Lying on the floor, I stare at the shifting light on the ceiling, where the blue from beyond mixes with the orange of within and shifts like tides over the beach. Simon, on hands and knees, pushes a thick towel around the floor, muttering to himself as he cleans up his mess. He pushes up his sleeves.
Dr. Oswald lights his pipe and lowers himself to his thin mattress, watching the enchanted waters. Lydia threads a needle, which is a dangerous thing to do in a moving ship that could hit a shoal or a rock at any time.
From the deck, a fiddle rings out, striking up a good-hearted tune. I listen for it, muffled through the boards. It bounces off the cave walls and grows louder and sweeter, resonating with timbre as though in a theater.
"Celebrating, perhaps?" muses Lydia.
"Relieving some of the stress, I imagine," Simon suggests.
"My heart is just starting to unclench," titters the doctor, touching his chest. "I could do for some relieving, myself."
"Me, too," I agree. I lay a hand over my heart and the rapid pounding surprises me. I'd thought I was beginning to calm down. I take in a few deep breaths and the speed gradually reduces.
Then I see something in the water. A flash of gray. I sit up and smack my palms to the glass. "Was that a shark?"
Dr. Oswald chokes on his smoke.
A high pitch shrieking, like nails on a chalkboard, suddenly cuts at my ears, sharp as silver. I screech and slap my hands over them, but it's too loud and too high and too terrible.
Dr. Oswald stands up as though struck by lightning. His pipe drops to the floor. The ashes shoot out like grapeshot. "It's beautiful," he whispers.
Simon sits back and looks pointedly at the man. Lydia looks puzzled.
He stood up too fast.
"Beautiful? It's the worst sound I have ever heard!" I cry, almost in tears at the grating.
"That's very rude, Walter," Lydia scolds.
"She has perfect pitch," Simon snips. He makes eye contact with me and jumps as though I've startled him.
"She has the voice of an angel," the doctor swoons, pressing his hands over his heart as though to hold back the pressure of his sudden love. I frown at him. He scans the water.
"Walter," says Simon, fixated upon me, "Walter, you're glowing."
"I..." I hold out my hands, wincing against the overpowering screams. There's shouting on deck, now, too. I ogle myself, unable to comprehend. I'm surrounded by the same bluish light that illuminates the cave outside. It isn't inside me, but it seems to cover me, reaching an inch out from my skin with translucent blue light. "I am?" I ask. How could I be glowing?
Dr. Oswald shakes his head. "I must see her," he says resolutely and turns away from the window, starting his march to the door.
"Doctor?" Lydia asks, frowning. "Doctor, are you quite all right?"
"Her?" I ask.
Simon stands up in the aisle between the beds and the partition wall, holding out his hands. "Doctor, we aren't supposed to leave." The professor sounds uncertain, and I can't place if that's because of the doctor's behavior, or his own words. He'd been the keenest to disobey the captain's order before.
Dr. Oswald tries to pass Simon. "Now, now, forget about that. It's safe!"
"I'm glowing," I say.
Dr. Oswald violently shoves Simon back and runs to the door and out. Simon staggers and gasps and Lydia drops her cross-stitching to bolt after the old man, declaring him mad. Simon cries out and follows. He shrilly calls my name, and I hurriedly scramble to catch them at the stairs.
The fish people hiss at their doorway and draw Daim's Trough in the air.
"Evil," croaks Thenshie. "Not of your god, not of mine. Dangerous creatures."
"Creatures?" I ask. I run away before she answers, for the doctor is already up the first flight of stairs. Simon and Lydia each grab one of his arms before the second and try to calm him. The man is always so gentle, never putting an ounce of force against anyone. How can he writhe like this? Swatting us, as if we're worth less than flies to him?
"Why?" he wails, legs floundering in the attempt to sprint against his companions' hold. "Why must you keep me from her?"
"Doctor, please!"
"Simon! Lydia! Please, let me go, I beg of you. I'd only wish to give her applause!"
The captain shouts an order on the deck. Other men are swooning. I can hear them. How could anyone swoon over a sound so awful? Steel against glass.
I squeeze past the three of them and start up the stairs.
"Walter! Walter, help me," Dr. Oswald pleads. His eyes are wet with tears. It almost breaks me. I hesitate. "Tell her that I'm here! Tell her!"
I frown and carry on.
"Walter!" Lydia barks. "Tell us what is happening before we lose the kook!"
"My lady!" sings the doctor, "My lady, I am here!"
He's raving! I leap the last two steps and join the chaos on the deck. Langley and Leslie hold either end of a rope and tangle it around the crew, who stumble dumbly towards the ship's sides. The captain, he and his officers all surrounded by the same glow as I, meets my eye.
"FUCK," he swears, flinging sweat from his brow. "The passengers!"
I stare at the creatures that surround the ship, reclining on the railings or leaning seductively upon them. No... creatures isn't fair to them. They look like women. They are women. Gorgeous, flawless women, with perfect breasts bared for all to see. My heart races, and I'd rather not admit to the happenings below my belt. I've never seen...
She reaches her hand towards me, the lady nearest, and teasingly brushes her damp auburn locks away from her bare chest. She's saying something, but I can't hear. All I can hear is the shrieking and the shouting, but her plump, moist lips are alluring whether she speaks or not. My heart flutters.
Leslie lifts me up in the crook of his elbow and I flail wildly.
"HEY! Put me down!"
"Stay away from the temptresses, boy!" His hands are burdened with that long rope, which he draws towards the mast. He crosses paths with Increas and ducks under the sailing master's rope end.
"He hath a stone, tyoo?" Langley huffs, eyeing me, the baggage of the quartermaster. But neither of them stop for conversation.
Leslie throws me aside and barks at me to grab some men. Dorian scampers about with his claws drawn, slashing at legs and barking at sailors to pull themselves together, to little avail.
The two officers continue to trip around the main mast, looping their coils around every man that they can reach until there is no rope left between them. I stagger to pull Kevin away from a woman but am elbowed very hard in my gut. I yell out and cradle my stomach. He leans towards her.
And then the doctor and Simon and Lydia are suddenly on the deck, too! Lydia tackles the doctor to the ground and sits on him. Simon paces in a tight circle out of stress, a white knuckle presses against his lip.
The officers pull their ropes tight and haul the staggering, apparently drunken (or is it starstruck?) sailors that they have wrangled to the mast. Leslie puts in his full strength, jerking the men so tightly that the ones at the front of the double-ring of hostages lift up with their backs arched against the men behind them. He runs his end of the rope one more time around the whole lot and gives another tug. The men groan.
Master Langley passes over his end, and Leslie securely fastens a knot. Langley fetches a second rope and hurriedly tosses one end to Leslie, and they rush to repeat their actions with more men.
I kick the legs out from under Kev and sit on top of him, because it seems to have worked for Lydia and the doctor.
At the bow, someone screams. Frightened, I look over, and see only feet as the man tumbles over the side. The scarred feet of Boots.
Kev throws me off and one of the women claws at my arm. Sounds come out of my mouth that I didn't know I could make, and I scramble back, away from the rails and the women.
They watch us, and in their eyes, I can't find anything real but hunger. They are plotting to kill. If one of us were to step into their reach, they would snatch us up and pull us over. As they have done. There is blood on the deck.
In the nick of time, Leslie grabs Kev by his collar and pounds the nearest siren in the jaw. She falls. The screeching static falters and restores just as the creature hits the water. Tails! The women have tails! Some like fish, some dolphins, some sharks—all strange and colorful and unnatural.
"LADS!" Captain Avery barks. "I'm going to run us aground in that shoal off the port bow. I need every man I have. WALTER! GET HARVEY!"
I stare, my breath quivering. In the next instant, my heels are clickety-clacking beneath me and I'm away from the men and the women and the breasts, but the screeching doesn't stop no matter how far I get.
On the last steps down to the brig, I trip, and I fall, and I land sorely on the grimy floorboards. It reeks of rotting fish and general decay—the smell associated with those heathen Aquians. I groan and lift my head, only to clamber back against the stairs that I'd come down.
The werewolves, breathing heavily, eyeball me from their cramped cells.
"G-Good heavens," I stammer, holding my trembling hands to my chest, then my mouth. My breath fails to come.
Not like humans, and certainly not like wolves. Their clothes are in shreds, hanging from gray skin. Hair covers their bodies, thinnest at their bellies. In the space that they are in, they can only fit standing on their haunches, but I do wonder if they'd creep on all fours if given the chance.
"Hello, boy...," growls the smallest of them all. I know who he is. It's Stevey. Snouted and feral Stevey, with piercing blue eyes and one missing canine tooth. He sounds strange when he speaks, as though his elongated jaw has trouble forming words. His tongue flicks in his maw, slick with glistening saliva. "It is crowded here..." They're all glowing, as I am. "Won't you let us out?"
I find my breath, shaking my head vigorously. Werewolves! Their instinct is to kill! Stevey offers his hand to me, straining behind the bars. It is swollen and grotesque, his fingernails replaced by hardened black talons.
Someone grabs my shoulders and I scream. I scream like a girl! Harvey smacks his dirty palm over my mouth.
"Stow it, yeu dumb-ass kid. Whot chu doin' here?"
He eases his hand from my face and spits a gob of tobacco at the wolves.
"The captain wants you!"
"Aha!" Harvey grins. "Guns!" He shoves a strange wide-ended gun into my hand and pats my shoulder. "These coots give yeu any trouble, yeu go right ahead and shoot 'em dead."
"B-But—"
"Captain wants guns!" Harvey crows, and he's gone before I can get another word in.
I hear wolves can smell fear. If it's true, I think my odor must be overpowering. It's pitiful, soaking through my shirt.
"Toss us the keys, Walter," Stevey entices. "We won't bite, will we, boys?"
The wolves howl, and the discordant chorus shakes me to the very marrow of my bones. It must be my imagination, but I'm certain the sound curdled my blood. I can feel the heat escaping my skin. Sweat darkens my clothing.
I aim the gun at them as I force myself up and keep it trained on them as I move back. Back, back, back...
I turn and sprint up the stairs. Now, don't you call me a coward for running. Much more help is needed on the deck. I'd rather be there. I'd rather be anywhere but here.