Hidden Island Chapter 18, part 3 of 3

Hidden Island
Chapter 18, part 3 of 3

"Good," Will scoffed.

"Will, does any of this seem like her? The her you used to know?" Bella asked.

"No. Not at all," Will admitted angrily.

"What if she's cursed too?" Bella asked.

"Well, why wouldn't she say so? I can talk about mine," Will shrugged.

"What if it's different for her?" Bella asked. "There's a lot of kinds of curses."

"I don't know. It seems far-fetched and too convenient of an answer," Will said. She might just be trying to get off the hook."

"Does that sound like her?" Bella asked a bit more sternly. "She does many things I disagree with, but she never tries to make excuses for them. I've never seen her try to blame anything or anyone for her choices."

Will sighed. "That's true."

"I'm not sure what to do," Bella shook her head sadly.

"What can we do? It's not like we can pry the information out of her," Will shrugged. "She's the most stubborn person I've ever met."

"That's the thing. I think we could. She seems to want to tell us, but for whatever reason, she just can't. It's tearing her up. If we pushed her about it, she might give in. She broke down in tears, Will. I've never seen her do that. She's desperate to get whatever it is off her chest. I think she feels guilty." Bella walked over to the railing and stared out at the water.

Will followed. "I'm glad. That's a good sign. If she explains what she knows, we could figure out a way past all this."

"I'm not sure. I'm torn about whether we should pry. Whatever this is, it's important enough that she's decided it's worth being estranged from both of us. I can't imagine something that would make her choose that, so I thought maybe she was cursed, too."

"You want to give her the benefit of the doubt," Will said thoughtfully. He could see why. Part of him wanted to also. He just wasn't sure she deserved it. Jack's choices nearly killed him, and he'd been carrying a grudge for a long time. Beneath the grudge, there was a desire to know why and to try to believe it had all been some terrible misunderstanding. Bella was offering him both things, and he wanted to believe it. He just couldn't.

He was a skeptic at heart. When things seemed too good to be true, they always were.

"I'm not sure I want to. It's easier to be angry. I don't have it in me," Bella shrugged.

"You're kinder than I am. I won't pry at whatever she knows, but until she tells me herself, I don't think my feelings about this will change." Will was feeling conflicted and mentally tired.

The last few days, he had a lot to deal with. He was trying to enjoy the start of the journey, roll with the waves, and look to the horizon, but leaving Janie behind had taken a lot of the wind out of his sails. He felt like he was dragging his anchor. It nagged at him beneath the surface of everything. He was worried about her and upset with himself that he hadn't been able to figure out a way to save her. He'd run the scenario around dozens of times since he'd woken up. He'd conclude that the mistake was when Cal Kidd was off the fishing boat before Jakob had let Janie go. If they had held onto Cal, they'd still have had leverage to get Jakob to release Janie.

It's such a small mistake. Was it his curse? Or was it just a lapse in judgment during a crisis? Or was it part of Morant's improvised plan? It hadn't felt like his curse, but luck was subtle. He hadn't felt that feeling of slipping sideways, but he'd been on a boat. It always felt a bit like that with the waves under you. Could he have just missed it?

Now this: Jack and the curse, confusion, and lies. So many old feelings he'd tried to bury had become mixed with so many new ones he hadn't thought about. He felt adrift, rudderless.

He and Bella stood beside each other, lost in thought, watching the water.

The Magistrate patrol ship disappeared into the distance. That stop had wasted over an hour of daylight. Will was impressed with its speed.

Usually, a Magistrate inspection took longer. Lieutenant Vanderby had deferred to Lord Morant. Being titled nobility and bearing a writ of authority from one of the Magistrate's orders had swayed Vanderby to overlook things like opening every crate, doing a total headcount by name on the manifest, and looking for stowaways.

"The helm needs a course check," Danica said to Will as she passed. Will nodded and scanned the skyline in every direction. He called up to the Lookout. "Land check!"

"Land ho, five of the clock, and six of the clock!" the lookout called down. Will walked up the stairs to the Stern castle and looked out the back, scanning. After a while, he could make out the land shadow in the distance and a smaller one to its right. That gave him a reference. He checked his compass and headed to the Captain's cabin.

He opened the fold-out desk, pulled the chair off the wall, and got to work. Navigation on the open sea was all about inference. Landmarks helped a lot, and I already have a rough idea of where they were taking a lot of the workout. This would take a little time. They were less than a day out from Bastard's Bay. The Kestrel was a decently fast ship, but the wind was low, and they were burdened, so their average cruising speed stayed relatively high.

He slipped the map beneath a sheet of glass and made a few measurements. Then, he marked out an area with a grease pencil and a protractor.

From there, it was easy to find the two islands he'd seen on the horizon and triangulate the Kestrel's approximate position. From that point, he laid down a ruler to their first-course marker and took a bearing. They wanted to head east-by-northeast until they reached the island of Bar Cola. It would take roughly two days if nothing out of the ordinary happened.

He closed up the desk and headed back to the Stern castle. "East-by-northeast, Helmsman," he said to the stocky man at the wheel. "We'll be maintaining that for about two days."

"Aye," the helmsman said, adjusting his course slightly. Behind him on the bench, Colin Strong was stretched out, asleep. Will chuckled to himself.

"Helm, if you need a break, let me know. Mister Strong needs his rest."

"Aye, sir," the young helmsman said, obviously agreeing. "I could use a break now to use the head if you don't mind."

Will nodded and took the wheel. The current was tugging the rudder to port, but not strongly.

He watched the swabs and riggers working on Lace's new custom rigging ladders. The vertical ropes were laid out in the flat-bottomed teardrop shape Will had imagined, and the horizontal ropes were straight. The crew was sitting on the deck in pairs, working on splicing and reinforcing the ropes together where they crossed.

"Ship, ho! No colors! Three of the clock!" came the call from the lookout. Will squinted but couldn't see it. This was a reasonably well-traveled area, and plenty of ships were around. The lookout had yet to call them much, but a ship flying no colors was worth looking at. Right on cue, Danica climbed the stairs from the main deck and expanded her spyglass. Thirty seconds later, she closed it.

"She's not moving and not flying anything," Danica said.

"Any distress flags? Fire?" Will asked.

"No." Danica passed Will her spyglass. "Take a look for yourself if you want."

Will expanded the glass and scanned until the distant silhouette came into focus. It had two masts, a long prow, a flat back, sails up, and was riding high. There were no colors.

She is not moving. "Looks like another Caravel, but she's just parked. She's not even rolling with the waves. She's caught. Is there a reef or shallow island there?" Will asked.

"You're the navigator, you tell me?" Danica shrugged.

Will shook his head. "There's a few disappearing islands around here and two reefs. Our course shouldn't take us near any of them."

"Might just be a wreck," Danica said.

"If she is, she's a pretty one. If someone can get her unstuck, they will make good money on the salvage. I don't see any signs of distress or damage.

She might have beached herself of purpose for repairs," Will handed the spyglass back to Danica.

"Well, we'll be going right past her. We'll keep an eye out," Danica shrugged.

Bella went down her mental checklist of everything she needed to do to prepare for this. Her foci and paints were laid out on the bed. She finished putting the last marks of the sigil she was drawing on the mirror. She was ready.

She was thankful Captain Vex had worked so hard to help refill her internal energy reservoirs.

That would help. She stuck her head into the washroom to look out the rear portholes. It was nearing dusk—almost time.

Then she looked at the floor. "Damn it," she muttered. She hadn't thought of that. The floor was wood. The beams lay next to each other, creating small gaps. There was no way to draw a proper protection circle on a floor like this. She looked up at the ceiling. Same thing. She looked around the room, spying on the bed, but shook her head. She did not want to ruin the Captain's sheets. Time was an issue.

She ran out of the cabin and carefully stepped over the ropes on the deck until she reached where Will and Danica looked at something on the horizon.

"I need a sail," she said to Will.

Danica turned around to look at Bella, then looked up at the massive billowing cloths overhead and laughed. "We're kind of using them."

"No, a smaller one. Maybe six or eight feet square?" Bella explained.

"You need a patch," Will said.

"I... guess so?" Bella shrugged. "If that's what a small sail is, sure."

"Go down to the hold and find my husband. Tell him Danica said you need a sail patch," she smiled. Bella nodded and ran off.

"So that's your witch? I can see why you like her, " Danica said with an exaggerated leer. Do you have any idea what that was about?"

"Witch stuff. I've learned not to ask questions," Will shrugged.

The below decks needed to be fixed. She turned into the narrow center hall. Next to her, the stairs continued down to the lower deck. Behind her was a door with a brass placard that read 'Galley.' Ahead was a hall dotted with doors on each side that eventually opened into the large, dimly lit middle hold. There were very few lights below the deck. Even though it was getting later in the day, the tropical sun was still bright up top, so plunging into the hold left her briefly blind. She blinked and squinted, her eyes slowly adjusting. "Make way," two crewmen said, squeezing past her and hauling a barrel between them. She pressed against the wall in a shallow doorway. "I'm looking for Mister North," she said. One of the crew members jerked his head down the hall.

"Quartermaster's hold," he said. She headed down the hall, feeling slightly scrunched by the low ceiling.

The mid-hold was a vast storage space stacked with crates and barrels along the walls and against the two support pillars that stood in the center on each end of the hold. It occurred to her that those must be the masts. The center area was mostly clear, except for the ropes and mechanisms controlling the large hatch above that went to the top deck. She avoided the crew rearranging and resecuring how things were stored.

Then she was back in narrow passages again. At the far end was an open doorway with a brass placard that read "Quartermaster."

The room looked like a prison or a bank. Metal bars blocked access from floor to ceiling. Many smaller crates were stacked against the walls, as well as shelves, tall cabinets, and a dozen footlockers. Nearly everything was roped or chained down. Mister North sat at a table on the other side, scowling at a stack of papers. He noticed the movement in the doorway and glanced up.

"Well, now, you're a welcome change from my usual customers," North smiled. "You're Miss Fortuna, right?"

"Yes," Bella said. "And you are mister North?"

"That's what they tell me," North shrugged. "What can I do for our new ship's witch?"

Even though she was used to Bastard's Bay, primarily knowing what she was, she'd had years to develop her excellent reputation there, and she had a Magistrate registration to keep people from acting on their worst superstitions. This was a new place, with new people, and the fact that everyone knew what she was already made her highly uncomfortable. Still, the crew of the Kestrel did seem nice. She shook off the discomfort and focused on the job at hand.

"Danica told me to tell you I need a sail patch," Bella said.

North stood up and came to the bars. He opened the prison-style door and then shut and locked it behind him. "How big's the tear?"

"Tear?" Bella asked. Then she realized what he was thinking. "Oh, no. There's no tear. I need to draw on it."

North looked amused. "Alright. Follow me."

They returned to the mid hold and over to a stack of crates. North looked at the numbers written on them until he found the one he wanted, then opened it with a pry bar. He gestured to the stacks of folded cloth inside. "All yours. Find the one you want, put the rest back."

"Oh, and a hammer and nails?" she asked. North pointed to the mast. Six hammers hung from pegs on it, and a half-full bucket of nails was roped to the base of it.

"Thank you!" Bella said, starting to pull the cloth out of the crate. North smiled and nodded, and returned to his office.

It took her only a short time to find what she sought. She ran back up to the top deck with her bundled-up prizes and squinted through the glare.

The sun was beginning to dip low on the horizon. Now, she was in a race against nightfall.
Inside the Captain's cabin, she stretched out the sailcloth on the floor and started hammering down the corners, trying to keep the cloth as taut as possible. Then, she began to draw a protection circle. This needed to be precise. She used a needle and thread from her bag to sew a thread right into the cloth as an anchor point, then pulled out a little more than three feet of thread before tying the end of it to a paintbrush. Then she painstakingly drew out a circle by keeping the threat taut, dipping the brush into a small ink pot and using it to mark the arc of the thread until she had a full circle.

She looked out the portholes. The sky was beginning to turn darker colors. This was going to be close.

She painted symbols around the circle's perimeter to draw, guide, and repel energy. Within two of the symbols, she placed two lit candles, one black and one white, right below where the mirror hung. Then she stepped into the circle, stood up, and looked into the mirror. Piece by piece, she tossed her clothes behind her onto the bed.

Naked, she began to draw on her face, the markings perfectly matching the ones already drawn on the mirror.

Adjusting her position slightly, she matched the marks on her face with the ones on the mirror so that they overlapped, matching them in her field of vision. The lanterns on the walls had been turned down dim, and the candles lit at the circle's edge gave her face a strange, severe cast.

Now came the hard part.

"At your hour, by your power, in the shadows and alone, by circle bound, the lost will be found;

I will be shown what is mine.

In my name and by my own will, I invoke the Traveler."


To be continued