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“Did you ever trust me?” I asked her, scratching my neck as I awaited her answer in the silence.
“No. But I’m not afraid of ya, either, and that’s the difference. I see the way you stare into the sea sometimes, with eyes like a lost daydreamin’ lover, and the way you smile just a bit to yourself when you think no one sees ya. So I’ll ask once more. What—or who—are you tryin’ to find out here, Cap’n?”
I felt my face heating as I thought of Clara observing me so closely. She was too good at reading me. And for whatever reason, I was strangely fond of her fiery, abrasive spirit. I breathed in a heavy sigh, motioning for her to walk alongside me as we emerged from the forest and followed the shoreline.
“There’s a lass who has my whole heart out there. But time has separated us. We are centuries apart. She’s far into the future, and I’m trapped here. All because of some twisted siren magic. I left her a clue how to bring me back to her, not thinking of the danger it would put her in.” I breathed out, thinking of Katrina and wishing that with the next breath I’d draw in, I’d breathe in her sweet scent of apricot and honeysuckle, and hating myself again for getting her mixed up with Bastian. “But if I can live forever…I can reunite with her, even if she doesn’t succeed…I can wait for her, however long it takes until our timelines meet again.”
Clara stared up at me with a twinkle in her eye, and the corner of her mouth twitched as though she might laugh. I would’ve expected no less.
“All that for a girl, mate?” She laughed. “I understand bein’ lovesick as much as the next bastard but come on now. Say ya just stay here and settle down with a nice lass somewhere, forget that one. Not worth the heartache.”
“She’s worth every heartache. She’s worth dying a thousand times for the chance to live one day with her. It’s funny,” I huffed with a forced laugh. “I once spent so long looking for a way to die, and now I’m searching the ends of the earth for a way to live forever just to see her again.”
“Aye, so you’re lookin’ for the Fountain of Youth!” She exclaimed.
I half-nodded, but mostly I just looked away, unable to admit to her claim. She went on before my next thought even had time to form. “That’s exactly the kind of thing that makes me know you’re different from the rest.” She grinned with a sideways glance. “Any man who’s loose in the head enough to take the mark of Davy Jones just so he has a slim chance of waitin’ out eternity to meet his woman…that‘s a Cap’n worth sailin’ with.”
I shrugged, not sure of what more to say. A small glimmer of hope rose within me, reassuring me that perhaps I hadn’t completely damned myself and this plan.
“Is it, though? Knowing I’d sacrifice anyone and do anything to see her again. Anyone. Be that you or my crew if it came down to it.”
Clara tilted her head back. “Everyone has somethin’ they’d burn down the world for. Yours just happens to be a bit more decent than most.”
“Thank you,” I uttered. “And thank you for how you’ve helped aboard my ship. Your last crew were fools to treat you the way they did. God knows you’re better than the lot of mine.” I scanned the landscape filled with my snoring men, strewn across the sand lying lifeless as bonfires smoked their last piles of smoldering embers and the waves lapping filled the silence. I thought of Felix, and how he would’ve been the only one of them to have kept his head this night and not sentenced himself to a brutal hangover the next morning. But he was gone, and I was still down a good first mate.
I looked at Clara, watching her take care of where she stepped as we left the jungle behind and entered the sprawling shore where my ship waited in the distance.
“Don’t ogle me like that, Cap’n. It gives me a feeling I don’t like. And like I said, my sails don’t quite catch the wind that way.” She snapped.
“It’s not like that,” I reassured. “On the contrary…I just…I have a proposition for you.” I hesitated, hoping I wasn’t about to make a grave mistake. Clara cocked her head, squinting her eyes at me.
“How would you like the position of first mate?” I asked, holding my breath as the words rushed out of my mouth so I wouldn’t have time to regret the offer.
Clara’s lips twisted into a wickedly mischievous grin. “As much as a dog loves its filth.”
“Good,” I smirked with a gesture to my ship. “Then let’s chart our course and wake up these fools. We’ve got a fountain to find.”
With my crew barely awake and my mast repaired, we hoisted anchor in the faint light of twilight. Clara took her place on the forecastle deck, yelling orders down below as some of the crew grumbled under their new authority. As I looked back at the island that had rested us well, I caught a glimpse of the elder woman and her people watching approvingly from the tree line. And as the distance between my ship and the shore grew, the island suddenly vanished from sight, replaced by nothing but the same ocean horizon surrounding us on every other side.
24
Release the Kraken
Katrina
Ireally hoped Bellamy was joking about Kraken’s eating mermaids. If anything, I prayed that maybe the opposite was true. Maybe we weren’t natural enemies like humans were. Maybe I could reason with it somehow in my siren form.
“You just made that up!” I shot Bellamy a playful look of scorn, hitting his arm where the heart and arrow tattoo just peeked out through his sleeve. I’d caught him looking at it more than once, lost in thought—or memory, of adding each arrow as he lost those he loved. I wouldn’t be his third arrow, I promised myself. And I’d make sure I ended Bastian’s link to him by completing this mission.
“Aye, don’t worry. I’m just pulling your ropes. But either way I’m sure the beastie will be more than surprised to see us. I almost feel for it. Once a leviathan of the seas, now hiding in the dark depths lost to time, now being asked to surface again and face a whole new world that no longer has room for it. I can relate.”
“Oh stop,” I uttered. “You’re making me feel sorry for it.”
“Don’t worry,” Bellamy stood, stretching an arm behind his head. “I’m sure it won’t take long for it to change your mind.”
I sighed, glancing at the clock on the wall that reminded me yet again how time-sensitive this assignment was. I didn’t know how long it would take to kill a Kraken. “The sooner the better,” I removed my outerwear and marched up to the deck.
“Don’t look,” I said, stepping out of my shoes and pants. The Mediterranean winter winds grazed my face with a chilly whisper of encouragement or doom, I couldn’t tell which. I took a deep breath, mesmerized by the clear blue surface of the water that I could see straight through down to where they gave way to the blackest depths below. I almost felt my old fears coming back to haunt me, but this time it wasn’t a fear of the water…just what was lurking beneath it.
