Chapter Fifteen
Consequences
Iwoke feeling half decent the next day. As I blinked up at the smooth wood that made up the ceiling of our room on the Arrow, I thought that perhaps Domingo had been right, and a good hiding was exactly what I’d needed.
I shifted on the sheets and my arse hummed with residual soreness, reminding me of how lucky I was to have a man like Dinesh to distract me and keep me in line.
Rain pattered against the bank of windows and the sky cast a grey light into the room. I moved to rub my face and then cursed when Dinesh’s giant hand slapped me in the face.
“Fuck!” I yelped as his knuckles crashed into my eyes.
“Mmph,” he mumbled, “What the—”
He jerked his hand away, pulling mine along.
“Stop! We’re tied together. Jesus fucking Christ,” I muttered, the good mood from earlier dissipating.
We lay our hands on the sheets between us and twined our fingers.
“Getting up? Or going back to sleep?” he asked.
“Up,” I grumbled. “Ow, my bleedin’ eye. You punched me, you blackguard.”
He laughed but moved to untie us.
“Sorry about that. At least you’re safe.”
“Not from you, apparently.”
“Well, hopefully, I am the lesser of two evils.”
“Aye. I suppose so,” I yawned, wondering why Pearl wasn’t at the foot of the bed jumping up to join in our argument. “Pearl. Hey, girl,” I said, making kissing noises and looking toward her blanket.
She wasn’t there. I looked about the room and moved my feet under the blanket to make sure she wasn’t in the bed with us.
Dinesh tossed the soft rope that had bound us together onto the space between our pillows and got out of bed, stretching and grunting and otherwise greeting the morning.
“Pearl? Pearl?” I called.
Most days we could hardly get her to leave us be.
Dinesh realized her missing presence and scanned the room. “Pearl! Here, girl!”
“Is she under the fucking bed?” I asked, slipping off the mattress and ducking to have a look. The only thing there was the chamber pot. “What the bloody hell?”
“That’s puzzling,” Dinesh said, walking about and peering into corners.
The door was shut and neither of us had been up in the night, as evidenced by the fact that we’d been tethered. I would have recalled a joint excursion in which we’d had to manoeuvre our bound hands as one.
Dinesh pulled on his trousers and went to the door. He stepped out.
“Good morning,” Squid said.
“Where’s Pearl?”
“Pardon?”
“The dog. She’s not in our room.”
“Oh…that’s strange,” Squid said, frowning. “Are you sure?”
“Well, come and have a look. See if you can find her.”
Squid came into the room, moving past the captain.
“Simon,” he nodded a greeting.
“Squid. I thought you might have let her out, if she was scratching at the door…”
“I didn’t hear a thing.”
“Neither did we. This is quite strange,” Dinesh said, looking over at me. “There must be a logical explanation. She got out somehow. Perhaps the door wasn’t shut properly.”
Of course, she was on the ship somewhere. We only needed to look for her. She was allowed the run of the ship at times, and she had her favourite spots.
I got dressed and went out on my mission. I checked her preferred areas. I asked everyone I met if they’d seen her. I called her name over and over.
Dinesh and Squid did the same.
I was beginning to lose hope, and imagining she’d jumped off the deck in the night. What if the creature that had pulled me to the rail the other night had lured Pearl in the same way? A mad thought, but where the fuck could she be?
I decided to check the galley one more time. Domingo and I had already opened all of the cupboards, but I checked again, even though it was ridiculous to think she might be in one of them.
“Pearl! Pearl, where are you, my darling?” I called out.
“The captain’s cock is a truncheon!” Esmaralda yelled from Domingo’s quarters. Luckily he and Guthrie had already risen to help us and had gone out to search for her elsewhere.
“I know, you bloody fucking strumpet! Shut it,” I said, losing my composure.
A strange soft snuffle and a muffled whine caught my attention.
“Pearl? Darling, is that you?” I said, trying to hear where it was coming from.
I heard it again, along with a frenzied scratching sound.
“My God, where are you? Where are you?”
The sound was coming from an area used for storage of pots and brooms and foodstuffs.
Why did her whining sound so strange? More frantic scratching and something that sounded like the attempt of a bark. Something was terribly wrong.
“Pearl! Where the fuck are you?”
There was a sizeable wooden crate wedged under some bags of flour.
“Are you in there? What the bloody fuck?” I said, frantically moving the burlap bags and dragging the heavy crate towards me.
The thumping of Pearl’s tail against the wood of the crate reassured me that at least she was alive.
For now, anyway. The box was barely her size and there was no feasible way she had gotten into it herself.
Someone, or something, had put her in it.
I frantically examined the box. The gaps between its slats were barely an inch wide and it was nailed shut on all sides. Who had done this to her? And why?
At that moment, Domingo returned from his searching.
“What are you doing? Did you find her?” he asked, rushing over.
“She’s in this crate! Is there a crowbar handy?”
Domingo gasped. “How did she get in there?”
“Please! I don’t know if she can breathe in there. Pearl, it’s all right. I’m here. We shall get you out. I promise.”
“Hold on,” Domingo said, “I’ll get something.”
A strong smell of brine and salt came from the container.
After a moment, Domingo returned and handed me a metal crowbar. With the strength of increasing panic, I slipped the edge of the metal beneath one of the wooden slats and used all of my strength against it.
“Come on, come on…” I panted.
The wood snapped and I pulled the slat free, peering inside the darkness as a familiar snout pushed through and the slapping of her tail became louder.
“Oh my darling…what on earth has happened?”
She was wet and covered with slime. Green and brown lengths of seaweed were wrapped around her, binding her muzzle and preventing her from opening her mouth.
“Oh my God,” Domingo muttered, helping me break more of the slats so we could get her out.
When there was enough space, she pushed her way through the gap and into my lap, trying to get as close as she could, shuddering and trembling in my arms and shoving her face against mine.
I almost fell backward, she was so desperate to reach me.
She was trying to lick my face but the seaweed around her muzzle was wrapped so tight that it prevented her.
“What the ever-loving fuck?” I said, a chill moving through me. Was this the work of whatever evil thing was haunting us? Or was one of the crew playing a dastardly prank?
I’d kill the bastard who might think this was amusing.
“Rooster? Are you here?” Dinesh’s voice came from the galley entrance.
“I’m here. I’ve found her!” I said, pulling at the weeds wrapped around her muzzle first and then clearing the ones wrapped around the rest of her.
“What in God’s name has happened to her?” Dinesh asked as he crouched down, gazing at the broken crate and at the soaked dog with seaweed still wrapped around her middle.
I pulled the last of it away as she scrambled for Dinesh.
He welcomed her into his arms and gave her kisses and soothing words.
“She smells terrible. What on earth? Who would have done this?” He looked at me and then Domingo.
Domingo and I gazed at each other.
“We think it was the thing. The thing that’s been threatening Simon,” Domingo said.
“Aye,” I agreed.
Dinesh frowned. “Oh, don’t be ridiculous, we don’t even know if it’s a corporeal being. One of the men has played an ill-advised joke on us. And I shall find out who. Mark my words.”
He stood.
“Clean her up and dry her,” he told me. “Then meet me on deck. I’m gathering the men. I’m going to get to the bottom of this.”
Twenty minutes later, I stood beside Captain Martin and Domingo, holding my still damp but now mostly clean dog in my arms. For once, the normally active dog was happy to be held still and pressed against my warmth, tucking her head into my neck and snuffling with content.
She was a handful and heavy, now that she had grown.
Once everyone had gathered, Dinesh began to speak.
“Mr White’s dog was found in distress this morning, trapped in a crate that had been nailed shut, in the galley, buried under supplies. She was soaked with seawater and slime, and her jaw held shut with seaweed wrapped around it. She could barely make enough noise for Simon to find her.”
Domingo, who was standing beside me, gave me a grave look and made the sign of the cross over his chest.
“In the galley?” Lahiri queried.
“What does Domingo have to say about it?” Hale asked.
Domingo stood taller and glared at the man who had spoken.
“I’m as puzzled as you are,” he said. “Do you think I would have done such a thing? How dare you!”
“Domingo did not do this deed,” Captain Martin stated with confidence. “But someone did.”
“Who was on watch last night?” Dinesh asked, his eyes intense and his stance firm as he crossed his arms and glared.
Three reluctant hands went up.
“Well?” Dinesh barked.
“Didn’t see nothin’, or hear nothin’, Captain. I swear.” Black said. “And it weren’t us. We would never harm her.”
“We were at our posts all night,” Darcy corroborated.
Fiddle-playing, poetic Darcy wouldn’t hurt a fucking fly. I knew that much.
“I see,” said the captain.
The rage wafted off him, but he spoke in a cool and steady voice.
“When I find the man, or men, who carried this out, who thought that trapping a gentle creature in a wooden box like that… When I discover who did this, I will take…appropriate disciplinary measures.”
I quailed to think what those might be. I’d never seen him this angry.
“Get out of my sight, the lot of you.”