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The first full day at sea, we managed to create enough distance between us and the pursuing ship that we thought we’d lose them easily enough. The winds stayed strong enough to keep our pace. Unfortunately, it also meant Thane’s ship was having no trouble keeping up with ours. The sea rolled in waves that kept us bobbing for hours on end, so much that my legs ached from the effort of balancing along the ever-changing surface.
We’d scarcely brought enough food for the journey in our hurry, but fortunately there was plenty of fresh water on board. We’d rotate shifts at the helm, with Milo showing each of us how to use the compass to ensure we didn’t steer off course. He barely slept, I could tell. He’d disappear to the cramped cabin belowdecks for only a handful of hours at a time before reemerging to take back the wheel with tired, red eyes.
On the second night, I followed him, to make sure he rested a bit longer. It was Noah’s night watch, so I knew the ship was steering soundly for the time being. He’d taken to sailing quite easily. Creeping behind the cabin door silent as the rats on deck, I watched Milo lay down on the pile of blankets strewn across the cabin floor. To my surprise, he fell asleep fast. Within minutes the only sound reaching my ears was that of his breathing and the ever-constant creaking timber of the boat.
I started to turn away, to leave him to his slumber, but a sound yanked me back. He groaned as if in pain, followed by a short whimper that made me feel weak in the knees. When I looked back at him, he was tossing himself across the blankets, twisting and turning as though trying to escape an invisible attacker. I ran to his side, shaking him awake with urgency in my voice.
“Milo,” I said. “Wake up. It’s alright. I’m here.”
He opened his eyes and nearly leapt backward when he saw me. Between gasps of breath, he opened his mouth to speak, but seemed unable to make the words come. He sat up, keeping one leg outstretched in front of him and drawing the other up to him for a place to prop his arm. I kept my hand on his back, rubbing between his shoulder blades gently until he calmed. He pushed his disheveled hair back from his face with his free hand and then squared his shoulders to look at me.
“Was that one of your nightmares?” I asked, my tone as gentle as I could make it. I thought back to when he’d saved me from my bad dreams on the lighthouse and confessed he used to have them, too. This was the first time I’d ever seen it for myself.
He nodded, his breath returning to normal. “It’s been a while. But I guess this place has taken its toll.” The way he looked at his hands as he spoke, eyeing them with some semblance of disgust, I had a suspicion about what it was that might be weighing on him.
“Is it because of what happened with Thane’s men?”
“It’s because of me. This place has brought out the worst in me. Rather, it’s brought it back. Because it never left. No matter how much I wanted to think it did. Here I’m a thief and a killer again. I’m the pirate I tried to forget.” he muttered. “Thane’s henchman isn’t the only man I’ve killed here.” His eyes burned into mine, and then with slow movements he reached into the folds of his loose shirt and out trickled the beads of a rosary. “I killed a man while fighting him, not two hours after our shipwreck. In defense. He attacked me and would’ve killed me if I didn’t. This was his, and I’ve carried it with me since. I don’t know why.”
I studied the wooden beads, noticing the brownish-copper stains on them and the little wooden cross at the end. Blood. From a man Milo had killed. I didn’t like to think of him killing. I’d pushed out the memory of him leaving Thane’s men bleeding on the ground. Because I knew he’d done it for me, and my joy at seeing him again overpowered any other feeling then. And to be honest, it didn’t feel real at the time.
But something was different about it now. As I sat here with him, seeing this blood-stained trinket, I soaked in the reality that the same gentle hands that touched me in love and pleasure were also the hands that had taken lives, and always had been, long before this island.
These weren’t the first two men he’d killed. Even if it was three centuries past, he’d killed others before. And I knew that. And though some part of me felt sickened by it, I also knew he wasn’t given much of a choice in life. And I knew I had to decide once and for all if that would change the way I saw him.
It didn’t.
“I think I know why,” I whispered. “Because you can’t forgive yourself. And you’ve been holding it all inside. But you have to let go of this or it’s going to weigh on your soul until it drowns you.”
He shifted and blinked, as if taking my words to heart. Something in me churned. Maybe my words weren’t only for him, but for me, too. Cordelia’s curses had haunted me long enough. It was time I released myself from that dark burden as well.
“Cordelia told me sirens don’t have souls,” I added. “At least you have a soul to save.”
“That can’t be true,” Milo said, a tension rising in his voice.
“I don’t know if it is or not,” I said, taking his hand. “But I do know that it’s stupid to pretend we don’t have things in our pasts—or presents—that we regret. But we have to either decide if we’re going to succumb to it or fight it. And as long as we fight it, then we’re never truly lost.”
“Stay true north.” His lips barely parted as he mumbled the words, a deep expression across his face as though he was recalling them from somewhere.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“It’s something an old friend once told me. And it means exactly what you just said,” he offered a smile that sent warmth radiating through me like the soft red glow of a summer sunset.
“Then let’s forgive and fight.”
I walked with him up to the railing on the starboard side. It wasn’t far, given the small size of the ship, but it was enough distance for another quick exchange of words before Milo held the bloody rosary over the side of the ship.
“If there’s one thing I’ve been reminded here, it’s that deep down, we’re all slaves to the darkness inside us,” Milo said sternly, watching the cross pendant dangle over the gurgling black abyss below. He bowed his head for a few seconds in silent thought, and then opened his hand. The rosary slid over his knuckles and plummeted down below. Even in the dark, the schooner was so low to the water, it was possible to catch a glimpse of the slowly sinking beads as the blood marks blossomed into the seawater around them.
I turned to him and kissed him on the lips, hoping he had truly begun to let go of his guilt, and hoping I could do the same so as not to be a hypocrite. “Now go get some sleep,” I whispered in his ear before pulling away.
The second and third day was spent in a haze, merely sailing onward and keeping a close eye on our company behind. My steering shift was early morning, so I’d often spend the long moments beforehand staring out from the prow as the sea breeze wrapped its cool embrace around me and the salty morning mist beaded on my eyelashes.
On the third day, I looked down at the water, its sapphire blue glittering like fine jewels in the sunlight. I tried not to think about what might lie far below. My siren side had been shut up for a long while now, and I hadn’t heard from her since I’d succumbed to my mermaid form in the lagoon. But I almost wished she were here, now. I wished there was some way to call on her. I needed her boldness, fearlessness, and longing for the sea. Because I knew sooner or later, once we found the location of the trident, there would be only one way to get it. And it would require a dark, bottomless plunge to the sinking depths of the Devil’s Triangle.
34
Not All Treasure Is Silver and Gold
