Chapter Twenty-Two
Curled in their winter coats (and, in Ree’s case, leaves), they slept on the deck beneath the stars, with Perri nudging the sailboat every so often to stay on course.
After the sun rose, Marin retrieved her maps from the cabin, thankful that the cabinet she stowed them in had been spelled to be watertight.
She spread the map of the northern islands out on the deck, and she, Dax, and Ree crowded around it.
“I haven’t sailed in this region before—my runs are usually in the southern islands,” Marin said. “But we could stop here.” She tapped a tiny island labeled Suzu. “See if they want to trade some bread for a song or two.”
“Bread and coin,” Dax said. “Don’t undervalue music.”
“I don’t undervalue music. Just my contribution to it,” Marin said.
“I’m not an actual musician with professional training like some people on this boat.
” She still didn’t think anyone would pay to hear her sing.
Dax, yes, but her? And a shrub? Okay, Perri was amazing and unusual, and Ree did have a pretty voice …
but they were a far cry from professional musicians.
She’d never stepped foot beyond the dock at the conservatory.
He huffed. “First, you don’t need professional training to be a musician. Anyone can make music. It’s for everyone who wants to put what’s inside them out into the world. And second, anyone who makes music is an ‘actual musician.’”
“I’m guessing Grandmaster Olenco would not agree.
” She wondered if Dax fit into his conservatory at all.
Maybe he was better off out here, with them …
She shuttled that thought to the side. It wasn’t one she had the luxury to explore, not without raising her hopes unreasonably high. He had a destiny.
“A lot of the grandmasters wouldn’t agree,” Dax admitted. “But they have plenty of terrible opinions, like that you can’t have pie for breakfast.”
Marin mock-gasped, and Ree giggled.
By afternoon, they’d practiced two additional songs, with Dax as their composer and conductor.
He brought out his tri-lute for the second one.
For the third, Perri was the lead voice, and they created percussion using buckets that Marin had on the sailboat.
Ree particularly liked smacking a bucket with his branches to create a timpani-like sound.
By afternoon the next day, they’d reached the island of Suzu. Marin sailed into port while scanning the shore of the town. She felt nervous in a way she never did when she sailed to an island as a supply runner. She tied off to a mooring not far from the main dock.
“Ree, do you want to announce us?” Dax suggested.
“Yes!” He scampered to the top of the mast. “Um, as what?”
Dax smiled at Marin. “Captain Marin and Her Musical Crew.”
Marin felt her face blush bright red. “You can’t…”
But Ree was already bellowing, “Come one, come all, for the first ever performance of Captain Marin’s Musical Crew Extravaganza! Hear the melodious sounds of the sea! All donations accepted!”
Dax met Marin’s eyes with a grin. “He’s a natural.”
“I’m never going to be able to show my face in this port again,” Marin muttered.
As a crowd began to gather at the edge of the harbor, Ree began to sing, belting out his melody about the blue-blue sea.
Marin watched the faces—a few confused, a few amused, and a few tolerant, the way you’d look at a child who was proudly showing his artwork.
Some of the dockworkers listened for a few seconds and then wandered away, but others drew closer until there was a clump of them.
The islanders of Suzu were all of various shades of pastel—pink, blue, teal, and lemon—and they all wore a brightly colored feather of some kind, woven into their hair or sewn into their jackets and pants.
The houses were painted just as bright as the feathers, and she noticed that every house boasted an array of birdhouses nailed to their fronts, usually beneath the eaves of the roof or by the windows.
Other birdhouses were on the tops of tall poles, and there were multiple fountains in the town square beyond the docks.
Birds were, apparently, a thing here.
She saw several birds with jewel-toned feathers flying in and out of the houses and splashing in the fountains. I’m thinking they don’t have many winged cats on Suzu …
And then there was no more time to think about birds or cats or anything else because it was her cue. She added her voice to Ree’s, and Dax joined in as well, turning the single melody into a rich harmony. More villagers drifted closer to listen.
After the chorus, Perri rose out of the water beside the sailboat and trumpeted multiple crystal clear notes at once, and Marin saw the audience collectively gasp.
By the time they left Suzu, they had a basket of fruit, several loaves of bread, and a pouch of coins that Marin tucked into her pocket with the heartsinger ruby.
The quartet sailed and sang, crafting new songs on the open water and performing them in the harbors of the villages that lay along the way.
Some islanders were absolutely thrilled with the impromptu concert and showered them with gifts and offered accommodations for the night.
Others didn’t particularly care but were pleasant about it, usually offering at least a hot beverage to Marin and Dax and a scoop of fresh water for Ree’s root ball.
The new mast was spectacularly solid and well-made, and the new winches operated fine, especially when Marin greased them with fish guts (which smelled a bit but worked).
But as they traveled, the patched sail began to strain at the seams. It had taken the brunt of the winds in the magic storm, and there were spots that were fraying again, the fabric already weak.
“We’ll need to repair it at the next island,” Marin said.
“What’s the next island?” Dax asked. He was seated on the prow, scrubbing out the pot they’d used to make fish stew for last night’s dinner and today’s breakfast-lunch. It had been seasoned excellently with some kind of ground pepper mixed with other spices local to the last island.
“Ree?” Marin called.
“Yes, Captain!” Ree consulted the map. “It’s called Caltrey.”
“Hmm, I’ve never heard of it,” Dax said.
“A lot of the outer islands are too ordinary to make it into your ballads,” Marin said.
“There should be more songs about the ordinary,” Ree declared. “Like this. Right now. Us together. You, eating fish stew. Dax, scrubbing the pot.”
Marin laughed. “I’m not sure even Dax could come up with a good fish stew song.”
Dax held up the scrub brush. “That sounds like a challenge.” Deepening his voice, he sang, “You dip your spoon into the stew, and your heart, it follows—”
Sliding closer to the boat, Perri flicked his fin and splashed Dax.
Marin laughed harder. “Child prodigy, and that’s what you come up with?
” She laughed so hard that she started to cough.
She pounded on her chest until she caught her breath.
Ahh, that was good. She couldn’t remember laughing so often or so hard before Dax and Ree came on her boat. “‘You dip your spoon into the stew’?”
“It’s a first draft!” Dax wiped the sea spray from his face.
“Just to be clear,” Marin said, “I’m not singing that.”
“But it’s nice!” Ree said. “It’s nice to celebrate doing things together.” He warbled, “You dip your spoon into the stew, and you know just what to do!”
Dax sang, “You dip your spoon into the stew—”
Ree finished, “And the sea comes into view!”
Both of them sang in harmony: “You dip your spoon into the stew, and your heart, it follows.” Then Dax: “If the stew is true—” Then Ree: “And the sea is blue!” And Dax: “You’ll know just what to do!”
Marin was laughing so hard that tears popped into her eyes, salt mingling with the sea spray. “There’s zero chance an audience wouldn’t think that’s a euphemism.”
“What’s a euphemism?” Ree asked.
“A euphemism,” Dax said, “is when you substitute one phrase for another that might not, um, be polite? Or, um, talked about publicly. And I did not mean it as a euphemism.”
“Mean what?” Ree asked. “I don’t understand.”
Marin and Dax glanced at each other, their eyes met, and both of them dissolved into laughter again. As they caught their breaths, they heard the sound of trumpeting across the waves. Perri rose up in the water and swiveled his head.
Out in the distance, a pod of sea serpents was leaping out of the water, one after another in a rainbowlike cascade of iridescent scales and feathery fins.
Perri let out a squawk and then a cascade of trumpeted glory. He plunged beneath the surface, and she saw his back fin slicing through the water, speeding toward the pod. He was swimming so fast that the sea roiled around him, creating a path of frothing water.
The pod switched directions to swim toward him, and she counted nearly a dozen serpents in the water, all of varied length and size and color, far more than she’d ever seen.
“Friends of yours?” Ree asked.
Marin shook her head. She couldn’t help feeling as if a hand were clenched around her heart. She and Perri had sailed between the islands together for two years and never encountered a pod of sea serpents. Occasionally, they’d sight one in the distance, but never this many.
And Perri had never acted like this before.
“Family?” was Ree’s second guess.
“I don’t know.” Marin tacked into the wind, following the trail of churning water.
“Are we following him?” Dax asked. “Are you sure that’s safe? We don’t know if the other serpents are friendly.”