Chapter Five #3
I laugh and lean back against the rail of the ship.
Renard has decided to sit atop the rail, but even seeing him up there makes my insides tremble with anxiety.
I am safer down here on the floor. “I spent all day reading the old ledgers and can’t make sense of half the sums in them.
I wonder if the last scribe had a firm grasp of his numbers.
” Renard’s body goes stiff beside me, so I do finally shift myself to look up at him.
He is frowning down at me with his plate in one hand and ale in the other. He glances around and then slides off the rail to take a seat beside me on the deck. “Ye mean Jeff, the accountant?” he asks.
“Jeff?” I reply, incredulous. I have never heard a name like that one before.
“Jeffrey Reuter,” Renard says, and I cannot place the unusual quality in his voice. He isn’t quite whispering, but there is a conspiratorial tone to his words that immediately puts me on edge.
“Ah, yes… I believe Reuter was the name at the bottom of each page. I confess I mostly skipped over that bit.” I frown at Renard. “Why, what’s wrong?”
“Ah… it’s nothin’, lad. I wouldn’t worry that pretty wee head of yers ’bout it.”
Now he really has my attention. My entire plate is set aside, and I lean forward to stare at Renard. “No,” I insist. “Tell me.”
Renard stares at me with a serious frown on his face, and I cannot tell whether he’s assessing how well I can handle what he’s about to say or whether he’s upset by the memory he’s conjuring. “He disappeared some months back.”
“He what?”
“Oh aye,” Renard continues. “We made a stop at Port Royal. ’Twas meant ta be a single day—the men didnae even get off the ship.
Few officers an’ the cap’n left ta do some business.
Jeff’s job was ta handle the finances, an’ that meant he ordered wha’ever rations we needed as well.
Only, well after sunset the rations’d yet ta be delivered.
The cap’n went lookin’ fer Jeff, as we’d meant ta leave on the dawn’s tide.
Only Jeff was gone. Everythin’ was left in his bunk—he was just gone. ”
A cold chill prickles down my spine, and I know for sure I won’t be able to eat a bite of my dinner now. “What happened to him?”
Renard shrugs and sits back to take a long sip of his ale. He wipes his upper lip on the back of his hand and shakes his head. “Dinnae ken. Never saw him again. No’ a trace left behind.”
“And no explanation at all?”
Renard shakes his head once more. “Nothin’.
He up an’ vanished wethout a word. The men thought he may have been tempted by a siren’s song.
One of ’em claimed ta see Jeff walk straight off the poop deck an’ drop inta the ocean below.
” He pauses to look at me, as if trying to judge whether he is terrifying me sufficiently.
He is.
“Another said Jeff’s ghost appeared ta him in his sleep the night b’fore. Either way, ’twas a nasty business. Cap’n spent three days lookin’ fer him, an’ fin’lly gave up when we couldn’t stay at port any longer wethout rousin’ suspicion.”
I am suddenly reminded of how Captain Sharpe hesitated when he told me the previous scribe had “left.” I feel sick.
I need water, but all I have is this mediocre ale.
I need air, but the salt on the wind is suffocating me.
I swallow nothing and bring the ale to my lips to wet my tongue. “I think I should get to bed…,” I say.
Renard lifts a brow. “Ye ought ta toss them books an’ start a new ledger. Jeff’s books’re cursed.”
Cursed.
His words are like a punch to the gut. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I can hear the familiar sound of my father’s voice whispering about curses. About my curse. About how it might be catching. The chill returns, and it is all I can do not to shiver as it courses once more down my spine.
“Don’t be absurd,” I say, though there is little strength behind my words.
“Dinnae believe in curses?” Renard asks.
“Of course not,” I lie—because admitting to believing in curses is admitting that my father is right.
He stares down at me, brows raised, and all I can do is clamp my mouth shut and stare back at him. I suppose we will keep this up until one of us speaks, or we both just die.
It is I who finally breaks the silence. “Why would the ledgers be cursed just because Jeff abandoned the ship?” There. That’s a logical question!
“Everythin’ he touched is cursed,” Renard explains, unbothered by my attempt at discrediting him.
“An’ he didnae just abandon the ship, lad.
Nae, he vanished on the wind. Somethin’ evil swallowed him up.
The man who took his blanket broke out in a rash all over his body.
I went through his things an’ had hellish nightmares fer weeks.
The books he kept in his hammock burst inta flame out of naewhere.
Ye best believe the ledgers he wrote in’re just as cursed as everythin’ else.
The men wanted ’em burned, but Cap’n would nae have it. ”
I want to say that I don’t believe him. I want to roll my eyes and accuse him of trying to scare me.
But there is something in Renard’s eyes that gives me pause, and the echo of my father’s voice lingers and twists my insides.
I pull myself to my feet, leaving my dinner behind for Renard to eat, if he has the stomach for it.
“I have to get to bed,” I say again, my voice barely a whisper.
I exhale slowly because I don’t want to retch.
After a moment I am strong enough to stagger towards the stairs.
I’m not sure how I make it to the fo’c’sle, but somehow the next thing I know, I am climbing into my hammock and using my change of clothes as a pillow, yanking my ratty blanket up over my head.
Whatever sense of relief I felt this morning has vanished. I squeeze my eyes shut and hope to sleep without dreaming of the scribe who came before me—or the curse he left behind.