The Ship of Lost Souls 1 (3 page)

“On with it,” Captain Wallace snapped.

“Underwear,” Pete said into the trunk. “Sketching paper and pencils.” He pulled his head out of the box. “You draw? So do I.”

“He's good,” Thomas added, fiddling with a homemade barometer. “'Specially his still lifes.”

Captain Wallace rolled his eyes. Jem couldn't blame him. His crewmen were about as ferocious as oversized puppies.

The men searched through the entire trunk, leaving clothes, books, and mysterious handmade instruments strewn across the cabin. But they didn't find anything that would lead them to a treasure.

“Well, that's that,” Thomas said. “Is it dinnertime? Ye two must be starved.” Jem nodded, for he was far beyond hungry and had almost gotten used to the sickening void in his stomach. He guessed it had been a good five hours since they'd sat in the tavern and nearly inhaled what looked like flying fish but could have been anything with gills. After two months of hardtack and the occasional lime, Jem had welcomed anything that didn't taste like furniture.

“I'll get ye somethin' to eat,” Thomas said and turned to go.

“Thomas, get back here,” the captain ordered. Likely, Jem thought, Captain Wallace wanted to starve them until they gave in and spilled their secret.

But Pete interjected. “Captain, these men might be more willing to talk once they've had some food.”

“You're too soft,” the captain said. “But fine. Get them each a tack. When I return we'll”—he curled his twitching lip—“discuss.” And he swept out of the cabin. Thomas followed behind, but Pete stayed to repack the trunk.

Jem looked at Uncle Finn, who'd turned a mottled shade of olive gray. “At least they're going to feed us,” he said for conversation's sake, for he'd never known his uncle to be so quiet.

But Uncle Finn just shook his head. “It doesn't look good, Jem. The options are grim.”

“But there's nothing to fear, right?” Jem said. He wriggled his wrists where the rope chafed. The knots felt loose and, with small hands like his, he might just . . .

“Nothing to fear? These are real pirates, boy. Plundering, pillaging pirates. They—” Uncle Finn stopped and watched Iron “Pete” Morgan neatly fold a pair of trousers.

“I don't know, I . . . hey! Uncle Finn.” Jem lowered his voice to a whisper. He gestured with his head for Uncle Finn to look at his hands, which had slipped free of their bonds.

Finally, a payoff for being undersized.

Uncle Finn glanced at Pete, who seemed absorbed in his task, then whispered, “Give me your hand.”

Jem reached over to work on Uncle Finn's knots, but his uncle shook his head. “My sleeve,” he mouthed without taking his eyes off Pete, now busy folding Uncle Finn's underwear.

Jem put his hand on the cuff of Uncle Finn's sleeve and felt, underneath the damp linen, the stiffness of paper. He'd gone and hidden it in his sleeve!

“Take it.”

Alarmed, Jem began to protest. “I can't,” he whispered. “I'll lose it for sure. Oh, you keep it. I—”

Uncle Finn's glare settled the matter. Jem slid the paper out of his uncle's sleeve and into his own just as Thomas returned with “dinner.” He'd brought them each a lump of hardtack as dense as stone and probably less tasty. Jem slipped his hands back into their bonds just before Thomas offered to untie them.

“So ye can have a right proper dinner,” Thomas said, looking pleased with himself.

“How kind,” Uncle Finn muttered, and he took a bite of his tack. Or rather, he tried to bite it, but since it was practically petrified, he could only gnaw on it with his canines like a wolfhound on a bone.

“Thanks.” Jem took his own meal and scraped his front teeth on one end of it.
More furniture,
he thought.
That figures.
“It's good.”

Thomas knelt and watched them gnaw, looking concerned. “Just to warn ye,” he said. “The Dread Pirate Cap'n Wallace . . . Hammer . . .” He broke off, having apparently forgotten the rest. “Ye know, the cap'n. He may not look like much, and between the two of ye, ye could prob'ly take him—”

“Shhh,” Pete hissed, tilting his head toward the door.

“But he's got some temper,” Thomas continued in a loud whisper. “If he wants somethin' bad enough, ye should save yerselves the fight and give it to him.”

Uncle Finn sniffed.

“Oh, I'm sure ye want to find this treasure as badly as us, or anyone. Old King Aberhard did promise a fat reward, we all know that. But is it worth it to—”

The door squealed as it banged open again, and in walked the Dread Pirate Captain Wallace Hammerstein-Jones himself.

“Bon appétit.”
The captain smirked and positioned himself in the center of the cabin, legs planted wide apart. The ship suddenly rolled over a wave, throwing him off balance for a moment. He righted himself quickly. “Tell me, Bliss. What do you know about this treasure?”

Uncle Finn set his dinner on his lap. “What do I know of this treasure . . . ,” he said, and Jem noted with some relief that his uncle's voice no longer wavered. In fact, Jem felt a little sorry for the pirates. Anyone who knew Uncle Finn also knew to set aside at least an hour before requesting one of his stories. “I know that about seven years ago, one of Aberhard's men died of the mysterious Island Fever. Got a nasty cough, a deadly flu, then packed it in.” Uncle Finn straightened, getting into the story now. “It's a bacterial disease, you know, brought here to the islands by none other than the King's Men. Most, but not all of us, from the Old World are immune, but the Islanders, of course, were not.

“Now this man—Angus was his name, Admiral Angus—had spent years living with different groups of Islanders, and he knew the islands nearly as well as they, or so he said. When the Islanders began to show signs of the fever, he and many other King's Men hightailed it back to the Old World. But it was too late for Angus. He was one of the unlucky Old Worlders who wasn't immune.

“But on his deathbed, Angus began to speak of a treasure. He didn't actually come right out and describe it, but he did say . . .” And here Uncle Finn adopted the deep, theatrical voice Jem had heard so often when his uncle told his tales.
“On one of these fair islands lies a secret—a treasure, more valuable than anything we can harvest and ship home. He who finds it will fear nothing—no man nor spirit will touch him
.
”

Jem had heard Uncle Finn tell this story a dozen times. He could recite it himself, word for word. But this was the part that always drew Jem out of the story and sparked a million questions in his head. He could just hear Master Davis: “Spirits? Ha. Nothing but children's stories.”

Although Jem used to enjoy reading stories about magic and ghosts, after two years under Master Davis's instruction, he had to agree with his teacher. In all his eleven years, he'd never seen a ghost.

“Angus insisted that since he'd followed the Islanders right to the treasure, they'd known about it all along, and they felt safe in its presence,” Uncle Finn continued. “Of course, by that time the island people were well on their way to extinction, and the fever had entered Angus's brain. He passed on soon after, taking the rest of the details with him. The king was rather put out by his admiral dropping off at such an inconvenient time, but the treasure boosted his spirits. Without knowing whether it was a heap of jewels or a potion to ward off restless spirits, King Aberhard proclaimed that whoever found this treasure, be it a pirate or servant of the crown, would be richly rewarded.”

The pirates looked dazed long after Uncle Finn stopped talking.

“Right. Well.” Captain Wallace snapped out of it first. “We know all that. Obviously we wouldn't be here if we didn't. You avoided the question nicely. Now tell me, Bliss, what
you
know about this treasure. What is it? Where is it hidden?”

Uncle Finn gave him a long, solemn look. “I know nothing more.”

“Nothing? Oh, don't be so modest, Bliss. I heard from a reliable source that you have a map showing the way to the treasure.”

“I have no such map,” Uncle Finn said, looking the captain directly in the eye.

True,
Jem thought, fingering the paper in his sleeve.
That's true.

Captain Wallace pivoted on one boot heel, stalked to the wall, then returned. His lip twitched, steady as a pulse. One eyebrow arched above his spectacles like a bow poised to release an arrow.

“Don't tease me, Bliss. You have no idea what I'm capable of. I'm asking you to join us, share your information, then share the treasure and the reward. Your life depends on your next answer, and I'll only ask you once more.”

“Tell him,” Thomas mouthed.

“Where is the map?”

Jem looked at Pete, who returned a calm, level gaze. He knew there was nothing to worry about. Uncle Finn would just give a simple answer, then they'd be on their way, back to the boarding house, to bed, and—

“No.” Uncle Finn's voice was firm. “You will not know.”

Captain Wallace's ashen face turned fuchsia in a second. “P-p-p,” he sputtered, trying to regain control of his twitching lip. “P-p-plank!”

“Captain, no.” Pete gasped and stepped between the captain and Uncle Finn.

“PLANK!” the captain screamed and hurled himself out the cabin door. “Now!” His cry carried down the hall.

“What does he mean?” Jem cried, looking at his uncle desperately. “He doesn't . . . they don't really do that. Only in stories. That's nonsense, right? It's a bluff.”

Then, all at once, the room was full of pirates shouting and shoving as if they'd materialized right out of the walls. Two seized Uncle Finn's arms and one grabbed his legs. His uneaten dinner clattered to the floor. “Leave the boy. Let him go!” Uncle Finn hollered as the pirates dragged him, struggling, out the cabin door.

“Uncle Finn!” Jem tried to stand and follow, but Pete pulled him back and threw a heavy arm over him. “What are they doing? They're not really—”

Pete clamped his hands over Jem's ears and stared at the wall.

But Jem heard it, anyway, muffled through Pete's fingers. The hollers in the hall, boots stomping up to the deck and across to the stern. A pause, then . . .
splash.

CHAPTER THREE

“Let me go!” Jem hollered into Pete's arm, squirming like an eel pinned beneath it. He struggled to his feet, forgetting they were bound, then tripped and toppled over onto the pirate. Jem lay still for a moment, gasping, cheek pressed against the damp floorboards. This couldn't be happening. They couldn't have made Uncle Finn walk the plank. That splash he'd heard—it must have been something else. A fish jumping, maybe. A really big one.

“Where is he? What have you done with him?” Jem shouted at Pete, who promptly moved over and sat on top of him, square in the middle of Jem's back, pinning him to the floor.

“It looks bad, doesn't it?” Pete said. He bowed his head and interlaced his yellowed fingers in his lap like a child awaiting punishment in the headmaster's office. “I bet you think we're monsters, don't you? But try to see it from a pirate's point of view. We're not that bad, really. We share. We commiserate. And all those deadly sins . . . gluttony, sloth, using the captain's name in vain . . . we don't do that. Well, all right, sometimes we do, but only when . . .”

Jem stopped listening and searched for words to fill his open mouth.

Thomas poked his great head through the door like an anxious Saint Bernard. “He all right?” he asked Pete, nodding toward Jem, who finally found a few words to spew.

“All right?” Jem twisted to look back at Pete, aware that his voice was shrill and panicked. “All right? You killed . . .” And he sank back to the floor, unable to complete the sentence. “You—you didn't really, did you?”

“Um . . .” Thomas tugged nervously on a lock of his hair.

Pete pierced him with a glare. “Yes. Yes, we did, Thomas. The boy's right. His uncle's dead.” He stood up.

“But—” Thomas began.

“Stop it.”

“You stop.”

“Both of you stop!” Jem cried, scrambling to his knees. “What's going on? Did you or didn't you make him walk the plank?”

The pirates exchanged glares, then Thomas bowed his head and kicked at the floorboards.

“Look here, boy,” Pete said, lifting Jem up by his small shoulders and leaning him against the wall like a rag doll. “You've got to understand the pirate life. We do what we must to get by. It's a dangerous place, the tropics—with its cursed beasts and crazy squalls. And then there's your old king and his men, traipsing around like they own the place, pillaging and plundering more than all of us pirates put together. Except they're stealing from the land and the people, or what's left of them. Thought they'd just take a jaunt across the drink and nip up a few unclaimed islands. Well, we pirates like to throw a few obstacles in their way. It's right honorable of us, really.”

Thomas nodded. “He's right. Being a pirate ain't so bad. It's a way of life. Like bein' a . . . a blacksmith. Or a priest. Ye do what you must. Ye'll see.”

“What do you mean, I'll see?” Jem didn't like the sound of that.

Just then the door swung open and in walked Captain Wallace, looking slightly more disheveled than he had when he left. His blue coat hung off one shoulder and his spectacles sat crooked on his small snout. The captain looked from Thomas to Pete, then settled his gaze on Jem.

“Well now. That's done.” He pushed the bridge of his spectacles up his nose with his index finger and straightened his coat. He cleared his throat. “Yes. Well. Let that be a lesson to you.” The three pirates exchanged a glance, then Thomas shrugged and shuffled out of the cabin. On his way out he patted Jem's head.

Jem ducked out of his reach. He squeezed his eyes shut and replayed the events of the last few minutes: the pirates bursting into the room and seizing Uncle Finn, the splash he'd heard even through Pete's rough hands. His uncle was gone. Floundering out there in the dark waves . . .

Jem shook his head and fought the panic rising in his chest. He couldn't think about that. Not now. The man before him was dangerous, and Jem was at his mercy.

“And so, boy,” Captain Wallace began, “it comes down to you. You now know what happens to men who defy me. You wouldn't want that to happen to you.” He gestured toward the door through which Uncle Finn had disappeared. “But you wouldn't let it, would you?” The captain's eyes narrowed as he stepped closer to Jem. “You're smarter than the old man. Who is he to you, anyway? Not your father?”

Jem bit his lip and tried to push thoughts of Uncle Finn out of his mind so he could think logically. Offering a pirate one's personal information didn't seem logical. But then again, neither did getting oneself killed by that pirate. How he wished he were back in the Old World, maybe on a courtyard stroll with Master Davis. Or a visit home from school, if his parents would allow it. His mother's maid would be flitting around him, insisting he drink his broth or else he'd never grow tall and his boots would always be two sizes too big because—

“Answer!” Captain Wallace cried.

“Uncle,” Jem blurted out without thinking. “He is . . . he was . . . my uncle.”

“Your uncle,” Captain Wallace repeated in a singsong voice. “My condolences then. But now, here's your chance to right your uncle's wrongs. The old fool refused to share his information.” He
tsk
ed. “Rather selfish, don't you agree? But you, nephew of Finnaeus Bliss, I'm going to give you a chance to make the right decision.”

Jem shook his head. He'd stopped listening after “old fool.” His uncle did tend to go on at length about orchids and ferns and especially bromeliads, but he was no fool. “I don't—”

“Wrong answer!” Captain Wallace bellowed like a foghorn. He bent forward, grasped Jem's collar, and lifted him a good foot off the ground. “Don't be stupid, boy. You've seen what pirates do to stupid people.” He shot small bullets of spit onto Jem's face with every
s
.

“Um, Captain.” Pete cleared his throat.

“What?” Captain Wallace, still clutching Jem's collar, cast him an irritated glance. Pete motioned for him to release the boy, and the captain let out a great sigh before dropping Jem back on the floor. Pete tugged the captain over to a corner where they conversed in mime—Jem caught the gestures for throat-slitting, beheading with a broadsword, and what looked like being eaten alive by wild bunnies. The pirates paused their pantomime twice to study Jem. Then Pete returned and knelt beside him.

“Look, boy. You don't have much choice here. Either you tell the captain what he wants to know or you get killed. No compromises, I'm afraid. Come on, now. Tell him, and he'll keep you around. There're worse things than being a pirate. We'll win no beauty contests, sure, but you'll never want for fresh air.”

The absurdity of the situation, the complete lack of logic, suddenly struck Jem like a tidal wave. A mere two months ago he'd been living at the King's Cross School for Boys, getting trampled on the football field, envying the care packages his dorm mates received from home. And now here he was, captive on a pirate ship, risking death if he didn't join them.

He couldn't help it.

He laughed.

Captain Wallace started. “What? Why's he laughing?”

“Shut up, boy,” Pete hissed. “Just say yes.”

“You know how I get when people laugh at me. Why's he laughing?” Captain Wallace's voice rose half an octave.

Jem shrugged and tried unsuccessfully to smother his panicked giggles.

“That's it.” Captain Wallace stamped his boot on the floorboards. “Take him to the—”

“Cap'n!” A wail echoed in the hall, followed by a thunder of boot steps. Jem heard the
shing
of cutlasses being unsheathed and a chorus of oaths. Then Thomas shoved his great head through the doorway again. His eyes had grown to twice their size.

“We're being attacked!” he cried, then galloped off down the hall.

“Attacked?” Captain Wallace gave Pete an irritated look. “We can't be under attack. Who'd attack us?”

Pete shrugged and ducked out the door, hand on his cutlass. The captain and Jem were left staring at each other while boot steps and hollers reverberated above them. Captain Wallace opened his mouth as if to speak, then shut it.

Moments later, Pete dove back into the cabin, a pale glow in his yellow cheeks. “Captain,” he gasped. “We've got a problem.”

“What? Who? It's not that cursed Blackjack again, is it? I already cut off his hands and three of his most important toes. What more does he want?”

“Not Blackjack, Captain.” Pete's eyes searched the room as if he were looking for a place to hide.

“Then who?” the captain howled.

“It's the . . .” Pete shrugged helplessly. “The Ship of Lost Souls.”

“No.” Captain Wallace shrank back into his oversized coat.

“The which?” Jem had to ask.

“Oh God! Hide! No, scratch that! Attack!” Captain Wallace gripped his broadsword. “If we're going to die at the hands of the Lost Souls, we're going to die fighting! Go on now. I'll be in my room.” He scurried out of the cabin. Pete looked down at Jem as if he'd suddenly remembered the boy existed.

“Um . . . stay here,” he ordered, and disappeared out the door.

“Stay here,” Jem repeated, obeying the order for the moment. He exhaled slowly and took stock of his situation. As far as he could see, he had two options: sit tight until the pirates returned or these so-called Lost Souls happened upon him, or try to escape.

It wasn't a difficult decision. Jem tossed aside the rope that had bound his hands and began to work on the knots around his ankles.

It felt good to stand up again, although his knees wobbled a little. He paused for a moment, listening to the clamor above him. It sounded frantic, as if no one could decide which way to run. The Ship of Lost Souls, Pete had said. It had an ominous ring to it. But, Jem reasoned, it might give him the chance he needed to escape. Or at least hide somewhere until he could escape. He'd take a ship of Lost Souls over a ship of angry pirates any day. He was, after all, something of a lost soul himself.

“Be brave. Keep your head,” he muttered to himself as he slipped out into the hallway. Although he and Uncle Finn had been blindfolded when the pirates had dragged them on board the
Dark Ranger
, Jem figured he'd be able to find his way around the ship without much trouble. One ship must be like any other, and this one, so far, looked much like the
Lady Eleanor
. He was now on the level below the main deck where the pirates slept and maybe even hid their plunder. At the far end of the hall stood a staircase, and Jem crept up it, following the noises of battle and the pungent smell of the sea.

He climbed toward a banner of stars speckled over an indigo sky. Soon the cool night breeze greeted his face, and he found himself standing on the main deck, under the towering foremast. As he'd thought, the layout of the
Dark Ranger
was very similar to that of the
Lady Eleanor
: It was double-masted with a gun deck, a quarterdeck, a small poop deck at the back of the vessel, and a forecastle deck—which sailors called the fo'c'sle—at the front. He took comfort in that familiarity. Indeed, if he closed his eyes and concentrated on the sway from the waves rolling under him, he could almost believe he was back on the
Lady Eleanor
, still en route to the tropics in search of the mysterious treasure. Uncle Finn would be standing beside him, knotting a rope to test their sailing speed and telling unbelievable tales from the tropics, like the one about the rubies that fell from the sky. Yes, it was all a lark again, nothing to fear—not with his uncle beside him . . .

Two pirates clumped by, cursing, and pulled Jem out of his dream. He dove back down the staircase into the shadows. He needed to find a good hiding place where he could watch the action and contemplate his next move.

On the
Lady Eleanor
there had been a trapdoor under the foremast, under which Jem had hidden a few times to escape Uncle Finn's lectures on bromeliads. He now scanned the
Dark Ranger
's deck for a similar compartment and couldn't believe his luck: an iron handle gleamed on the floorboards nearby. Jem launched himself toward it, yanked up on the handle, and dove inside without a thought to who or what might already be occupying the space.

Thankfully, it seemed empty, although the darkness was so deep that it was hard to tell, and Jem had learned that dark spaces on ships tended to be inhabited by rats. He shuddered and pushed the door open above him just enough to peer out. A pirate with a red sash tied around his waist ran by, shouting something about devilish ghouls to no one in particular. Then Jem saw an odd sight: a small figure in a hooded black cloak. At least, that's what he thought he saw, but it darted by so quickly he couldn't be sure. But wait—there was another, no taller than himself and scurrying faster than a cockroach. What on earth?

Just then the door above him swung wide open and a massive figure started squeezing itself into his space, feetfirst and grunting. Panicked, Jem pressed himself against the wall. His hiding space could hold perhaps three of him, four at the most. He'd never go unnoticed, especially not with his heart thumping like the drum major in the King's Cross marching band. Boot heels hit the floor, and a hairy arm brushed against his face.

“Who's there?” a familiar voice gasped. “Oh God, ye ain't one of them, are ye?”

“
Shh.
Thomas, it's me,” Jem whispered. Thomas, he was fairly certain, would do him no harm. His heartbeats quieted down.

“Boy!” Thomas said, sounding relieved. “Ye're a smart one to hide. If ye go back out there ye'll soon feed the fish.”

“Who are they?” Jem asked, hoping to distract the giant from the obvious fact that he'd escaped the cabin below deck. “The Ship of Lost Souls. What is it?”