Chapter 35 The Pillars of Hercules
Chapter thirty-five
The Pillars of Hercules
Bash
Sea-born divination predates all human augury: before there were leaves to steep or cards to turn, the ocean read itself.
Its currents wrote the future in spirals, its tides tallied the dead, and its monsters carried prophecy in their bones.
— From The Mysterious Deep: A Comprehensive Understanding
She was confident in a way that was unsettling. No hint of doubt or second-guessing. She walked with purpose, and it was terrifying. It wrapped its claws around my throat and squeezed like it would see me dead.
“It isn’t a place, Rose, it’s a pocket in the ocean; even with Morwenna’s input and the journal, it will be difficult to find,” Dilly said.
“She said it cannot be reached by latitude or sail. It must be called, and it only answers when the moon lies black, and the tide lies hungry.” Rose said, undeterred.
My cabin was ungodly full tonight.
Rose and Dilly stood at my desk with maps outstretched, as well as the cursed journal. Oscar and Inu stood nearby, the former quieter than usual. Val was already raiding my liquor cabinet, and Emille sat in a chair in front of the desk, rubbing at his chin.
I busied myself by pacing, which earned me several disapproving looks from my wife, but she was responsible for this unease that ran through me like ice waters.
All I could hear was Morwenna saying that Rose was just as likely to die.
Yet I knew that mark on her arm meant she would die all the same if we didn’t try.
“Correct,” Dilly said. “And how often do you think that happens?”
Rose shook her head. “Edmonds had to believe I could do it, which means it’s possible.”
As if summoned by the gods who watched, a knock came from the cabin door. I held Rose’s eyes as I went to answer it, somehow knowing this didn’t bode well for us, but she also didn’t show any sign of the unease that she should have been.
I opened the door, and Victor, our watch for the night, stood with his hands folded in front of him like he wasn’t sure about what was happening.
“There’s a strange woman on deck asking to see Rose,” he said. “Said she’s decided.”
“Decided what?” I asked.
Victor shrugged. “Fuck if I know.”
Helpful.
We would have a talk about this tomorrow, but as it was, Rose was already up and sliding past us. I followed her outside, and there stood Morwenna in a silk gown and long sleeves that billowed in the frigid night air. She said nothing, just stared at my wife.
“She’s decided to help us,” Rose said.
“Hadn’t she already?” I said.
Rose shook her head. “She gave us the information, but not the way.”
She stepped past me and faced Morwenna.
“You’re going to help us, right?” Rose said.
Morwenna pressed her lips together, assessing.
“You will return my sea-skin to me,” Morwenna said.
It wasn’t asking. It was telling, but the moment Rose said she would help, I knew that’s exactly what she intended to do. Clearly, Morwenna had not been convinced at the time.
“I will,” Rose said. “You deserve to be free again.”
Morwenna's lips thinned as she studied Rose. “You don’t know anything about me. Whether I deserve to be free or not. Does that not concern you?”
Rose, my brilliant wife, did not hesitate.
“No,” she said, voice iron-strong.
Morwenna dipped her head, the hint of a smile on her face.
“Then I suggest, Captain,” she said, turning to me. “You make for the pillars of Hercules.”
I fought against the urge to question her. To make her say a thousand words until I finally believed her. No, she was not a danger to Rose. Yes, she would help her get the mark off her wrist. Yes, she would protect her.
Instead, I nodded and turned to Victor.
“Wake the crew and make for east by south. I want us at seven knots. If we aren’t there in five days, I will have someone’s head. Am I understood?” I snapped.
Victor swallowed hard and nodded before practically running below.
“Wise choice, Captain,” Morwenna said. “Time is working against you. Against us all.”
“Can the ship withstand it?” Rose asked. “We barely made repairs here.”
“She will stand it,” I said, turning to Morwenna. “I’ll show you to a place below.”
Morwenna nodded and, sharing a silent exchange with Rose, followed me below deck, where the sounds of the crew waking stirred. I led her to a place that no one had yet occupied because all of us who were left knew that some spaces could never be filled again.
My hand still recognized the knob on Billy’s door as something safe, a reprieve.
I turned and pushed it open, and it was still as he left it.
His endless tokens of a life spent on exploration.
Paintings, drawings, molds all hung on the wood around a single narrow bed dressed in blue bedding.
A nightstand and lantern next to it. How many nights had I spent on the floor beside it, avoiding how I felt for Rose?
Nights spent listening to him call me a damned fool and tell me I was wasting everyone’s time on stubbornness.
“You can stay here. No one will bother you.” I said.
Morwenna stepped into the room, surveying it.
“Grief is an ocean. Her own tide that recedes and floods often without warning,” she said.
I wasn’t surprised she recognized this for what it was. I’d seen enough of the Mysterious Deep not to question beings like her on how they knew the things they knew.
“It is.” I agreed. “It will claim me if I lose my wife.”
She turned and met my eyes–that same eerie blue that was Edmonds. A symptom of a creature of the deep forced to reside on land. He may not have been a full selkie, but there must have been a part of him that longed for the sea. No wonder he chose the Navy. It was likely his only choice.
Morwenna held my gaze, unapologetic and without concern for how uneasy her stare could make a man.
“It will,” she said.
I didn’t need to ask how she knew. It was simply true.
“Know that if anything should happen to her that you could have prevented, I will do far worse than force you to live on land,” I said.
She merely stepped forward, pulling the door shut between us.
“I am aware, Captain,” she said. “Mind the mist, and perhaps we will all live to see what comes next. Do not let your crew look too deeply into it. It merely wishes to keep its prisoner. Sail and forget it.”
With that, she shut the door.
Not two seconds later, Oscar was calling for me above deck.
If I were a betting man, I would have risked all the coins that my wife hadn’t commandeered recently.
Every heavy footfall was punctuated by an eerie sound of silence that should not have been. As soon as I made it upstairs, it was evident why.
The mist clung to everything. It ran across the wraith’s deck with a heaviness that shouldn’t have been there. It blocked out the sea and the village below us.
“What do we do?” Oscar asked, voice a hushed whisper.
All eyes were on us. The crew waited to see if they should panic. Whatever lead I gave them, they would follow.
“Continue our course. It will pass as we leave Angra.” I ordered before taking in my crew. “Whatever the mist shows you, ignore it. If you wish to live, then you will make ready and stay on course. Understood?”
A chorus of agreement broke out, and with that, the ship lurched with the first movement away from Angra.
“It doesn’t want her to leave,” Dilly said, coming up beside me with Rose in tow.
“It does not.” I agreed. “What precedence does it have?”
“They call it the Mist of the Enchanted Isles. They believe it hides ghost islands and that to sail into it is…unwise.” Dilly said.
“We are about to do just the opposite.” Rose pointed out, hands on her hips.
“Aye, the unexpected will always keep 'em on their toes,” Billy said.
Billy.
That was his voice, but he was dead.
“Did you hear that?” Rose tilted her head.
“Hearing voices ain’t a good sign unless it’s the best sign,” he said again.
I moved closer to Rose, pulling her into me.
“It’s the mist,” I said.
“Yes, but it sounds just like my grandmother before she died,” Rose said.
Dilly nodded, staring straight ahead.
“I hear my father,” she said, taking a step forward.
Fuck.
The witch below might have given a little more warning.
“Earplugs in! We sail by sign.” I ordered.
I reached for Rose, but she was already pulling out the cotton swabs we all carried in case of sirens or worse.
“Only the prepared survive the deep, boy.” Billy’s voice was just as it had been the first time he brought me on a ship.
I hesitated longer than I should have. How cruel of the sea to taunt with the sounds of the dead. It was easy to see how the mist claimed its victims. There was a part of me that would have followed that sound anywhere.
Before I could think better of it, Rose reached into my pocket and withdrew the swabs, shoving them into my hand with an expectant stare that was as much a reprimand as a command.
I did as she asked, and soon the world went perfectly quiet. No voices and nothing to indicate my ship wasn’t on fire. This would require me to trust that my crew was with it enough to follow orders. If someone was at risk, I wouldn’t hear what my eyes couldn’t see.
Taking in the state of the Wraith, there was nothing preventing us from withdrawing except for the lack of visibility. Oscar was at the helm, watching me, waiting for the signal.
I lifted my hand, and he nodded.
I hated not hearing the Wraith’s groan as she moved. It was a little bit like losing my other arm. Working with only half when I was used to being whole. Just as I’d learned to adapt, I did so now.
Val was nowhere to be seen, but I knew where she was. Seeing to Kit and making sure he did not become the mist’s next victim.
We moved through the mist on instinct. Rose came close to me and slipped her hand into mine. Her hand was slightly clammy–the only tell that she was anxious. A captain in her own right, she knew hearing was important to leaving port.
Communication meant not steering too close to an island that meant putting us underground.
Still, Oscar never waivered. A far cry from the man I’d first met.
I’d always been good at reading people. It was a matter of survival, and I learned from an early age.
When I first met Oscar, I should have only seen a spoiled aristocrat who was bored with his life.
Instead, I saw a man who was born for something more with tenacity and a silver tongue.
His charm and quick thinking were responsible for my continued breathing many times over.
Inu stood behind him, keeping watch.
If ever Rose tired of this life and asked me to live on land, I knew where the Wraith would land. On a night of mist and calm, I saw a future I’d never considered.
Inu and Oscar were made for the sea. If that day came, I would bend.
Without hesitation and without incident, Oscar sailed us through the mist and slowly it released its hold on us. Its tendrils slowly receded until moonlight illuminated glittering black beneath us.
I unplucked the cotton and was greeted by a chorus of cheers, Oscar’s beaming smile at the center of it.
A legacy worth watching.