The Wand & the Sea (18 page)

Holly went to bed long after dark, but she couldn't sleep.

She sat in her bunk, swaying with the waves, a tiny lantern just above her head. She finally put it out after Kailani suggested it with a silent kick from the lower bunk. She counted the ship's bells as they rang every half hour through the night. A bleak loneliness wove its way around her like mist.

She was only dozing when Kai nudged her awake. Her black hair gleamed in the light from the lantern she carried. “Come on then,” she urged. “Yer up for middle watch, and Pike don't like laggards.”

Holly groaned. Her movement roused Jade, who stretched and followed her up out of the hatch into the damp midnight air.

“And there she be, before two bells yet,” said Pike as she made her way to the bridge. “Hope ye had a good lie-in, yer Ladyship.”

“I got here as quick as I could,” Holly snapped, rubbing her eyes. “It's not like I'm used to getting up at midnight.”

“More like slumbering all the day long.” Pike sniffed and adjusted his cap. His long, ropy arms were darkened by the sun, and his curly hair ruffled in the breeze. As he grasped the wheel, Holly noticed his fingers weren't webbed like some of the other crew members'. She wanted to ask about it, but it hardly seemed polite.

“So,” Holly said to him, “what exactly am I supposed to do, if I can't take the helm?”

“Stand here.” Pike backed up to allow Holly between him and the wheel. He glanced down at the cat. “That beast blows an ill will, I'll be bound. 'Tis bad luck on a ship.”

“Then you know naught of an Adept's familiar,” Jade observed. He leaped onto a nearby barrel and folded his paws beneath his chest.

“He stays with me,” Holly said, trying to muster a voice that couldn't be argued with.

Pike muttered under his breath. He pulled a bit of charcoal and paper from a satchel, and set a large brass compass on top of the wheelhouse.

“What are you doing?” Holly asked.

“Takin' a reading, what d'ye think? Now hold still. The captain said to put yer right hand on the top spoke of the helm. Just the
top
, mind.” Pike's eyes were wide and tense as he stood poised with his charcoal.

Holly wrapped her palm around the wooden spoke. “Like this?”

“How should I know? I haven't done this afore, have I? Bleedin' Adepts on a ship . . .” He continued to mutter as he watched the compass. “Now, don't try to hold 'er steady. She'll turn on ye, that's as what's wanted.”

Sure enough, after a moment, the wood warmed in her hand, not unlike the wand. Gradually the sensation grew that the ship was changing, as if it were a whale awakening from a long sleep. Holly felt it stretch its rigging; it took deep breaths from its hold, blubbering a sigh through the bilgewater.

Jade's fur bristled along his spine. “What is that?”

“Fiend's name,” whispered Pike. “What're ye doin' to the
Sea Witch
?”

Holly should have been frightened, but in fact she felt warm and right, as if she were wrapped up in her quilt with a good book. The boat creaked and dipped, as if nodding to her. Her braids whipped back from her face, and the chill breeze turned warm, enfolding her. The helm pulled to the south. The spanker sail luffed, sounding like applause.

“Lady Holly,” Jade said above the wind. “What manner of magic is this?”

“I don't know. I'm just following it.” She let the helm pull as it would, gently turning through her fingers. “It's—it's just the wind changing, right?”

“Nay, it's our
course
changing,” Pike said hoarsely. He looked like he was going to be sick. Finally he remembered the charcoal and scribbled down numbers as he read them off the compass. “The captain said this'd happen—but I never saw the like . . .”

“Do you see the Adepts?” Jade said.

She didn't ask what he meant. She just closed her eyes and gripped her wand in its scabbard. In her mind she saw a rocky beach, where waves rolled and crashed at the foot of a cliff. A young woman sat on a boulder that jutted out to sea. She held something thin—a wand!—in her hand. She pointed it vaguely at the surf. Holly felt a jolt, as if something had punched her in the chest, and at the same moment, the lonely woman raised her chin with a jerk. She turned her gaze directly at Holly—or where Holly would be standing, if she'd been hiding in the copse beyond the beach. Their eyes locked. A lump rose in Holly's throat, as if she were coming home after a very long time away.

Suddenly a wave surged over the
Sea Witch
's starboard side, drenching Holly head to foot. Her eyes sprang open, and the ship's wheel turned hard starboard. The sea, as if obeying some force, rocked and tossed the ship. A moment later, all was becalmed.

“Wet from Samhain to Yule. One might stay indoors the entire season.” Jade shook his thick black fur.

“Rip me jib, that's seven points south,” Pike mumbled. “We've turned a full seven points. D'ye think I should rouse the captain?”

Holly shook her head.

“And look who I'm askin'! Go on, then. Ye still have the watch till two bells, but ye won't go near the helm again.”

“I was just doing what you told me,” Holly shot back, her face growing hot.

“Her Ladyship,” came a voice from a dark corner of the deck, “is a full Adept and worthy of your respect, seaman.”

“As if I—” Pike broke off as Ranulf walked into the moonlight. “That is, sure enough. Apologies, milady.”

Before Holly could respond, another massive wave broke over the gunwale, this time from the port side.

Pike gripped the helm. “What in blazes is it now?”

“What is happening?” Ranulf asked sharply.

“You lot and yer magic! I can't hold 'er steady!” Pike staggered, and the helm spun out of his grasp.

Áedán's sticky feet clung to Holly's damp neck as another wave swelled beneath the ship. A glint of light caught her eye. “Ranulf, look at the compass!”

The brass compass sitting on the wheelhouse was spinning madly, and a white-blue glow issued from it, as if the moon were shining on its face.

“Take the helm,” said Ranulf. He pulled Pike's fingers from the wheel. “There is other magic afoot. Something is interfering with your navigation.”

Jade leaped on top of the wheelhouse, placing one paw on the helm. “Together,” he said, and Holly placed a tentative hand on the spokes.

“Leave it go, ye unholy witch!” Pike lunged for her, but Ranulf's strong arms held him back.

Holly ignored him. Something was pulling the
Sea Witch
in another direction. She grasped the helm lightly, as before, and closed her eyes, calling to mind the lonely girl on the rocks.

Again the wheel spun through her fingers, and the sea suddenly calmed.

Heavy footsteps came running down the deck, and Holly's eyes flew open. Kai's black hair shone in the lamplight. “Leave her be, Pike! You, there”—this to Ranulf—“loose him.”

“Only if it be safe for Her Ladyship,” said the centaur.

“Is anyone takin' the readings, then?” Kai picked up the charcoal Pike had dropped, and made notations off the compass. “Pike, go pump the bilge for the rest of the watch.”

Ranulf let him go, and Pike broke away with a curse. He gave Holly a black look before retreating down the hatch.

Holly and Jade followed Ranulf to the main deck. She took a small seat set against the gunwale. “Thanks,” she said. Her knees were shaking now.

“It went well, Lady Holly,” said Ranulf.

“I hope I really did point us to the Adepts' island. I saw someone. She looked lost. She had a wand; she must have been one of them.” Now that it was over, Holly couldn't quite believe she'd changed the ship's course.

“It is one soul calling to another,” Ranulf said. “The closer you ally with this land, Lady Holly, the more you feel them, even across many leagues.”

“But what happened after that? You said some other magic was interfering.”

“I cannot say.”

“At first, when I saw the Adept, the ship kind of fell into alignment. Like it was meant to go there. But then something else was pulling it away. Like a magnet.” Holly shuddered, and Áedán trembled too.

“I felt it as well,” said Jade. “Mayhap Pike is not eager to find the Adepts and has magic of his own.”

“I don't think so. He seems pretty scared of all magic.”

“He is mortalfolk, not a Seafarer Elemental,” said Ranulf. “It is rare to see him on a ship like this one.”

“He means us no good,” Jade said. “Elemental or no. The magic, whatever it was, felt misused, uncontrolled, to me.”

They fell silent. Another thought occurred to Holly, one that made her chest feel hollow. She took out her wand, comforted by its warmth. “Ranulf, when they come back—the Adepts, I mean—I won't . . .” She paused, not liking the way she was voicing the thought.

“You wonder what need we shall have of you,” Jade supplied. He had finished his bath and was curled up on a coil of rope.

“That's selfish, isn't it?” She couldn't explain to them how much she loved it here, and how, if she weren't needed, if she never returned, how bleak everything would seem. She gazed out at the black sea, which glinted here and there in the starlight. “You need all the help you can get, and all I can do is point the way to this island. Almaric said it too. I need to be trained if I'm going to be any good at this stuff.”

“Your reason for coming to us is not yet clear,” Ranulf said, inclining his head to the skies. Holly winced; he was still too thin, his bruises not quite healed. “It is not just to find the Adepts. You have a special purpose of your own.”

“And the training?”

“There must be a way. We will keep searching for it. Perhaps you will apprentice with one of these Adepts we seek.”

Her heart lifted a little. “That
would
be cool.” On her shoulder, the little Salamander shifted his sticky feet and warmed her skin. The desire to stay here in this world, with Jade and the others, suddenly overwhelmed her. “Do the stars say how long I'll stay?”

Ranulf smiled. “They do not predict exact movements, but they predicted your coming. The final outcome is a more cloudy matter.”

“That figures.”

“Do not let it trouble you. None of us knows his or her true purpose. Only that we have one.”

“To pass between worlds is an unusual feat,” Jade added. “That alone says much about your need to be here, beyond serving as a pirate's compass.”

A warm gust of wind ruffled the main staysail above her head. Their course was true and steady now. She gazed out to sea again and thought she saw, in the blackness of the horizon, a tiny bump. The waves swelled. The
Sea Witch
pitched astern, then down again into the well. The spray hid anything further from sight. But she thought, if only for a second, that she had spotted land.

Everett crept after Avery back down the hatch, the compass clutched in his hand. His face felt very hot and his chest fluttery and shaky. He had hoped that the compass would help Holly, not hurt her.

“I told you this was a bad idea,” he whispered fiercely to the prince.

Avery stowed the wand as they made their way back to the brig. “It seems the ship is doing what it must, whatever we have done.”

“We nearly mucked up the whole thing. And why's the locket acting this way? That's what was pulling the ship. I know it was.”

“Only think of its power.” Avery didn't sound nearly as worried as he ought to, Everett thought. “We were able to move an entire ship, Everett!”

Yes, Everett had felt that too. The question was, ought they have done it at all? He knew in his gut he should've told Holly and the others about Avery's plan, though it seemed harmless enough at the time.

Watch the Adept take her bearings,
Avery had said. He had wanted to see the magic.

Avery caught him staring at him. “You do not trust me.”

“Should I? Why were you so keen on sneaking up there?”

“I wish to study magic, Everett. You yourself have said the lady does not favor me. How else am I to learn, if not in secret?” They approached his cell.

Or, Everett thought, he'd wanted to sabotage Holly's navigation.

Everett closed the door on him. Avery immediately turned away and drew out the wand, making little glowing lights dance around the cell. Just beyond, he could hear Pike working the pumps to rid the ship of bilgewater.

Everett walked away from the brig's smell and settled in another corner of the hold. He pulled out the locked compass. He didn't want to rely on Avery's wand—
his
wand, as it originally was—to explore its properties. But it scared him a bit as well. It
wanted
something. It didn't just point the way—it
pulled
, directing the ship just as Holly's wand had.

Could Avery have known that would happen? Or did he just want to study magic, as he said?

Everett pushed his thumb against the catch. Now that Avery had unlocked it with the wand, it came open easily. The needle spun crazily in its housing, and Everett held the compass up to one eye.

Even in the dim light, he could see the castle to the northeast, and through the forest, Almaric's little cottage. Away to the north of Anglielle, moors rose out of the dun-colored earth, and farther north still, something dark was moving. A horde of creatures. Though he couldn't make out what they were, they had to be enormous—one of them crawled over a mountain like it was a hillock, turned, and opened a gaping mouth of fangs in his direction.

Everett slammed the locket shut, and the ship rolled, throwing him into a corner near the rack of muskets.