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Eventually, I see a bit of light through the trees, and I raise my hand for us to slow down and stay quiet. I get down onto my stomach and everyone else behind me does the same and we crawl through the jungle until the dirt turns to sand and we find ourselves on the beach. The thick fog parts just enough so that we’re staring right across the water at the ghost ship.
CHAPTER14
Maren
“Skip?”I ask softly, looking around for the orange feline.
When the captain entered the room earlier the cat ran under the table. I don’t get the impression that the cat is afraid of the captain, rather that he’s afraid of being found complicit. In that sense I have to wonder if the captain is able to communicate with the cat too. He may not be a Syren, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
But there’s no sign of the cat. Perhaps he ran out of the room earlier and I didn’t see it.
I sigh and lean back against the bars of the cage and slide down until I’m on the floor, my mind still tumbling over everything that was said at dinner last night.
The pirates hunted mermaids for their magic blood.
Edonia killed the captain’s daughter and stole a book of magic.
The captain was once married to a witch.
The captain may or may not have been the ones who stole my mother from the depths of Limonos. Was my mother hunting them or were they hunting her? Or was it some other sailors or pirates that dragged her from the water, never to be seen again? I don’t need yet another reason to hate the captain, so I’d like to pretend he was never involved with her death.
I’ve been trying to make sense of it all and my mind keeps coming around to two key points:
Mermaid blood is magic and they kill for it. More than that, they seem to view mermaids as monsters, which isn’t wrong. But if they were to ever find out what I truly am, I believe all bets would be off. I’d wager the captain wouldn’t hesitate to drain me of my blood in hopes that it might give him magic. Maybe it would, or maybe my magic was drained when Edonia was finished with me, but he would try.
The reason he needs the mermaid blood is because he needs it to help defeat Edonia. Which means that once he has the magic, he will go after her and possibly before he gets rid of me. If he does that, that meansI’mone step closer to Edonia. He’s going to try and get his book back, but if I somehow got the book back first, I could use it to barter with Edonia and get my fins back.
So now it seems that everything has a purpose, and a plan could possibly fall into place. I just have to accomplish two things: keep my Syren identity a secret, and keep on the captain’s good side for as long as I can. That last one will be harder than the first since there’s something about that man’s face that makes me want to strike him with fist and nails. But if I can accomplish that, if I can help him get his book back, then double-cross him and steal the book and use that to get back to Limonos and life as a Syren, then that will solve everything.
For the first time in the last ten years, I can see everything I want in plain sight.
My freedom.
My return to my true self.
I’ll be going home.
It makes me pause. I suppose if I want to stay on the captain’s good side, that means I have to stay on his ship. That means I need to obey.
And yet I can see his breeches on the back of the chair, see the keys to my cage hanging from them. If I could find the cat and convince him to give me the keys…
And you think that will win you his favor?I think to myself.
I sigh and lean back against the cage. The ship has started moving again, which means that the boat must be back from dropping the men off on the island. The rocking movement and the thick heady smell of night air in the tropics lulls me off to sleep, for when I wake up there’s a terrible racket up above.
The sound of us under attack.
But there’s no cannon fire, no roundshots slamming into the ships. Instead there’s yelling and shouting along with the clang of swords, rattling sounds that might only be described as skeletons being dismembered, and the occasional shot of a musket.
And it all sounds like it’s coming from our boat above.
If any of the skeleton crew get down here, they could blow the captain’s lock off with a blunderbuss. I might be a sitting duck.
“Skip!” I call out again. “Time to make haste and free me please!”
Suddenly the cat appears, this time coming out from near the captain’s bed, and stops right in front of me, in no rush at all.
“Thank the gods,” I say, kneeling on the floor next to it. “Please, if you can understand me, I need your help. We are under attack. Your captain would like you to set me free so that I may defend myself.”
