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“Will they sink?” I say.
“Not if they can get her to shore in time, which they appear to be doing.” Nicolas backs away from the cannon. “That was a most pleasant diversion. However...”
“It does not change the fact thatourship is heading out to sea.”
He motions for me to follow him back above deck. Once we’re there, he lets out a curse in French.
“Non,” he says. “We are not heading to sea. We are heading to shore. To dash upon the rocks.” He turns. “Andrés? You know more than I do about navigation. How do I steer her toward shore and slow her progress?”
“Steer hertowardshore?” I say.
“I would prefer to simply run aground, but at worst, we could jump if we were close enough to shore.”
“Ah, I see. Yes, that makes sense.”
Andrés motions that he can help instruct Nicolas on how to steer and slow the ship, and he does, showing me the correct riggings to use and how to turn the sails, which I pass onto Nicolas as we do it together. Soon, while we are still heading for the shore—therockyshore—we have slowed.
Nicolas continues working on the sails. Through the spyglass, he sees what looks like safer shoreline ahead.
As he navigates, I talk to Andrés. It is not uncommon for ghosts to be bound to the site of their death, especially when it is something like a ship. If that is the case, I need to ask my questions now. Should the ship run aground, we may not be easily able to return for my questions.
We will return—of course—to set Andrés free. First, I must know who killed him. That is the key. I must name his killer, and I cannot make a mistake or I risk condemning him to life as a ghost.
I ask questions, and he answers in nods and shakes of his head and through pantomime. He must stop now and then to give instructions for Nicolas, when the ship does not behave as she ought, but otherwise, we are left to our discourse. Soon, I have a picture of what happened to him.
I find Nicolas at the helm.
“The rudder is not operating as it should,” he says. “We seem to be on course for that stretch of shoreline, though. It will be a rough landing, and we may need to swim, but we will not crash.”
“Good. Crashes are far more fun in fiction than reality.”
He smiles over at me. “Agreed. Now what did Andrés tell you?”
I relate the story, as best I could determine based on simple yes and no questions. When the crew was taken, Andrés was indeed in town, presumably spending his earnings from the enemy ships they had “liberated” of their fortunes on the high seas.
He was supposed to meet up with Nicolas, but he was late, and he arrived to see the crowd at the dock, the captain and some of the crew arrested. He fled and took shelter outside of town.
At the time, he presumed Nicolas had been taken with the others. When he returned, he found the hanged men, with Nicolas not among them. He snuck onto the ship to look for Nicolas. I do not tell Nicolas this part—he does not need to know that Andrés had been looking for him, relying on him.
As much as I want to set Andrés’s spirit free by naming his killer, in some ways, I think that knowing his protector did not abandon him is equally important. Nicolas’s story makes sense to Andrés. This is the man he knows—who would neither abandon him nor endanger him.
Of course, the question now is, Who told Nicolas this? I can’t ask that yet. Not as we are fighting for our lives. There will be time for that difficult discussion later.
After Andrés could not find Nicolas, the boy returned to the ship, likely hiding out there for the same reason Nicolas later made it his storage spot. No one would expect the crew to go near that ship again.
At that time, it was in dock, and Nicolas had indeed not dared get near it. The ship stayed in dock as the authorities decided what to do with it. All that time, Andrés was aboard.
One night, he overheard voices. None were any he recognized, so he quickly retreated. He was spotted and pursued, but he seemed to lose his pursuer and made it to the pantry. When he heard banging outside the pantry door, he braced for capture, but no one came.
Before he could try the door, another sound came, that of someone sawing wood. Sawing through a beam, as we know. The galley collapse was not accidental. Someone cut the beam, and the roof caved in, and Andrés huddled in the pantry and counted himself lucky that his own roof had not collapsed. Then he discovered the purpose of that hammering. He was trapped.
He tried to get free. He banged about and made what little noise he could. No one heard him. No one could get close enough to the pantry, which was intentional.
It was all intentional. So unbelievably intentional. Someone didn’t lock Andrés in that room temporarily. They locked him in and then ensured he could not escape or be rescued.
There is cowardice in that. Monstrous cowardice. Killing Andrés outright would have been despicable, but it was still better than sentencing him to a slow death with no chance of survival.
I do not believe that the killer wanted to torture Andrés. What could a boy do to deserve such a horrible death? Nothing. They killed him this way because they were too cowardly to murder him outright.
