Chapter Sixteen
Illusions
Arumble filled my ears as the Arrow shook beneath me. I opened my eyes.
The cannonball whistled through the air and hit home with an explosion of sound and broken timber. Then the vessel exploded before our eyes in a ball of fire that immediately…vanished?
The silence loomed large as we stared at…nothing. There wasn’t even a plume of smoke where the ship had been. The sea before us was empty.
“What the bloody fuck?” I whispered, my eyes scanning the surface for evidence of the ship as confused voices sounded behind me.
“Where did she go?”
“Was it White? Did he vanish her?”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”
“The ship’s gone. As if she weren’t never there.”
“Simon.”
A hand on my shoulder. Dinesh.
“Did…did you do this?”
“No. I did nothing,” I said.
The captain urged me to turn, then looked me in the eyes with a stern and frightened expression, as if he didn’t even know what else to ask.
“The ship wasn’t real,” I said.
“Are you certain?”
“Aye. I fear we’ve been tricked by…by…whatever forces we are playing with…or are playing with us.”
Dinesh looked physically shaken. He gazed out to sea as if the vessel might reappear. But the ship had truly disappeared. Or had never been there to begin with.
The crew gathered along the rail, searching the open ocean.
“Well, I’ll be fucked.”
“This is…not right…”
“Of all the bloody tricks!”
I stood with my back to the rail, my gaze locked on the captain’s.
“What is going on?” I asked with a helpless gesture.
“I don’t know,” he said. “But I don’t like it at all.”
He took my hand and led me through the muttering and confused crew and down to our cabin.
The occurrences of the day caught up to me. The missing dog, her discovery in such a strange and uncomfortable predicament, and then the ghost ship or whatever the fuck it was. Surely that was enough to deal with in the span of six hours. Exhaustion overcame me.
The captain stripped me and put me to bed, wrapping the soft red rope around my wrist and tying the ends to the bed post to ensure that I stayed in one place.
“Pearl,” he said, patting the bed beside me.
She jumped up and curled into my side. I wrapped my free arm over her.
“You’re going?” I asked.
“Yes. I have to make sure the men are all right. And find out what we can,” Dinesh said. “I’ll make sure Squid is at his post. And I’ll check on you, I swear.”
“All right,” I said.
Now that I was still, and after the strange events of the day, emotion made my throat thick. A tear squeezed out of the corner of my eye as I contemplated our situation and the chaos and danger of the unworldly influence we were under.
***
Idreamed of the monster: Inky, slimy, cold skin touched me. Tentacles reached to enfold me. A mouth stretched open and swallowed me.
A scream echoed in my ears and then…silence. A thick, gooey, eerie lack of any sound remained, as if my ears had filled with wax or water. Then voices came from somewhere and I couldn’t make sense of them.
“What’s wrong with him?”
Dinesh’s voice.
“I don’t know. I heard noises and I came to check on him. He was trying to untie himself from the bed post.”
Squid.
“But he wasn’t awake. He was dreaming still, and I didn’t want him to go wandering.”
“Quite right. He’s still not awake. Look.”
“Aye,” Squid agreed.
But I could hear them.
“Help me hold him, will you?” Dinesh asked. “For all that’s holy, he’s strong. Sometimes I forget.”
I heard the words. I recognized the voices. Yet I had no agency.
Whatever I was doing, I couldn’t feel it, couldn’t see it, and couldn’t control it.
I let out a silent scream as the panic of being trapped in my own body, under some strange influence, suffused me.
“Rooster. Shh. Settle down. You cannot go anywhere like this. Leave the rope be.”
I’m not doing anything! I tried to yell. I’m not trying to untie myself! I can’t even see!
“What’s wrong with him, Captain? Why is he silent?” Squid asked, his voice unsteady.
“I don’t know. I fear something has taken hold of him.”
Yes, and I don’t know how to get free! I shouted in silence. Please help me! Help me!
“I don’t know what to do,” Dinesh muttered. “Please, God, tell me what to do!”
I’d never heard Dinesh sound so desperate or so afraid.
A serenity overcame me, and instead of fighting the sensation of being controlled by some other power, I surrendered. I became soft and quiet and still.
There was a sudden sensation—a snap like a bone being cracked, but without any pain.
I lay on my back in our bed and blinked up at Dinesh. I opened my mouth and a groan came out of my throat as I reached up to grab at his shirt with the hand that wasn’t tied to the post.
“Simon. Shh. It’s all right,” he said, his eyes wide, his forehead creased with concern.
He was wrong. It wasn’t the least bit all right.
Dinesh took my face between his hands.
“Rooster! Rooster, are you there? Can you hear me now?”
I nodded, gasping with relief.
“Aye. I’m here…now,” I said. “Please stay with me. Don’t leave me, Dinesh.”
“I will stay. I won’t leave you. Darling, are you all right?”
His voice hitched. He was white as a sheet.
I shook my head, clutching his arm with my free hand.
“The creature had me. Somehow the monster was…inside me. I couldn’t control my own…”
I looked beside me at my bound hand. The rope was half untied and frayed. If they hadn’t found me, I might have started wandering.
I sat up, my head aching and foggy.
“Help me. Help me, Dinesh,” I begged, agitated and frantic.
He enfolded me in his arms and held me to his chest.
“I’m so sorry. I’m here. I shouldn’t have left you. I won’t leave you.”
His strength surrounded me, even as I realized that he might not be able to save me.
***
The captain’s comforting embrace enabled me to drift off, and I woke to an ordinary morning. Had the possession been a dream?
I gazed at my hand that was lashed to Dinesh’s wrist. I made a small movement and he jerked awake, his eyes wide. He sat up, reaching for me.
“Rooster.”
“Good morning?”
“Oh, thank God,” he said, wiping a hand over his face. He appeared to have aged ten years in one night.
“Are you all right, Dinesh?”
He gazed at me, his expression sad and bleak. “Not particularly.”
“I’m so sorry. I’ve completely fucked your life.”
“Rooster, please.”
“Whatever this creature is, it’s compelled toward me.”
“Seems that way, yes. I can’t argue. However, we all saw the ghost ship. Every man on this ship was a part of that.”
“Aye. And now I’ve fucked their lives too.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, shut up!”
His vehemence startled me, but he pushed the hair back from my forehead with the utmost care.
He continued. “You know nothing more than any of us. We have no idea what we’re dealing with or how to fight the thing,” he said, in a strangely calm manner. “Do you suppose the answer is to lay blame and draw apart?”
I blinked at him. “I should take responsibility.”
“Why? What good will that do?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Rooster. We are a crew. We, all of us on this ship, are responsible for what happens on board. We are stewards of the Arrow and we all must keep her afloat, keep her moving, and keep her safe. That includes protecting each other.” He cupped my chin in his hand.
“You are one of us, Rooster. Never forget that.”
I gazed at him, absorbing this welcome perspective, and gave a slow nod. “Thank you.”
He nodded. “On top of that, you are simply the most precious cargo we’ve ever carried, at least to me and perhaps to the others. Your powers have saved us numerous times. Maybe they have also drawn the attention of less helpful forces. But we fight this together. Understand?”
“But how? How do we fight?”
“Fuck if I know,” he said. “But I suppose we have to figure that out. All of us.”
***
We kept quiet about the occurrences in the night. The crew didn’t need to know what had happened. They were aware that we were dealing with supernatural forces already.
Squid agreed and vowed to keep silent.
I was a shell of my former self. I felt like I hadn’t gotten any sleep, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to be left on my own. After two hours of sitting on the bed, ruminating about our situation, Dinesh took me down to the galley and left me with Domingo and Guthrie.
“For God’s sake, try and get him to eat something, will you?” he said before he left.
I sat down on the bench and rested my head in my hands.
“I ain’t hungry,” I muttered.
“You are a cunt.” Esmaralda chirped.
I gave her the finger.
“The captain’s cock is a truncheon!” she stated with reverence.
I rubbed my hands over my face.
Domingo set a plate in front of me.
“Here. You’ll like this.”
“I don’t want it.”
“It’s got powdered sugar on’t. Go on, take a bite.”
I eyed the lump of pastry on the plate. The treat did look tasty and smelled even better. But I sighed and pushed the plate away.
“What’s the bloody point?”
Domingo sighed and sat on the bench beside me.
“What’s the point? The point is, you need to keep your strength up.”
I shrugged.
Domingo pursed his lips. “Whatever this thing is, it’s trying to either kill you or drive you mad. And if you’re going to keep fighting, you need to be healthy and strong.”
“I’m not sure that’s the way magic works.”
“It’s the way people work. Now eat. Or I shall tell Mr Guthrie, in detail, all about our escapade in your rooms last week, in front of you. And you shall die of embarrassment.”
“I don’t care. Do your worst.”
He gaped at me, then narrowed his eyes.
“Oh, Mr Guthrie!” he called out, standing up and looking towards the back room.
“Eh? What do you want?” Guthrie said as he came out of the back galley where he’d been presumably preparing dinner.
“Well, you see, Guthrie, the other night I was invited to a bit of a shindig in the captain’s quarters. Where, you’d be interested to know, Dinesh and Rooster here fucked me to within an inch of my life, and gamahuched each other so much that—”
Guthrie turned bright red and slapped his hands over his ears. “I don’t want to hear this!”