Chapter 65
ASTOR
W e’re almost to port when I hear my name—well, not my name, as much as one that has become just as familiar to me.
“Cap?”
I’m in the middle of closing the door behind me, bouncing John up and down as he spittles all over my shoulder. He just woke up, and I figured I would sneak him out of the room before he started screaming for his mother, who is currently passed out on the bed.
I turn to find Charlie in the hall, biting her lip and looking much less confident than I’ve ever seen her.
“Yes?”
Charlie sighs with a force that would usually imply I’ve done something terribly wrong. But rather than accuse me, she blurts out, “I’m leaving.”
I still, but that mistake is only for a moment, for John opens his mouth to protest. I quickly resume my bouncing regimen, and my son goes quiet.
“You’re leaving?”
Charlie puts her hands on her hips, her elbows jutting through her silky black hair. “Well, that’s what I just said, isn’t it?”
I gesture with my head for her to follow me down the hall. She’s clearly agitated, and I don’t wish to wake Wendy.
As we pace, Charlie continues. “Well, aren’t you going to say something?”
“What? Are you hoping for a harsh rebuke? Would you like me to offer you a raise? Or perhaps I should threaten your life should you wish to leave.”
Charlie shoots me a rather annoyed glance.
Now that we’re far enough down the hall that I’m certain any outburst from my son won’t wake his mother, I stop and sigh. “Would you like to inform me why you’re leaving?”
Charlie bites her lip again, glancing to the side. “I don’t want you to think it’s you. After all you’ve done for me, rescuing me from that brothel, the turn my life almost took…”
I wave my hand through the air at her. “Obviously it’s got nothing to do with me. But I’m still curious as to the reason.”
Charlie crosses her arms and rolls her eyes, presumably at my arrogance. I feel the corner of my lip twitch.
“Did I ever tell you what I used to dream of as a young girl? Back before my family was murdered and our estate seized?”
“Not that I can recall.”
“I used to dream that one day my father would call me into his office. That he’d tell me he was giving me an allowance like he did my brothers, one I could make use of as I willed.
I wanted to open a shop. The idea was that I’d sell my inventions.
” She smiles at herself, but in an abashed sort of way.
“Is that what you’re to do then? Open a shop and sell those?” I say, glancing toward the miniature cannon in the holster at her side.
“No, I…maybe?” she says, looking unsure. “I want to teach women to defend themselves. Whether that’s with these”—her hand brushes the barrel—“or some other means, I don’t know. But I want to help them somehow. And I don’t know that I can do that here.”
I pause, watching her carefully. “And Maddox?”
Charlie stiffens. “What about him?”
“Have you told him your plans to leave?”
She crosses her arms, glancing down at her shifting feet. “Not yet.”
“I was under the impression that something between the two of you changed back at the oceanside cottage. Was I wrong?”
Charlie ponders that for a moment. “No, something did change. I think almost losing me woke him up a little.”
I crane my head. “But?”
Charlie sighs and leans her back against the wall.
“But something changed for me, too. Perhaps this betrays my lack of romantic aptitude, but I don’t want to have to almost die for someone to realize they don’t want to lose me.
I think…I think I might be worth someone figuring that out before that point. ”
“And if you tell him and he wants to come with you?”
Charlie purses her lips together, then says, “If he wants to chase me around the world, I won’t stop him.”
“How generous of you.”
Charlie doesn’t look at me. “It’s what you did for Wendy.”
“Lest you hold Maddox to a higher standard than you intend, you might remember that I did try to murder her first.”
“Yes, and as much as I will always disapprove of that choice, you were placed in the rather rare position of having your late wife’s spirit still tethered to this world. I’m not sure what Maddox’s excuse is.”
“Well, you can be quite frightening in your own way.”
Charlie punches me lightly in the shoulder not serving as an infant pillow, and says, “You’ll miss me, won’t you?”
“Of course I’ll miss you. But I would have missed you anyway.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I’m leaving, too.”
Charlie’s eyes go wide. “You? Leaving? Why?” she says, as if she cannot fathom such a thing.
I sigh and tap my child’s back with my thumb. “This? Sailing the seas? It was the life Iaso and I built together.”
Understanding dawns in Charlie’s eyes. “And you have a new life now.”
I nod.
Charlie cinches her brow. “Does Wendy know?”
“Of course she does. Does she know that you’re leaving?”
“Of course she does. She’s the one who told me I should come talk to you about it in person,” says Charlie.
I chuckle, and so does she.
“You do know you’ll have to make money some way,” she says.
“You have so little faith in me that you assume I haven’t thought of that?”
“Well, you did spend most of your fortune searching for Wendy when you were trying to get rid of your Mating Mark. Not the most prudent way to spend your money, if you ask me.”
“Under Estellian law, Wendy is still the heir of Darling Estate.”
Charlie looks at me skeptically. “Surely someone has seized it by now.”
“Yes, well, I didn’t say repossessing it wouldn’t require a legal battle, of sorts.”
Charlie raises a brow. “Of sorts? Why bother with a legal battle when you’re the most infamous pirate of the century?”
This time, I don’t correct her.
“So I take it you’re leaving the position of captain to Maddox then?” asks Charlie.
“Indeed. Though, if you would like for me to revoke the offer, that is still an option.”
Charlie shakes her head, somewhat dramatically. “No, if he’s to come chase me down eventually, I’ll like it better if he’s given up an entire ship for my sake.”
I find Malia not long after my conversation with Charlie. I’ve learned it’s better to hand off my son to her before he starts screaming. Otherwise, Malia gets frustrated with me.
While I wait in the hallway for her to finish nursing him, footsteps patter in the distance. Michael rounds the corner, as he often does while I’m waiting on Malia. He plops down on the floor in front of me, his pockets bulging with wooden boxcars.
“Nolan wants to play,” he says.
My eyes droop from sleep deprivation, but it’s the first time he’s ever said my name. “Of course I do.”
About half an hour passes, and Malia opens the door to her room and kneels to pass my son to me. He yawns, then nuzzles into my shoulder. Michael waits until Malia is out of sight, then leans over to pat John gently on the back.
“Baby nephew can go to sleep now,” he says.
I smile.
“What do you think, Michael?” I ask as we wind a train track through the hallway, the wooden floorboards so much harder on my knees than they used to be. “Do you think I’m making the right decision, leaving all of this behind?”
“Last one to the top’s dead meat.” Michael bounces to his feet and races down the hallway, leaving me stranded with a pile of boxcars and a half-built track.
I consider cleaning it up, but John is stirring in my arms, and frankly, I don’t feel like it quite yet. And it’s still my ship, after all. So I rise to my feet and follow in the direction Michael just took off to.
I have a feeling I know where he is anyway.
Darling meets me on deck, still rubbing her eyes from her nap.
When she holds her arms out for our son, I hand him over, and she wraps him close to her chest, rubbing her nose against his head full of hair as a soft smile plays on her lips.
“Michael just raced past here. Any idea what that’s about? ”
“I might have an inkling.” A quick scan of the deck reveals no Michael, but I wasn’t expecting for it to, either.
Wendy glances at me, a question in her eyes, but I just plant a kiss on her forehead and rub my palm over my son’s head before jogging off.
When I reach the base of the ladder leading up the mast, I let out a groan. Those Darlings and their obsession with heights.
It’s not that I fear the heights, so much as the idea of my wife’s brother falling.
It doesn’t take long to scale the ladder, and when I reach the crow’s nest, I find my instincts led me well.
Michael is seated—that part, at least, is a relief—on the floor of the crow’s nest. In fact, the term nest has taken on a different meaning.
There are objects strewn everywhere, some of them toys, some of them random items Michael must have collected from around the ship.
“You know I’m going to have to tell your sister that you play up here,” I say, peering down at Michael.
At first, he ignores me, but then he points to a stack of books to his right.
When I kneel to take a closer look, I find he has them stacked oddly.
Two of the books are upright on their sides, another book balancing across them, two more forming a tent atop that one.
It takes me a moment to realize he has them arranged to look like a house.
Inside the house are dolls—a man, a woman, a boy, and a baby.
Michael hums quietly, then, without looking at me, takes my hand and moves it toward the imaginary house. As he leads my hand to play with the dolls, I fight the tears welling up in my eyelids.
“I take this to mean you think I’m making the right decision, then?”
Michael continues to hum contentedly. Once he grows weary of playing with the house and moves on to disassembling the house and flipping through the pages of the books, I stand and make my way to the edge of the crow’s nest.
In the distance, beyond the blue-limned horizon, is the vast world. Mine is on deck, swaying back and forth with a child sleeping against her shoulder.