Tress handed the final package—more an envelope—to Salay, then stood and walked to the steps up to the quarterdeck. She settled on the steps and tried to process everything.
The others left her alone for the time being, so Tress wasn’t interrupted until Salay came limping over, using a crutch.
“You should probably stay off that leg,” Tress noted.
Salay shrugged, settling down with some effort next to Tress. She carried a folded piece of paper.
“Filistrate City,” Salay said. “I searched Filistrate City.”
“The dragon says your father arrived there six months ago.”
“Damn,” Salay said. “Right after I left. I’d have kept hunting, never knowing he was behind me…” Then she reached over and gave Tress a hug.
It was exactly what Tress needed right then. When emotions start leaking, it’s best to give the body a good squeeze and force them right on out. Like lancing a boil.
When their emotions were thoroughly lanced for the moment, Salay forced herself to stand up. Crutch under her arm, she saluted. “It will take us about a week to reach the Midnight Sea, Captain. But supplies should hold out just fine. We bought plenty at that last port.”
“Salay…” Tress said, “you should be captain.”
“Can’t be captain,” Salay said. “It’s my job to make certain the captain is making good decisions. That’s what a first mate is for.”
“But—”
“You’re trying to make a bad decision, Captain,” Salay said. “See? I’m good at the job.”
“The Midnight is dangerous,” Tress said. “The dragon wasn’t willing to give me any help. Even he fears the Sorceress.”
“Well,” Salay said, “we’ll just have to figure out how to cross the Midnight like we did the Crimson, Captain. Do we set sail now, or wait for the morning?”
Other objections died before Tress could get them out.
This was what she wanted.
“We sail tonight, Helmswoman,” Tress said. “And if I’m the captain, then I’m going to go claim Crow’s bed. Don’t wake me up unless Death himself has shown up, nails in his eyes. Even then, see if you can stall.”
THE VALET
People want to imagine that time is consistent, steady, stable. They define the day, create tools to measure it, chop it up into hours, minutes, seconds. They pretend each one is equal to the others—when in fact some are clearly prime cuts, and others are full of gristle.
Tress understood this now, as she’d known a hearty day thick with meat and fat. But the next few were lean and limber, passing quickly. While not the diaphane days of a vacation, they were ephemeral nonetheless—for all their increasing tension. The ship drew steadily closer to the Midnight Sea, interrupted only once when Tress had to lift them during a stilling.
The rain missed them on that occasion, but none of the crew had complained about the hassle of chopping vines off the ship. If anything, this near miss was a reminder that they—by all reasonable accounts—should not be alive.
Tress felt a momentum to her travel, a phantom tailwind. Encouraging, but also relentless. After so much wandering, so many detours, it was happening. She was sailing to confront the Sorceress. This was perhaps what made the days pass with such elasticity—if the first part of her voyage had been the bow being drawn, now the arrow had been released.
She also decided to cast off a little emotional ballast. She was tired of lies and deception. With a frankness that was honestly somewhat inconvenient when trying to create a story, she gathered Salay, Ann, and Fort—then introduced them to Huck.
He’d agreed to it reluctantly, and perhaps only because he’d been so elated when Tress had stumbled into the captain’s cabin that first night after confronting the dragon—and discovered him in a little cage, the cat pawing at the bars. Despite everything, Tress found room within her to feel guilty for not thinking of him. In her defense, she’d assumed him safe in her cabin—though the knowledge that Crow had ransacked the place should have raised if not a red flag, at least a fuchsia streamer.
Still, his excitement to hear of her exploits had washed that guilt away like grime off a window. And now he sat on her palm, introducing himself to the ship’s officers, explaining how he and Tress had met. That done, he and Tress both waited for their reactions.
You did so much to help, Huck! Fort wrote. Moons! We need to tell the Dougs. We can’t have anyone stepping on you! You’re a hero!
The rat perked up.
“Yeah,” Ann said. “And we’ve got to do something about that cat—can’t let it roam free! I’ll build a cage or something for it, keep it in my room until the next port.”
All turned to Salay, who did her best to look calm and commanding despite her crutch. She rubbed her chin. “A rat on the crew,” she said. “Tell me…what is your opinion on tiny pirate hats?”
Spoiler: he turned out to be quite fond of them. It was honestly a little distracting.
The second thing Tress did in the name of abject honesty was explain the challenges that would face them in the Midnight Sea. This, in turn, led her to explain who she was, why she’d left her home, and what she was trying to do.
Afterward, Ann did ask what was so great about this guy she loved. Tress did her best to explain, though she was certain world-traveled people like them would find her love plain and unremarkable.
She underestimated the power of simple words spoken with passion. No one questioned her after that.
So, the days faded behind her like the setting Crimson Moon. And ahead, a jet-black moon broke the horizon. It reflected no light, and seemed more a void than an object. A tunnel to nothing. As it emerged from the horizon Tress feared, irrationally, that it would keep growing—that the Midnight Moon wouldn’t be the size of the others, but would turn out to be a vast darkness that consumed the entirety of the sky.
To escape it, she spent time in her new quarters. The captain had far more space than Tress had been assigned, though she still used her old room for spore experiments. She filled page after page of the captain’s notebook with discarded ideas for how to protect the ship as it crossed the Midnight Sea.
Trouble was, her mind didn’t seem to work right anymore. Where it had once seized upon ideas with a predatory vigor, now it seemed trapped in a room, scratching uselessly at the walls with nothing to show for the effort.
What had happened to her ingenuity? Her self-defining thoughtfulness? She grew more and more frustrated as each day slipped away from her, leaving no further progress than frazzled hair and another scribbled-out page in the notebook. What was wrong with her?
Nothing.
Nothing was wrong with Tress. Her mind was functioning properly. She hadn’t lost her creativity. She hadn’t run out of ideas. She was simply tired.
We want to imagine that people are consistent, steady, stable. We define who they are, create descriptions to lock them on a page, divide them up by their likes, talents, beliefs. Then we pretend some—perhaps most—are better than we are, because they stick to their definitions, while we never quite fit ours.
Truth is, people are as fluid as time is. We adapt to our situation like water in a strangely shaped jug, though it might take us a little while to ooze into all the little nooks. Because we adapt, we sometimes don’t recognize how twisted, uncomfortable, or downright wrong the container is that we’ve been told to inhabit.