Page 9 of The Pirate Queen

Gutty has scrambled across every surface of the boat. Back and forth from bow to stern. He’s taken a turn at the oars and explored the empty hold, the cabin, and the entire deck. In the hours since they’ve left shore, he’s learned the names of every man on Donal’s crew, and most parts of the ship as well. He harassed Sivney with so many questions about the tiller that the old man let him take a turn just to shut him up.

Gutty is destined to be a sailor. She knows this the same way that she knows the sea poses no danger today, that it will bring them safely home.

Grace is unsure about the second Murray twin, however. Though not so frantic in his exploration of the boat as Gutty, he misses nothing, and has even stepped in to help a few times. He doesn’t seem to be sick. Or miserable.

“You are fond of them, aren’t you?” Donal asks.

“The Murray twins? No.”

He snorts.

“They are dour. And the most spectacularly ugly men I have ever seen in my life.” Donal says nothing, so she continues. “Look at them! All knobby-nosed and pockmarked. Faces like a slapped arse, the both of ’em. And to think that God made two, when one would have been too many.”

“You are fond of them.” Donal laughs. “And of the boy as well.”

She scowls. “I am trying very hard not to be.”

“Why?”

“If I care about them, I will be forced to stay in this wretched place.”

“Will you be escaping, then?”

A sad smile. “I enjoy pretending that I can. Affection for any of them ruins that daydream.”

Grace thinks that he wants to say something—to comfort her, or perhaps to lie and tell her that there is some future elsewhere. But he scowls instead, then turns back to the horizon.

“Must you leave today?” she asks. “There is plenty of room for everyone.”

He shakes his head. “I wish I didn’t have to. But there are things I must attend to in the morning.”

“Are you happy? At Westport?”

“Tá.” He smiles. “ ’Tis more than I ever thought to have. And there’s Nora, and our daughter. I’d be happy in a bothy as long as I had the two of them.”

“Sure, I’m happy for you,” she says, then shakes her head when she sees the look on his face. “Oh, don’t be sad for me, brother.”

“How can I not? You always wanted more than this.”

“And I was a fool for thinking I could have it.”

“You also have the right to be happy.”

Grace tries to laugh, but it sounds forced, even to her ears. “Well, I amn’t dead yet, am I? Perhaps there’s time.”

The waves are darker now, and frothy at the tips from the brisk wind coming off the Atlantic. Grace and Donal stand together at the bow, watching that point along the horizon where the sun begins to kiss its own reflection in the water.

“Why don’t you take us in?” Donal asks. “I know you miss it.”

Sivney stands at the far end of the ship atop the cabin deck, hand on the tiller. Squinty as always, he could be watching the sea or watching them. The latter, she thinks, based on the tilt of his chin.

“I do not think—”

“Who is here to stop you, Gráinne?” Donal turns in a half circle, throwing his arms wide. “Isn’t a man on this ship who hasn’t known you from a báb and knows you love this more than anything. Take us in.”

Gutty, she thinks, and the Murray twins, they hardly know me at all. But she does not wonder what they will think of her. She does not care.

Perhaps it is the wind or the spindrift or the salt, but her eyes sting and she blinks, hard. “I do miss you,” she says.