Page 7 of If I Go Down with This Ship

But there is no city skyline in the distance, no dock crowds heading to Tate Modern for a Saturday meander of modern art, nothing to hint at London in the least.The gray, drab waters of the Thames have been replaced with the blue of the ocean.

Something in my stomach swirls viciously.I stagger backward and run into the desk.My hands scramble for a hold, and in my haste, I knock over a bottle of ink.It crashes to the floor and spills, black seeping into the wood, slowly oozing out across the floor like poison.I can’t even stop to clean it up—my hands are shaking too much, the fear of the ocean threatening to take hold of me—and I turn and head on swaying legs toward the door.

I throw open the door and pitch toward the stairs.My body feels numb as I climb up toward the sounds of a working ship and emerge onto the main deck, where I was only twenty minutes earlier.

It looks nothing like it did.Twenty minutes ago, the props were fake.There was no one else aboard this ship besides Louise, George, and me, but now we are no longer alone.I’m blinking in shock against the bright light of day and the blaring sun when I’m promptly shoved aside by someone.

I stumble over and fall, landing hard on my hands and knees.Hissing and shaking out my hands, I shield my eyes from the sun and turn to glance over my shoulder.My nerves dance as another man shoves past me without a care.

Oh no, oh hell no.This can’t be possible.

“What thefuck?”I say, reaching up to grip the railing and pull myself into a standing position as I look out over the deck.

It’s covered in people.In pirates.I’d know these outfits anywhere, the cropped breeches tied just under the knee, the loose cotton shirts.I knowexactlywhat I’m seeing, but I simply can’t comprehend what is happening, because minutes earlier, I saw a jovial older man who built this ship for the fun of it.I was laughing with my sister, imagining a life at sea not unlike this.

I’d been in London.

But now London is nowhere to be seen, and George and Louise have simply vanished.I am on the ocean—of that much I am certain as I glance back over the ship’s edge to the sparkling blue.My stomach flips, terror seizing me at the thought of the endless depths of ocean beneath us.I can feel my pulse thundering as my hands tighten on the railing.

I must have hit my head.This must be some sort of wild dream, and I’m really just passed out on the deck as Louise calls for an ambulance.

“Louise, you can wake me up now,” I mutter, my knee bouncing.

But when I breathe in sharply through my nose, it smells of sweat and sea, and try as I might, it makes no sense.

I stumble back a step, apologizing as I bump into someone hoisting ropes.“Terribly sorry,” I say as I fall against a set of stairs.

“Who are you?”someone asks in a gruff voice.

I laugh hysterically as I turn from them.More and more of the crew spot me, a tall, gangly American sticking out aboard this ship like a sore thumb.I can feel their eyes on me as I lift my hands in surrender and stand.

“If someone can point me to the nearest exit,” I say with an awkward laugh, “I’ll just get out of here if you don’t mind.”

I hear boots running across the deck behind me, each step pounding in time with my pulse, closer and closer.

“This is all just a misunderstanding,” I squeak as a large man pushes through the crowd and stalks toward me, his hand going to a dagger at his belt.I raise my hands higher, trapped between the thundering footsteps and this dagger-wielding pirate.“I don’t want to be here any more than you want me here,” I ramble.“Let me help you help me.”

The ship tilts, and I stumble forward, one hand going to the railing, the other to the deck as I look out over the ship.The footsteps stop behind me, and my mouth goes dry as more people turn toward the commotion.

I peer at the stairs as if fleeing can save me from whatever this is, but then I feel the coolness of metal against my neck, and my heart plummets into my stomach.Swallowing against the knife’s blade, I lean back, blinking up at a man.

“Who are you and what are you doing on my ship?”

3Knife to Meet You

Myfirst instinct is to crack a joke.Perhaps something along the lines ofOh, dear, it seems that I’ve traveled through time and landed aboard your ship!How troublesome.

I grimace; it’s not even a joke, it’s thetruth.Maybe?I can’t wrap my head around any of this, around the expanse of rather choppy ocean surrounding us or the pirates watching this man press a sharpened blade’s edge to my skin.I need something to ease us into a conversation about getting me off this ship I clearly do not belong on, but his furrowed brows and the flat press of his lips indicate that now is not the time.

And there’s the whole knife-against-the-throat thing.

Maybe I’m being pranked.I’d like to think Louise is playing a rather tasteless joke on me, in a misguided attempt at helping.Maybe I was down in that cabin longer than I thought.Maybe, in the time that it took me to shrug on this jacket, they pulled a full cast aboard this ship to sail it out to sea so Louisecan help me get over my fear of water and I can finally write my godforsaken book.

But considering the rather sharp knife digging into my skin and the wary faces surrounding me, I’m starting to doubt myself.As much as I love Louise, even she’s not creative enough to come up with this kind of prank.

Not to mention this crew does not look like a cast of actors.My gaze travels over the group of colorful characters, and I find myself on the edge of another string of hysterical laughter.The missing fingers, the sunburnt skin, the cuts and wounds and scars that glimmer under the heat of the sun—these are not Hollywood props or special effects.They are very muchreal, realer than anything George had aboard his life-size replica.

I feel a warm breeze wrap around me, a gust of air flitting through my hair, and I can smell and taste the sea, everything tangible to the senses.I try desperately not to think about the fact that I’m in the middle of the ocean, and how all it would take is one push, and I’m over.This can’t be happening, I think.These things simply do not happen, and certainly not to me, of all people.