“Who cares what it’s called?” Dimella asks. “You just thank the stars we don’t have them back home.”
“Them? You think there could be more out there?”
“No,” she says quickly. “Something that big in these waters? Its hunting ground would need to be massive. If there’re more of them, they’re far away, where they can find other food.”
“I’m going to have nightmares for weeks,” Enwen says. “I’m staring right at the creature, and I still can’t believe it existed.”
“I can’t wrap my mind around how smart it was,” Dimella offers. “Attacking only at night. Going for one sailor at a time when no one was looking.”
“Not as smart as the captain, though,” Philoria says from where she’s putting a cannon back to rights. “We killed it good and proper. Too bad it’s too large to bring a trophy home. No one will ever believe what we saw.”
“The queen will believe us,” Dimella says.
“Yeah, but everyone else will think we embellished its size.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “Four people are dead. That’s what matters. You honored them by killing what killed them.”
Philoria looks guiltily at the cannon as she keeps cleaning. “Sorry, Captain.”
“You did well today.”
“As did you,” Dimella says to me. “I thought for sure the anchor would be the death of us, but it bought us time. Quick thinking, Captain.”
I can’t say anything in response. Four people are dead. I shouldn’t be praised for anything.
AFTER HOURS SPENT HELPING with cleanup, I make my rounds. I check in with each individual aboard the ship, asking how they fare and if there’s anything they need. Everyone puts on a tough face for me, pretending as though they are unaffected. I can’t really blame them since I’m doing the same thing.
For many of them, this is their first true mission under the pirate queen. They don’t want to let her down. Everyone is ready to give their all.
I praise them for their bravery and skill. I try to say the things I think Alosa would say. I can only hope I’m not making anything worse. I know that people skills are not one of my strengths.
For the millionth time, I wonder why Alosa thought I could do this.
When the ship is in a less hazardous state, we clean ourselves up, heating water at the kitchen stove and wiping ourselves down as best we can. Jadine said she could have her kitchen girls pour me a bath in my quarters, but I opted out. Those girls have done enough work for the day. Everyone has. I wipe myself down with soapy rags like everyone else.
When I enter my rooms early the next morning, I’m startled to find that Kearan never left. He’s standing right where I saw him last, staring at nothing in particular in the corner. Dried tearstains cover his cheeks before disappearing into his short beard. His face is red, like when he used to drink, though I know he hasn’t touched a drop since he quit.
I realize now that I’ve checked on the well-being of every member of the crew except one person.
“Sorry, Captain,” Kearan says when I enter. He moves to leave.
“Wait.”
He halts in place but doesn’t turn around.
I find my courage. “How are you?”
“You don’t have to do this with me.”
“I asked you a question, sailor.”
He turns. “I feel like shit, Captain. There’s nothing I want more than a drink or five. Don’t suppose you could have Jadine lock up the rum tonight for me?”
“You have more self-control than that.”
“Right now I don’t think I do.”
I don’t want to be stuck in this tiny room with him, but I can’t pinpoint why, and that frustrates me more than anything else. He’s different, I remind myself. Things don’t have to be weird around him.
“What’s wrong?” I ask. “Do you mourn the fallen?”
“Of course I do, but these wounds are deeper than that.”
“Tell me.”
He looks up. “Is that an order?”
I gentle my tone. “Tell me, if you want to. I’d like to understand.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m your captain, and I care about your well-being.”
“You’re exhausted and ready to drop.”
“Not anymore.” I realize the words are true as soon as they’re out. My body might be ready to never move again, but my mind is alert. Ready to fix another problem.
“Captain—” Kearan starts.
“Are you scared to tell me?”
“No.”
“Then what is it?”
“I don’t think you actually want to hear my petty traumas.”
“Yet I’m telling you I do. You going to call me a liar?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Then out with it.”
He heaves himself into the chair in front of my desk. It looks too small for him, but he doesn’t complain. He’s probably used to everything being too small for him.
“You were there when I told Alosa I had sailed this way before,” he starts.
“I remember.”
“I wasn’t alone. There was a girl.”
“Parina,” I say.
Kearan looks up, startled to hear her name from my lips.
“You talk in your sleep,” I say by way of explanation. When I was ordered to watch Kearan aboard the Ava-lee, I saw him do and heard him say all kinds of things. But one name he always repeated. At least, he did before he quit drinking. I’ve never heard him say her name since then.
“I thought she was the love of my life,” he says. “How fanciful we can be when we’re seventeen.”
I don’t point out that I was seventeen just over a month ago, but he seems to realize his error immediately.
“I meant no disrespect. We all age differently, and I was … different then.”
“None taken.”
“Good. Like I said, I thought she was the love of my life, but she … started taking on with a different lad on the ship. I caught her at it, and I ended things. That was hard, but not so hard as when she died.”
“She died on your last voyage out this way?”
“Went missing. Disappeared off the ship. Now I know what took her. What … ate her.”
He sighs heavily, fighting another bout of tears, I expect, and I try to think of something comforting to say.
“It would have been quick,” I reassure him. “It seems the creature snapped necks before it took its victims. That way they couldn’t scream. She didn’t feel a thing. Wouldn’t have even been scared before the light was snuffed out.”
“That is … surprisingly comforting to know. Thank you.”
I relax at the words, relieved I didn’t make his suffering worse. I dare to say more. “You shouldn’t care for a woman who discarded you. You should let her go.”
He laughs once without any mirth. “Should have known you’d say something like that, but you see, I can’t let it go, because I’m the reason she was on that ship. I convinced her to go with me.”
“You can be as persuasive as you like, but a person is still going to make their own choice in the end. Unless I’m to believe the girl had no say in the matter? Was she some docile thing who did whatever you wanted?”
“No.”
“Then stop fretting. You were young. You couldn’t have known. And she made her choice before she died. It wasn’t you.”
“I was trying to get her back.”
“Do you think you would have succeeded? Or that even if you had, her attentions wouldn’t have strayed yet again?”