6. Pippi
As people flocked to the rear of the ship, where the woman was still stammering that she’d seen the monster, my belly pulled. Not up, as it’d been doing this whole ride. Down. As though an anchor had wrapped around my gut and was trying to rip it straight through the hull of the boat.
“Where is it?”
“It was there! Right there .”
“Where?”
“I don’t see it.”
“There’s no way she saw it. Not with these waves.”
“Wait! He’s here! See there…Look at that big-ass shadow!”
“That’s the shadow from the ship, you dolt.”
The mass of people clamoring at the railing, shoving at each other as they tried to get a clear look at the monster, smudged my vision. Their screeches and hollers made my ears ring. Sweat ran in long, meandering lines down my back, making my skin prickle. Itch.
There was too much. Too much noise and movement. Too much emotion .
It was suffocating me.
My hands jiggled—a nervous tic that drove most people insane .
“Babe, why d’ya have to shake your hands like that?” Jackson had bemoaned on more than one occasion. “You look like you’re about to explode.”
Because it feels like I’m about to explode , I’d always wanted to say. But I could never explain the why of it. How sometimes I felt too much . More than what my body could handle. And the hand-jiggling helped get rid of the excess.
It wouldn’t make sense to anyone. Because it didn’t make sense to me. So I clasped my hands together instead, twisting my fingers around each other until my knuckles popped.
“That’s him! That’s his tail!”
“Daddy! I wanna see the lock monster.”
A small blur warbled in my right peripheral just as a wave of impatient desperation niggled at me to turn that way.
A little boy—he couldn’t have been older than six or seven—was half swallowed in the wall of adults along the railing. He stood between his parents, a tall, heavily muscled man and a willowy woman, and he kept tugging at the man’s sleeve, crying, “Daddy! I wanna see!”
“Why can’t I remember it?”
I blanched when that odd voice coiled around my brain again. And my stomach abruptly took another nosedive, leaving me doubled over, wondering if I was going to faint or vomit or do a bit of both.
“Miss, are ye alright?”
I choked out a startled “gah” in response to the man who’d spoken into my left ear.
“Apologies.” A warm hand flattened over my shoulder as a bulky body shifted around to my front. “I didn’t mean ta startle ye.” He dropped to a crouch, leveling me with a concerned stare.
This man had the harsh, weather-wrinkled face of someone who’d spent most of his days exposed to the cruelest of nature’s elements, but his slanted smile was soft, and his grey eyes kind.
Tranquil energy curled off him, calming the riot in my heart and stomach.
And he spoke with a fascinating brogue—not Scottish, or Irish, but something that sounded like those two accents had had a love child with a Welshman.
A billowing navy jacket draped over his shoulders, with a big gold pin on the lapel that had the word Valiant inscribed in a half circle. The name of our ship.
Our captain? Maybe?
I smiled up at him, as best as I could manage with as shaky as I still felt. “I’m easily startled. While on this ship, at least. Although, heh…That’s not really true. I’m a bit of a chicken on a good day.”
The man huffed, “Ach, means yer a sensitive soul, eh? Or so thuy say.”
“That’s me.” I winced when a wave smacked against the side of the boat—a wall of water big enough to make the vessel shudder. My belly gave a viscid twist. “My stomach’s definitely being extra sensitive today.”
“I thought ye looked a littlah green around the gills.” The man reached into his pocket. “First time on the sea?”
“Ummm. First time as an adult.”
“Oh, aye? Had ye trouble on the sea as a child?”
“Not on a boat. Just…” I blew out a breath, trying, but failing, to expel the memory.
The memory of being small—too small to have been allowed to swim in the ocean, but also too small to have a fear of the sea, or the common sense to avoid it.
My mom and dad had been arguing that day.
That was all they did until they finally split when I was ten.
Even on vacation they kept their teeth in each other’s jugulars, constantly bickering and gnawing.
But that day, Dad had been extra vicious, and he’d taken some big, painful bites out of Mom, before he’d stormed away.
To soothe the raw wounds he’d left, Mom had turned to alcohol. Bought two six-packs of beer from a peddler on the boardwalk and guzzled them like she’d found water in the middle of the desert.
By the time I went out into the ocean, Mom had been in booze lala land. She hadn’t seen me venture into the waves without my swimmies. Hadn’t seen me shrieking with delight when the water bounced me up and down. Hadn’t seen me wailing in panic when the undertow hauled me out to the deep.
The ocean very nearly claimed me that day. Would have claimed me, if the lifeguard on duty hadn’t spotted me flailing and come to my rescue.
“Eh?” the man beside me prompted gently.
“Yeah. Ummmm…The ocean kinda terrifies me. Not kinda. It does terrify me. I’d honestly rather be anywhere but here right now. I almost drowned when I was a kid. And, y’know…” I exhaled. “Well, hopefully you know. And I’m not just babbling like an idiot.”
“Aye.” The man gave another warm huff. “I know. Ye didna need to trouble yerself, lassie. The sea is a might not to be trifled with. Any who spend time with her knuws that. Here.” He’d found the thing he’d been rummaging for in his pocket and handed it to me.
I stared at the little, label-less tin in his hand. “Ermmm...”
“Peppermint,” he said.
“Ah. No offense, but I don’t think my stomach can handle any food right now. Even a mint.”
“It’s fer yer nose.” He tapped the top of his lip with his other hand, just below his nostrils. “The scent. Calms the illness from the sea.”
“Oh, yeah. I guess I can try that. Thanks!” When I took the tin and opened it, a rush of peppermint rose from the Vaseline-like goop and walloped my nostrils.
It was almost painfully strong. My eyes watered. But it certainly drowned out the brine of the sea. So I dipped my fingers in and smeared the goo along my upper lip.
“Better?” the man asked when I sniffed and closed the tin.
“Better. Yeah. A little. Thank you.”
He nodded and popped the tin back into his pocket.
“That’s an interesting accent you’ve got there.” I inhaled, drawing as much of the minty aroma as I could into my lungs. “Where are you from?”
He rolled his shoulder. “All over, really. Me pa was army, ye ken, so they didna fuss much for keepin’ families in one place.”
“Ah. I totally get that. My boyfriend was in the military too. Air Force. Did the four years. Said it felt too wasteful because it was all Standies who were enlisted. But it was always Sorcerers running everything—they never got their hands dirty though. They sent the Standies to fight and die, and half the people didn’t even know what they were fighting for.
Which…Sorry. I’m babbling. I do that sometimes.
Especially when I’m nervous. And I’ve been a nervous wreck since I got on this thing. ” I thumped my heels against the floor.
The man rolled his shoulders again. “I wouldna say yer babblin’ any. And ye wouldna be the first to be afeared on the passage.” He shoved his hands into his pockets, protecting them from the chill. “Which is why I worried when I found ye alone. Did yer boyfriend not make the trip?”
“Oh no, he’s here. Somewhere. He actually went looking for you and your magic peppermint oil.
Well…I mean…he didn’t know you had the magic peppermint oil, but he was hoping a worker would have something that’d help.
So when you head back to…wherever, and you see a tall, worried looking man with blond hair—that’s Jackson. ”
The man nodded. “Understandable. If ye think ye’ll be needin’ more of the peppermint, I can leave it with ye.”
“No.” My nose twitched, the skin around my nostrils tingling from the goop.
“I’m good now. As good as I can be, anyway.
I’ll be better once we get to the island.
Goodness, it’s cold though, isn’t it?” A vicious gale snaked its way across the deck, biting the back of my neck.
“And the website said to expect mild to hot climates on the isle. They must have a different definition of mild and hot .”
“The isle’ll be warm,” the man said. “Once we make landfall, the cold’ll dissipate.”
“ Really ? Uh…how?”
“Runes. Magic.” His shoulder popped up in another half shrug. “Don’t rightly ken how it all works, mind, but they keep the temperature fair. Canna do much for the fog though.”
“AHH!”
The explosion of excited screeches made me jump— again —and set the man standing out of the crouch he’d been in.
“THERE!” a woman hollered. “That’s definitely him. See the shadow—the fins!? Where’s my phone? Oh fuck. Dead? Ugh .”
“Where?”
“I see him!”
“He’s half under the ship!”
“He’s bigger than the ship.”
A nervous chill rattled my spine. “You don’t think they really see it, do you?” I turned to the man. “The Loch Ness Monster?”
“They might. But I’d not trouble yerself, lassie. He’ll not be emergin’ from the sea, nor will he bother this ship.”
“You’re sure? I mean, I’m not doubting your expertise, but I’d imagine he’s a fairly sizable creature.”
“Oh, aye. Forty American feet, as I heard it.”
Forty American feet. The label for our silly, outdated metric system got me to smile, even as the number made me shiver. “And you don’t think a forty-foot monster would ever…I don’t know, throw a tantrum and smash this ship?”
“He might, if he weren’t controlled.”
“Controlled?”
“Aye. Runes. Magic. He canna breach the surface until commanded, which is usually dun when he’s called to eat—they dunna let him eat the creatures from the deep, ye see—or if they want him seen on a tour. He canna touch this ship either—‘less he wants to feel a right nasty bout of pain.”
“That sounds…”
Cruel , I wanted to say, but didn’t.
The man seemed to hear the unspoken word, though. “May not be the finest way of keepin’ him. But he’s kept, and safe. And the people are safe.” He inclined his head to the gawkers hanging over the railing. “I suppose that’s all that matters.”
“I guess.”
Something jangled in my belly though. Not really sympathy. Or nerves. Definitely not more upchuck (thank the stars). But I frowned, trying to place the odd feeling. And why I was feeling it.
“Ah,” the man beside me muttered, his voice so low it was almost lost under the next storm of ohs and ahs from the group. “This’ll be yer boyfriend, eh? Tall fellow with yellow hair, like ye said.”
I turned and exhaled when I saw Jackson rushing toward us from the front of the ship.
“That’s him,” I said.
“Then I’ll leave ye be now.” The man swiped a hand over his chin. “Yer in good hands, eh?”
“Very. Thank you. So very much. And I’m sorry, I was super rude, I never even asked for your name.”
He tipped his head with a slow, gentle smile. “Caleb,” he said.
“Caleb.” I rolled it over on my tongue. “ Thank you. For the magic peppermint oil.” I tapped my nose. “And the company.”
“My pleasure, lassie.” He turned and prowled along the deck, watching the gaggle of people hanging over the rail with a concentrated knit in his brow.
“Babe!” Jackson jogged the last few feet and plopped onto the bench beside me. “Looks like I wasted my time trying to find help, huh? Help found you, but …” He clapped a hand to my thigh—and his fingers were frigid. Goodness. The cold stabbed through my jeans.
I chaffed at his knuckles, warming them.
“I saw the Loch Ness Monster! Or its shadow, anyway. I was in the perfect spot and watched it pass right under the ship. It was huge . E- nor -mous.” Jackson was almost breathless with excitement.
And I was breathless too. With not excitement. “How big?”
“Easily bigger than this ship . ”
I gulped.
“And some of the guys over there were talking, and—” Jackson stopped and scowled when the little boy, excreting clouds of disappointment over being unable to see over the railing and having his pleas to be picked up ignored by his parents, began howling. “What a fucking brat,” Jackson grumbled.
“He wants to see the monster too,” I said. “But his legs are too little, and his parents were shutting him out. It’s sad.”
“They’re not ignoring him now though, huh?”
As the little boy bunched his hands into fists and worked his gaping mouth around the torrent of emotion spewing out of him, his parents had finally turned to him. But rather than offering to lift him up so he could see, they scolded him, which only made him cry harder.
My heart thrashed against my chest, begging me to go to the boy and lift him over the railing so he could see. To do something to assuage his distress. My hands fidgeted.
Jackson heaved a hearty breath and clasped his fingers over my knuckles, stilling them. “Should we move you somewhere quieter?”
“I’m fine, Jackson.” I shifted, tucking my feet up onto the bench and prying my hands loose so I could curl against his side.
“Are you still not feeling better?” Jackson asked.
No.
The nausea had passed, as had some of the panic. But the boy’s explosive unhappiness was fueling my own distress, and a strange, wriggling emotion had begun coiling in my gut. I was afraid to move, lest my uproarious stomach start heaving again.
So I pressed my face into Jackson’s neck, where it was warm and safe, and closed my eyes, mumbling. “I am better. Honest, Jackson. I’m just tired.”
He exhaled and leaned back, letting me snuggle into him.
But that odd feeling kept writhing and twisting around my heart in a wild, painful dance.
And I suddenly, desperately , wanted to go home.