Sarah Driver - Sky

‘Shipwrecks mean merwraiths. And merwraiths mean riches.’ Cold mirth curls the edges of Stag’s voice.

Merwraiths? No. He can’t!

My nerves stretch tauter than a bowstring, but still I glide closer to the ship. Cos even with evil lurking, I can’t waste the chance to glimpse chief oarsman Bear.

The tar-blackened ropes that tether the dredging claw snake down in front of me. The crew lower the claw towards the sea. When the waves gulp it, dread bites me.

‘It’s reached the seabed!’ someone cries.

‘Hold steady!’

One of Da’s sayings fills my head. ‘Are we not all the gods’ little creatures?’ My sluggish dream-blood simmers. I’m voiceless, but I wish I could roar. I flutter towards the deck and the polar dogs tense, then riot, thrashing against their chains, gifting rough barks to the sky as they watch me shimmer.

The claw shudders from the sea, spitting a clatter of long, curved whale bones across the deck. I know I should look away. Terror squeezes my throat. I don’t want to watch.

But I have to.

Tangled on the claw’s bony barbs are three merwraiths, the scales of their long, drooping tails flashing bright. One’s got a tail of rusty bronze; the others gleam storm-cloud grey. Sodden flame-red hair is plastered to their heads, and pearly globs of fish eggs web their fingers and lace up their arms, chests and throats. My mind flits to Rattlebones, the ancient Sea-Tribe captain who turned to merwraith long ago. My guiding ancestor. These wraiths are our kin. Once they proudly strode their decks, fire-crackle in their hearts.

The merwraiths’ eyes are glazed behind a foggy layer of film. But they’re awake, and they’re frighted.

I whimper, my voice trapped in the space between the worlds, ringing off the masts and round my brain. The horror turns to bony fingers that wring my belly until I gasp.

The merwraiths begin to wither. Their hair becomes seaweed, their fish eggs turn to strings of black slime that drip onto the deck. Only their scales stay bright. The crew snick their knives open.

Get away from them! I scream, but no one hears me ’cept the polar dogs. They howl, frenzied, until Stag blasts a gun into the air, forcing silence.

I flutter, tangled in the ropes, a ghost filled with heart-fury. The face of one of the merwraiths crumples and the eyes fall out – now plain grey seastones that roll about the deck. A shriek rips from her lips before she shrivels into a pile of weeds, slime and rocks, and only her gleaming scales remaining. Sobs rake my chest, and in the tiny gaps in between I sense another mourner. Bear, huddled at his oar, his tears turning to chips of ice on his cheeks.

Missing him and wanting to be in his arms carves my chest into a gaping hollow.

The merwraiths lie sprawled in a heap. Crew fall to their knees beside them and prise dark, rusted scales off with their blades, the two metals scritch-scraping.

Stag watches, smoking his pipe. Course he ent dirtying his own hands. My scorn pushes me towards him, until I’m hovering in the drifting fog by his side. He puffs out smoke rings, and I think of Da’s message. Does Stag have it still? I flex my dream-fingers, imagining grasping the message and pulling it back with me. Could it be possible?

I dip into his pockets, but I can’t feel anything and frustration coils around me like a tentacle.

A polar dog lunges at me, snapping starving jaws. Get back! snarls Stag in beast-chatter, kicking out at the dog.

I zoom away, making for Bear, but I’m caught in the wind, flung upwards, bashed against spangle-cold icebergs. A fright-tattered voice reaches me. ‘You are his weakness! You must help us!’

It sounds familiar. Knowing spreads through me. The voice belongs to one who has guided me.

Rattlebones!

Ancient blood sparks in my veins and I feel the link between us glowing bright and golden.

She’s the only captain I know who can show me the path, except this time she needs my help.

Help you how? I mouth, but I don’t know how to talk in a dance and the wind plucks my words away. Why? I try harder to force words out and finally they come, clumsy and thick. ‘Where are you?’

When the wind’s grip loosens I dive down through the air and skim out across the churning water. Above the sea I dip my fingers through a skin of ice, watching the surface like a looking glass.

A soft old face appears, wrinkled like the map of a long-ago life.

‘You’re safe!’ The words plink into the water.

‘Aye,’ says Rattlebones. ‘For this time.’

The word time sloshes strangely through my mind.

‘What’s happening to my home?’ I ask.

Her blind eyes stare into my marrow, and pictures begin to flash inside my head.

I see Grandma’s medsin-lab crushed to slivers of glass and splinters of wood. The armoury has swelled to twice its size, filled with unfamiliar weapons. The door to the Hoodwink where the sea-hawks nested has been wrenched off, leaving an empty socket in the mizzen-mast.

‘Evil prowls,’ whispers Rattlebones. ‘The false captain hunts whales and wraiths, making deals with greed. He seeks supporters among the lonely and the bitter, the desperate and the greedy. When he has used your ship he will break her apart. He wants to keep the Tribes at war, brew vicious battles and crown himself King.’

My spirit splinters apart and jolts back together. ‘What about Grandma Wren? Have you seen signs of her in the wraith-world?’

Heart-sadness floods Rattlebones’s voice. ‘None.’

Last hope drips from me into the water like spots of blood, and washes away.

‘There is a stillness where I try to sense her. But Little-Bones, where is your own life-blood? Why are you so long a ghost?’

She puts another picture in my head – my sleeping body, dusted with frost on the floor of the turret cell at Hackles. Then she fades – down, down, down into the depths – leaving me alone.

I fly fast as I can towards the aft-deck hatch, even though I can feel my dream-dance rubbing thin. I need to find Da’s message.

Before the hatch I reach a pulling point, where I feel like the cord between my spirit and my body is gonna snap. Maybe I’ve been a ghost too long, like Rattlebones said. Fright clangs through me and though I ent ready to give up I’m suddenly rushing through the night, terrorised, away from my ship, spirit-belly brushing against rock.

That’s when I see it – a shimmering spirit snagged on a tree root on the side of the mountain.

My dream-eyes widen ’til they feel like hollow pools. Another dream-dancer? I flit closer to it.

But this spirit is unrestful and it wails wretchedly into the wind. Every mote of my being prickles in shock. I’ve never seen another human spirit dancing free of its body. This one looks stuck. Its eyes snap onto me, huge black holes of loss. My heart is awash in darkness! it calls. It reaches out spindly-silver fingers and brushes my cheek.

I turn away but the fingers curl around my ankle. I twist to look behind and the spirit wrenches itself free from the tree root, then streaks past me. I soar quick quick quick towards the prison in the sky, where my body waits. Dimly I can hear my brother singing.

The lost spirit squeezes through the hole in the wall but I zip after it and grab a fistful of its scraggy hair. We struggle; a storm of force and feelings, slamming against each other. It thrashes away and then pings towards my body. The amber amulet of protection begins to glow in the hollow of my throat – it’s proper strange to see my own body from above. The spirit tries to pull the amulet over my head but I shove it away and my feet slip into my sleeping self and I wake up tasting blood. I’m on my back on the floor in the dark cell, shouting and cursing and crying with a voice strangled by the mountain.