18. Life’s a Beach, Enjoy the Waves
Life’s a Beach, Enjoy the Waves
The storm lasts for a few more hours. We’re all exhausted, and we take turns recovering belowdecks.
Without the foremast, some of us are left to fill in as needed.
The lines are checked once, twice, and a third time as the crew comes and goes from the main deck.
We have lost a handful of our crew again, and no one is willing to take any more chances.
On the bright side, it can’t get much worse.
I’ve seen this crew dwindle even further, and looking around at the faces in the mess, there’s nothing that hurts more than the disappointment and the pain I find there.
And though I don’t know all my crewmates as well as the others aboard the ship do, I see the devastation reflected in everyone’s expressions, Silas’s worst of all.
I want to hold him, promise him that it’ll be okay, that this is just one more hurdle for his ship and crew, but his expression is grim, and nothing I say or do will fix this. I can’t bring back the dead.
But I feel the weight of my warped journal in my pocket, the secrets I’ve kept from him since the beginning.
Choosing instead to say nothing, I take a swig of ale and stuff a bite of cheese into my mouth as I survey the people around me.
They stare down into their mugs with despair, brows furrowed in contemplation.
I have no words of encouragement for them, not when I was nearly tugged over the side of the ship myself.
Pip pats me on the back as he passes, trudging through the standing water as he hands out food and ale to the crew.
Drinking down the last of my ale, I push aside the tankard. “I can help,” I say, making to stand.
He shakes his head and refills my cup. “Take yer time, Laszlo. I know it’s not easy up there.” His smile is tight-lipped, but I don’t fight him.
I don’t have the energy to.
“Eddie.”
I swivel on the bench to find Mick leaning against a beam, a mug of ale cradled in his hands. His shoulders are drooped forward. He was the master rigger, once, and he must be beating himself up for losing that crew, even if the fault doesn’t lie with him.
Eddie, who is sitting across from me and nursing his own ale, looks up in surprise. He has a piece of bread partway to his mouth, but he pauses, tilting his head to Mick. “Aye, Mick?”
Mick swirls his ale, not looking up. “I could use a good joke right about now.”
Eddie sets aside the bread and brushes off his hands, his expression turning serious.
Until now, Mick has made it abundantly clear he cares little for Eddie’s jokes.
Now, Eddie straightens in his seat. Everyone leans in, waiting to see what he’ll do, their hands tightening around their ale like Eddie’s bad joke will somehow cure the heartbreak.
“What’s a pirate’s least favorite vegetable?” Eddie asks.
There’s an excruciatingly long pause.
“What?” Mick says.
Another beat of silence, and I glance between the two men. Eddie scoots forward, and there’s a shadow of his usual smile right before the punch line.
“Leeks.”
As if we’re all following the same line of logic, we regard the water flooding the ship, the damage the storm has done to the structure and the half-assed patches we’ve made. I chuckle. It’s a silly joke, I know, but I can’t help myself.
And then Pip laughs low, a boisterous, throaty sound, and one crew member joins, and then another, until only Mick isn’t laughing. We all look to him as we wipe our eyes and throw back our heads, but he’s holding his belly, bent forward as if in pain.
Is … is he crying?
Setting aside my ale, I grip the edge of the table as I move to stand, but Mick just shakes his head and chuckles deep. The sound settles the tension stretching between us all, and I breathe in a sigh of relief as I plop back down on the bench.
“Thanks, Eddie.” Mick raises his ale in salute with a wide smile, and the rest of us do the same.
If there’s one man aboard this ship who can mend the hurt among this crew, perhaps it’s Eddie and his terrible jokes.
Eddie beams. “Anytime. It’s what I’m here for.”
I throw back the rest of my ale, wipe my mouth on my sleeve, and stand. Slowly, almost painstakingly, I return to the deck. There will be no rest, no peace until this ship is whole again, and we have a lot of work ahead of us.
For the next two days, we take turns on the deck, clearing away the debris despite the roaring waves and scooping out the water with buckets. Just when it seems we’ve cleared away the worst of it, another large wave hits us, and we start over.
My hands and body ache impossibly more as I bend, scoop, and shuck the water over the side of the ship. We fight against each oncoming wave as it splashes over the railing and slams against us. We’re exhausted, and I know even without looking that I am covered in bruises and cuts.
But of course, I look. The skin around my ribs is sensitive as I prod it, deep purple bruises encircling me from where the rope dug in around my waist. My hands scream every time I pry them open to grip one of the buckets, but I don’t stop.
I stood on that deck along with my crewmates, muscles coiled in fear, straining in my spot against the power of the storm for hours. And even now as we swap off and on, I simply cannot sleep, not yet.
So I take my breaks up on deck. My head throbs in time with my pulse as I lie back and massage my temples.
I sag in my spot leaning against the railing.
Licking my dry, cracking lips, I peer out across the ship and see Silas standing at the helm.
His hair is slicked back, his clothes drenched and clinging to him, but there is a steadfast determination across his features as he steers us out of the last of the storm.
Opening and closing my hands, I force them to move against their will. New scars line my palms from old blisters, but large, crude wounds stare back at me angrily from the lines of the foremast, and tears prick my eyes as I make my throbbing fingers close once more.
My skin is crusted with salt, and my throat burns from the series of waves that crashed against the ship, against me, nearly drowning me. My hands are bleeding and I have never been colder, but I am alive.
We are alive.
Jack nudges my foot as he saunters past. “Are you all right, Laszlo?” he asks.
“I will be.”
He stares silently at me for a long beat before turning on his heel and disappearing belowdecks.
And it’s true. My stomach dips at the thought, at the jolt of adrenaline that rushes through me.
I have never been happier to be alive, and as I stand on shaky legs, my attention is glued to Silas.
He saved me. Again. I don’t know why it’s always him, why he’s always willing to risk everything to save me, but I’m grateful he was there to cut the line before the foremast could pull me into the ocean like the others.
Grateful that he gave me a chance aboard his ship.
Grateful that he’s let me in.
Still, the knowledge that we lost some of the crew, that we lost an entire mast in the sea, weighs on us all.
We cannot get far with just the mainmast. And as the winds die down and the storm calms, there is even less wind than before the storm began.
Though we scramble to repair the broken mast, we simply don’t have enough supplies to do so fully.
I move to speak to Silas, to dispel any confusion about the journal, but he disappears down into his cabin with a slam of the door before I can reach him. Mick shoots me a look across the deck but says nothing as he gets back to work, bent at his waist as he helps mop up the last of the stormwater.
With a sigh, I return to my work. I wait until night has fallen and I can see the stars once more before going to him.
It is, as he told me, when he was reborn, when Silas Night came to be, and perhaps that why it’s easier.
Talking with Silas at night feels different.
It feels like a more honest time of the day, like it’s more difficult for me to lie to him with the stars guiding us.
Determination and worry twisting my stomach, I knock.
“Come in.”
I open the door and peek in, making certain he’s alone.
Only Sir keeps him company, sprawled out on his desk, slightly damp and annoyed, but otherwise unharmed from the storm.
I close the door and cross to the desk. Silas is seated behind it, leaning forward, elbows on the desk before him and one hand in his hair.
Sir’s tail bumps his elbow with every swish, but he ignores it.
Silas looks exhausted; the frown lines around his mouth are more prominent, and a deep V forms between his brows.
He doesn’t look at me when I stop beside him.
Slowly, I reach down and slide his hand from his hair.
He is tense the entire time, as if everything in him is itching to yank away from me.
Silas simply sits there, muscles tight, eyes trained on the desk.
Breathing deep, he exhales shakily, and after a long moment, he relaxes.
I run my thumb over his knuckles, over the bruising and dried blood there. I search the cabin until I see it, the slight dent in the wood on the farthest wall, a peppering of blood stark against white. How many times did he punch the wall? Beat himself down for getting the ship caught in a storm?
“Don’t,” he says.
Frowning, I thread my fingers through his and squeeze. “Silas,” I start, tilting up his chin. Finally, he looks at me, and there is nothing but pain and anger in those dark depths. “Silas, it’s not your fault.”
He works his jaw and his nostrils flare as he fights back tears.
Yanking his hand away, he stands, shoving his chair until it topples behind him with a clatter.
Sir grumbles and leaps down from the desk, padding over to his usual spot on the bed.
Silas points to the door. “Anything that goes wrong on this ship is my fault. How do you not understand? I am the captain, and if I can’t keep my crew alive, how can they trust me to do anything else? ”
“It was just a storm. You had no control over—”
“Just a storm? A storm that killed five of my crew!” His chest rises and falls with each breath, and his hands curl into fists, the dried blood on his knuckles flaking. It’s clear he wants to punch something again.
Shaking my head, I cup his face. He tries to step away, but I tighten my grip.
“Silas, don’t do this to yourself. I don’t know a lot about charting courses and all the important stuff Astra does, but wouldn’t you have needed to backtrack exponentially to avoid the storm?
It would have taken more time and resources, right?
” He tries to tear himself free, but I force him to look at me. “Silas.”
“It’s my job to protect them,” he says softly.
“I know.”
Neither of us says anything for a moment.
“What was that journal you had?” he asks quietly.
“Notes.”
“On?”
“Nothing important.”
“You’re lying to me, Laszlo.”
“On the ship. On you and the crew.” I pause. “To help me.”
He nods slowly. Touching his cheek, I lean over his desk and blow out the candle before tugging him to the nook. I don’t know if I’m still allowed in here, if I’m meant to sleep down below with the rest of the crew, but there is no universe in which I want to leave him alone in his current state.
No one should be alone when they feel like this.
Glancing away, I strip off my wet clothes and hang them by the windows before reaching for a fresh shirt.
He stands unmoving as I gently pull off his jacket, his shirt, and then his pants.
Frowning, Silas holds up his arms as I tug the fresh shirt over his head, my hands skimming his chest as I pull it down.
With a smile, I slide into the nook first, ever careful of Sir, lifting the blankets and holding out an arm to Silas in invitation.
Glancing briefly over his shoulder at the door, he climbs in beside me.
“You do a lot for your crew, Silas. You protect them, care for them.” Kill for them, I think. “I wonder who I would’ve been if I’d met you sooner.”
“It is because of me that we were betrayed. Because of me that we were caught in the storm.”
“No,” I say with a shake of my head. He shifts against me, and I wrap an arm around his waist, pulling him closer. I swallow and barrel on, offering him this small piece of me. “I was betrayed once, too, Silas. I trusted someone very close to me.”
“What was their name?”
I hesitate. “Julian. I trusted him with something very special and private of mine, and he stole it. But it wasn’t my fault that I trusted him; it was his fault for taking advantage of my trust.”
“You don’t deserve that,” he whispers.
“Neither do you.”
He’s still for a long, quiet moment, and then he’s shaking. Silas makes no sound, and says nothing, but I tangle my hands in his hair and pull him close, lips pressed into a thin line as I rest my chin on his head and let him cry.
Sometimes, that’s all people need, a good cry. Him most of all.