Time & Tide - Original Wattpad Version

Chapter Six: In Which Jessie Arrives

I made my shaky way over to the rail, leaned over it cautiously just in case my stomach decided to rebel against the lift and dip of the deck. I had somehow managed to retain my sea legs, so all I got instead was a refreshing face full of sea spray. It was cool and clean and wonderful. I hung over the rail long enough for my face and the fringe of my hair to get thoroughly soaked by the spray. I straightened, wiped the moisture and residual grime off my face with a corner of the blanket and turned around to watch the activities of the ship.

I wasn't quite up to exerting myself yet, but just standing and watching I could do.

Every pair of eyes that had been drilling into my back immediately turned down and returned to whatever task their owner was engaged in.

Huh.

I had been a curiosity before, but now it looked like I was a danger. Someone had been blabbing things they shouldn't, and it had gotten me hurt worse, brought the wrath of Captain Goodenough down on the rest of his superstitious crew, and ended up with two of the men killed. Maybe some of them really did believe that I was a mermaid. My rail-leaning just now had probably only reinforced this illusion. Maybe some of them really did believe it was the bad luck of rescuing me that got Lord Nelson – the hero of the British fleet – killed.

I was vaguely aware of the history of the battle behind us, and the square in downtown London named after the fallen hero. I was pretty sure he'd be dead whether the Lyre had been part of the action or not. But of mermaids and bad luck and women on board I knew nothing.

And for all that I knew, maybe it was true. Maybe if they'd been there...

I turned my eyes back to the water, lips a thin line, biting at the insides of my own mouth, and watched Spain skim past.

* * *

The wind was bitter by the time we reached Great Britannia's shores. It was the end of December, 1805, and ice clung to the Cliffs of Dover like white lichen.

The skin of my hand had healed, a long thin line of angry red welts and scar tissue that I knew would eventually harden and turn as white as the cliffs. But while the skin had scabbed over – mostly due to my incessant hygienic insistence – the muscle beneath wasn't appearing to re-knit itself, and the bones were shattered beyond growing back in straight lines. The ship's surgeon had splinted and set it as best as he could, but it seemed like it would all fuse into a useless lump, eventually. It probably was most of the way there already.

The injury was beyond what this century's medicine could repair.

This left my right hand a useless and unattractive claw of curled fingers and ugly scars. The skin was sensitive, I could still feel thinks, but my ring and pinky fingers sat at an awkward angle and my middle finger had no sensation at all. Only my thumb was still mobile, spared from complete uselessness by the providence of the angle of the stab wound.

I spent a lot of time with my right hand in my jacket pocket. The jeans were too tight to allow my hand to hide there. I spent considerably less time wishing for a good plastic surgeon. There was no point in wishing for something you couldn't have.

I stood at the nose of the ship, claimed now as my habitual post, mimicking the figurehead below. Only she really was half a fish. The men who had attacked us had been sailors from the Lyre, and now they were dead sailors. "Already there is talk," Captain Goodenough had said. It had been a hard shock to realize what effect 'talking' could have in this century.

Speaking of the devil; the Captain came up and leaned against the rail to my right, folding one arm along the rail to support his weight, the free hand reaching out to take my mangled one. With gentle fingers he pushed back the sleeve that I had yanked down over my knuckles. The bandages he pushed up too, but I had tied them loosely anyhow. There didn't need to be there to stop blood or keep out debris. They were only there for my vanity.