Chapter 9 #2
The kids swim in the lagoon, and I manage to create a mermaid tail for each of them with raw Morphia.
I lose a bit of control and the tails propel them much faster through the water than they should, but I pretend the speed was intentional.
The kids love it, but Asralyn sneers because she wanted the kids to strengthen their actual swimming skills on this trip.
We return to the Harlequin for lunch, and I scarf down a toasted cheese sandwich with Alana in the kitchen.
Finally, the kids spend the rest of the day in the game room while Vance and Asralyn enjoy the Endless Night Spa.
I don’t get a chance to go in, although I’m told it’s pitch black inside except for the luminous hot tubs and essential oils that smell like “your most memorable vacation” and “your favorite baked goods.”
As the sun sets, I gather the family to head back to their room on deck ten. The highest-paying guests sleep on decks eight to ten while lower-paying guests are on six and seven. The kids begged for room service, so I don’t have to deal with the Harlequin again this evening.
When we enter the Stallards’ grand suite, my breath hitches.
A black chandelier with shining starlight crystals hangs from a ceiling painted to look like the night sky.
A massive couch with silver pillows and towel animals sits in front of large sliding glass doors that lead out to an enormous balcony with a hot tub.
The murals change as the kids press their palms to the wall. They shift from swimming sea creatures to unicorns running through the woods to a field of wildflowers. Sage giggles and pulls on her aunt’s sleeve. “Can Roe stay with us and play, Auntie?”
Vance sinks into the couch and flips through a book of room service options without looking up, but Asralyn’s eyes find me. Her lips turn up as she pets Sage’s hair. “No, darling. Roe needs to go see her boss. She didn’t do a very good job today.”
Vance clears his throat and tucks a rogue curl behind his ear. “We’re sorry,” he says to me. “But we had to let someone know that this wasn’t the service we expected. We paid a lot for this trip.”
My heart drops into my stomach. Until now, I’d forgotten about donating my Morphia and seeing the bosses. Panic shapes itself into cold, hard fury in my abdomen. These people had the gall to complain about me.
I’m sorry you paid too many gemstones to be here. This is my life you’re messing with. The rage coursing through me threatens to break free in the form of a thousand spirit hands tearing Vance and Asralyn apart.
Stop. Shove it down. I force myself to nod. “I understand,” I say, willing my voice not to waver. “I’ll do better tomorrow.”
Asralyn sits on the couch beside her husband and fans herself with a gloved hand. “Let’s hope so. We’re here a whole month. I won’t put up with your incompetence for that long.”
Desperate to get to the door before I cry or scream, I grasp the doorknob with a look back over my shoulder. “Someone will come by for your order soon. Remember not to leave your rooms after dark.”
“It’s not our first time,” Asralyn answers. She plucks off her gloves and tosses them aside. “We know the rules.”
The only reply I can manage is, “Good,” before I throw myself from the room. Bone-tired and shaking with frustration, I haul myself to deck three. I fidget with the hem of my skirt, dragging my boots on the way to the storage room.
By the time I get there, I’m certain the bosses are going to take turns plunging daggers into my chest. As I wait in line with the other staff members, I can’t help but picture a deer punctured with arrows as it tries to outrun its hunters.
Just like how the Hawks and I hunted that mender.
Did my family ever complain about a guest and send them to the bosses for punishment? The thought disgusts me.
“Are you all right?” Alana asks. She stands with Zora, a few people ahead of me. Judging by the knit of their brows and their wide eyes, I must look worse than I thought.
“Bad day,” I croak. Zora exchanges a look with Alana, and they drop their places in line to stand beside me.
Zora wears a black leotard with flowing black trousers, the sheer fabric dappled with rhinestones. “What happened?” she asks, tossing her long braids over her shoulder.
I shrug, folding my arms over my chest. I don’t want to talk about how bad today was. Both girls seem to understand I’m in no mood to talk, so they don’t pry.
Alana shuffles her feet. “You’ll want to prepare yourself.
They’ll punish you. Maybe with a potion, maybe with the knife.
” An unsettling silence falls between us.
I suppose it’s inevitable, but I wish I could turn and run.
Alana’s head snaps up as if she’s remembered something.
“When you’re done tonight, Ivander wants you to meet him in the theater,” she whispers.
This gets my attention. Why would Ivander want to meet with me? He’s made it clear I don’t deserve any extra help. I lower my voice. “I thought we weren’t allowed to be out after dark.”
Before Alana can say more, Isla joins us, shuffling between us to choruses of complaints from the back of the line.
“Hey,” she yells back at them, “I’ve been standing in front of a hot stove all day.
Give me a break.” She kisses Zora’s cheek and then looks at the three of us with her lips pursed. “Why so silent?”
Zora elbows Isla in the ribs. “Try some tact. Roe’s had a rough day.”
Isla grimaces. “Oof, yeah, I saw some of that. Heard about it too. Niko said one of your guests made a stink about the color of her shrimp. What a—”
“Language,” Alana snaps.
“Sorry. I hope the bosses take it easy on you,” Isla mutters.
We’re two people away from the bosses now, and my palms are sweaty.
“I’ve got something that will cheer you up.
One night during this charter, the six of us are gonna hit the bar after the guests have gone to bed. Niko and I have got it all worked out.”
One person away from Boss Charmaine now. I gulp and keep my voice low. “After dark? Isn’t it dangerous?”
“I warned her we could get caught,” Alana whispers, biting her lip. “There are rules for a reason.”
“Yeah, I know,” Isla says. “But the way I look at it, I’m probably leaving here without my Morphia anyway, so I may as well have some fun.”
There’s no time to respond. Boss Charmaine extends her hand to me, and we all fall silent.
Something tells me she wouldn’t approve of secret plans to set up shop behind the highly expensive cruise bar.
Her usual gloves are missing, and with a jolt, I notice the tips of her fingers are black from decay.
Her fingernails protrude from the dead skin in filed points, as if she shifted them into claws and they never shifted back.
Taking deep inhales to keep my hand steady, I give her my Morphia jar and follow her to the chair.
It goes the same as last night. I take the potion. My blood burns, and my Morphia comes out through my tears. The boss takes the jar to the army of other jars but this time, comes back with a knife.
I stiffen, paralyzed with fear. Father’s words return to me. Words from when I was young. The Celestial is for bad Morphics, Ro-Ro. Of course it’s dangerous for them to work there. It wouldn’t be a punishment otherwise. It wouldn’t deter them from acting out again.
Boss Charmaine bends over me as Zora, Alana, and Isla watch. Charmaine presses the cool steel to the tip of my ear. “Few manage to disappoint their guests so thoroughly on the first day. If you’re not going to listen, perhaps you don’t need your ears at all.”
I break out in a cold sweat and scoot as far back in the chair as I can go. Charmaine’s face remains impassive, a mask of pressed split lips and blank, sunken blue eyes. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “Please don’t…”
She holds my head steady with her free hand. She presses my left cheek into the metal chair with her blackened fingers while she slices my ear. Her clawlike nails dig into my cheek, and oozing, dead skin from her raw fingertips sticks to my own skin. I gag from the repulsion.
Hot, stinging pain shoots from my ear across my face. I scrunch my eyes shut, whimpering as blood flows down my neck and saturates my shirt.
As the pain grows, so does my anger.
A pulsating energy builds in my sternum, spiraling out of control until my vision goes fuzzy.
I’ll make the dead rise up and pull the skin from Boss Charmaine’s bones.
The longing becomes a desperate, painstaking need.
And through the haze of my vision, I catch the edge of a ribbon of silver light bursting from my fingers.
The silver ribbon coalesces to form the spirit of a man I don’t recognize. A faceless spirit, content to be my soldier for the night. His mouth’s sewn shut, and his neck’s scarred from a major wound that might have been a butchered beheading in life.
The other bosses in the room gasp and shout as the man seizes Charmaine by the shoulders. In a blur, he throws her to the ground, and the knife clatters out of her hands. The other bosses rush forward to help, but I pull the spirit back before they can reach her.
Solid. Another solid spirit, capable of real damage.
And once again, he helped me. Blood gushing from my ear, I slap my hand over the wound and wobble to my feet.
Everyone freezes, staring at me with wide eyes and accusatory glares, even the other staff.
The bosses draw weapons—more daggers—from beneath their robes.
Although my mouth’s dry and I’m dizzy, my voice comes out strong. “If you try to hurt me, I will fight back,” I say, knees trembling. “My spirits fight for me.”
Part of me thinks the bosses will rush me and drag me off to the cells they keep on the lowest deck, but none of them move.
I take full advantage and tear from the room, not looking back to see Alana’s face.
As I run down the hallway, clutching my bleeding ear, I pray to the Riveners for her to escape unscathed.
Isla. Zora. All of them. No one deserves this.
Now that the sun has set, the walls of deck three have changed with the night.
Graying and smelling of rot, they appear to close in on me.
But they don’t just smell like decay—they’ve turned from solid walls to a cage of bones with globs of stinking, gelatinous flesh between the rungs.
I try to run, but the floor sucks at my feet, threatening to drag me down.
Dribbles of blood spatter the carpet, and I’m not certain they’re mine anymore.
An eerie howl behind me and the sound of gnashing teeth propel me to move faster.
Staff shouldn’t have to give Morphia after dark, but the bosses don’t care about our well-being. Our lives are unimportant if a guest needs dinner or the ship needs a donation. Our safety is only a priority when it’s convenient for them.
For the first time, I’m beginning to understand Ivander’s bitterness. He’s right to detest the bosses and the way staff are treated. I didn’t realize the punishments were this extreme.
I should run to my room, but instead, I throw myself up the stairs, legs burning.
When I get to deck seven, I stop long enough to consider which side Dreamscape Theatre is on.
Right side. Just as I’m about to move, the stair beneath me cracks, falling away.
Heart plummeting with it, I leap forward onto the deck.
The deck rumbles beneath me. I have to keep moving.
A low growl sounds from the disappearing staircase, and a long, snakelike tentacle shoots out from where the last step gave way.
The sticky, dark green appendage drips with steaming slime.
The ooze plops onto the floor and singes a hole through it. Panic drives me forward as I push up onto my feet. My heart slams in my chest as I dodge to the side to avoid the tentacle. It narrowly misses my shoulder and punctures the wall, leaving a smoking crater.
I run, even as the floor beneath me cracks.
Something crunches underfoot. I try to keep my gaze trained ahead, but against my better judgment, I look down.
Roaches skitter in zigzags beneath my feet.
No time to think about it. I’m running, but the ground’s splitting open behind me.
One step ahead, I bolt from the chasm opening in the floor.
The roaches must be running from it too.
I catch the edges of leathery, batlike wings as something dives close to my head.
I shriek, waving my arms. With a tiny peek out of my half-shut right eye, I see a birdlike body with bat wings and a hooked beak filled with needle-point teeth.
The floor gives another loud groan behind me, but I keep running, swatting the creature from my face.
Suddenly, I pass a girl with a broom in her hand and her eyes squeezed shut.
She’s frozen, unmoving even with the chaos descending around her.
Her fingers grip the broom so tightly that her knuckles have turned white.
She mutters under her breath, and even when I yell for her to get out of here, she keeps her eyes shut.
Finishing her job tonight is not worth her life.
Despite my better judgment, I skid to a stop in front of her and shake her shoulders.
Finally, her eyes fly open. I tug on her arm as the ground rumbles even louder beneath us.
“Come on!” I yell. The chasm in the floor continues to advance, but she won’t budge.
A huge crack opening in the floor knocks us off-balance.
A cold sweat clings to my skin as I realize we must run now or fall to our deaths.
I heave at the girl’s arm one last time, and this seems to jolt her from her frozen panic.
“Run!” I cry, and we both throw ourselves forward.
I’ve lost momentum. It’s gaining on us. The girl yelps, and I glance behind me.
Her broom’s caught on a loose nail. She doesn’t have time to drop it before the floor falls out from underneath her.
A silent scream dies in my throat. As I peer over the side to see where she went, a high screech sounds from deep within the ship and I force myself to run faster.
With each step, cracks in the floor threaten to bring me to my knees.
But I won’t let it get me. I propel myself through the gold double doors of what I hope is the theater.
The doors slam behind me, and I lean against them with my chest heaving.
A voice brings me back to solid ground.
“I guess you’re learning the hard way,” Ivander says, dangling from deep blue silks suspended from the ceiling above the stage. “I told you. You’ll want to be careful after dark.”