The Ship Beyond Time (The Girl from Everywhere #2)
By: Heidi Heilig
The city slid by as the Temptation limped toward the dock at Red Hook; we only had two working sails, and the wind was sluggish. The summer humidity was as thick as the mist of the Margins, and the salt dried slowly on my skin. By the time we made fast to the wharf, it was near midnight. The rest of the crew went below to find their bunks, but I ducked back into the captain’s cabin to check on my father. I found him sprawled on the bed, one arm flung over his eyes, Billie curled up beside him.
I wrinkled my nose; there was a sour smell in the room. It wafted up from the messy bucket at his bedside; at least he’d changed it out for the hamper. He’d tossed his bloody shirt to the floor. Beside it: a sewing kit, the first aid box, and a half-empty tube of antibacterial ointment curled next to its cap.
Using an excess of medical tape, Slate had secured a slapdash bandage on his left side, right beside the tattoo of the swallow over his heart. Swallows always returned to their nests; sailor superstition said to get one inked before you set out on your journey. The second one was for when you finally came home.
He only had one.
I watched his breathing for a while. It was slow and even—that was a relief. But the heat in the room was making my skin prickle, and Slate had the covers up to his chest. I approached his bedside on quiet feet; still, he stirred.
“Nixie?” Slate shifted his arm so he could peer at me through the gloom in the cabin. “Is that you?”
“I’m here.” Reaching out, I touched his forehead with the back of my hand; it was warm. “You’re going to get an infection, Dad.”
He shook his head a little. “Kash went to get me some antibiotics.”
“I have that mercury in my cabin,” I offered. “The bottle I took from Qin’s tomb. It’s supposed to be a cure-all, if you want to give it a try.”
Slate laughed—or was it a cough? “Save it for someone who needs it. I’ll be fine, I told you.”
“Okay.” My hand fell back to my side, and I stared at him for a while. His eyes were closed again, and his breathing was slowing, but the question ate at me like a shipworm. “What did Joss say?”
Shifting, he murmured into the crook of his shoulder. “She promised I’ll see your mother again before I die.”
“No, I mean . . .” I made a face—I almost stopped myself there. Joss had offered to tell my fortune once, back in Honolulu. I’d declined, but that was before I knew her prediction concerned Kashmir. “What did she say will happen to me?”
“Oh. She . . . Nixie.” Blinking, he peered at me with bleary eyes. “I tried so hard. But you didn’t listen, did you? You’re in love with him.”
“Dad—”
“You are, I can tell.” He tried to smile but coughed instead, a thick, phlegmy sound. “I know what love looks like.”
My cheeks went pink; I clenched my jaw. I didn’t want my love to look like his. “Just tell me, Slate.”
“Fine. Here,” he said, rolling onto his stomach, struggling free from the sheet, and looking over his right shoulder. There, high on his back, an old tattoo in a familiar handwriting, sharp and choppy—three columns of Chinese characters running down his shoulder blade, short, medium, long. “Joss got one of her goons to do it while I was . . . you know.”
“Right.” I’d seen it before, in passing, but my father was covered in tattoos, and I’d learned not to ask him their stories. “What does it say?”
“It was more than fifteen years ago. Just after I got back to Honolulu and found out your mother was . . .” His voice faltered; he cleared his throat. “I don’t remember the exact words. But . . .” He tried to reach back over his shoulder with his left hand, then he swore, giving up. “That first line, that’s where I die—down in Joss’s opium den, back in 1868.”
I shuddered at the words, spoken so casually, but Slate had never feared death. I’d always attributed it to a morbid twist in his mind, or maybe a manic optimism, but perhaps it was because he thought he’d die happy.
He went on, like it was nothing. “And next to that, it’s where she promised I’d see your mother before it’s all over. The last part’s about you.”
I wet my lips. “What about me, exactly?”
“It’s a warning.” Slate sighed. “She said you’ll end up just like me.”
“But how?” My frustration was rising. “An addict? A captain? Covered in tattoos?”
“You’ll lose the one you love!” he shot back, but his tone was not half so harsh as the words. He swallowed. “To the sea,” he added softly. “It will break your heart.”
“Lost at sea?” In the silence, my heart pounded. Behind my eyes, I could see the white wake, when Kash had gone over the side. I stared at the characters, stark in blue ink, but they were indecipherable to me. “When?”
“I didn’t ask. I didn’t believe her, back then.”
“I don’t believe her either,” I said, as though saying it could make it true.
“Yeah?” Slate’s eyes narrowed. “Good for you.”