The Ship of Lost Souls 1 (10 page)

Suddenly Scarlet realized that all eyes were on her. The machete boys had retreated to the rear of the line.

“Oh. Right. I guess I'm first.” She gulped and shuffled toward the edge. “Nothing to it, I'm sure. Just make sure you go slow-ow-ow-ow!”

Her first tentative step down caused the amber and purple rocks beneath her boots to give way into a mucky amber and purple rock slide, sweeping Scarlet's feet out from under her and sending her sliding, heels first, straight down the mountain.

The slide was impossible to stop, no matter how hard she dug her boots into the ground. Down she tumbled, over spongy mounds of moss and not-so-spongy lumps of clay, terrified of where she might land.
Bump, bump, squish. Bump, bump, squish
. After what felt like long minutes but was probably only a few seconds, Scarlet realized that, aside from the bumps, this wasn't such a bad way to travel. She would be filthy when she reached the bottom, but it'd likely save her a good half hour of hiking. She began to relax and enjoy the ride, and the shrieks behind her told her that the rest of the crew was following suit.

Splat.
All too soon the ride came to an abrupt end in a giant mud puddle. Scarlet sat up, completely caked in mud, like a life-size clay sculpture.

Splat. Splat. Splat
.

Jem, Smitty, and Tim landed in the puddle beside her, whooping with laughter. All three were as filthy as Scarlet, especially Smitty, who looked like he'd slid down the hill face-first.

“Wha' a wide!” Smitty sputtered through a mouthful of mud. He spit, then wiped the mud off his eyelids so his face was just two big eyes in a goopy, amber mask. “Way to lead the way, Cap'n. What fun!”

Tim chuckled as he wiped mud from his spectacles. Even Jem, his tailored clothes now thoroughly grubby, was laughing. In fact, all the pirates seemed to have forgotten the uncomfortable climb thanks to the ride down. Tim no longer cringed every time he moved his bandaged hand, and Liam and Ronagh giggled as they tossed mud balls at each other. Scarlet herself even forgot the voice in her head as she watched the rest of her crew hurtling down the slope into the puddle, shouting and shrieking. No one cared about a little rain now that they were the dirtiest they'd ever been.

“Well, sink me. Would you look at that?” Tim had stopped laughing and was looking around him, openmouthed. Scarlet looked up and gasped.

They'd landed in a narrow valley that snaked between the green mountains. The ground was a mosaic of brown grasses, fern tufts, and small purple boulders. But the most amazing sight of all was the steam rising in curly plumes from the ground and twirling around the Lost Souls.

“Shivers,” Scarlet breathed. “Where's the steam coming from?” She scrambled to her feet.

“Look!” Tim had already discovered the source. “It's coming from these little rivers! They're all over—simmering streams!”

It was true. Milky little streams ran all around them, bubbling and burping as if heated from below by underground fires.

“Simmering streams!” Scarlet looked at Jem and he looked back, his eyes full of excitement. Simmering streams could only lead to one thing: a boiling lake!

“Hurray! We're halfway to the treasure!” Scarlet bounced up and down, then felt suddenly dizzy as the moaning voice returned to her head, louder now. Why wouldn't it leave her alone?

“So, logically, if we follow the streams, we'll end up at the lake, right?” Jem said.

Scarlet nodded, trying to ignore the voice. “Makes sense. Let's go.” She needed to keep moving. “To the lake!”

On they charged, twenty-four pirates wearing mud and mad grins. They scampered through the valley, skirting the streams, which every so often would merge and surge faster toward their destination. Now and then, Scarlet wondered if they ought to check the map, but she couldn't bear to stop. She wanted it too badly—both the treasure and this wild energy the crew had been lacking for so long. And she wanted the blasted voice to stop droning. She picked up the pace. Maybe she could outrun it.

Something glimmered off to her left, and Scarlet glanced over quickly to see a patch of green wavering at the foot of a nearby mountain. It almost looked as if the trees were parting or even changing shape amid the steam. A streak of red, like an ara in flight, flashed between the trees, and the scene returned to normal. Scarlet halted and shook her head. Now she was seeing things, too? What was this island doing to her?

“What's wrong?” Jem appeared at her side. “Should we check—”

“No. Let's go.” She would outrun it. The island wouldn't stop her.

The streams continued to merge and grow stronger, burbling and steaming and spurring them on. The pirates were practically sprinting now.

“We're almost there,” Scarlet huffed to Jem. “The lake has to be just around this . . . corner.” She stopped suddenly, and several pirates staggered to a halt behind her.

Around the corner, the streams did indeed reach their destination, flowing into one body of water. But something was wrong. What lay before them didn't look like the boiling lake Scarlet had imagined. No, it seemed as if, at some point, the streams had ceased to simmer, terminating instead in what looked more like a shallow, murky pool.

Smitty raised an eyebrow. “Is this it?”

“It can't be,” Jem said. “This isn't a boiling lake.” He looked around him. “But this is where the streams end.”

“It's not a boiling lake.” Scarlet was sure of that. She knelt by its edge, dimly aware that the voice in her head had disappeared. She dipped her hand into the water and felt her heart sink. At that moment, the clouds decided to let loose again, and within moments it was raining with a vengeance.

Lucas Lawrence stepped forward and knelt beside Scarlet. He, too, immersed his hand, then turned to her with a sneer.

“It's a lukewarm slough,” he announced. “You've led us to a lukewarm slough. That really scuttles, Scarlet.”

No one else said a word, but Scarlet could feel their eyes on her and could practically taste their disappointment. A clap of thunder overhead urged the rain to fall harder. Scarlet wondered if the earth might just open up and swallow her right there, saving her from this awkward silence, this humiliation.

She put on her bravest face and looked at her soggy crew. “Let's . . . let's just think for a moment. We must have taken a wrong turn somewhere, probably not far away. If we just retrace our—”

“Retrace our steps?” Lucas stood up. “We're way off base, McCray. And it's pouring rain, and it'll be dark in a few hours. We'll be wandering around for days, and we'll probably never find it, anyway.”

“But you don't know that. You have no—”

“I say we go back to the ship,” he interrupted again.

Back to the ship? “But we've come so far. We can't—”

“So far, we've been attacked by monkeys and poison palms, and now we're soaking wet. I, personally, don't want to spend the night in a rainy jungle when I could be dry on the
Hop
.”

The Lost Souls began to whisper among themselves.

“Wait! And stop interrupting me, Lucas,” Scarlet said angrily. “We can't go back now. So what if it's raining? We've got a map to the treasure!”

“Let's put it to a vote.” Lucas put one meaty hand on his hip and wiped the water drops from his forehead with the other. “All in favor of getting off this island and back on the ship, say aye.”

Scarlet couldn't believe this was happening. She should have had Lucas strapped to the mast the first time he ever undermined her authority. But now it was too late—he'd finally gone and done it. He'd asked the crew to vote against her. And worse, she couldn't think of anything to say.

“Aye” came a few small voices from the rear of the group.

“Aye.” A shout from Gil Jenkins.

“Aye.” A whisper from Sam, the mouth-breather.

CHAPTER TEN

The sky shone clear and brilliant blue the next day. Jem stood on the quarterdeck and glared up at it. Not a hint of rain in sight. That figured.

It was, he decided, a perfect day for a second attempt at the island that had bested them the day before. It only made sense to try again—they couldn't give up after one expedition gone wrong. What was it Master Davis used to tell him whenever math problems made him want to throw things? “If at first you don't succeed . . .”

And yet, despite his eagerness to get back out and find the treasure, Jem knew better than to suggest another expedition today. Today, every pirate on board was in a foul, foul mood.

Ronagh had whined about a tummy ache all through breakfast, then retreated to her hammock. Emmett and Edwin got in a minor fistfight over whose turn it was to clean the long drop. Smitty didn't offer a single joke on the subject—not even a bad one—and didn't even hum as he swabbed the deck.

And then there was Scarlet. Captain McCray emerged from her cabin like a great big storm cloud that morning. She ate her breakfast in silence, except to growl that someone had polished off all the fruit so they'd have to make do with jaw-breaking slabs of hardtack until they could next go to port.

Her dark eyes held an arsenal of daggers and swords, ready to impale the first sailor who crossed her. After she'd mauled her hardtack, she stomped back to her cabin, saying that she was going to look after Ronagh and if anyone so much as knocked on her door, she'd hang them by their big toes from the mast.

Jem wondered if anyone else noticed that Scarlet looked like she'd been crying.

If she had, Jem couldn't blame her. The previous day had absolutely scuttled, as the crew would say. After most of the Lost Souls had voted for warm, dry beds over a night in an inhospitable jungle, they'd had to face the long slog back to the
Hop
, under a darkening sky and rain that wouldn't let up. For hours on end, they stumbled along the trail, flinching at every monkey's cry and every unidentifiable crackle in the bushes. By the time they boarded the
Hop
and set off for the still waters of Castaway Cove, everyone had given up on conversation. Scarlet herself had stopped talking right after Lucas called the vote.

Now, under the smug midday sun, Jem felt a nasty mood of his own creeping up. All around him lay coils of rope, tangled together like a nest of long, brown snakes.

“Your job today,” Tim had told him about a half hour ago, “is to untangle this mess so we can use the good ropes to replace worn parts of the rigging.” With that, he'd wandered off, muttering about a throbbing pain in the hand that had fallen victim to the poison palm. Even the
Hop
's agreeable quartermaster was in a sullen mood.

Jem attempted to find the ends of the rope, but within minutes, found himself tangled up inside the mess instead. Somehow, he'd gotten the rope wrapped around his ankles, elbows, left thigh, and even his neck.

“Scurvy! Blast! Blimey!” Jem used all the pirate expressions he knew trying to wriggle free, but he only succeeding in further entangling himself. Although he knew the rope needed to be intact to fix the rigging, he suddenly didn't care, and he fished inside his right pocket for his knife to cut his way out of the mess.

“Stupid pirates,” Jem grumbled. “What do I know about ships or rigging or ropes? They should've done this themselves. Then maybe—”

Strange. His right pocket was empty. He rarely ever took the pocketknife out, since he'd gone to such trouble stealing it. He checked the left pocket. No knife there, either, only a slightly chewed wad of gum he'd left there two days ago, “for later.”

He checked his coat, shirt, and boots, but found no silver-and-ivory-handled pocketknife.

“Blast!” He'd gone and lost it! What kind of a pirate went and lost his knife? Now Scarlet would probably insist he steal another. And after what he went through for this one . . .

No way. Jem folded his arms. No way would he risk his life for a stupid knife again. It just didn't make sense.

He was standing like that, sulking among the loops and coils, when Tim returned. The quartermaster raised an eyebrow but didn't comment—he only surveyed the knotty situation. Then he gave a few tugs here and there, and the rope tumbled to the ground like an obedient charmed snake.

Blushing a little, Jem stepped out of his binds and muttered his thanks. Tim shrugged and trundled off again.

Interesting, Jem thought, as he glanced around to see if anyone else had witnessed his embarrassing attempt to tame a rope, how only one person on board seemed untouched by this contagious bad temper. Lucas Lawrence. The boy had been strutting along the main deck all morning, whistling a sea chantey and grinning with all his remaining yellow teeth at everyone he passed—as if he owned the ship. Every so often, Lucas would loop an arm around some unsuspecting pirate and pull him aside to whisper in his ear. Jem gulped as he watched, hoping this wasn't what it looked like.

He left the rope and headed in the opposite direction, wanting to avoid Lucas's grin. Instead, he came upon Liam and Gil, who had been given the chore of sealing gaps in the ship walls with caulk—except that they had abandoned their task and now stood nose to nose, arguing. As Jem watched, Liam's cheeks turned from pink to red to deep crimson.

“That's not true and you know it, Gil,” the boy was saying. “Tim can read a map better than anyone. He couldn't have brought us to the wrong island. There were simmering streams, remember? That means the boiling lake was around there somewhere.”

Gil smirked. “Then why didn't we find it? It's not so hard to follow a map. I could've done it if he'd let me.” He sounded like Lucas, and Jem didn't doubt that Gil was quoting his much larger friend.

“You!” Liam spit on the deck. Rather sloppily, Jem noted, but still piratelike. “You can't find your way out of your own hammock without Lucas's help. So we took a wrong turn somewhere. That could happen to anyone, anywhere.”

Jem started as a new thought hit him. A wrong turn. Anyone, anywhere. Maybe that anyone had been him, misidentifying the
Abicatus florificus
and sending the Lost Souls down the wrong side of the mountain. He hadn't been certain of the plant's identity, after all, having largely slept through Uncle Finn's lesson on the genus
Abicatus
.

Jem turned away from the quarrel and began to walk back the way he'd come. Could it really have been his fault they lost the treasure trail? If only he'd taken Uncle Finn's lectures seriously. Or better yet, if only Uncle Finn were there with them now.

But he isn't here,
Jem told himself, and not for the first time. He resigned himself to Uncle Finn's death, and yet couldn't help but wonder, every now and then, if the Lost Souls had a point. Would the pirates really kill off someone who knew where to find the treasure? Still, he couldn't allow hope to rise above logic. He'd heard the splash. Uncle Finn was gone.

“Jem! Just the man I've been looking for.” A heavy arm settled onto Jem's shoulders and tightened around his neck like a boa constrictor. Jem's knees buckled momentarily, and he slid his gaze sideways to Lucas's yellow grin.

“Come,” the older boy said, steering him toward the ship's starboard side. “We have to talk. Man to man.”

Jem felt minuscule under the weight of Lucas's arm. They stopped at the railing and looked down on the milky blue waves that lapped lazily against the
Hop
. Some fifty yards away, Castaway Cove and the Island of Vengeful Vegetation wavered in the midday heat.

“It was an embarrassment, wasn't it?” Lucas launched right in. “Yesterday, I mean. We had a map and twenty-four able pirates. There's no excuse for what happened. We should all be rolling in treasure right now.”

Jem opened his mouth to speak, hoping to lighten the mood with something wishy-washy like, “Accidents happen,” but before he could say anything Lucas went on.

“And you”—the boy turned to face him—“must be especially mad. You should be on your way back to the Old World by now.”

Jem let himself imagine that—going back to school, to mathematics and grammar lessons, to always knowing what would come next—for just a moment before tuning back in.

“I've had enough of this bad leadership,” the boy was saying. “And others agree. There's a good lot of us, and we're prepared to”—he lowered his voice—“mutiny.”

Jem's stomach pitched as if the sea had suddenly turned stormy.

“I'll be captain,” Lucas said. “And real deserving pirates, like yourself, will stand at my right hand, at least until we find the treasure and you head home. What do you say?”

“I . . . um . . .” was the most intelligent response Jem could come up with. What a mess this was turning out to be. Scarlet might have a mutiny on her hands, when he might well be at fault for the treasure hunt gone wrong! He had to tell her. She couldn't shoulder all the blame. But then, if he confessed to a possible blunder, he might just end up strung up by his toes from the mast.

“I . . . don't know,” he concluded.

Lucas straightened and bared his teeth in what Jem guessed was meant to look like a winning smile. “Think about it, then. I'll give you till sundown.” He withdrew his arm, began to move away, then turned back. “You're a good man, Jem,” he added. “I know you'll make the right choice.”