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I didn’t know what I wanted him to hurry for. I didn’t know what I planned to do. But something in me wouldn’t allow me to be absent for this moment. As if somehow, everything would make sense right before Valdez fired a lead ball into my father.
But assuming I did save him, what then? What would that change? I recalled how the instant I’d altered my memories by breaking into my own home as a boy. Whatever I did here clearly influenced what would happen in the future. Which could mean that if I stopped my father’s death, Valdez might never have forced me onto his crew. And if I never became part of his crew, I’d never have been cursed. I’d never have suffered for 300 years. And I’d never have met Katrina.
I shifted, sliding the sole of my boot across the pier wood. With my small blade, I dug into the malformed chunk of driftwood in my hands as though I could punish it for the confusion racing in my head. I could save my father’s life and spare my younger self the most tormented destiny. Or I could let him die, and live it all over again. I told Katrina I’d endure hell all over again for her. And it wasn’t a lie. Was this God’s cruel way of making me prove that?
“I told you, Daven, I can’t explain to you what I have on board. You’d best have to see for yourself. The governor struck his deal with me, but the law don’t mince words…no pirates in the British ports. ‘Said I’d need a middleman to cross and carry the goods. But the price he’s paying. It’s worth the job, trust me.”
I turned my head to the familiar voice that scraped against my soul like the knife in my hand against the driftwood. Valdez. I was careful not to reveal my face, so I kept my hood pulled low and my head down as I listened.
“Valdez, if this is as big of a job as you say, I’ll need more than the usual share.”
“Hmm. We’ll talk prices after you’ve seen the cargo. I plan to pay you more, but don’t think you can take advantage of the situation.”
I kept a watchful eye as my father and the captain strolled across the dock, walking right past me, and onto the gangplank and up to the Siren’s Scorn. It was silent except for the gulls around me belting out their constant cry.
I waited. And waited. Sweat rolled off my forehead and onto the blade I flipped back and forth between my fingers. My foot tapped nervously. I knew if I couldn’t calm myself down, I’d start to look suspicious. But I couldn’t get any of it back under control. These next few minutes were critical in whether or not I would alter the course of history.
Finally, my father and Valdez emerged, their pace much brisker than when they’d boarded. My father looked unhinged, pointing a finger threateningly toward Valdez as he uttered something much too low for me to hear. I expected this to be the part where he refused to do the job after he’d seen the captured mermaids in their glass tanks inside.
“You’re out of your bloody mind if you think I’ll pay any shipper that.” Valdez spat. “What I offered you is more than fair.”
“No, Valdez.” My father spoke through a clenched jaw and bulging neck. “He wants these delivered alive. This isn’t the usual chopped tail and heart in a jar shipment. I’ll need triple the usual rate. At the least.”
“Triple? For a voyage you can make blindfolded. Daven, hear yourself.”
They continued arguing as my head spun with my father’s words echoing in my mind.
This isn’t the usual chopped tail and heart in a jar shipment.
He’d done this before. And he’d lied to me about this, too. He didn’t refuse this job because he didn’t want to ship mermaids. Why was I surprised? As the realization sunk to the very bottom of my soul, I understood that my father—Daven Harrington—was undoubtedly not the man he’d tricked me into thinking he was.
As they tossed words back and forth back on the docks, I looked up when I heard the running footsteps of a boy come all too late to stick his nose where it didn’t belong.
“Tiburón, go back home! This doesn’t concern you.” Daven shouted. It was only now that I could detect the quake of nervousness in his voice. His desperation to keep his dealings a secret from his son was all too plain to see now. This warped hindsight allowed me to see what was right in front of me all along.
“I came to see if you need any help, Father.” A naïve, lanky fifteen-year-old Milo approached the docks, oblivious to the doom that awaited him.
“He’s in need of some help, boy, that’s for sure.” Valdez peered around at young Milo, his voice sour. “Maybe your boy can talk some sense into you.”
“Don’t bring my son into this!” Daven shoved Valdez backward, and I knew what happened next.
The captain would pull his pistol out without hesitation and aim it at my father. This was my moment to decide. I studied the teenage boy running to the feuding men, desperate to jump in and defend his father. And I saw what awaited him if I were to jump in and stop Valdez. Daven would live, and he would continue living a lie to his son, until eventually one day, his son would become too wise for the charade, and he’d figure it out. And if he wasn’t smart enough to realize it was wrong, he’d fall into the same pattern of justifying the wrong thing just to please his father. And perhaps he’d even end up carrying on the business, unable to see the evils in it, or worse—choosing to ignore them.
And that, to me, was a fate worse than a thousand years at the bottom of Davy Jones Locker or wherever else Cordelia could send me. And I refused to let that young boy grow to become the same man as his father. So, I sat there in silence as I listened to the sound of a pistol firing and my younger self screaming.
Young Milo ran to Daven, frantic.
“Father! Father…no…” He hung his head, grimacing with glistening eyes from choking back emotion. “What happened?”
I couldn’t hear Daven’s dying response from where I sat, but I remembered exactly what he said to me.
“He…he wanted me to…to ship mermaids. Mermaids, Tiburón…” he coughed while straining for his last lying breaths. “Can you believe it?” I could still see him lifting his head as the blood began trickling from his mouth and his hand dropped from my shoulder. “But I wouldn’t do it. And this is what he I got for it.” He grunted out the words between his desperate gasps before reaching into his pocket and pressing a compass into my hand. “May this guide you better than it did me.”
I hoped he’d be glad to know that it had.
25
Walk the Plank
