil. “If not for me, he would have been a goner.” Hastily, he retreated behind Anton.

Cecil looked back at Anton and nodded. How had a mouse saved his poor brother? It was a story he would want to hear. “Any friend of yours is a friend of mine,” he said.

From down the hallway, they heard the shouts of the pirates: “Huzzah!” and “It's gold, it's pure gold,” and then the stamping of boots going from door to door, the first mate shouting, “Lucky Black, where are you, lad? You're the hero of the day.”