Chapter 9 #2
Everything has been planned out, every day and every hungry mouth accounted for, the ship inspected for flaws, spare harpoons and fabric for sails stowed away.
Yet the same must have been true for countless voyages over the centuries that ended at the seafloor.
A heavy sense forms in my gut that all this carefully orchestrated activity is just a charade, a game of pretend that we are doing anything other than throwing ourselves on the mercy of the sea.
“I can hear your brain whirring,” August says with a low chuckle. His arm moves to my waist, pulling me to him. “What are you thinking, my love?”
Mostly I’m just trying my best not to look at the water, which feels very far away and yet entirely too close.
I return my gaze to the docks and the crowd, their cheers getting fainter as we move through the harbor.
Beyond the crowd, the city rises; the buildings that feel so familiar when I’m among them are rendered strange and toylike by even this short stretch of water.
The squat countinghouse where sailors charter to ships and collect their wages after returning home, the soot-stained masses of the factories and warehouses, the white spire of the Bethel, the tree-covered hills swelling beyond the city, a world of its own against the forested smudge of the mainland.
The island of Kirkrell is my life, my whole world, and suddenly it seems so very small.
“It’s strange to think it will be months till we see the city again,” I say.
“We’ll miss summer.” This hasn’t occurred to me until just now somehow, and my throat seizes with longing for my city in the summer: the hills and valleys all blanketed with wildflowers, the cool, damp mornings, the brilliant blue of the sea under the blinding sky.
“But think how glorious summer in Kielstraat will be,” August says. He dips his head to speak into my ear and goose bumps spring up at his breath on my skin, the warm air sparking memories of tongue and teeth traveling those same paths last night.
“The sun never fully sets, even at midnight,” he says. “The air is so clean you can see for miles and miles. I’m told that sometimes you can see the god-lights in the sky at night, hear them even. The Sollish say it’s their gods singing in the heavens.”
I let out a shaky breath. I know he doesn’t believe in such things.
Know that there are scientific explanations for the Sollish god-lights and the midnight sun.
August is painting a picture for me with words, inviting me to be swept up in his vision.
But much as I want to let myself get lost in it, my mind leaps ahead to the squat, smoke-belching factories we’ll raise on the glorious arctic landscape, how we’ll shear the trees from the mountainsides, smear the sky with oily smoke.
Nothing is without cost, I tell myself. Precious magic can’t be bought with spun sugar and songs like in the fae tales. Humans have always had to strip the seas for our livelihood, paying for what we wrest from the water with sweat and smoke and blood.
“We’ll be part of something bigger than ourselves,” August says, and his voice chases the uneasy thoughts away.
Right now, today, he is not the slick, ambitious leader he’s become but the boy I met all those years ago, orphaned and alone but still with the stars in his eyes. “Something that outlasts us.”
On impulse I turn my head to the side and press my lips to his.
It’s not proper out on the deck where anyone can see us, but August doesn’t seem to care, pulling me into him, tilting my face up to his with a finger beneath my jaw.
A wind kicks up then and I feel the ship respond to it like something alive, shifting subtly beneath my feet, and I don’t know whether it’s that or August’s tongue dancing over my lips that makes a wild thrill shoot through me.
“Thank you for coming with me, Annie,” he murmurs against my mouth.
“Not like you gave me much of a choice,” I retort, half a jest and half not. But his hands trace up my throat, frame my cheeks, and I can’t help letting my lips fall open beneath his. Can’t help letting him breathe bravery into me, stoking the fire of hope slowly building in my chest.
One of the men catcalls, and it breaks the spell.
August breaks off the kiss, pivoting to scan the crew, and it’s eerie how quickly his face can go from flushed and happy to cold and murderous.
Behind him, it’s a shock to see that the distance between us and the shore has tripled, the small craft that always bustle around the waters of Abbonheim rocking softly in our wake.
The crowd on the dock could be so many blades of grass swaying in the wind, their cheers a cicada buzz.
August takes a step from me, like he means to go find the sailor and reprimand them or worse.
I tug him back; I don’t want to be alone at the moment when we lose sight of the city.
“It’s fine. Leave it.” Maybe I shouldn’t have kissed him out here.
I notice with a prickle of unease that several of Mance’s men are watching us with expressions ranging from amusement to distaste.
August frees his arm from my grip. “I’ll speak to Mance later, after we pick the whaleboat crews. Make sure his crew shows you the proper respect.”
Whaleboat crews. I haven’t given that a thought, but of course it needs to be sorted out.
Each of the three boats—hanging now from davits over our heads, swaying slightly in the breeze—will hold six people when the time comes to strike out to hunt a whale.
Each will be helmed by one of the officers—Mance, August, or Silas.
“You’ll have me as an oarswoman on your boat, of course? ”
As soon as the words are out, I regret them a little, but not enough to take them back. They hang in the air as August stills and looks back at me.
“You want to crew a whaleboat?” he asks, sounding a little astonished.
I lift my chin. “What else am I meant to do here? Just drift around the deck and look pretty?”
A harsh laugh escapes August, and I hate that I can’t tell if he’s laughing with me or at me. “It’s difficult, Annie.” He comes back to my side, lowers his voice. “It’s dangerous.”
“I know that,” I say, stung but trying not to show it.
I know sailors treat their boat crews as a matter of life and death, because it can be in the chaos of the whale hunt.
“But I can learn. I want to understand what it’s like.
” What the Fairfax Whaling Company asks of everyone who sails under its flag, every day.
He stares at me, eyes unreadable, and a small voice inside me whispers that I’ve made a mistake. That if Silas is right that he means to kill me, I’m handing him the opportunity on a silver platter—a frantic chase, sharp lances, harpoons, taut ropes, and blood and water flying every which way.
But I can’t think like that. Maybe that was why the request spilled out of me. A way to prove—to everyone, to Silas, to myself—that August can be trusted.
“During the chase, everyone’s focus has to be on the kill,” August says finally. “Not on keeping each other safe. It would compromise both of us.”
“Don’t you think I can do it?” My face feels hot.
“Annie, it’s not that.” He trails a hand over the small of my back, tries to pull me into him, but I don’t let him. “It’s not dignified. And it’s dangerous. You’d be better off staying with the ship.”
“I told you I want to be on a crew.” Anger heats the inside of my chest like live coals. I am still the head of the company. Technically, I outrank everyone on this ship except Mance, since the captain is always the ultimate master when aboard a ship. But August cannot order me.
“We can talk about it later.” August’s eyes flit side to side. I can tell he doesn’t want to argue with me out here where people are watching. He takes my hand over the gloves. “Let’s take a stroll around the ship, shall we, get you acquainted with things?”
He’s not wrong that we should present ourselves to the crew as a united front. I nod and push down my anger, shaping my face into a smile. “Fine.” But I feel nothing but dread. As we turn from the railing, the cold wind rushes past my face, smelling like salt and brine and the unseen world.