Chapter 8
Alana leads me into the storage room after breakfast. I expect rows of empty trunks and cleaning supplies, but the whole room shines with luminescent neon jars.
Bosses wearing cloaks and black gloves hand out small jars from the ceiling-high stacks to each staff member.
Alana and I join the shuffling line and wait for our jars.
My palms sweat. I wipe them on the fabric of my skirt and whisper to Alana. “I’ve never worked with raw Morphia before. What are we supposed to do with it?”
“You use it to enhance the guest experience.”
As the line thins, we step closer to the bosses. The columns of jars make me wonder about the rest of the ship and how it enhances an experience. It feeds on the magic of these jars. It feeds on us. The intrusive image of blood and flesh from last night makes me grateful the magic is contained.
Alana takes a jar from a boss with honeycomb-blond hair twisted into a knot. It’s one of the bosses from the mess hall. The jar gleams aqua blue. She clears her throat, lips lifting into a pleasant smile. “Boss Charmaine, this is Roe Damarcus.”
The bones of Boss Charmaine’s face protrude like Stellan’s do.
Her pale, peeling skin has deep cracks in it, and the constellation tattoo on her neck has turned blurry and spread so it covers most of her neck.
I wonder if that means she’s been aboard longer than the others.
Boss Charmaine’s bloody mouth remains a tight line as she reaches behind her and pulls a jar from the column.
As she plucks one, the other jars fill in the gap without toppling over.
“Make magic for your guests today,” she says in a flat voice, handing me a glowing violet jar.
The two of us nod to the bosses and duck out of the room without looking back. When the door shuts behind us, I let out a breath. “How exactly am I supposed to do that?”
Alana shrugs. “Open the jar when you want to use it and guide it to enhance what you want. It’s more adaptable than your own magic.
I use it to make towel animals dance for the children, or I make chocolate volcanoes really erupt.
That kind of thing. You aren’t limited to resurrection if you have this jar.
You can use Morphia any way you want. Non-Morphics are the only ones who face …
consequences for using it.” She must be thinking of Boss Charmaine’s cracked skin and her gloved hands.
“You make it sound so easy.” I find myself smiling, though.
When I was a child here, I had fun with the fantastical elements created by the staff.
Mother wrinkled her nose at it like she does all Morphia, but the memories stayed with me.
Even on a ship with books that come to life in the library and a weightless game room with illumination pistols shooting concentrated starlight, the staff make the experience. Maybe I can too.
Alana continues, “Just be careful when you use it. Raw Morphia is kind of like lighting a match. A little fire warms your hearth, but too much flame burns your house to the ground. Morphics pay no price for it in its raw form, so it’s harder to control than our usual magic.
You can make a sea dragon, but your sea dragon may eat someone.
” She shudders. “That’s why it’s so important to keep the jars contained aboard.
If let go, raw Morphia becomes part of the natural world and creates things that are beyond our control. ”
“Very comforting,” I mutter. I try not to think about the exposed bones of Boss Stellan’s fingers caused by dipping his hand into raw Morphia too many times. But that won’t happen to me, I remind myself. I’m Morphic, at least for now.
Alana leads me to the marble staircase spiraling through the floors.
“Wait.” I stop dead in my tracks. “Where are we going?”
“To the atrium,” she answers, brows knitting her forehead into a network of lines. “We have to meet our families.”
Sweat gathers on the back of my neck. I feel the same dizziness from when I helped Ivander gather luggage. Alana takes a step toward me and reaches out her hand but stops herself. “Is it okay if I take your hand?”
Warmth surges from my stomach to my chest. Alana’s always smiling, but somehow it still feels special when she turns it on me. “No one’s ever asked me that before,” I mutter.
“I noticed the way you jumped when I touched you earlier today.” When my cheeks heat, she says, “We all have something that makes us different. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. You should hear all of Isla’s food sensitivities.”
The way she looks at me, like I’m someone worth putting up with, makes me wish there was a way I could show her how grateful I am.
I take her hand. “Yes,” I whisper. The pressure of her hand against mine feels so different from the desperate, sweaty grip of those begging me to bring back their family members.
It feels nothing like the clammy touch of spirits trying to claw their way back to the living world in my deathmares.
Alana squeezes my hand back. She points up the stairs. “I’ll take you to your family. We got the lists last night. I’ll help you as much as I can throughout the day. You learn as you go. We help each other.”
With the dizziness gone and my heart beating at a normal rate, I hop onto the spiral staircase with Alana close behind. “Does everyone here help each other?”
“No way. We’re competing for retrials. Many don’t care what they have to do to get one. Our group tries to help each other, though … when we can. Ivander’s always saying each one of us deserves a shot at that trial.”
Except me, it seems. I smother the jealousy that surges beneath my skin. He doesn’t know me, so why should he help me? For some reason, his obvious hatred for me still stings.
With nerves jumping like grasshoppers in my gut, I find myself talking more than I would at home. “You and Isla seem close.”
Alana stops on the stairs. “What? No. I…” She keeps walking but avoids eye contact as we climb. “We used to date but broke up about six months ago. She and Zora are together now, and I’m happy for them. Zora’s great but…”
“Sometimes you still miss Isla,” I finish.
Alana tugs on the ends of her fingers but grins wide before we take the step up into the atrium.
The closer we get to deck five, the more I hear voices, laughter, and music.
This starts my heart hammering again. I’ve never served anyone before in my life, unless I count yesterday when I smashed a trunk of precious dinnerware.
Every part of my body flushes hot, and I fan myself with my hand.
“Concierge is a great position. Cleaning staff never get votes for retrials.” Alana reaches into her pocket and takes out a scroll wrapped with a slim pink ribbon.
“Here’s your sample itinerary. It lists what a day usually includes.
But always listen to your guests. If they want to go to the top deck for lagoon time and you’re scheduled for a show, ditch the show. ”
I gulp hard. What do I remember from my family vacations?
Father rarely took advantage of our free admission.
We went once a year before Leith died, and I spent one whole day in the library.
As I walked through the scenes of horror stories come to life around me, I belonged in the world of spirits and shadows.
But meals had been brought to me. No one made me follow my family’s schedule.
With trembling fingers, I take the thin scroll from Alana and untie the ribbon. In flowing script, clearly written by Alana, I see the schedule has been broken into manageable pieces. I take a deep breath and throw my shoulders back the way Father would.
I’m not going to walk into the atrium like a scared new hire. The guests are no different from Lysandra’s horses. If they sense fear, they’ll get skittish too.
“You can do this,” Alana whispers as we both step up onto the crowded atrium floor.
A myriad of families dressed in first-day finery speak to uniformed staff members holding drinks and rolled hot towels.
Children chase after a shimmering illusion of a bear cub running across the floor.
Drinks with fiery red liquid and floating magenta bubbles are carried by staff members on gilded trays.
Crafter-made paper napkins shaped like butterflies float into guests’ outstretched hands.
The same feeling of wonder I had as a child returns to me, and for a moment, I wish the Celestial was not the only place where Morphia could run free.
“You’ll need your hands for this,” Alana says, stuffing her jar of Morphia into the pocket of her skirt.
I shove my Morphia jar into my pocket. I follow her around the edge of the atrium to an offshoot hallway. She points down the hall. “Deck five obviously has the atrium. It also has the Lotus Salon, the library, and supply rooms.”
I’m grateful for the recap. I hardly remember all the activities on the ship, much less which decks they’re on.
Alana’s provided a color-coded key in the right-hand corner of the itinerary.
Before I can thank her, she whisks me into a supply room where staff members clamor for trays, hot towels, and chocolate-covered strawberries dusted in what looks like powdered starlight.
Despite the number of eyes on me, I grab a silver-plated tray and four hot towels as Alana instructs.
There’s a cacophony of noise around us. Staff members yell back and forth to each other in frantic tones. “Does anyone have extra heat salves? The Lorensen family is already sunburned…”
A staff member grunts back. “They never bring enough of those on board. Don’t they realize we can’t make apothecary ointments appear out of thin air? Menders can only do so much.”