Never in my life have I felt less alive. The sinking, heavy tow of my stomach pleads for me to stay under the covers, heavy as a cannon shot, while the rest of me seems all but non-existent. If my heart is beating, I can't feel it. My fingers and toes must be miles away.
Distantly, I hear the doctor and Mrs. Marks speaking and Professor Woods loading his pistol with a series of delicate clicks, and I know it is morning.
Any minute now, they'll call for us to haul the anchor.
The knock comes abruptly, bolting me upright in my hammock.
Simon answers.
"Everyone upstairs," says Leslie. "We're shorthanded and will be making use of all of you on this leg of the trip. The captain says your medical bags should be prepared for when we land."
"Do you mean anchor?" Simon asks.
Leslie grins. "I mean land. The plan is to land her keel in the shallows, dig in, and abandon ship as quickly as possible." His grin disappears and he looks to each of us in turn with his bushy red brows knit. "All hands on deck, now. The Witch starts work early and so do we."
He turns about on his heels and clunks off down the hall, just like that.
Everyone looks at me. I blink back.
Now, yesterday, I don't recall feeling so shaky, heavy, numb, or ill. I was shaky, but I blamed it on the chill of the cave, and something much more akin to excitement than fear. It had been interesting to watch Dorian run around with his hammer and toolkit, barking orders at other sailors as he repaired and upgraded our ship. The captain sparring in the shrouds with Increas, then with all of us pencil-pushers (his words) on the deck, had been reassuring and invigorating, because his injury didn't change that he could defeat each of us. Increas gave him a better fight, but the captain, in the end, after much back-and-forth-action, learned a dirty trick where he swung his crutch out to topple his opponent and was victorious with one quick (and a little clumsy) fleche. But, the captain's watchful eyes on me in every spare moment had gnawed excitement and invigoration to naked fear. They haunted my dreams.
"Best to be up now, Walter," the doctor says with a kindly smile. His wig is off, exposing wispy tufts of grey and white and the great bald spot at the back.
I nod, swallowing the lump in my throat. I can do this. I weigh down the edge of the hammock and roll out, but my fingers wrap around the edge and I hang there for a while after my feet land. A wave of nausea gurgles from my gut to my throat and I cringe, bowing my head.
The doctor puts a hand between my shoulder blades. "It will all be over soon. One last push, dear boy."
Simon shrugs on his jacket and tucks his pistol in his waistband. "If you are going to be sick, you had better do it on deck. Let's move along and get this over with."
Mrs. Marks secures her and the doctor's medical bags on a cot, which is bolted to the wall. She fastens the latches and gives them a pat. "Ready." She looks the most prepared, wearing proper boots and seaworthy, flexible clothing, with long hair braided so intricately that what usually falls to her waist hangs just above her shoulders.
Simon looks ridiculous by comparison, in tweed and a rumpled waistcoat. I snicker, out loud, looking queasily between them all. The doctor, too, looks out of place with his long white coat and fancy shoes. And me, with my stripy socks and bronze buckles.
"What's so funny?" Simon quips. He squints at me, but briskly leaves before I can respond. Mrs. Marks straps her sword around her waist and follows.
"Come on, Cornelius, Walter."
The doctor kneels and helps me put on my shoes. My cold, cold fingers wobble uselessly around the leather until I just leave him to it. He takes my hands and blows gently. "Take a breath, Walter."
I gulp in as much air as my lungs can take and I hold it.
"Now let it out."
I exhale in one burst.
He pats me on the back. "Now, let everything you just let out be your troubles, and focus on the day ahead." With one soft hand on my shoulder, he prods me forward. We walk from our cabin together and he continues softly, "We can't change what is to come, but we can embrace it and put our minds towards achieving the best possible outcome. Whatever your Gift is, I know it will come to you when you need it. I served my time in the war, Walter, and I heard from many Gifted soldiers that it comes as naturally as breath. You will be all right."
"Thank you," I whisper. I rub the back of my neck.
On the deck, the captain's piercing green gaze finds me immediately, and his jaw is set and his brow furrowed. I almost faint with the dizziness, the lightness in my legs and in my head. The doctor holds me steady. The captain turns away from a sailor to prowl to me.
"Where is your sword?" he questions, one eyebrow raising.
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.
His arm swings towards me, the black under his fingernails inches from my nose as he points. With his whiskers twisted in annoyance, he snaps at me, "Well, go and get it!" And as I duck away from the doctor to scurry below, I hear him moan, "Can no-one manage themselves?" And his crutch and peg duh-clunk, duh-clunk over the deck.
In no time at all, I'm stumbling back up into the blustering cave breeze, red in the face, clutching the rapier at my hip. Hair is plastered to my forehead, beads of sweat precariously balancing on my brow. The captain is too busy now to notice, giving orders. His admiral coat, cleaned of blood, sings his praises, giving him a bold and commanding air.
My cabin-mates are knotting their lifelines, supervised under Leslie. Dorian is fussing with a pair of tall sailors, having them poke at the foresail that he cannot reach himself. I climb up the last step and dumbly trip over myself to join those I know, but my eyes are everywhere else. There are cannonballs piled in two new wooden pens on each side of the deck, which are bolted to the boards beneath. The mainsails are unfurled with reefs, ready to be released the rest of the way when needed. There's a muscled crewman sawing at the stern anchor chain.
Harvey Cobbe is priming canons, one by one, Lucy shining on his back. Officer Langley stands at the bow, ducking under the foresail to watch the front anchor.
The captain appears beside me, startling me out of my skin. My fingers curl to fists and my face is red—I can feel so much red—as I look up at him.
"Where is your head, boy?" he asks. He thrusts the end of a rope into my hand. "You'll have to come out of your daze. I need you to be focused. Tie that tight."
I nod and pull the rope around my waist.
"What kind of knot are you..." He shakes his head and awkwardly stoops to take the rope from me, his crutch precariously angled off the deck. With expert ease, he fastens a perfect bowline and straightens out. "That is your line to me," he says, pulling at the other end of the rope, which loops underneath his coat. He points to the stern deck. "On the railing, there, I've secured our lifelines. Before we set off, we'll—" His expression darkens, looking past me, and his whiskers bristle. "Mr. West! Hold there! We are not ready to go drifting off, yet!"
The man at the stern raises his hands, and his saw, away from the anchor chain. "Aye, Captain! When you're ready."
"We are ready when you are, Captain," comes the slow and steady voice of Increas Langley. I turn to see him approach, smoothly and elegantly. He gestures towards the bow. "The front chain can now be broken. We're holding it on a snubber until your word. The reefs are set. Dorian is confident in his sail adjustments. Cobbe assures that all weapons, including the canons, are secured and ready to be put into action as soon as required."
"Excellent," praises the captain. He rubs his chin. "Thank you, Increas."
"It is a guessing game, from here?" Officer Langley asks.
I watch Captain Avery's brow sink lower. He scratches the length of his jaw and glances up at the shrouds. The cave has been getting darker by day. "Darling tends to commit her crimes before breakfast."
"Yes, so she does."
"I don't see why she would have changed. Do you? Surely, she has sent a ship and crew and magazine up the other cave, by now?"
"It'll only be a crew of forty-odd men, I would reck'n. One ship." Langley looks down at his gloved hands, idly tracing his palm. "Having that many men less to deal with will be lucky, but we can manage if our timing is wrong. We can manage if we cross her full arsenal. We have something that they are missing."
The captain laughs, finally straying from that serious, stern air of authority and concentration. "What's that?"
"A mad-man." Langley smiles thinly. His eyes, that one white and empty scarred orb and its dark compatriot, raise to his friend, twinkling.
Captain Avery grins. He hops, duh-clunk, to the officer and takes a firm hold of his forearm. Langley's fingers wrap just beneath his elbow, and they look each other in the eyes.
"For Eclipse," says Langley.
"For your eye, for your hand," returns the captain.
"For our crew," bellows Leslie, joining them. He places one big, hairy hand over their joined arms and smiles at them fiercely in turn.
"For Riven!" Dorian howls from the bow, leaning over the rail. His tail swishes behind him.
And with each cry of encouragement, I feel a little fiercer myself. For this crew, for the doctor. For Mrs. Marks and Professor Woods. For having a Pa. For avenging Ma. For Ma!
"Are we ready then, gentlemen?" Captain Avery cries, swinging to address the entire crew, calling all around the deck and finding every pair of eyes because every pair of eyes matters.
"Aye, Captain!" we return.
"Are we ready?" Avery cries once more, louder. He raises his crutch in the air.
"AYE, CAPTAIN!" the crowd answers. Then it all breaks into hollers and hoots and an entire cacophony of grunts and howls that stokes the fires inside of me. Everything is tingling, from my toes to my fingertips, to the back of my neck.
"On your marks, men!" the captain springs towards the helm and I dash behind him. This time, I'm ahead. This time, my brain is buzzing, and I'm as ready as everyone else. (If I don't think too much about it, that is.)
I dart ahead and find the two ropes tied to the railing just over the door of the captain's cabin. I fasten my own, tying it with the only knot I know; the one I used to tie my shoelaces before the doctor gave me buckled shoes. The captain reaches me.
"I appreciate the energy," he chuckles, "but, that knot will slip if you go over. That is a bow, and it will not do." He unplucks the knot and ties a better one, then ties his own. Straightening out and casting his eyes over the deck, he calls, "All lifelines are secured, Leslie?"
"Aye, Captain!" Leslie returns, saluting.
"I need ten men below on the oars, and men to relay orders. I need men—and Mrs. Marks—in the shrouds, prepared to release reefs as I say," the captain commands. "I need spotters at port and starboard sides and at the bow, and Leslie, I need you relaying. All remaining men must be ready on cannons unless given other orders as we go—those holding our chains will move to cannons when we let off."
He strides behind the helm. There is a holster on the side of the rudder-chain box that I have never seen before, and he slides his crutch into it, standing firmly on his peg.
Leslie begins to dictate roles among the crew. The captain gestures me over.
"Sir?" I ask, my heart fluttering like a little girl's.
"Walter," he says. He grips my shoulder and catches my eyes. "What I need from you is your ear. I will call upon you as we approach the waterfall, and from there, I will have you use your Gift. Until then, all I need is for you to hold tight and be ready."
I nod and nod, taking a deep breath. "Yes, sir. But I don't know how to use my Gift."
"It's a will." He looks behind himself to check on Mr. West and the anchor chain, then returns to me. "Don't try it until we are there. Darling could detect it."
"That doesn't help me, sir," I squeak, feeling the familiar turn of my stomach.
"Just sit tight, Walter," he barks. He points me to the rail where our lines are tied. "Hold on, there, and duck down. Listen for my call and keep an eye ahead."
"But—"
"Walt!"
I bite my tongue and shrink away. "Yes, sir."
I take my place by the rail, wrapping my arms around a stanchion, and watch the scurrying around the deck. Men run here and there. Leslie chases tails, Langley points and snarls, Cobbe jumps up and down and spits. Soon, everyone is in their places, and Leslie's bellow of "On your word, Captain!" booms through the cave with a great, invigorating echo.
Captain Avery returns, "Ready port oars to push off." He waits for the message to be relayed. "Break the chains!"
With two great, thundering cracks, the chains crash down into the water and the stern lurches in just the wrong direction, stumbling every man aboard. The captain clings to the helm and shouts, wheeling the rudder around. The rapids are hauling us deeper into the cavern, stern first.
"STARBOARD OARS BACK, PORT FORWARD!"
"Hank, I can turn us!" Dorian hollers, a great bundle of heavy cloth in his arms.
We're already turning, but not fast enough. The rocks are approaching, the cave is getting narrower. The river pounds against the port side relentlessly. Everything shudders with a terrible scraping sound beneath us, impact vibrating the entire ship.
Captain Avery swears and hits the wheel. "Rudder's fine. Go, Dorian!"
The little fox snarls at the men nearest to him and in a flash, they take the bundle and hurl it high, where it catches the wind over the water. The ropes leading to the bowsprit snap taught, the cloth claps as it takes the full force of the wind, and with a great and sudden tug, the bow heaves starboard and the entire ship keels to one side as we shudder across whatever is beneath us and swivel our bows to face the treacherous rocks ahead. The oars below swing rapidly to right our path the rest of the way, now moving with the current.
"Let go the sails!" Captain Avery shouts. He stands with his legs apart and keen eyes forward.
He crumples, just for a moment, as the ship comes free and charges forward, then surges faster with the billow of the sails. His peg scrapes firmly back into place and he hauls the wheel to the right.
"Oars in!"
Dorian takes a knife to the ropes of his makeshift sail and it disappears under the water.
Increas Langley shouts from the bows, but his voice is lost to the wind. Leslie picks it up and, cupping his hands around his mouth, relays, "Watch Langley!"
The officer in black, half-cloak whipping with the gusts, signals directions with his hands and the captain leans forward in concentration. Jaw firmly set, he swivels the wheel this way and that as the obstacles crop up faster than I can count them. We're in the thick of it, but all I can comprehend is that we are moving—fast. I can hardly determine between the shipwrecks and the reefs and the rocks at this pace, under the roaring whitecaps, around the creaking hulls. Saltwater crashes in all directions, spraying over the deck and drenching us all. I taste it on my tongue, I feel it in my eyes, but even in the cold, rushing wind, I hardly notice the damp.
"BRACE!" Avery bellows.
I hug the railing stanchion tighter. My head pounds against it so hard with the impact on the hull that when I pull away, I'm seeing stars through clouded vision. The deafening roaring in my ears urges me to snap out of it quickly.
Langley has fallen, another man standing and frantically signaling in his place. While I watch the officer's taut lifeline swing over the railing, the captain remains focused on his directions and his steering. Another man darts up to the bow to pull Officer Langley back onto the deck. He sits there for a moment to recover, then sends the two other sailors away and resumes his position.
The officer cries out, and Leslie relays, while Dorian runs past him on all fours with two sailors at his tail. "The way's blocked!"
Ahead, there is a wall. A great and quickly approaching wall of stalagmites, jutting rocks, and a cluster of deteriorating parts of ships. Water crashes against it.
"Sea anchor!" Captain Avery shouts, and Dorian and his men are already onto it. "Blast it!"
Harvey Cobbe and Rabbit are racing to the bows.
I want so badly to squeeze my eyes shut and open them in safety, but my eyes are frozen wide. Certain doom is approaching! Certain doom! We'll shatter to a million pieces! The sea anchor catches and I am thrown against the railing. We slow, we jolt backwards. The captain's peg screeches over the deck, and he hangs on the helm.
"Caught a rock, sir! Ropes won't hold!" Dorian screeches.
"Don't need long," the captain mutters, squinting ahead. "Blast it, now!"
I see Cobbe and Rabbit moving, talking, but I can't hear them. I see a spark fizzing above a thick red clump. Dynamite. It's a cluster of sticks of dynamite, and it is hissing through the air.
"ARE YOU MAD?" Professor Woods howls from somewhere on deck. I see his tweed for only a second, flared in the wind, near a port cannon. Before my eyes can focus, I am blinded in a flash of white light, fire, and dust. All is quiet. Deafeningly silent, like how I imagine the end to be. I blink the black blur from my eyes. As colors return to my vision, there is movement from all directions. I hear nothing but a faint ringing, though mouths are shaping words, the cave ceiling is rippling, and a cascade of stalagmites is staggering downwards and plunging into the rapids, stirring great waves that engulf the deck and drain away through the scuppers. Before us, the wall crashes down into the water, and whatever doesn't sink sweeps away. The ship rises on the resulting swell, and I look up. Straight up, while the ship shakes like a wet dog, to see the tip of the main mast drive against the cave ceiling and snap. The topsail sways precariously and falls sideways, hanging there. I press my fingers into my ears to try and force the sound back, but another forceful jolt of the Orpheus bruises my ear drums and I pull away, still deaf as anything with gaping eyes. The wind quickly carries away the dust ahead of us, exposing the cracks of the rocks all around.
The sea anchor snaps and we lurch into the thick of it.
Like bullets, the pointed stalagmites fire down into the water, a few just missing us. One shatters to dust on the bow deck, where Increas Langley, barely escapes, pushing Cobbe and Rabbit with him.
Cobbe raises a heavy gun and fires up at a stalagmite barreling straight toward us. Its crumbs rain down on our salty heads. It tastes dry and brittle, as I imagine bones would taste like.
Very muted, the voices begin to reach me. The great ka-boom of Harvey's weapon firing once again jumpstarts my ears and all at once every sound in the world seems to hurl at me. Hollers, whistles, the roar of the rapids against rock, the booms of stalagmites and cave debris bouncing off the walls and plunging into the depths, the thunder of guns, and my name. My name.
"WALTER, DAMN YOU!" the Captain shrieks. His eyes are fixed on the course, his arms busy dashing the helm this way and that.
I grab ahold of the railing and heave myself upwards, blinking away the dust in my eyelashes. "Sir!"
He swats the air, gnashing his teeth.
I stagger out of his way, clutching the rail behind my back.
"Natural light, ahead," he yells over the chaos. "We're almost at the end!"
"I don't know what to do!" I cry, my voice hoarse, thick with salt and grit.
He tenses, his clear green eyes flicking everywhere before him. I turn to look and see there is no spotter now. He's on his own while the crew frantically scrabbles to fire at collapsing cave rubble and dance from harm's way and scamper and duck their way up the rigging with axes to hack the fallen topsail away. Langley stumbles, trying to get back to his place to direct the captain, but the movement of the ship is too irregular, and he can barely stand. There are no more shipwrecks, the reefs have all but disappeared, and far, far ahead—the distance quickly closing—is bright daylight to guide us.
Frothy whitecaps coagulate at the mouth of the cave, hissing and treacherous.
Langley falls onto the bow railing and his left arm shoots out.
Captain Avery slams the wheel to the port side, jaw clenched. A nerve-wracking scrape draws along the starboard hull.
I squat down, afraid we may hit something more lethal dead ahead. Through my squinting, wet eyes, I see Langley's hands raise, with two thumbs flicked up. The topsail crashes down and disappears in our wake, snapping a part of the starboard railing on its path down.
"WALT!"
I give him my attention again.
"It's just like breathing," the captain yells. "Just—"
I can't hear him over my screaming. The bow tilts downwards, and in this second, the only thing between Orpheus and doom is two-hundred feet of emptiness.