Chapter 15
Calypso’s Quest entered the Devil’s Triangle two days later.
There was no defining moment, no visible border, but the crew felt it, a sense of unease that came on so gradually, they didn’t notice when it began.
For seemingly no reason, they felt agitated, skittish, as if something evil was waiting, just out of sight.
Annabelle overheard Mr. Stanley complaining that the compass had stopped working.
He and Hawke spent much of their time either consulting in the chart room or pacing on the quarterdeck.
Rather than laughing with the crewmembers, Grieg was irritable and sullen.
Even Shadbolt’s typically unruffled mood had been tense, his orders delivered in a sharp voice.
As they continued, the crew’s discontent grew, as did their feeling of foreboding.
The winds died completely, and the men began to see things in the water.
Dark shapes, darting lights. They whispered of supernatural creatures and phantom ships until Hawke ordered them to cease.
When they weren’t on duty, the crew remained belowdecks, but instead of cheerful songs and banter, heavy silence filled the ship.
And then the fog came.
It curled around the ship in wispy tendrils, snaking over the decks, around the masts, and through the portholes, as if drawing Calypso’s Quest deeper into the gloom.
Soon, the ship and the sea around it were covered completely with the thick gray mist. Sounds were muffled and distorted, and without wind or visibility, the main deck was utterly still.
The sunlight was dampened, but not entirely.
The sun itself glowed in the fog, a deep orange eye that was worse, in Annabelle’s opinion, than no light at all.
In spite of the hanging lanterns in the interior, the lower deck and the captain’s cabin were darkened, the air heavy, and the mood ominous.
After three days of fog, Annabelle struggled to sleep. Even in the dark of night, she could feel it around her, heavy and damp. The familiar creaking of the ship sounded sinister; the sea was silent.
She burrowed beneath her blanket, close to tears.
She knew it was the gloom making her spirits low, but she couldn’t talk herself out of the feeling.
With the fog blocking the stars and moon, the darkness was complete.
She was lonely without the cheerfulness and camaraderie of her friends.
Her arm hurt from the hours of sword practice.
Hawke had instructed her to train with different crewmembers, explaining that each person had a different style of fighting, as well as different abilities.
She was tired and so worried. She worried about the ship, about the crew, and about Court.
What would they find when they reached Isla de Plata? Was he even there? Was he still alive?
But the thing that pressed most heavily on her mind was the memory of Hawke’s scars.
She’d never seen anything like them. Shadbolt often went without a shirt, and she’d noticed scars on his body, but nothing like what Hawke bore.
Why did it hurt her heart so badly to see them?
He had been at sea since he was a young boy.
What had his life been like? Annabelle had always been surrounded by people who loved her.
Her mother, Nanny, Court and his crew. It made her ache to think of Hawke as a child, alone and afraid.
Annabelle blushed when she remembered touching his skin. What had she been thinking, behaving in such an intimate manner? But she hadn’t wanted to shy away. It had felt important that he know someone cared.
She and Hawke had not had a chance to speak more than a few words since their practice on the deck. She knew he was concerned about the ship, about the lack of wind and the crew’s low morale, and she wished she knew what might help the situation.
In the sea beneath her, something thumped against the hull, and Annabelle sat up, listening, her breathing shallow as she strained her ears. Had she imagined it? Another thump came. Larger. Deeper. Her heartbeat sped up.
“Hawke?” she whispered, praying he was awake.
Hearing no response, she spoke louder, her voice breathy and strained in the darkness. “Hawke, are you awake?”
He grunted.
“Hawke?”
“Lady Annabelle?” His voice was alert. “What is it?”
“I heard something,” she said. “A bump against the hull.”
Hawke was quiet.
She hadn’t imagined it. She knew she hadn’t. Surely someone else had heard it. But why was there no reaction from beyond her cabin?
Of course, the noise didn’t repeat. Not when he was listening. But Annabelle’s muscles were still tense, her chest tight. “Hawke, I’m frightened.” The words left her mouth, and she felt immediately foolish.
There was a rustling noise from the other side of the room, and Annabelle heard Hawke’s feet step onto the deck.
“Well, come on, then,” he said. He’d said the same thing at the tavern dance, and she recognized the gentle tease in his tone.
She was relieved not to perceive any irritation at his being awoken.
His footsteps padded across the floor to the stern, then stopped. There was a muffled thump, and she realized he’d gone to sit in the spot where they had spoken before.
Annabelle rose from her berth and joined him, sitting on her side of the curtain with her back against the stern.
“I feel it too,” Hawke said. “The very air around us feels sinister.” His hand slid beneath the curtain, finding hers.
He laced their fingers together. “But you must know there is nothing to fear. The fog, the dead water—they play tricks with a sailor’s mind.
One imagines all sorts of dangers. But we are safe.
And soon enough, the winds will return, this fog will lift, and we will continue on. ”
His words eased her fears, but it was his touch, his closeness, that she found the most comforting. Annabelle settled back, searching for something to say that would keep him beside her.
Her arm brushed his, and he started but didn’t release her hand. She winced. She must have bumped against his injury.
“Does your shoulder still hurt?” she asked.
“It is mending,” he said.
“I apologize again. I did not intend—”
He tugged at her hand, cutting her off. “There is no need to apologize. Yours is the only friendly wound I’ve ever received.”
She knew he was trying to make her feel better, but guilt still tasted sour in the back of her throat.
“Friendly or not, it still hurts,” she said. “And it will leave a scar.”
“I’m just glad the damage was to my shoulder and not my face. Although a facial scar would probably make me look more dashing.”
“I like your face how it is,” Annabelle said, then immediately blushed. She was glad he couldn’t see it.
Hawke chuckled. He was playing with her fingers.
But before he could make any kind of smug remark, the thump under the hull sounded again.
They both went still.
“You heard that, didn’t you?” Annabelle whispered. “What is it?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “A big fish? A shark? It doesn’t seem to be hurting anything. It’s not striking with enough force to damage the ship.”
“Damage the ship?” She hadn’t even thought of that possibility. Of course she’d seen sharks, whales, and large fish over the years. Some even swam beside the ship, but she’d never known one to hit against it. “Typical fish don’t behave like this, do they? What if it is something unnatural?”
The men’s whispered words filled her thoughts. Tales of sea monsters and ghost ships. And while she knew none of it was real, in this fog, she couldn’t help but be afraid. She had always been comfortable at sea. But the Devil’s Triangle felt . . . off. There was an unease that permeated this place.
He wrapped her hand tighter in his. “Lady Annabelle, you’re safe.”
“Will you stay here with me?” she asked. Why was it so much easier to speak to him in the darkness? To allow herself to be vulnerable?
“I’m not going anywhere.”
She realized she was squeezing his fingers and forced herself to loosen her grip. She scooted as close to him as she could, careful of his shoulder. Her thoughts raced with images of mythical creatures and Calypso’s Quest filling with water.
“Breathe,” Hawke said, soothing. “Take a deep breath and blow it out slowly.”
Annabelle tried to do as he said. She slowed her breathing, taking in shaking breaths and blowing them out, but she still could not escape the fear that something was very wrong, and the ship and the crew were in danger.
“That’s it,” he encouraged. “Deep breaths. Now, tell me something nice.” He gave her hand a little squeeze. “A story from when you were a child. A happy one.”
Annabelle was grateful to focus her spinning thoughts. “And then you will tell me one?” she asked.
“Agreed. A story for a story.”
“Very well.” Annabelle considered for a moment.
A happy story from her childhood. A memory surfaced, and she smiled.
“In the garden behind our town house, there used to be a small reflecting pond with a few little fish and a stone bench beside it.” Her anxiety refused to calm entirely, but she could feel it easing.
“When I was perhaps eight or nine, a pair of ducks claimed the pond as their home.”
Her heart glowed warm as she remembered. “Nanny and I would feed the ducks bits of bread and watch them as they swam or waddled about the garden.
“In the spring, Mr. Burton, the gardener, found a nest with a clutch of eggs. And as you can imagine, the duck family became my entire world.”
Hawke chuckled softly.
“Nanny and I went every day to check on the eggs. The mother duck always sat on the nest, even in the rain. And the father duck patrolled. At first, he chased us off when we came near. But eventually, he must have realized we weren’t a threat.
If we stayed on the other side of the pond and were very quiet, he allowed us to remain.
“He did not, however, tolerate Mr. Burton. Nanny and I had to hold in our laughter when we saw the poor man running away, chased by a flurry of feathers and quacking.”