A shadow fell over her. “We didn’t sink,” Crow said. “That means you did your job.”
Tress nodded.
“She was great, Captain,” Ann said from behind. “A natural, I’d say. Sealed that hole on her second try. Barely seemed terrified by the spores.”
“Indeed,” Crow said, her expression unreadable as she continued looking at Tress. “Ann, don’t you think you should be fitting planks? In case this…expert work by our new sprouter isn’t as durable as it might seem?”
“I suppose.” She moved off.
“Ann,” the captain said, holding her hand out.
Ann sighed and handed over a pistol she’d found somewhere, then vanished belowdecks.
Crow moved over to watch the merchant ship as Dougs began appearing from its hold bearing rolled rugs—the ship’s cargo. The group of merchant sailors huddled on deck, where their captain spoke softly with Salay. He had a squeezed face, with too much forehead and chin, like you were seeing it reflected in a spoon.
Everyone had calmed down save one man: a sailor who knelt on the deck apart from the others. Something about his posture bothered Tress, so she climbed the steps to get a better look through the overgrown vines. Yes, the man was cradling the corpse of one of the people Crow had shot. A friend? Family member?
The weeping man looked up. Reckless, dangerous. Tress opened her mouth to call out a warning, but the man lurched to his feet and pulled a pistol from his belt. With a quivering hand, he pointed it across the gap between ships toward Crow.
Again, everyone froze. Everyone but Captain Crow herself. She stared down that barrel with indifference.
“Smocke!” the merchant captain yelled. “Don’t be a lunatic, man! You’ll get us all killed!”
The man, Smocke, stood up—stained with his friend’s blood—but didn’t lower the gun. He also didn’t pull the trigger. Captain Crow raised the pistol she’d taken off Ann and pointed it at the man.
Then Crow turned the pistol around and shot herself in the head.
Immediately, vines erupted from Crow’s skin. They split her cheek and wormed out around her eyes, writhing and twisting. One caught the bullet. The skin of her face and hand rippled, as if she had serpents for muscles. The vines wriggled, then withdrew, slithering back into her body.
A drop of blood leaked from the corner of Crow’s eye, and a bit more seeped from a rip in her cheek, but otherwise her face appeared untouched. She lowered the pistol, then took a long pull on her canteen. Finally she waved Smocke forward—as if demanding he try shooting her too. Several of his crew members tackled him, and the shot went off into the air.
“I expect my ship to sail in under an hour,” Crow said loudly, “laden with more riches than she should rightly carry.” Her eyes lingered on the other ship’s captain, who still stood near Salay. “If it is not done, I shall visit your fine vessel and teach each and every one of you what it means to cross Captain Crow. If you doubt my sincerity, ask the crew of the Oot’s Dream how much they’re enjoying life at the bottom of the Verdant Sea.”
The captain disappeared into her cabin. Tress slumped on the steps again, trembling, burdened by the terrible sight of those vines bursting from Crow’s body.
What was she?
THE EXTRA GOOD LISTENER
“The captain is a gestator for the verdant aether,” Dr. Ulaam said, holding up a narrow bottle containing something uncomfortably reminiscent of a kidney floating in solution.
“She just ate what?” Tress asked, sitting in his exam room.
“Not just ate. Gestate. It means to incubate. Crow is host to an aggressive strain of the verdant parasite. Your lore calls people like her spore eaters, though I find that an imprecise term. Tell me. Where do spores come from?”
“The moons,” Tress said.
“Ah, yes,” Ulaam said. “The moons. As food comes from the kitchen, or pottery comes from the Zephyr Islands. There couldn’t possibly be another step involved, hmmm? These things just magically appear?”
“So…you mean how do the spores get to the moons?”
“Rather,” Ulaam said, “what on the moons produces them? Hmmmmm?”
“I…have no idea,” Tress said. It was a realization she probably should have made before.
Ulaam knelt beside her, holding the kidney up to her side. He shook it, then raised his eyebrow. “Trade?” he asked. “This one will make your urine smell of lilacs.”
“Um…no thank you.”