-6-
Of Shells and Ghosts
Geoffrey Marg sat upright in the dinghy. The caped boy sat in the front, with two chubby boys to his side. Jasper had a hand on the rudder, while two of the Talia sisters rowed them into shore.
Palm trees stretched out from the forest like snakes, some fallen with fronds on the ground around them. The survivors had already felt what sort of weather these lands could bring. The storm they had endured just days prior tore Hydra in two. Marg didn't know who was on that ship, besides the quarter master, with whom he'd shared a drink only a week ago. No one would know the names of the people who almost made it to safety, but had fallen to the sea instead.
It would be chaos once the rest of the ships unloaded. Lowering the wounded into the dinghies would be difficult, if not impossible for some. The sea current near the island might tug at the anchors and sway the ships into each other. The rest of the fleet would have to anchor farther out.
"Be cautious," he told his crew in the dinghy. "We haven't had a report from Sebolt in over three months. Impossible to tell what shape she's in."
Marg's crew would joke that he should have been born with fins. He had spent most of his life in or on the water. If it wasn't for his bush of a grey beard, he might have passed for younger. Yet nearly five decades of life made his age apparent on his tired canvas of a face. His hands, lined with scars from years at sea, were more accustomed to tugging at halyard lines or adjusting pulleys than helping children into dinghies.
Whik leaned forward and arched his back as if trying to propel the canoe himself. His feet tapped in spasms on the floor, splashing water onto the other child beside him.
Whik turned to Geoffrey Marg and squinted into the sun. "Why did the Larks attack us?"
"Because they're cowards," one of the Talia sisters said. Adriana, it must have been. They looked so alike that Marg often couldn't tell them apart. He'd never seen a set of three that looked so much the same, let alone wanted to join an old sea captain's crew. They were new, but they worked hard, twice as hard as some of the men, as if they had something to prove.
"Because they would have frozen to death up there," Jasper added.
Because they wanted what we had. Marg suspected that something, or someone, had united the tribes of Larks from the northern lands. But how? And why? It was this unknown purpose that sent a shrill shiver down the back of his neck and motivated him to push his crew to their limits. An enemy unable to reason and compromise was the worst kind.
Marg said nothing. He stood and placed a boot on the bow as the shore grew closer. Another beach. Another chance. The first time Marg landed on an island like this, a storm had split his ship in two. He was another man back then, with different demons to battle, with a cargo hold full of southern slaves he'd hoped to sell for a profit. But the sea had something different in store, and instead of finding wealth, he found disaster. Much of his crew died that day, what with the way the waves crashed onto the vessel, tore the boards into a million splinters, and washed a selfish sea captain and his slaves onto the beach. But those slaves didn't turn on him. They dressed his wounds, helped him forage for food, even taught him the songs of cuffs and chains. Jasper was one of them, a slave turned friend. Marg would never forget that. Best not to think of that now. This is a different time. I'm a different man.
A wave pushed them onto the beach. Clumps of sand flew over a scurrying crab when the bow plunged into the shoreline. Marg's boots stamped their prints on the burnt surface, displacing the grains. Other dinghies had already unloaded and turned back for more. It would be an endless process, lasting far into the night. There were wounded to hoist down, supplies in the holds, crying children and angry parents.
Marg peered back at the dozens of transports heading in his direction. Henderson Callow, his right hand man, had counted more than forty ships and even gotten the names of some of their crews and cargo. Every hour it seemed they spotted another one on the horizon.
Sir Allsmoth, one of the highest ranked men, shouted orders to a crew, who were lowering people into dinghies on Sea Slayer. Sunlight reflected off the bronze of his feathered helm. Mason How rowed away from the ship he owned, Centos, with four dinghies full of survivors. How many others are behind them?
The endless list of tasks was already running through Marg's head. Shade. Shelter. Supper. Spirits. He was waiting for people to walk out of the woods, spot them, and spread word that Hemonstalia had been invaded. He was hoping for refuge, yet the beach sat empty.
By the time the sun fell on the horizon, Marg's crew had set up a crude settlement near the sand dunes. He'd gotten the names of all the ranked men and women, from a squire to an Elder's stable master. When people stopped approaching him and asking him this and that, he sat on a dune and watched the dark of evening eat away at the day's blue. There was always a moment before nightfall when the split in the sky was a bit darker than everything else. The stars were just coming out of hiding, but only a starless void filled the crack in the sky.
Marg was waiting for a lord to row to shore and claim the responsibility of leadership. Or a knight who had always dreamed to be a lord, with a deep voice and seasoned war history. Or an Elder, for that matter, though they were far too old to survive such a voyage. Yet the hours passed and no lords arrived. Sir Holm Redwater was the highest of ranks, but he was fast asleep with fever. The other knights were too fatigued from seasickness to move from their cots. My crew still looks to me for commands. How many more will follow their lead?
Henderson said he had watched one of the Sentinels die with his own eyes, trying to hold off three Larks as the last survivors ran to the docks. A Sentinel may not be able to lead them, but would surely offer more protection than any knight Marg had seen thus far. Yet no Sentinels arrived. The beach was littered with knights that had shed their armor, stable boys with bruised faces, scattered families and weeping children. And the wounded. So many wounded.
He needed to take stock of the survivors that poured onto the island. They would need to record the names of the survivors in time, if they ever saw ink and parchment again. Surely families could have been spread out across ships, unaware of each other's existence. They would reunite on shore. Yet as the last survivors stumbled onto the beach, groups of people fell to the sand weeping, knowing that hope for their loved ones was no more. The caped boy was among them, sitting by the waves with his arms wrapped around his knees.
When the others eventually left, Marg went up to the boy.
"Are you hungry?"
"I'm waiting for my brother. He'll be along any moment. We'll eat then, together."
Marg couldn't dissuade him. It wasn't in him to try. He couldn't bring himself to mention that the child's brother may never arrive. Whik's stubbornness stirred something in Marg. This boy had no one either, but he was smaller and more innocent. He wouldn't know how to handle it.
Geoffrey Marg looked down at the lad. The boy's tattered cape rested on his back. His small hands dug through the sand. "You see that big tent over there? The one with the red cloth hanging from its entrance?" The campfires flashed shadows against the canvas. "That's my tent. Jasper is setting up cots for the night. You tell him that one of them is for you."
Whik nodded. Marg walked down the shoreline. Someone was playing the harp by the forest. One of the women sat by the fire next to the harpist, crying in her hands. Roselyn always loved the harp.
We've all lost something. What difference is it whether we lost them in an invasion or at the hands of a murderer? Marg routinely waged this battle in his head, ever since they fled Hemonstalia. No, Roselyn could have survived the Larks. I would have protected her. It hurt his head to think about, so he turned to drinking when he found out she was murdered. Roselyn was everything to him. She had looked more and more like her mother every day. She was everything to Marg's wife as well, but she died in the shipwreck and the sea didn't want to give her back.
Marg walked through crowds huddled by fires and men walking by with empty make-shift traps. He hadn't even seen an animal, besides the occasional sand crab or sea sparrow. When he threw open the flaps of his tent, Jasper was setting up wooden cots. Henderson stood in the corner, spreading out a map on a piece of driftwood.
Henderson Callow's hair was no less grimy and greasy than Marg's, but his locks were many shades darker. His bushy eyebrows and unkempt beard matched his pepper strands, complementing the dark green glow of his eyes.
When Marg walked up to him, Henderson extended a finger to a map. "These smudges, is this map unfinished?"
Marg shook his head. "Not unfinished... unexplored." He followed the smudge until the blurry black lines met the peaks of hundreds of mountains that were shadowed by juxtaposed tree trunks beneath them. South of the forest were outlines of hills and beneath those sat splattered segments of forest and open grassland. "This is one of the only maps I've seen. It's a wonder it made it through the storm. When this island's first settlers explored the land, they only made it to these mountains." Marg dragged his thumb along the shaded cliff sides near the mountain peaks.
"And since then?"
"I'd imagine those who settled here found a few brave lads to sail around the coast to find out what lay north, but our every request for updated maps went unfulfilled. Either those boys died or the maps were destroyed by the journey back to Hemonstalia."
"How far across? From south to north?"
Marg stared at the map. Was it a seven's day ride? Or twelve? He couldn't quite remember. "A week's ride, or two. Ask the squires, or the knights. Someone must know something."So much unknown. "We'll need to get names. Of everyone. We'll organize in the morning. Tonight, we rest." Marg looked around the tent. Two children were already asleep in the cots. Jasper threw a blanket on them. "Jasper," Marg said.
Jasper looked up, with one hand to his side, the other missing.
"One of those cots is for the caped boy. Whik Winfield. See to it that he has blankets."
Henderson looked at him then, as Henderson did when he didn't approve of something. "Don't coddle the lad. He's just an orphan."
"There's a lot of orphans now. If you don't like their kind, perhaps you would fit better with the Larks."
Marg walked out of the tent. He's never had a child. He passed by the campfires again. One of the men came up to him with his wife huddled next to him.
"Sir, are there any more beds open?" the man asked, dried blood splashed across his tunic. "Any food we can eat? My wife hasn't eaten in days." His wife shivered beneath a blanket, her frail fingers interlocked. "Please."
Marg sighed. "Find what food you can. There should be chests coming in from the ships. Ask around, and if anyone gives you trouble, tell them Geoffrey Marg sent you. You may take blankets from my cot if you need them."
Charlotte came up to him as well. She held a ceramic bottle in her hand. Her lips were red with the stains of wine. Marg grew thirsty.
"Someone needs to account for all of the children," Charlotte said. "I can do it. I can help. I can't sit here and watch it all happen. I need to help."
"Thank you," Marg said, touching her shoulder. "How is the book?"
She handed him the bottle. "I found this in the hold. I don't know what sort of wine it is, but it's the strongest I've ever had." She handed him the container.
Marg drank from it. The taste of berries filled his mouth, but when he swallowed, the wine burned his throat. It must have belonged to one of his crew. They weren't supposed to drink on deck anyway, though Geoffrey Marg often didn't follow his own rules.He found the bottle was the best sort of pain, because it burned first but healed after. It wasn't always like that. He hadn't touched a bottle in more than a year, but when the sea took his wife, his crew, and the clothes off his back, the bottle was all that was left.
"And the book is wretched," she told him, red strands curling around her face. She walked away. "Why couldn't the Larks go after them? The men who think that people with a different skin color are somehow lesser. Why couldn't the Larks invade them? Kill them? Those sorts of men don't deserve to live."
"Maybe they didn't know what they were doing."
"They knew. They always know."
Charlotte walked away then, leaving Marg with the beach and the bottle. He couldn't say how far he walked that night, what with the mesmerizing moon's shadow on water and the glowing orbs that appeared each time a new wave hit the sand. The blue specks looked like tiny fireflies that lit up the sand. They would glow just for a moment before a wave crashed over them and they'd fade into darkness. Marg put the bottle to his lips and took a sip for the survivors from Hemonstalia, then one for his slaves and crew who died years ago because of him. He took one for the redheaded woman who reminded him that good still exists, and then one for the caped boy that would never see his family again. He took a sip for Roselyn and her murderer, and then he drank the rest of the bottle for himself.
When he returned to the campfires, he was drunk. The shadows and flashes of fire blurred with the faces of the survivors. The sand seemed to fall beneath his feet when he stepped and pulled at his balance. Marg stumbled. The bottle fell from his hand and hit the sand. Jasper said something to him, but his words made little sense. Jasper waved his hand in front of Marg's face.
"We found a man," he told Marg.
"What?"
Jasper pointed towards the forest. "Come with me." He pushed through the bodies gathered around a campfire. Children ran from the tents and joined the commotion, the caped boy among them.
At the edge of the clearing where they'd made camp, a pale man sat on a log beside a dying fire. He was naked but for a cloth hanging around his waist and looked as if he had been starving for some time, his skin holding tight to bone. When the fire's flames illuminated his bare feet, blood glistened on the bottoms.
Henderson walked up to Marg. "He walked out of the forest, just a bit ago. He's talking about the dead. His name is Gordon."
Charlotte materialized from the shadows and handed the strange man a cup. "Water," she said as he took it.
Gordon looked up at her with huge eyes. He grabbed at her red hair, rubbing the strands between his fingers. "You."
Charlotte hit his hand and stepped back.
Gordon went to grab her hair again, but only found air. "You look just like she did. My wife. With the hair of the gods."
"I am no god." Charlotte straightened her dress and stormed away from the crowd.
Someone pushed into Geoffrey Marg as they moved closer and he nearly tumbled to the ground. Instead, he leaned against the man behind him. He knows I'm drunk, Marg thought, standing taller and wiping his brow.
"Drink man," Henderson told the man from the forest. "Take a breath." Gordon drank from the mug, water spilling off his chin."Gordon, where did you come from?"
Gordon stared at the fire's glow. "The forest. I saw your fires and came from the forest."
Henderson said, "And who are the dead you speak of?"
"The dead... boils everywhere." Gordon moved his fingers through the air, tracing imaginary patterns over the fire. "I tried to help them, bathe them, care for them, when they were living. Even my wife was gone by the end. They weren't supposed to die. It wasn't supposed to affect them."
"Are we in danger?" The voice came from the crowd, somewhere behind Marg, but he couldn't place it.
"They're all dead now," Gordon explained. "All except for the white man."
Henderson knelt in front of Gordon. "The white man? What man do you speak of?"
"When I dragged my son's body away from my cabin, I saw a man. His beard was white as snow. Skin pale as a woman's breast." He glanced up, eyes gleaming with madness. "It doesn't matter anyway. He's surely dead by now. You should all leave, go back to where you came from, before it's too late. You must leave!"
The crowd mumbled in unison. An infant cried in a woman's arm.
"The cities," Henderson said. "Are there people there? Alive?"
Flames danced inside of Gordon's eyes. "I burned the bodies myself. Hundreds of them." Gordon moved his lips, glazing over the cracks with a fresh layer of saliva. "Once upon a time I would bring my son to this beach. He would collect handfuls of shells and string necklaces for his mother." Gordon picked at his lips he spoke. Sweat dripped from his forehead. "We'd hold hands and run up to the water's edge only to be chased by waves." A tear fell down his cheek as he stared at the fire. "It wasn't supposed to be like this. They weren't supposed to get the sickness. I took precautions. We all did. My son. His lifeless body. His shells. They are but ghosts now. If I had just found it before all of this."
Children pushed through the crowd and stood near Gordon. Whik was among them, making his way to the front. They shouldn't be here. The Grimley brothers stood closest to him. They were small things, round and witty, but cruel. A young girl was next to them, interlocking her fingers in front of her dress and staring wide-eyed at Gordon's slumped shoulders. Whik stood next to her.
Marg tried to say something, but his words caught on his tongue. He should have handed the drink back to Charlotte after one sip. He knew it would lead to this. It always led to this. They know I drank too much. This man is dangerous and I've drank too much. He cleared his throat and ran his tongue over his lips.
Before he could speak, Gordon gasped and lifted his arms into the air, lunging at Whik. "Mattius?" he said. He reached out and grabbed Whik around the wrists. "Mattius, it's you. It's really you." He pulled Whik close and hugged him tight as Gordon let out a sob. The boy struggled in his arms. Whik pulled back and screamed.
Then there was a clash of commotion. Henderson reached for Gordon's neck, while men beside Marg rushed forward, clawing at the man's shoulders. Geoffrey Marg went to grab at Whik, but another man ran into him and his foot caught on the sand. Marg fell forward. His foot landed in the fire pit. Flames crept up his leg.
He felt no pain at first, but then the burning sensation hit him like a steel fist and he shouted in pain. Men and women gathered around him, throwing sand on his charred pants. "Help the boy!" Marg shouted.
On the other side of the fire, some men had tackled Gordon to the ground. He still had his fingers pressed into Whik's neck. Whik was screaming and choking, kicking and clawing. Charlotte jumped into the brawl, trying to pry Gordon's fingers from the boy's neck. Half a dozen others joined in the pulling and tugging. Marg lost sight of Whik when they all fell on top of the boy. When Gordon screamed and lifted a fist in the air, Henderson unsheathed a dagger and stuck it into the back of Gordon's neck. Then he pulled it out and wiped it on his leg. The crowd whispered amongst themselves and dispersed.
Jasper helped Geoffrey Marg stand. His leg burned, but he wiped the sand from his pants and stiffened. Charlotte grabbed Whik and led him away from the crowd.
Marg stumbled over to Henderson's side and knelt beside the man, reaching for a pulse he wouldn't find. "He's dead."
Henderson nodded.
A flurry of heat swept across Marg's face. "Why would you kill him? He knows what's out there. What we're up against."
Henderson threw his dagger to the ground and the blade dug into the sand. "He wasn't here. He wasn't right in the head. He was going to kill that boy and from the looks of it, you were too drunk to do anything about it."
Marg fought the urge to punch the man, then and there, with the fire hissing and people staring. Instead, he pushed his way through the crowd.
Charlotte held Whik tight and looked at Geoffrey Marg. "He said there was a town," she shouted. A hush swept across the crowd. "Through the forest. We can go there. They may have food, supplies. A roof over our head."
The crowd mumbled in unison. "We leave in the morning," Henderson said. He grabbed his dagger and placed it in his belt. He kicked the sand as he passed by Marg.
Marg looked to Charlotte. "That stuff was strong."
"I'm sorry," she told him. "I didn't know... I didn't know you'd drink the whole thing."
"I didn't know I would either."
Charlotte wiped her hair from her eyes. "No one can blame you. But the first night in a new place may not be the time for drinking our worries away."
Then when is the time? Marg nodded and put a hand to his hot cheeks. He stood alone as the survivors stumbled off to their tents. Soon enough the beach was empty again, but for the creaking of the trees and the wind's song. Marg stumbled back to his cot.
∞
The children were fast asleep when Geoffrey Marg walked into his tent. Torra Grimley, the smaller of the twins, snored loudly, while the other boy hung halfway off the cot. There were three children sleeping in the sand beside them. Whik lay in a cot in the corner.
Geoffrey Marg took off his boots and then his tunic. He slowly pulled at the cloth of his pants. The burn was the size of his fist. His drunkenness must have helped the pain, but the blister was far worse than any fast-moving rope could cause.
Marg fell back into the sand. The tent spun in circles around him. The children lifted off from their cots and blurred together on the top of the tent. His ears were flooded with Torra Grimley's heavy breathing, tireless waves pounding against the beach, and his own thoughts whispering, "What do we do?"
When he fell asleep, he dreamt of dark things. He dreamt of his daughter and he dreamt of her murderer. He dreamt of the day he wed his wife and of the night he lost her. He dreamt of captaining a ship of corpses through a foggy sea, with a mast made of bone and sails of skin. The caped boy was among the bodies. His corpse lay on the lower deck. His red cape blew in the wind. The waves crashed against the hull.
Dark creatures came up from the ocean surface. A kraken's tentacle flew through the air and wrapped itself around Whik. Geoffrey Marg went to run after him, but he fell forward and slid across the deck. When he looked to his feet, they were stuck in two barrels. Wine poured out of them and filled the deck. The caped boy disappeared into the night.