21. In which there is a silly goose and another hole in the ice #2
Hester swallowed, her throat thick, and held her hands out to the fire.
She tried to crook her fingers. They wouldn’t obey.
“Oof. That was close, wasn’t it? A few more moments and I’d have had black fingertips.
” She shivered in the chair. “So, anyway, my cabin. It’s yours.
I’ll bunk in with Charlotte. She won’t mind.
” It wasn’t like she could share Fliss’s room, now she was shacked up with her new husband.
Septimus let out a heavy sigh, laden with sorrow and weariness. With shoulders bowed, he slung the rope to the floor and walked off in the direction of her cabin.
She sat back in the chair and screwed her eyes shut.
“Oh, fuck.” Her hands throbbed as the blood began to return, and she daren’t look at her feet.
“Oh, fuuuck.” Tears sprang to her eyes from the pain.
The physical pain, and the pain of the heaviest guilt she’d ever felt in her entire life.
Because he was right. The sinking of the Intrepid—it was all her fault.
If she’d kept control of her emotions and not let him irate her, it would never have happened.
Hester clenched her teeth as she thought of the parents who had left her to fend for herself with her magic.
Magic she still, after twenty-four years, could barely control.
If only she knew the truth. If only she knew who they were.
Visions of that black-clouded world floated into her delirious mind.
The people with wings, wolf ears and antlers.
The Lord of the Underworld. Nonsense. Lunacy.
Unless it wasn’t. Her stomach clenched, tears rolling down her cheeks.
Winston walked into the galley. “What on Earth? Hester!” He rushed to her, bundling her into a hug.
“It’s all my fault, Winston. Can you take my boots off for me? I cannot get my hands to work.”
He knelt in front of her and tugged the boots off, and her socks. “What happened? Shit.” He wrapped his hands around her white feet. “Does this have anything to do with the hulking lord I just saw in the corridor?”
“It might. Yes.” She smiled ruefully through her tears. “I said I’d sit outside his tent until he agreed to come inside.”
“There is a blizzard going on out there! Are you mad?”
“Oh, probably.” She sniffed. “He wasn’t going back outside, was he?”
“No, he was about to go into your cabin.”
Hester slumped. Thank God. “Ohhh ouch, this is painful.”
Winston knelt and tucked both of her feet under his jumper, against the warm skin of his stomach.
Hester smiled and wiped her eyes, then tipped her head back and let out a long sigh. “Thank you.”
“You silly goose,” he said, shaking his head and smiling up at her.
Charlotte couldn’t sleep. Had tossed and turned all night.
Hester was curled up on a cot at the end of the cabin, snoring loudly.
Of course, she didn’t mind having Hester in with her.
It was nice to have company, but the snoring, the groaning of the ice against the hull and the howling of the blizzard outside all conspired to keep her awake.
She sat up in bed and looked out of the window over the miles of moon-soaked ice. She squinted, unsure of a black speck on the floe. She pressed her nose to the cold glass, trying to focus on it. And then she gasped. It was a hole in the ice. With a pile of clothes next to it.
She stifled a scream, dashing to the end of her bed, reaching out a hand to shake Hester awake.
Then she stopped. Couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing.
Hester was curled up on the cot. Arching from her back were huge feathery wings.
Charlotte screamed properly then, her heart pounding against her ribs as she scrambled back on the bed.
Hester gave a final loud snore and then shot upright. “Shit. What is it?”
“Wings.” But the wings had vanished. Had she been seeing things?
That was the only plausible explanation.
They had been poring over the book of shapeshifting animals before bed, and it had obviously worked its way into her brain.
But what was out the window was surely not in her mind.
“Look.” She pointed at the window to the ice hole.
Hester climbed onto the bed and looked out of the window. “Oh God.”
It did not take them long to rouse the crews, and they all stood out on the ice, in the dark, staring at the hole.
“They are Victor’s clothes,” Septimus said, face drawn and pale. The eyes of the Intrepid’s crew fixed on Hester, who stood by Charlotte’s side.
“Don’t look at me. I’m not murdering your men. This is ridiculous!” Hester said, folding her arms.
“It is no secret that you do not like Victor,” Septimus said, glaring at Hester from under dark brows.
“It couldn’t have been Hester. She was in my cabin asleep all night,” Charlotte said.
But who could have done this? She was sure none of the Valour’s crew were the murdering type.
The edges of the ice hole glinted pale blue, and Charlotte noticed markings on one side.
Lots of little circles. “Look at that.” She pointed the markings out.
Septimus crouched to inspect the hole. “What on Earth would make marks like that?”
Mei shuffled closer. “Almost looks like sucker marks. You know, like an octopus or squid might make.”
Septimus frowned. “But why would he take his clothes off and then get dragged into a hole by an octopus? It makes no sense.”
Charlotte hugged her arms around herself. The siren in the book was pictured next to a giant squid. She exchanged a glance with Hester. She didn’t like Victor particularly, but surely no one deserved to be dragged naked into an ice hole to their death. Tears welled in her eyes.
“I er…thought I saw someone,” Frank said, tugging at the hem of his coat.
Septimus rounded on him. “Who? What did you see?”
“I saw Odette leave Victor’s cabin. I heard…singing.”
Charlotte’s hands began to shake. She stuffed them under her armpits. “But there is no Odette. Charlie said that none of us match her description.” She thought of the picture of the siren in her book of myths. Surely it couldn’t be true.
“I believe what Charlie said was ‘none of the Valour women have tits like hers’,” Hester said in a deadpan tone.
Everyone stared at the hole in the ice, the air hanging heavy.
Charlotte woke a few hours later, darkness still cloaking the cabin, her face cold, breath misting in front of her. She peered over the edge of her sleeping bag at Hester, asleep and snoring on the cot at her feet.
A strangled shriek left her lips.
Wings.
Her heart beat a staccato rhythm against her ribs. The wings were just as she’d seen earlier in the evening. Hester grunted at the shriek and mumbled something that sounded an awful lot like ‘Septimus’, but did not wake.
The huge, feathery, golden-brown wings draped off the edge of the cot.
Charlotte rubbed her eyes, but they were still there when she looked again. She inched forwards, reaching out a hand, and poked at the nearest feather.
Her fingertip met the golden feathers, solid and very, very real.
Charlotte swallowed hard and withdrew her trembling hand, lest she wake the captain.
What to do? Wake Hester and confront her? Ignore it?
She picked Myths and Legends of Shape-Shifting Animals up off the bedside table and flicked to the page that read ‘Aquiline’.
The man with wings stared out of the page at her.
Even the colour of the wings matched. That lustrous golden-brown.
Hester must be one of these mythical people.
How was that even possible? Did anyone else know?