The Devil and the Dark Water

27

Sara and Lia made their way towards their cabins, the solitary candle at the end of the corridor guttering miserably. Sara hated the gloom on the Saardam. It was filthy and thick, as if the thousands of dirty bodies who’d walked through it had somehow left it stained.

She was about to tell this to Lia when the rattling cough of the mysterious Viscountess Dalvhain drifted through her door.

‘Do you think Dalvhain could be Old Tom?’ speculated Lia.

Sara stared at the cabin speculatively. Dorothea claimed to have heard a strange noise in there this morning, and, after two days, nobody had laid eyes on her. Apparently, she was suffering some debilitating malady, but there wasn’t a soul onboard who knew what it was. Afire with curiosity, Creesjie had tried to interrogate Captain Crauwels at dinner, but even mentioning Dalvhain’s name had cast a pall across the conversation. Hearing her cabin number, the other officers had clung to their charms and grimaced, claiming it was cursed. Two people had already died in there, went the tale. Footsteps paced the floorboards, even when it was empty. Every ship had a room like this, they said. It was where somebody fell badly or burnt worse; where a servant had gone mad and cut his master’s throat.

The only thing to do was board it up and leave it be, let evil lie where it may, like a hound in its favourite chair.

Sara impulsively rapped on her door. ‘Viscountess Dalvhain? My name’s Sara Wessel, I’m a healer. I was wondering if there was anything –’

‘No!’ The voice was old and brittle. ‘And I’d ask you not to bother me again.’

Sara shared a surprised look with Lia, then retreated from the door. ‘Any ideas?’ she asked her daughter.

‘Sander Kers gives her confession every night. Maybe he can help.’

‘I’ll talk to him about it,’ said Sara.

After saying their goodbyes, Lia entered her cabin, leaving her mother alone at her door. Sara’s hand hovered uncertainly over the latch. The terrible memory of the leper peering in was still fresh.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ she said to herself, lifting it and stepping inside.

Sun poured through the porthole, illuminating the dust motes in the air. Walking over, she tried to peer outside, but the writing desk was in the way. Pulling the heavy folds of her dress up to her thighs, she clambered clumsily on to its surface, then put her head through the porthole, searching for anything to prove what she’d seen.

Green-painted planks curved down towards her husband’s cabin directly below, which bulged out of the hull like a moth’s cocoon. From above, she heard three women talking on deck. They called after their children and wondered what it must be like in the cabins, or if anybody had seen the governor general and Sara Wessel since boarding.

She was a wild one, one of them said. A torment to her poor husband.

Poor husband, scoffed another. She’d heard from one of the maids in the fort that his temper was ferocious, and when he was in the mood, he’d kick Sara up and down the corridors like a dog. He’d almost killed her more than once.

That’s what husbands did, replied the next. What sympathy could you have for the wife of a rich man? Most people endured worse to live under leaky roofs and eat rotten food.

Sara’s temper was about to get the better of her when she spotted a dirty handprint just beneath her porthole.

Leaning out further, she saw a second one underneath it, and then a third and fourth.

On closer inspection, she realised it wasn’t dirt staining the wood; it was ash. The hull was charred, as if the leper’s hand had been aflame. Holes punctured the planks, where he’d dug his fingers in as he’d climbed.

Her eyes followed them all the way down to the roof of her husband’s cabin, where they disappeared over the side.

If her guess hit the mark, the leper had climbed out of the ocean and straight up the hull to her porthole.