Steel

4 FOIBLE

She was Captain Marjory Cooper, and she wasn’t the only woman aboard. The handful of other women among the crew dressed like men and blended in. Only the captain wore her hair long and loose and her clothes fitted, showing off her figure. The entire crew, all ages and builds and colors, looked at the captain in awe and didn’t hesitate when she sent them back to work. Jill, she ordered to the captain’s cabin.

Jill had a random thought: If only Tom and Mandy could see this, the sails and cannons and costumes. Exactly what they’d wanted. They’d be so excited. If only they could be here—and then her gut lurched, because she didn’t want her brother and sister anywhere near these people, whoever they were.

Captain Cooper didn’t take Jill’s stolen rapier from her, and Jill wondered if she really seemed so harmless that she could walk around armed and no one cared. Or if everybody knew that even with a rapier, Jill was alone here and couldn’t do anything to hurt them. She had no power. Still, she clung to the weapon like it was a life preserver and felt some small security by having it.

Rapier in hand, Jill wasn’t as frightened as she might have been, alone with the captain. But having the rapier didn’t mean anything—Jill was too exhausted now to use it. While she was pretty sure she could kick, scratch, and fight if she was in danger—for a little while, at least—beyond that, she was pretty much screwed, just like she thought at first.

The captain had a small room in the back of the ship, below the main deck. At least, it seemed small to Jill, but it must have been the largest quarters aboard. The simple wood-paneled room had a table with a bench in the middle, cupboards on two sides, and a narrow bed in the back. A small glass lantern hung from the central beam, giving only enough light to make out the corners on the furniture. They both had to duck when standing inside, the ceiling was so low.

Captain Cooper offered Jill a tin cup of water. It tasted stale, but it cleared the salt from her mouth and soothed the burning in her throat. Then Cooper kicked the bench, scooting it out from the table, indicating that Jill should sit.

Jill turned gratefully to the seat—her legs were trembling. But the captain stopped her. “Wait. There. What’s that in your pocket?”

The outline of the piece of rusted rapier was stark through her wet clothes. Startled, Jill set down the cup and pulled out the broken blade. All she’d been through, and it hadn’t fallen out. And still, her hand tingled when she held it. Like it was trying to tell her something, in a voice that sounded like breaking waves.

Captain Cooper held her hand out. Jill wasn’t sure she wanted to give her the shard. Then again, Cooper could just take it. Reluctantly, she offered it to Captain Cooper.

Frowning, Cooper held it up to the flickering light, turning it, front and back. With a handkerchief she pulled from the front of her vest, she scrubbed at it for a moment. Rust flaked away in a fine red powder.

The captain’s face grew drawn, lips pressing into a tight frown. If Jill didn’t think it was impossible, she would have thought the woman sounded nervous. “Tell me true now—were you on the Newark when Blane sank it, or were you on the Heart’s Revenge?”

“Neither,” she said. “I was on a tour boat, I fell over by accident—”

“And where did you get this?”

“I found it on the beach. I was just walking and saw it in the sand.”

“Found it—just lying there, you say? Then how did you end up in the water? We shouldn’t have found anyone, picking through Blane’s trash. Blane doesn’t give quarter.”

“I don’t know,” she said weakly. “I don’t know how I ended up there. I don’t know who Blane is.”

“Then you don’t know where this came from? Who it came from?”

“No.” Jill pursed her lips and grit her teeth to keep from crying. Tried to stand straight until she realized her legs really were about to give out—they felt like rubber. She sat on the bench. “It probably washed ashore—how could I know where it came from? It’s old, hundreds of years old.”

“Hundreds of years—” The captain sounded startled. “And where do you come from?”

“The Bahamas. I’m on vacation. We were in a boat, I fell off—”

“You must be addled.” The woman was pacing now, just a few steps back and forth across the cabin, and she wouldn’t look at Jill.

“I don’t know where it came from, and I don’t know how I got here,” Jill said.

Cooper held up the blade—just a broken scrap of metal. “You’re connected to him somehow. Through this.”

“How do you even know what it is, how can you recognize it?”

“I’m the one who broke it. It should have been lost forever, and now it’s back. Because of you.” She pointed the rusted scrap at Jill, who leaned away from it, her heart pounding. Which of them was crazy here?

“But how—”

Cooper shook her head. “No. No more. You aren’t making sense. Maybe you will after you’ve had some rest.”

“But my family, the tour boat couldn’t have gone too far, I wasn’t in the water that long—”

“Lass, there’s no other boat around for leagues. You lost your family, and you’re lucky to be alive.”

“Then take me back to the island, they’re probably waiting for me—”

Captain Cooper turned on her. “There’s naught but cutthroats and bloody pirates on that island. An’t no one’s family there, and if yours is then they’re fools and’ll soon be dead, like as not. You’ll stay here, where I can keep an eye on you.”

That shut Jill up. It also made her mind stumble. The Bahamas, an island of pirates? All those stories come to life? Maybe she’d fallen a long ways off her family’s tour boat.

So what did she do now?

Captain Cooper kept the piece of rapier. Not that the thing had been much of a good luck charm for Jill. But the captain wouldn’t explain why it was important, why it wasn’t just a scrap of metal.

She slept in the captain’s own bed—“Just for now, don’t be getting any pretty ideas”—a mattress in a wooden frame, with rough sheets and a heavy wool blanket. Jill thought she should have slept heavily for hours. But the ship’s movements kept her awake. Slow, arrhythmic swaying, rocking her one way and another on the hard mattress that might have been stuffed with straw. She started to feel nauseated and wasn’t sure it was all from the boat’s rocking. Shutting her eyes tight, she tried not to think of it.

Jill slept lightly and with dreams of falling, of being underwater and not being able to swim. She was a good swimmer; nothing should have been able to keep her from the surface. But something was holding her down, anchoring her. And she thrashed awake; the dreaming sense of vertigo didn’t go away. She was still on a ship surrounded by strangers, uncertain of the place and time. She’d never felt so helpless.

Well, she’d wanted to get away from everyone, hadn’t she?

The motion of the ship had increased, rolling so much that the lantern hanging from the roof beam swung back and forth, and she would have slammed against the bed’s frame if she hadn’t braced herself. Nothing was loose in the cabin—everything was shut up in cupboards, and the table and floor were clear. Anything loose would be falling all around her. The ship seemed to be riding over hills, making animal-like groans around her.

She was going to throw up. Her stomach seemed to be lurching in the opposite direction from the ship, and though she covered her mouth with her hands, she couldn’t stop it. Bile surged up.

A bucket—solid wood, heavy and stable—stood against the wall. As if it had been set there in expectation. She stumbled out of bed and bent over it without looking inside, just in time. She heaved over and over, losing everything she’d eaten that day, and then some. She wouldn’t have thought her stomach could hold so much.

Then the acrid stench of it hit her and made her heave again.

Finally, she turned away, sitting heavily, her back to the wall, catching her breath. She wiped her mouth on the tail of her shirt because it was all she had. Her cup of water was gone—of course, it would have emptied all over the cabin by now. Dizzy, her choices were to keel over, go to sleep and never wake up again, or go outside and get some fresh air. Assuming she could look ahead without her vision swaying in front of her.

Using the frame of the bed, she pulled herself to her feet. Her first step made her stumble—the floor wasn’t where it should have been. To go the straight line from the bed to the door, she made a zigzagging path across the floor, following the ship’s rocking. But she reached the door and leaned there, shutting her eyes and catching her breath, determined not to be sick again. Doggedly, she gripped the latch on the door and opened it.

Captain Marjory Cooper, her smile crooked and her gaze hard, stood blocking her way. “I heard you were up. Feeling better then?”

Jill swallowed, hoping to keep her stomach steady. But she didn’t dare open her mouth, just in case. The captain pushed her back into the cabin.

“You’ve not spent much time at sea, have you?”

Jill shook her head and tried to guess if Cooper’s smile was meant to be comforting or mocking.

She had in hand a few pieces of clothing: a loose, long-sleeved shirt, cotton pants, and a soft cap. The clothing Jill arrived in wasn’t so out of place here—her clamdiggers were like the trousers that many of the sailors on board wore, and her tank top was just a shirt. But the captain handed her the new items.

“You’ll burn like a lobster in the sun in those things. You need to cover up until you get a good tan on you. It’ll keep the men from looking too hard at you as well. These should fit you. They’re cabin-boy sized.”

Reluctantly, Jill took the clothing. Changing clothes made her situation—lost at sea on a boat full of strangers—seem permanent. She felt like a prisoner. She ought to get out of here—and go where? “What’s going to happen to me?”

“We’ll have to discuss that, won’t we? When you’re dressed, come up on deck.”

Jill was actually happy to get out of the scratchy, salt-laden clothes she’d nearly drowned in. But she thought she looked like a bum in the loose clothes. No—she looked like a pirate. She kept her bra on—it made her feel a little more like herself. Like it could shield her. She also brought out the rapier, which she’d kept with her on the bunk. Since no one said anything, she was going to carry the weapon.

When she opened the door and came out on the deck, she hesitated, amazed.

All the sails were unfurled, and the wind filled them. Above her, a collage of rippling white canvas rose up on tall masts. Bright sun gleamed on them, almost blinding. Beyond them, the sky was blue, and white specks—seagulls—danced and wheeled in the wind above the ship. Around her was ocean, wide and blue, and the ship skimmed across waves, sleek as a fish. She reached up and felt wind brushing her fingers, ruffling her hair. For a moment, she felt like she could step into the air and float.

“You! Lass! Over here!” The captain called to her from the back of the ship, on the other side of the hatch and stairs leading below. There was an honest-to-God wheel here, half her height, with handles protruding off the spokes. Just like in the movies. This was all like a movie. She had to be dreaming.

Cooper had tied a piece of string around the middle of the rapier shard so that it dangled, balanced and horizontal. She held the end of the string at arm’s length and watched, along with the two men with her—the bald man from the rowboat and another, dark-skinned, his hair in long braids tied back with a bandanna. He gave Jill a smile, and she looked away.

Though the ship rocked and shifted, the rapier tip remained pointing in one direction.

That wasn’t possible, the way it remained motionless, frozen in place despite dangling in midair. It was just a piece of metal…. Jill stared at it. She wanted to touch it, feel the surface again, just to be sure. But she’d have had to reach past Captain Cooper to do it, so she didn’t.

The shard had been cleaned and oiled—very little of the rust remained, though the steel was still rough and corroded, with a reddish sheen of tarnished metal. But a pattern was visible now, curling lines like waves engraved on the flat of the blade.

“It’ll be our compass,” the captain explained, at Jill’s wondering expression. “It wants to return to its master. And however far it’s traveled, you’ve brought it right back, girl, haven’t you?”

“I don’t know how I got here,” Jill said. She kept telling her, and Cooper kept not believing her. “How is it doing that?”

Cooper gave her an odd, considering look. Then shook her head. “Blane’s looking for it, too, I reckon. I’m lucky I got to you first. Hell, you’re lucky I got to you first. Assuming you’re not spying for him.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about at all—who is Blane?” Jill’s hand clenched on the handle of her borrowed rapier. Not that she could do anything with it; that guy Henry proved that. The wire wrapping on the grip pressed into her palm; she wanted to hit something with it, no matter how little good it would do.

“Settle down, there. Know what I think? However you got here, whatever it means, you’ll lead me to him. Then I’ll have done with him for good. Now, what to do with you in the meantime?”

Just let me go, Jill thought, but to say it would have sounded whiny, weak. She had a feeling these people wouldn’t think much of her at all, if they thought her weak. So she kept silent and glared.

The captain put a hand on her hip. “You look like you’ve had a lot of soft living, but anyone on the Diana who expects to eat gets put to work.”

“I don’t know anything about sailing,” Jill argued.

“You don’t have to, to scrub the deck.”

Why would anyone bother scrubbing the deck of a sailing ship that was constantly getting wet, salty, and stepped on? You’d have to scrub it every day.

“Captain,” the black man said, his smile sly. “She should sign the articles if she’s going to be on the crew.”

“I don’t know if she is, Abe,” said Cooper, answering his grin. Jill blinked at them both, confused. “Jenks, fetch the book.”

“Aye, sir,” said the bald man in a sandpaper voice, and he ran from the deck to the cabin below.

“Can you read, girl?” the captain said.

“Of course I can.”

The laugh in Captain Cooper’s eyes grew brighter at that, and Jill bristled at the thought they were making fun of her. This was all a bad joke.

“The articles keep the law aboard a ship like ours. Read ’em through.” Jenks arrived with the book, which Cooper opened and handed to Jill.

The book was a slim, tall thing; she needed two hands to hold it and had to tuck the rapier under her arm. It was bound in leather and water stained. The articles only took up one page; the rest of the pages were filled with signatures. Her eyes needed a moment to focus on the dense writing, black ink on a yellowed page. The handwriting was crooked, cramped, and hard to read. S’s looked like f’s and whole words were abbreviated, and the author seemed to assume she’d know what it all meant. But she’d said she could read and refused to ask for help. The others didn’t comment on how long it took her.

The articles stated that the crew elected the captain and quartermaster and could remove them at any time by an organized vote, which seemed awfully orderly and civilized. There were punishments—flogging—for crimes: Theft, murder, and rape were specifically noted. The articles also laid out the compensation a crew member would get for injuries sustained in battle—different amounts of gold for hands lost, legs lost, and blindness—and described how prizes were to be split—everyone got an equal share, even the captain.

“You’re pirates,” Jill said, reading the page again, approaching full-on panic. She had to get out of here.

The captain laughed. “Pirates! We’re enterprising business folk!” The men around her chuckled at the joke, and Jill blushed. “Lass,” the captain continued. “If you’re not on the crew, then you’re a prisoner and you’ll stay locked up below.”

This was crazy. Could she tell them just to drop her back off at Nassau? But their Nassau wasn’t her Nassau. Nothing but water surrounded them. Where could she go?

What were the chances that any of this would apply to her? She could be careful and follow the rules, avoid offending anyone—though according to the articles fighting among crew was prohibited and she’d already broken that one in her duel with Henry. But she hadn’t been crew then. And she wouldn’t fight in any battles and be in danger of losing limbs. Surely she’d get home before that happened. Somehow she’d wake up from whatever dream this was.

If she were on deck—not locked up—she had a chance of escaping. They had to stop at land sometime. Then she’d run. Then she—she didn’t know, but she’d figure it out.

The captain turned to the next page in the book, revealing rows with a few names, but more X’s. Most of the people who’d signed couldn’t read. Jenks had also brought a pen—no, a feather, a long quill with most of the feathers shaved off—and a little bottle of ink. He held the ink while Marjory dipped the pen in it, then handed it to Jill.

“So what’ll it be? Crew or no?”

Jill didn’t know what other choice she had. She took the pen and signed her name on the next open space. Her writing looked large, round, and clumsy next to the other signatures. The others leered like they’d won a victory.

Surely it didn’t mean anything, she thought.

Cooper blew on the ink to dry it and handed book and quill back to Jenks.

“Welcome aboard, Jill. You’ve met me. Your quartermaster is Abe”—she nodded at the smiling black man—“and first mate is Jenks.” The bald man snarled. “Now you’ll scrub the deck.”

Jill stared. She didn’t even know what scrubbing decks meant. Scrubbing with a mop? A brush?

“And give me that sword, won’t you? And you’ll say, ‘Aye, sir’ when I give you an order.”

If this was a joke, she was the only one not laughing. They were teasing her, and she couldn’t do anything about it. Anger made her straighten and look Captain Cooper in the eye. The woman might not have been so tall; she didn’t even look strong. But Jill wouldn’t want to fight her. Cooper wouldn’t fight fair. In the captain’s mind—and in the minds of the crew—by signing that page she’d agreed to obey the captain, no arguments. She wondered if pirates really did make people walk the plank. This time, there might not be anyone to fish her out.

“Aye, sir,” she said softly, offering the rapier, handle first, to Cooper. The woman’s smile was thin, satisfied.

Cooper turned over the wheel and shouted, “Henry! Show the new recruit how we scrub decks!”

“Aye!” He’d been coiling rope with another sailor by the side of the ship, but he looked gleeful when Cooper called to him.

Henry, the boy she’d fought. Who might have beaten her if the captain hadn’t stopped the duel. She didn’t want to face him. Cooper pulled him aside, and Jill caught a few whispered words: “Make sure Jenks and his crowd keep away from her.”

“Aye,” he murmured back. Jill pretended not to hear, but she worried.

Cooper straightened and called, “Off you go. Welcome to the Diana.”

Jill didn’t feel very welcome. She’d play along just until she could find a way to get out of here. Somehow. But it was hard to escape from a boat in the middle of the ocean. Land was still in sight—a rough band of foliage on the horizon. But she didn’t know if it was the Bahamas, and she didn’t think she could swim so far.

Then Henry was standing before her holding a brick-size rock, like a pumice stone, and a bucket. “Don’t take it personal. The newest bloke always scrubs the decks.” He held the stone and bucket out to her.

The deck, which was probably only sixty feet long and twenty feet wide, suddenly looked as large as a football field. “The whole thing?” she said. “With this?”

“Now you can guess why it’s always the job of the new bloke.” He was enjoying this.

“But…I mean why bother? People walk around on this all day. It’ll never stay clean. Why bother scrubbing it?”

“You don’t know? Really?” She looked blankly at him. “It’s the damp, the salt air, the mildew. It’ll rot the wood if we don’t keep it scrubbed. Wait’ll we have to careen her and scrub the rot off the hull. There’s a bloody dire job.”

Stone in hand, Jill knelt and dreaded starting because it would take forever. She started in one corner in the back and ran the stone over the wood, polishing it. The deck was pale and smooth from all the previous scrubbing.

Henry watched, sitting up on the side, leaning against a length of rigging, whittling on a piece of wood with a penknife, dropping shavings on her nice clean deck. Teasing her.

“Do you have to sit there?” she said.

“I need to keep a close eye on you. Make sure you don’t miss an inch. Try scrubbing in circles, it works better.”

So she did, shifting sideways, until she’d reached the other side of the ship. Then she worked her way back. She could feel Henry watching her, an itching down her spine. He seemed to be far too pleased, watching her working on her hands and knees. Like he was gloating.

“I gotta ask,” he said, putting the knife away. “Where’d you learn to fight so pretty? Like a picture in a book, you are. That’s no use in a real fight.”

A real fight—that tournament was real fighting. At least, she’d thought so then. It was all this that wasn’t real. She paused a moment to glare at him. Just like she thought, he was teasing, and he didn’t let up. “I’m just trying to figure out what your story is. Most of us have pretty good stories, but you, finding you alive in that wreckage—seems like it ought to be right impressive.”

“I don’t know what happened,” she said, her voice flat.

“Don’t be sore. I’m just trying to be friendly,” he said.

She glared again. She wasn’t in the mood.

“Don’t you want to know how I ended up here?”

“Not really.”

“I was a lad on a merchant ship that the Diana captured. I got much the same offer you did, sign on with the crew here or be set adrift. But I didn’t have to think it over. My old captain was a mean one. A right bastard. Held back rations to raise profits, and us at the low end got shillings for our troubles, never mind shares. I tell you true, this place is a world better than where I came from. I wouldn’t trade it.”

In spite of herself, she’d stopped scrubbing to listen to him, trying to imagine the world he might have come from. And she couldn’t. “I don’t belong here at all,” she said.

“Then you’re not one of those girls dresses up as a lad and goes looking for adventure?”

“No. I keep telling you, it was an accident.”

“You look it, with your hair cut. It’s what we all thought.”

“I—I’m not sure what happened.”

“Lost your memory, then?”

“Yeah, I guess I did,” she murmured. It seemed as good an explanation as any.

By the end of the day, the ship had lost sight of land. No chance of swimming for it now.

She must have worked ten straight hours that day. Henry was called away on another chore, something to do with the sails, but Jill couldn’t stop working because someone was always around, climbing rigging, mending sails, keeping lookout, or doing one of the other mysterious jobs on a boat like this. She scrubbed, and her hands and arms grew cramped, her fingers sore and cracked, and the sun beat down on her. She’d never worked so hard and could feel herself getting sunburned, despite the long sleeves and pants. Her nose, ears, and the back of her neck stung.

As they sailed on, the view never changed, and she had no indication that time was passing except for the sun moving overhead.

It was almost at the horizon when Henry returned and took the stone from her, grabbing it right out of her hands. She stared at her empty hands a moment, then looked at him, almost hurt. She wasn’t done yet—at least she didn’t think she was. But she might have gone around the whole deck twice for all she knew.

“Come on then, time for supper,” he said, and gestured her toward the middle of the deck.

She needed a long moment to stand, straightening the kinks out of her back. She’d thought she was in good shape.

The crew, thirty or forty people, gathered in the widest, most open part of the ship and made a rowdy line in front of two men, who carried what looked like a cast iron pot and a small wooden barrel: dinner.

Jill was starving, but she hung back, not wanting to get caught in a brawl. She couldn’t tell if the yelling and jostling was in earnest or in fun. But no fighting broke out among them—just like the articles said.

Abe stood near the men with the food, facing out, supervising. Abe was the quartermaster and almost as important as the captain on a ship like this. He was in charge of supplies, rations, and treasure, and of ensuring that everyone got an equal share and that no one tried to take more behind the others’ backs. This position was, like the captain’s, elected, and the quartermaster was the one everyone trusted. When he saw Jill, he smiled, but like with Henry she couldn’t tell if he was laughing at her or honestly trying to be friendly. After all his talk, Henry hadn’t seemed to hold the grudge against her. She looked at every member of the crew, searching for the hostility they’d shown when she first came on board. Mostly, they ignored her.

At sunset, lanterns were hung about the deck, from hooks on the masts and railings, and the cook—a thin, bearded man who didn’t look anywhere near clean enough to be serving food—distributed supper under Abe’s watchful gaze. Henry found Jill a tin cup and a dented metal bowl. She waited at the end of the line because she didn’t want anyone staring over her shoulder. And no one could give her a hard time if she put herself at the end. She wanted to hide, mouselike. But she also wanted to eat.

Then she got a look at what the cook was serving, smelled it—and it didn’t smell like food. Overcooked, vaguely rotten, vaguely stale. She wasn’t hungry anymore.

When she reached the cook, Abe handed her a plate, already filled with a spoonful of cooked potatoes, dried meat, and a roll that was so hard it rattled. “Take that to the prisoner, belowdecks and aft.”

She frowned. “Another job for the rookie?” she said. Abe only shrugged.

She went to the hatch and down the steps below. Steps—it was almost a ladder, they were so steep and narrow. As she eased herself down, she kept a grip on the side.

While she still didn’t know her way around the ship, she figured it couldn’t be that hard to find someone. The ship wasn’t that large. But she suddenly couldn’t remember which way was aft. After looking back and forth for a moment, into the creaking shadows, she gave up and called out, “Is there a prisoner down here?” She walked along the center of the hold, calling, feeling ridiculous.

“Here.” A muffled voice came from farther back. Jill quickened her pace, moving among hammocks, crates, bundles of ropes, and barrels of who knew what.

In the very rear of the ship was a small room, no bigger than a closet, with an iron latch on the outside. This must be it. She slid the latch back and opened the wooden door.

Some lantern light came through a row of holes in the roof that must have led up to the deck; Jill could make out a few details. A man was sitting on a plain bench. He wore a grungy shirt that might have been white once, open at the collar; tan-colored trousers; and worn boots. His sandy hair was tied in a short ponytail. He was older, middle aged maybe, with a cynical glare in his eyes. He leaned back against the wall and regarded her.

“New recruit?” he asked, a wry quirk to his lips.

She stared fishlike for a moment before handing him the plate. “Here.”

“Ah. I’m overjoyed,” he said flatly, but he took the platter and dug in, scooping the potatoes with his fingers.

“So what do you have to do to get locked up on a pirate ship?” she asked.

“I didn’t sign the articles. Not like you did, I wager.”

She felt herself blush; but she was also relieved that she had signed and wasn’t locked up here with him.

“If I may make an observation, you don’t seem much like the pirating type. What was it, you thought you didn’t have a choice?” he said. “So where’d they find you? They’re so desperate now they’re taking girls? You should be in a kitchen somewhere, wearing a skirt and apron and baking bread. Instead you’ve found yourself among true heathens.”

He was right, she didn’t belong here. But he wasn’t any more likely to understand what had happened to her, so she kept her mouth shut.

He leaned forward, dropping his voice to a whisper; she tried not to flinch away. “Here’s some advice—keep your wits about you. This ship won’t sail free forever. When you decide you don’t want to hang with the rest of the dogs, I can help you.”

“Why would you help me?”

“Well—it might be that we can help each other, when the time is right. Think on it, why don’t you.”

She slipped out of the cell, shut and locked the door. She didn’t know what to make of the guy—and she could already tell him she didn’t want to hang with anybody.

She was adrift on an alien world. The clothes they wore, the ship, the work, the smells, the words they used—all of it was wrong, and she was exhausted from trying to figure it out.

Back on deck, the cook had a plate of food waiting for her—and the food didn’t even smell right. She’d have to eat, sooner or later—and what kind of dream would make her eat food like this? Next, she watched the cook fill a tin cup from a tap in a small barrel.

He gave it to her, and she raised it to her face to see what it was. The liquid had an amber tinge to it, and it stung her eyes and made her wrinkle her nose. Not water, then.

“What is it?” she asked Abe.

“What is it?” echoed Henry, who was nearby, laughing, unbelieving. “It’s got rum in it.”

Oh, her mother would be horrified at this. Well, she’d wanted to try it. Carefully, Jill brought the mug to her lips.

This didn’t smell sugary and fruity like those endless rounds of rum punch or her mother’s pretty drinks with slices of pineapple in them. This was acrid and seemed more like rubbing alcohol than something you’d drink. She took a bare sip; fumes filled her sinuses and the liquid burned her tongue. Surprised, she drew back, blinking away tears.

The pirates laughed. One of the women, hair in a braid and scarf on her head, yelled, “That’s no way to take yer grog, you tadpole! Bottoms up!” The woman tipped back her own mug to demonstrate.

Bottoms up. If they could do it, so could she. She tipped back her head and poured the rum into her mouth, figuring if she drank it fast enough, she wouldn’t taste anything.

Her whole mouth—lips, tongue, throat, everything—turned to fire, puckered, went tingling, then numb. She started coughing, which made them all laugh harder, but she was too busy gasping for breath to notice. Then she felt warm. It started as a heat in her stomach, which spread out to her limbs like syrup, thick and sticky. Then she felt very, very relaxed. She might have taken her brain out of her head and put it on a shelf. And that was okay. It meant she didn’t flinch back in a panic like she might have done when Henry put a hand on her arm.

“Think maybe you’d better sit down, eh?” he said.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” she murmured, but she let Henry guide her to a convenient barrel, where she reached behind her because the seat seemed to be moving. Or she was.

“Cor, I reckon the tadpole ain’t never had a drink before,” one of them said. More laughter. Jill still had her plate of food, and she was still starving.

The pirates were settled into impromptu seats around the deck, perched on the side or on barrels or on the deck itself. Noisy and eager, they ate with their fingers, and since she didn’t have a choice, so did she. The food didn’t taste too bad—but the rum may have killed her taste buds. Maybe that was the point.

As they drained their rum, the crew grew louder, laughing harder, trading jokes and insults, punching each other until one of them fell over, which made them all laugh even more. Then one of them pulled out a fiddle, and another had a silver pipe, just a little longer than the length of his hand. They began to play.

It was like folk music, bright like birds singing, and soon people began to clap, stomp their feet, and sing along, but so loud and slurred that Jill couldn’t make out words. Her rum was almost gone, and the light from the lanterns had turned to halos in her wavering sight.

This was like a story. Golden lantern light played on wood, rope, and canvas; the ship became a bubble of light and music traveling through a shadowed world. She’d fallen out of her world and into this one, where the words and voices were strange. The stars were huge and bright, and a three-quarters moon rose, turning the sea to silver.

Later, many of the pirates seemed to fall over and sleep where they were rather than make their way to proper beds. She didn’t even know if the boat had proper beds apart from the captain’s, but the way her head was spinning she thought maybe she ought to find out. She could sleep and figure out what to do in the morning. Maybe they’d be at a port, and she could find a phone to call her parents.

Even though she was pretty sure she wouldn’t find any phones.

Jill blinked to focus and say something about beds, but the deck was moving at the edges of her vision. Because it was a boat. And the waves rolled, and her stomach flopped. She bent over and lost everything she’d eaten and drunk, right on the deck she’d spent so much time scrubbing clean. She could feel the start of a pounding headache.

“God help you, you are a tadpole.”

People were there, one on each arm, and they pulled her up, and the world flopped again, but her stomach went with it this time and didn’t empty itself.

“I can walk, I’m fine,” she tried to say, but the words came out wrong because her tongue wouldn’t work right. So that was rum. Why had she wanted so badly to try it, again? It turned out she couldn’t walk very well after all, because they brought her to stairs she couldn’t even see. By then her eyes were closed.

She heard the captain say, “Any of you vermin takes advantage of the girl in this state I’ll have his hide. Understood?”

“Aye.”

Still laughing, but softly, they put her in a bed that rocked her to sleep like she was a baby in a cradle. Or it might have been that she just passed out.