Chapter 5
“Are you sure we shouldn’t heave her overboard? She is dead weight.”
“Not until we find out what Encina wanted with her.”
My eyes fluttered open, and I found myself staring up at the ceiling of the old-timey cabin. A great weight sat beside me, and I turned my head to find the captain seated there. So he had been the one to nurse me himself. The lizard was perched on the footboard.
Ramaro’s tongue flicked out. “Can’t you stay awake for more than a few minutes?”
My heart was terribly heavy as I drew myself up so my back leaned against the headboard. I clasped my hands in my lap and stared at them. “I’m really far from my home, aren’t I?”
“You may be,” the captain mused as he examined me with a soft eye. “Encina steals what he likes from all the corners of the four seas.”
That was the wrong number of seas. I swallowed hard. “What four seas are those?”
“Did you hit your head a few too many times?” Ramaro spoke up as he tapped one clawed finger against his temple. “Everyone from the smallest child to the oldest man knows the four seas.”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “I. . .I just want to get things straight with where I am.” I opened them and found the captain giving me a curious look. “Please?”
He stared at me a moment longer before he folded his arms over his chest. “The four seas are Erebus, Necatrix, Cynnes, and Verist.”
My heart sank deeper with each unfamiliar name until tears pooled in my eyes. I sniffled to stifle the sob that threatened to burst from my throat. “I. . .I see.”
Ramaro clapped his paws against the footboard. “Of course you do! They’re seas!” He let out a barking laugh that quickly died with a threatening look from the captain.
I curled my legs against my chest and wrapped my arms around them. My stomach felt like a bottomless pit that swirled with too many storms, making me nauseous. That, or it was the constant rocking of the ship.
Where I was, it wasn’t where I was from. It wasn’t my world, and I had no idea how to get back. The only person who did was that Encina guy, and he hadn’t been in a talkative mood on that subject.
The sob I’d been trying to hold back burst forth, and the rest of the floodgates broke. Tears streamed down my face as I cried into my hands, my body wracked with fear, frustration, and confusion. I’d never see my home again. I’d never hear Tim’s voice or how he would tease me.
Something wet came splashing down on my head. I jerked up and blinked at the two who stared at me. Ramaro had a slightly smug look on his scaly face, while the captain appeared stoic. Too stoic.
I reached up one hand and brushed it over my head. My palm came away wet. “What just happened?”
“You needed someone to knock you on the head,” Ramaro spoke up as he cast a disappointed glance at his companion. “It should have been heavier.”
The captain cleared his throat. “I don’t know where you hail from or how to return you to your land, but you have nothing to worry about while you’re in-”
“Captain!” The shout came from the deck and was followed by frantic footsteps. Someone pounded on the door. “Captain! Trouble ahead!”
Torvus stood and strode to the door, which he swiftly opened. An older sailor nearly tumbled into the cabin. “What’s the matter?”
The man caught himself and pointed in the direction of the bow. “The Specter! She’s out there!”
Torvus half-turned to me and grasped the handle. “Stay here.” He stepped onto the deck and shut the door behind him.
My curiosity was piqued by the eerie name, so I turned to my reptilian companion. “What’s the Specter?”
The tip of Ramaro’s tail flicked to and fro. “You really don’t know these seas, do you?”
I decided not to reply in words, but by throwing the sheets off of me. My bare feet allowed me to quietly pad across the floor to the door, where I knelt in front of the keyhole.
“Not like that,” Ramaro hissed as he scurried across the floor to a spot in the floor a few feet away.
His claws gripped the wall boards, and he climbed almost six feet above the floor.
He tapped a nail on a knot, and the wood shimmered like the rustle of a pond’s surface.
The ripple stopped and revealed the knot as a smooth, reflective surface. “Look through here.”
I slipped over and stood on my tiptoes to be eye to eye with the surface. My eyes widened as I beheld the whole of the deck, even down to the furthest corners to my left and right. The view reached beyond the bow of the deck some hundred yards further afield.
I leaned back and gaped at the lizard. “What kind of glass is this?”
He rolled his eyes. “It’s a peeping glass. It reflects everything outside of it within a certain distance. Now stop your yapping and start watching.”
I leaned one eyeball close to the opening and did as he commanded. Several of the crew members had gathered at the port side. A few pointed and shouted at something in the distance. My peeping glass allowed me to see the horizon quite clearly, or what was visible.
That’s because the skyline was hidden by a huge wall of thick gray mist. The ghoulish air moved with an unnatural speed, tumbling over itself as it headed our way.
Lightning added to the eerie effect, crashing and roaring from the depths of the storm.
One brilliant strike illuminated the interior, and something else.
A ship.
The moment was brief, but I made out tattered sails and rotten boards. The blood ran cold in my veins, and I slowly turned my face toward my smug companion. “I-is that a ghost ship?”
Ramaro lifted his chin. “I suppose you know something, woman. That’s the Specter, a ship that seeks out people to crew its rotten deck.”
My heart skipped a beat. “Does it take anybody?”
“Anybody.”
“Even women?”
“Anybody.”
“Even lizards?”
His tail twitched. “Unlike you, I can swim out of danger.”
I returned my attention to the peeping glass and squinted. “That looks like it sails faster than you swim.”
“Let me see!” He jumped up and dropped onto my shoulder. “Scoot!”
I jerked away, and my distraction allowed him to shove one eye through the glass. His eyeball bulged, and his tail whipped so hard that it whacked the back of my head. Repeatedly. And hard.
I pushed his tail away. “Stop that! And let me see!”
“I’m seeing!” he snapped.
“And you’re on my shoulder,” I countered as I stepped to one side so I was positioned in front of the hole.
He thwacked me with one scaly claw. “Stupid woman! You don’t want to see what’s happening, anyway!”
I squinted into the hole and immediately understood what he meant.
The ship had cut the distance between us by half, and the gap was still shrinking.
The storm brought with it darkness, as well, as it blotted out the sun with its huge body.
The world was cast in its shadow, and that shadow was getting closer.
The captain strolled to the bow, his men parting the way for him. He stopped a few feet from the edge and turned his head toward the port side. I glimpsed a crooked smile on his face, and there was a strange, soft blue glow over his face.
The ship lurched, sending me and my unwanted and rather ugly parrot to the floor. I could hear the waves crash against the sides of the vessel. The beams and boards groaned under the pressure.
I lifted my gaze to Ramaro, who had landed a few feet away from my face. And on his back. “What’s going on?”
He rocked to and fro, trying to right himself. “The captain’s trying to get us out of the Sea of Erebus! If we can get past its bounds, the ship won’t follow us!”
“How can he do that? Does he have a nuclear engine down in the hull or something?”
“A lot of magic and a lot of luck!” Ramaro explained as the ship lurched again, sending us sliding across the rough boards.
I crashed into the wall behind me and opened my arms. The lizard crashed into my chest, and I wrapped him in a tight hug.
“Let me go, human!” he snapped as he flailed about.
The ship shifted again, and we slid to the opposite side of the room. The lizard screamed as he slid with me. I rolled over at the last minute, and my back crashed into the wall.
“Don’t let me go, human!” Ramaro squeaked as he tried to burrow himself deeper into my grasp.
I wrapped an arm tight around him and eased myself onto my knees.
The boat rocked to and fro, and sometimes the bow flew out of the water and crashed back down.
I slapped my empty palm against the wall and stood, but I stayed hunkered low as I moved along the barrier toward the peeping glass.
The magic was still working, and I was able to see the sea-soaked deck.
The crew clung to the masts and the wheel that housed the anchor chain.
The only person not clinging on for dear life was the captain. He stood where I’d seen him last, like a rock against the storm. The ship rocked to and fro, but he stayed steady, always looking outward across the bow.
And then the danger ceased. Sunlight started from the bow and swept across the deck, enveloping everyone in its warm embrace. I started back as Ramaro wriggled in my hold.
“To the stern!” he shouted as he used his tail to point to the rear of the ship. “Look back!”
I raced to the windows and peered out. The storm that had pursued us had stopped fifty yards away, and the distance was widening. Lightning flashed again inside the cloud, allowing me one last glimpse of the eerie vessel before we moved too far to see anything.
We’d done it. We’d outraced a ghost ship.