"Please, allow us to sell our souls to you," a few men behind me begged him again. "Help us survive the atrocities of the Seven Seas. Our souls for you!"
Captain Ahab shushed them and turned back to me. I wasn't going to sell my soul to him. If he was the man the devil talked about, I didn't care. My soul was mine. My fate was mine to decide. My heart was mine to keep. I may have been weak, but I was a Karnstein. No Karnstein sold a piece of themselves to anyone, whatever the price.
"Can I stay until morning?" I asked, neglecting the men's request.
"I think you will have to stay until morning, actually." He nodded. "Not because I want you, but because you can't handle the sea tomorrow. No one can handle the Seven Seas tomorrow." The hissing and murmurs increased again behind me. "The mermaids don't just come to take a man and feed on him." The sailors and misfits let out several sighs. The puffing boy wailed and began to say they were all going to die in the sea. "The mermaids' arrival is only a prelude."
"Prelude to what?"
Captain Ahab's pipe dimmed, dying in the ghostly winds. He tapped it on the back of his hand and said, "Take your sack, and stay until tomorrow." He wasn't going to answer my question. "I don't promise the ship will be safe, though. Tomorrow is going to be one of the hardest days." He turned and walked among the sailors and misfits, his hands behind his back.
All men on ship were on their hands and knees, as if God walked among them. Captain Ahab seemed disgusted by their existence. I really wondered why he allowed all lost souls on the ship, let alone why he was after a whale in the Seven Seas. He glanced at the frightened men by his feet and said, "Stand up, all you lost souls at sea." He waved his hand like a magician as they slowly raised their heads. "Do you really think that I'm H—?"
"Him?" a few of them said.
Captain Ahab shook his head, as if Him wasn't the real name. It seemed to be a name starting with an H, but not Him. Captain Ahab shook his head. "Do you think you can sell your soul to me?" He laughed. "I'm not who you think I am."
The men exchanged looks of surprise. Even I thought it was Captain Ahab, sailing the sea with a ship full of desperate men and forcing them to sell their souls to him.
"Then…" The puffing boy shrugged. "Then who is Him?"
"This must be the ship of fools." Captain Ahab shook his head, like he was about to throw the boy into the sea like the silver-toothed man. "You think you want to sell your soul to Him, but have no idea what it means." He walked back to me. "Besides, he isn't interested in already lost and weak souls like you." Captain Ahab chuckled loudly. "He is only interested in strong souls." He smirked at me, leaving me confused again.
"Who is he, then?" the puffing boy insisted on asking, foolishly ignoring all of Ahab's warnings.
"All of you fools will meet him tomorrow," Ahab said without turning back. "He sends the mermaids to a ship he is about to attack, so sleep tight and dream long, because tonight might be the last of your lives."
Captain Ahab was about to finally walk back to his room when he had one last thought. He approached me and neared my ear again. "When you see Him tomorrow, tell him Captain Long John Silver will not be caught."
Captain Ahab—or Long John Silver—walked away with another smirk on his face, leaving me shrouded in the mysteries of the sea, with no conclusions on how to reach my destiny.
32
Fable's Dreamworld
Somewhere near Ladle's house, the Lost Seven prepared their horses. Fable assumed she should know how to ride horses in the Dreamworld. She was right.
Each of them named their horse after their last names—all but Marmalade, who named her horse Moon, and the Beast, who named his horse Beauty. Jack's horse was named Madly, something Fable thought suited him dearly. Cerené's horse was the Phoenix, and Fable's was Crumblewood, of course. She decided she would call him Woody for short.
Ladle's horse was named Rat. Ladle's full name was Ladle Rat Rotten Hut, a play on "Little Red Riding Hood." Fable learned it was a secret language the Lost Seven called Anguish Language. They used it to send secret messages to each other. An example was the name of the town where Fable had been raised, Furry Tell—an Anguish Language way to say "fairy tale."
Fable hoped they wouldn't use it in this dream. Or was she supposed to know it in this dream?
Only the Beast's horse ate sugar. Marmalade's horse ate marmalade, and Ladle's ate what she said were squirrel nuts, but they looked like fortune cookies. Jack's horse fed on white feathers like the one in his mouth at all times. Cerené breathed into her horse's mouth with her blowpipe for food. Instinctually, Fable grabbed a few breadcrumbs and offered them to Woody, who nibbled on them with enthusiasm.
Fable felt so happy being among the Lost Seven. She thought this was the life she had wanted to experience long ago. The hell with the town of Sorrow in the Waking World. This dream was better than fairy tales.