Water & Storm Country (8 page)

“There’s no room for another lieutenant on my
ship,” the captain says.

“I don’t need a babysitter,” I say.
Especially not one like Hobbs.

“They’re not my orders,” Hobbs says to the
sea. “The Deep Blue knows I don’t want this anymore than you do.
The admiral insisted.”

“No,” the captain says, and the soft breeze
of relief washes over me. It’s the captain’s ship—his rules.

“The admiral said you’d say that,” Hobbs
says, finally looking away from the ocean, meeting the captain’s
stare. “He also said his decision is final, and if you make me call
him off his ship, well, let’s just say you don’t want to do that…”
Sometimes the implied threat is more effective than the threat
itself, or even carrying out the threat.
This whole meeting is
becoming a demonstration of the lessons my father taught me growing
up.

The captain’s face is getting redder by the
second, and I swear he’s about to burst into flames, but then he
turns away stiffly, making a show of stomping toward the boat. “Get
in,” he says over his shoulder. “Both of you.”

I’ve barely just met the captain, and yet,
because of Hobbs, he hates me already.

~~~

I’ve never seen a ship like the Mayhem.

Just like on The Merman’s Daughter, there are
men and women everywhere, but they’re not all working. In fact, I
don’t think half of them are working. As I scan the decks at
mid-ship, I spot a dozen people lounging, men and women alike. To
my left, a fat, grizzly man is slumped against the side of an
overturned barrel, his hand tucked beneath his belt. On my right, a
skinny fellow with a long, curly mustache snores loudly, his arm
around a sleeping woman with a top so tight and low my cheeks
flush. With each exhalation, the hairs of his mustache flutter.

Above me, the sails open, but not in an
orderly fashion, one at a time, like on my father’s ship, but
almost all at once. The wind catches them despite the numerous
holes and tears in the thick cloth, and the ship lurches forward. I
grip the splintery hand rail to stop from falling over.

“A damn, bloody mess,” Hobbs mutters from
beside me. For once, I agree with Hobbs.

But something’s strange, too. Despite the
distinct smell of stale grog and fish that lingers in the air like
a cloud, and the strange array of men and women working and
lounging, the decks appear to be clean, well-scrubbed and free of
clutter. The contrast is stark.

That’s when I notice them. The bilge rats.
There are only four of them, compared to the dozens that work the
decks of my father’s ship, but they’re scrubbing away at the lower
decks like their very survival depends on keeping the wooden planks
clean. Like all bilge rats, they’re brown-skinned and skinny, but
muscular, too, because of all the scrubbing, I guess. Two are boys
about my age, maybe a few yars younger, with sunken eyes and a wiry
hunch to their bony shoulders. Another is an older bilge rat man,
probably the oldest bilge I’ve ever seen—maybe nineteen, twenty.
Usually the bilge don’t live that long, not with the Scurve running
through their small, dirty living conditions like a crashing
wave.

The fourth rat is a girl who looks around my
age with long, dark hair, almost to her waist, braided tightly down
the center of her back like a black spine. She’s on her knees,
raking the brush back and forth across the deck with a tenacity and
fervor at least twice that of any of the boys working beside
her.

I’m dimly aware of Hobbs stalking across the
deck, following the captain. Someone says my name, but the world
has melted away, and all I can see is this bilge rat, working
harder than I’ve ever seen anyone—rat or sailor, oarsmen or
deckhand—work. For what? For the ship that’s the red, swollen
pimple on the fleet’s backside?

And then she suddenly stops and turns, as if
sensing my gaze.

And she sees me, looks right at me, her braid
swinging behind her, her legs pushing her to her feet. Her eyes are
a beautiful shade of brown, almost creamy, the perfect accent to
her sun-kissed skin. But they’re flashing with something I didn’t
expect. Not wonder, interest, or admiration—nothing good like that.
They’re narrowed and burning, almost like the sun is
in
them, shooting rays of heat at me. She speaks.

“What the bloody scorch are you lookin’ at?”
she says, and I’m not sure what I’m more surprised by, the tone of
her voice or her words. On my father’s ship, a bilge rat speaking
like that to one of the sailors would be thrown overboard, no
questions asked. And I’m no ordinary sailor. I’m an officer and the
son of the admiral.

The world that had melted away like a puddle
of candlewax in a frying pan returns with a whoosh, as a burst of
wind whips over the hull and across the deck, from starboard to
port. The only motion is from the men manning the sails, who
continue to struggle to get the right tension and direction.
Everyone else is frozen, as still as human statues, watching.

The other three bilge rats have stopped
scrubbing and are sitting cross legged, brushes and hands in their
laps, their eyes wide. Those of the sailors who aren’t asleep have
stopped whatever they were doing. They’re looking at me and then at
the bilge rat, back and forth, back and forth, probably wondering
who will flinch first.

Captain Morrow is standing on the
quarterdeck, staring down at me with interest. Hobbs is halfway up
the steps, arms crossed, frowning. My father’s spy. For why else
would he be here? And this is my first test, whether by chance or
design, and I’m totally screwing it up. I’m looking around me like
a scared little boy, hoping someone will come to my rescue—

“Well?” the girl says, tapping her foot.

—but I’m a lieutenant,

“Are you gonna answer or what?” she adds.

—son of the admiral,

“Or are you too scared?”

—and she’s nothing more than a servant, one
of the rats that come from nowhere, to scrub our decks and clean
our clothes…

But she’s kinda pretty, in a
she-looks-like-she-wants-to-punch-me-in-the-face kind of way.

And I don’t want to cause trouble on my first
day, not when trouble seems to have such a knack for finding
me.

In the silence, my boots are like hollow
thunder as I walk across the deck. I know where I should be
walking, where Hobbs would walk: toward the bilge rat to teach her
some manners.

Feeling shaky, I reach the steps to the
quarterdeck and climb them, brushing past Hobbs and ignoring the
captain’s eyes following my every step.

“I’d like to see my cabin,” I say, my voice
coming out high and weak.

~~~

Hobbs sneers, looking at me with no less
distaste than he would if I was a rotten fish on his supper
plate.

“A bit of grog and a shiny new officer’s
uniform don’t make you a man,” he says, spitting out the word
man
.

I have a hundred comebacks planned, clever
words that would put him in his place, teach him some manners, shut
him up and make his face go red, but as I try to speak, they jam in
my throat, a jumble of disjointed words, tangled, turning to ash,
choking me. My mouth is dry, and whatever threads of pride and
dignity I had left this morning have been snipped by the scissors
of fate and my own weakness, worthless except to a scavenging bird
seeking to build a nest.

Because I walked away from a rat. A rat who
insulted me (with pretty eyes), who made me look like a child in
front of the men I’m meant to lead. I know what my father would’ve
done. Strutted up to her, slapped her hard across the face,
probably kicked her to the deck, and had her thrown to the
sharp-tooths. Made an example out of her.

The bilge rats will respect you if they
fear you
, he once told me after I’d just watched him manhandle
a new rat who wouldn’t stop crying. The boy was no older than me at
the time, seven yars old. A child.

And his words from earlier:
Beware the
bilge rats…They’re not like us. They’ll do anything to bring you
down, to make you as low as they are. Don’t trust them. They are
tools to be used, nothing more.

It’s almost like he knew I’d have trouble
with them. It took me all of a few seconds on my new ship to fail
at the hands of a bilge rat.

Lost in my thoughts, I’ve forgotten about
Hobbs. “Don’t you have anything to say for yourself,
boy
?”
he says, stepping forward, so close I can see the dark tobacco
stains on his teeth.

I feel tears coming, but I hold them back,
determined not to fall further into the deep sea of embarrassment
than I already have.

Hobbs draws his sword and my eyes bulge out
of my head, because this close it’s so shiny, so sharp, gleaming
and glinting in the sun, glittering silver against the sandy
backdrop.

Something doesn’t make sense. Where’d all the
sand come from? It’s all around me, churning like waves, grabbing
at my legs, pulling me under. I’m sinking.

Sinking, sinking, until the beach is up to my
waist and I’m at the perfect height for Hobbs to—

He swings, his blade slicing through the air,
right for my neck—

—and I close my eyes—

—and I scream—

—but no sound comes out and I don’t feel my
head getting chopped off (can you feel your head getting chopped
off?), and when I open my eyes I’m not on the beach anymore, and
Hobbs isn’t there, and I’m laughing—of all things
laughing
—and gentle arms grip me from behind, holding me
against the railing, letting the wind sweep over and around me.

My mother’s head slips in next to mine and
she kisses me on the cheek. “You know I’ll never leave you, right?”
she asks.

But I don’t know that, because she did leave
me, and then it’s happening again—no, not again, please, please,
please…

The ship lurches and she stumbles and the
railing is too low to stop her momentum, cutting her at the waist,
the heaviness of her upper body pulling her over.

In my desperation I grab at her hand, feel my
fingers close around hers, every last bit of the weight of her
muscles and bones pulling against me, hating me, angry that I’m
trying to thwart their plans of pulling her into the sea.

I’m crying out, yelling for help—
Get me
some bloody help!
—but no one’s close enough, and I’m not strong
enough, and she’s slipping, slipping, slipping away from my sweaty
hand and my straining arm muscles, and when I look to the side,
along the rail, he’s standing there, close enough to see but too
far to help.

My father. Darkness in his stare, because he
knows.

He knows.

I’ll fail him, like I always do.

But I won’t—not again. I grip her tighter,
and try to stand, to get some leverage. I reach out my other arm,
because if I can only grab her with that one, maybe two arms will
be enough to pull her up, or at least hold her until help arrives.
Surely my father will come.

I reach, and I’m almost there.

(Could I really save her this time?)

And that’s when she slips from my grasp.

And I scream.

And I won’t watch this time, not ever again,
so I look away, right at my father, who hasn’t moved to help.

His eyes burn me, set me on fire, the flames
hot and everywhere and on my clothes and skin. And again, I
scream.

Someone grabs me and I try to fight them off,
scrabble with my hands, swing at them, but they’re strong, too
strong, and they hold me down, saying “Shhh, you’ll hurt yourself
more than you’ll hurt me, lad.”

I keep straining, but not as much, and only
because I don’t know the voice.

Eventually, however, I relax, slump on
something warm and soft, open my eyes.

Daylight streams through the glass portal
above my bed, warming the plump pillow beneath my head. I squint,
seeing spots, red and blue and orange, like the fire that nearly
consumed me in what I now know was another nightmare. My father’s
fire.

Firm hands continue to press against my arms,
holding them at my sides, but not hurting me. “’Twas a dream,” the
voice says. “Nothing more.”

Blink, blink. My mother slipping, falling:
blink her away. My father glaring, burning me: blink him away,
too.

A face appears, hazy at first, but then crisp
and defined around the edges. Lined but no older than my father.
Late thirties, maybe forty. A beard, uncombed and disheveled, brown
and patchy like the hair on his head. Somber, gray eyes, like the
clouds that encroach on the sea from storm country. A nose that’s
bigger than most.

“Lieutenant Jones,” the man says.

“Who are you?” I say. It sounds a little
rude, although I don’t mean it to be.

The corner of his lips turns up in amusement.
I haven’t offended him. “Barnes,” he says, “although around here
most folks call me Barney.”

“Why are you…” My voice fades away as I
realize I’m being rude again.

“Here?” he says, winking. “Well, firstly, I
heard you screaming like the Deep Blue had grown hands and was
trying to pull you into its depths, and secondly, I sleep a cabin
over. I’m your steward. I’ll be doubling as Hobbs’ steward,
too—he’s a rather grouchy fellow, isn’t he?—because we didn’t
expect him. I’m here to take care of your every need, so you can
focus on leading the men.”

Everything comes tumbling back: the bilge
rat’s challenge; my weakness; the captain showing me to my cabin,
asking if I was ready to meet my steward. I had begged off, blaming
the need for sleep, although I was wide awake. Pulling the covers
tight around me, I had squeezed my eyes shut and held back the
tears as long as I could, but eventually they’d broken free,
coating my cheeks and lips.

But eventually I must’ve fallen asleep, and
then—

“It was just a nightmare,” I say, lifting my
chin, rubbing at my cheeks, half-expecting them to still be wet
with tears. Surprisingly, however, they’re dry, although my skin
feels grainy. I hope Barney can’t see the white tear tracks.