Breath wedged in my throat, I turned to find the ghisting’s nose so close to mine I felt the tips brush. Her huge sea-glass eyes crinkled in concern, her octopoid legs once more contained in a rippling skirt.
Sister, why won’t you speak to me?
Speak? Ghistings and humans could not speak, just like ghistings didn’t have flesh. I couldn’t be hearing this right now, couldn’t have felt her hand on my cheek or her nose brushing mine. This was madness. This was…
Whatever it was, my wild thoughts occupied what remained of my opportunity to escape. Randalf’s crew surrounded us.
“What’s the creature doing?” I heard one whisper.
“Juliette?” another murmured.
“Don’t go talkin’ to it, you idiot!”
The ghisting ignored them. She drifted backwards and looked me over as her ‘skirt’ rippled in an unseen current. Her eyes were still soulless, matte and featureless, but there was something in them I recognized as she noted my mask and bound hands: solidarity.
Then, between one blink and the next, the creature vanished.
“What happened?” Randalf’s voice cut through the deck. He spun me to face him and I recoiled, but all he did was hold up a small, delicate key. The key to my mask.
I relented. The gag fell away into his hands with a click and I coughed, spitting and wiping at my lips with my bound hands.
“What happened?” the smuggler demanded.
My mind churned, excuses piling up. I could beg, claim the crewman had mistreated me—he hadn’t exactly been gentle—but what I wanted to say, what I needed to say, came out instead.
“Your crewman hauled me out of my cupboard, so I smashed his lantern over his head and tried to escape,” I stated, lifting my chin a fraction.
“Escape?” Randalf looked at the open gunport, then at the crewman with the bloodied face. “You left that open?”
The bloodied man suddenly looked more cautious than angry. “For the handoff with Merrow, Cap’n.”
“That was at first bell!” Randalf made an admirable attempt to loom, even though he was shorter than the sailor and considerably leaner. But from the way the entire crew reacted, there was viable threat to his displeasure.
“They’re late,” the crewman protested.
Randalf edged closer. “So you left it open and let the Stormsinger loose?”
The crewman paled. “Cap’n, I—”
Randalf abruptly turned to me and held up my gag. “Ms. Firth, here is your first lesson about life aboard my ship. You do something good, I reward you. You do something bad, I punish you. It’s a simple arrangement, is it not? One simple enough system for any lack-witted Barrowside dullard to understand?”
The captain’s eyes dragged back to the crewman, identifying the dullard in question. That look was so cold and so cruel, I suddenly understood the crew’s fear.
The urge to sneer, to curse my captor and strike out, died. As angry and frustrated as I was, I had to be logical. I had to protect myself.
“I understand,” I said lowly.
“Wonderful.” Randalf spun on his crew. “See this man tied to the grating above and fetch my lash. Then make this ship ready for open sea. I want us leaving Whallum by tomorrow night.”
“Sir?” another sailor asked. “We’re not set to depart for three days—”
“No matter.” Randalf’s smile remained intact, but it turned distinctly nastier as he began to fit my gag back in place. It took all my strength not to fight back. “As soon as we’re in open sea? Tie our new Stormsinger to the mast.”
GHISTWOLD—Being forests of most ancient and uncommon origins, Ghistwolds, more commonly referred to simply as Wolds, are to be distinguished from the common wold as places where the two realms—that which is human and that which is Other—intersect. In such places, Ghisten Trees rooted in the Other grow into the human plane and manifest in a variety of common trees, though these trees frequently reject the laws of nature in terms of seasonal shifts or the directions of their shadows. These trees are then harvested for shipbuilding, most frequently the figurehead. The spirit of the Ghisting within the Ghisten Tree then merges with the ship, to remain there until it is moved, or the last of its figurehead is burned away, or taken by the degradation of time. The spirit of the Ghisting, then, will roam free until it eventually returns to the Other—a process that may take days or centuries. In Aeadine, the Ghistwold cuts across the center of the main island, intersecting with various common wolds （that is, wolds without Ghistings） such as the Lesterwold, to form a vast wilderness. See also GHISTWOOD, SPIRITWOLD.
—FROM THE WORDBOOK ALPHABETICA: A NEW
WORDBOOK OF THE AEADINES
FIVE
Antiphony Cove
SAMUEL
Fisher squinted at me over the top of a small, green and gilt book. “Slader is still furious with you.”
I sat down on the other end of the bench and pulled off my knitted cap, toppling unkempt hair into my eyes. We were in the cabin we both called home. There was a single canvas curtain strung down its center, pulled back during the day, and Fisher’s hammock swung from the beams on her side of the divide. Mine was rolled and stowed in my sea-chest against the bulkhead, as I had been on watch all night—repercussions for losing the Stormsinger, Mary Firth. Slader was convinced I had intentionally thwarted our chances, and my sending Fisher away had not helped.
Our cabin had no other furnishings save a hanging dragonfly lantern, a fortified iron woodstove, and a narrow table with a bench, where we sat. The lantern was a luxury, as it posed no risk of fire and could be used during the worst of storms. The dragonflies themselves were as immortal as any other creature from the Other, requiring no food or water or even air. They simply pulsed gentle purples and golds in their sleep and lit to a bright, shining frenzy when they awoke.
Fisher wore a striped blanket over her shirt, stays visible in a line across her breasts, breeches but no shoes, and appeared to have stolen a pair of my socks to wear over her own. Normally, I would return from a night watch to find her dressed and gone, already above decks taking command. But this morning there was no need for her to leave the cabin so early. I would be taking her watches today. And tomorrow.
I shook the snow off my hat and pushed my hair back from my face. I could feel Fisher eyeing me, prying answers from the tired lines of my face.
“Something was not right,” I repeated. “With Demery and that last guest. Not calling up the armsmen would have been foolish.”
Fisher lowered her book to the table. “Oh, I’ve little doubt of that. But there’s no way a smuggler like John Randalf outbid you with four thousand solem. Tell Slader the truth. You intentionally lost the bid.”
“I am not lying.” I glowered momentarily and tossed my cap onto the table. “He had the money. I ought to have warned Slader, not you.”
Fisher put down her book and shifted to straddle the bench. “Perhaps. What of your… inklings? Any further notion what they meant?”
“None.” I stared past her at the door. My curse was the last thing I wanted to talk about with her. “Is there still breakfast in the galley?”
“Yes. Hammond saved you some.”