Avarice of the Sea | | b o o k 1

7: Blissful Ignorance

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:  C H A P T E R  S E V E N :

 The strange lady took me to the back room of the cabin as quickly as she could. Her hands were calloused yet soft, and when she came closer I saw a pair of gold earrings looped through her ears. I glanced over my shoulder to Avarice as he moved away from the door, one hand on his hip and the other on his forehead.

I nearly tripped entering the room. She shut the door behind us and ordered me to sit myself down on a wooden chair in the corner. It was such a small compartment that I only took two steps to get there. The knife from the door was still tightly clenched in my fist, but I realized now that the blade was chipped and hardly sharp. I kept it in my lap.

"Who are you? How do you know my mother?" I asked, but she was in a rush and didn't answer until she fetched a first aid kit from a cabinet at our feet.

"Lanore lived here for years. We knew each other well," she told me, and then instructed that I lift my chin up so she could tend to my wounds. A cold substance was slathered over it, and I felt it sting as the cut was cleaned and then dabbed over with a cloth. "You look just like her."

My ears heated up. "Thank you."

We were both quiet for a while as she tossed out the bloody cloth and deemed the wound reparable over time. She seemed to know a lot about my mother, and what was going on on the ship, but what I wanted were answers. She never answered my question about who she was.

"Why did Avarice take my mother?" I asked. The girl refused to look me in the eye as she returned her things to the cabinet.

"Cannot tell you, but it is not safe for you here," she murmured, her hand coming to my knee as she crouched down to her knees. She was incredibly scrawny, I realized, after observing her knobby knees and elbows, and how nimble her fingers were. Her neck was long and braced with a tight-fitting necklace that looked as though it was made of cloth, and studded with gold metal loops like her earrings. My head was swimming, and the waves of questions crashed against my throbbing forehead. I pressed a hand to my temple to relieve the stress, especially after gaining the woozy tug on my conscious at the sight of her scars. There was a considerable amount of marks up and down her arms.

She clenched her fist into the skirts of my dress, and let go abruptly when knocking sounded on the door.

"Unlock this door immediately!" It was Avarice. I had the fleeting urge to crack open the tiny window over my chair and dive into the ocean. But then I remembered how my fear of the ocean waves trumped almost anything Avarice could do, and thought better of it.

The girl jumped up and raced to the door, swiftly loosening the lock and letting the door swing open. A moment later, she was being dragged from the room by her dress. "I thought I've told ya not to lock them doors, girl!"

"Yes, master, it won't happen again," she agreed, nodding her head frantically. I had bolted up out of my chair, but paused when I saw her do this. His grip loosened and eventually he pushed her away from him. All she had to do was agree and he backed off.

But, master?

He turned his back on me and marched over to his desk where he took a seat and leaned it back. He shooed the girl away, who ran off to the door beside the one we were just in. After she scurried behind the door, Avarice confronted me with a gesture towards the chair across from him.