Sarah Driver - Sea

‘But—’

‘Ah, just for the time being. Some full-growns have forgotten how to loosen up! And, in heart-truth, trouble simmers in many a port, though the war was said to end when Captain Wren were small. You’re safest here.’

He plods across the plank and onto the craggy scrubland. I watch him pass into the shadow of towering evergreens and disappear between the lopsided wooden houses of Haggle’s Town.

‘Mouse!’ calls Vole.

With a snarl I stamp over to the mess and start separating the pieces of wood that’re good enough to be used for repairs. Once I’ve finished my hands are full of splinters. For a heartbeat the pain helps take my mind off waiting for Da. What I wouldn’t give for a breakfast of fat cinnamon rolls down at the Star while he tells me stories of his travels.

I sneak a glance across the deck and make for the plank at a sprint, squeezing past Tribesmen carrying thin timbers onto the deck.

‘Them splinters wouldn’t hold up my drawers, let alone a flaming mast!’ Grandma yells from the prow. She spies me. ‘Mouse! What you about, girl?’

I freeze. Vole catches up to me and grabs my arm. ‘Oh, no you don’t. Here.’ She shoves a broom into my hands.

I curse. ‘You can stop spying on me now, I’ll do it! Though if you like I could wrench a few of them bad teeth out for you. They’re turning proper rotten.’ I push past her on my way back to the deck.

‘Don’t you give my prentice grief, child!’ booms Grandma. ‘If you don’t want to help on deck you can get yourself to the kitchens and scrub the terrodyl blood out of Pip’s cauldrons.’

‘All right, all right! Everyone, becalm your sails, I’m doing it!’

As I work, I notice the eerie silence of the harbour. Why ent folk heading for market? Our ship alone must’ve brought enough goods to trade ’til next week. The only creatures lurking round the dockside are a few scrawny brown mongrels hunting for scraps. Their beast-chatter is knotted and worrisome. Hungryyip! Frightedcoldgrumblebelly.

I breathe and force my heart to slow, but nerves have turned my palms damp. I just want to fetch Da home and raise anchor. I can’t focus on work, so after Grandma goes ashore with a band of black-cloaks and Vole takes her nagging self below decks, I leap onto a barrel and give a short, sharp howl.

Sparrow stumbles blearily onto the deck, swigging water from a skin bottle. Then Frog and his sister, Squirrel, pop out from behind the mizzen-mast. Ermine, Hammerhead and Little Marten jump down from the rigging.

‘Who wants a game of Rattlebones?’ I ask, wiggling my eyebrows.

One by one, their faces light up with grins.

Sparrow fires off his question again, the one he’s already asked me two thousand times this morning. ‘Why ent Da home yet?’

‘Dunno, shut up,’ I say without looking at him.

‘But—’

‘Quiet!’ I’m trying to keep my mind fixed on our game of Rattlebones, named for the ancient captain of the fireside tales, but my nerves are fizz-popping.

Sparrow growls and plops down on the deck, chin in his hands. Rune tokens and reindeer bones lie scattered across the deck. Hammer draws back his arm to roll a pearl, but Frog jabs his spindly fingers into Hammer’s ribs. ‘Argh, you bleeding half-brain!’ The pearl flies from Hammer’s grip, hits the mast and bounces off into the middle of a group of women carving bone fishing hooks.

‘Take your blinking games below decks!’ one of them shouts. ‘And Frog, fifteen is too old to be wasting your time with the nippers! Make yourself useful.’

‘Sorry!’ calls Frog. Then he grins at Hammer. ‘Hear that? I’m far too old and important to be hanging about with the likes of you.’ Hammer pummels Frog on the arm. ‘Ow!’

I hide my grin in my hands. ‘My turn!’ I angle my wrist and aim. My pearl skitters along the deck and hits the furthest rune token. I snatch the token up and add it to my collection. Hammer clambers around the deck, counting up everyone’s runes and bones. ‘Mouse has the most runes,’ he announces with a small sigh. ‘She wins!’

‘Again,’ adds Ermine.

‘Squirrel loses – she has the most bones,’ says Hammer.

I whoop. ‘Captain Rattlebones will come for Squirrel tonight, looking for his bones!’

Squirrel’s face drains of colour. ‘Oh, I never win! Not never!’ She snatches up her breath in little sobs. ‘And don’t you even think about dumping those bones in my bed again! It’s so unfair!’

‘Stop your grizzle-gruzzling, it’s just a game,’ I snap.

Squirrel gets to her feet amongst the clutter of animal bones and runs off, red hair wild.

‘One day the tides will turn!’ Frog calls after her. ‘Mouse is gonna lose and then Captain Rattlebones will come for her, urggghhhhh!’ He waggles his arms at me and I shove him away.

My teeth ache from grinding my jaw. ‘Makes no matter; this ship’ll be mine one day and everyone’s gonna have to do what I say. Squirrel might as well get used to it.’ I gather my pearls and stuff them in my belt pouch.

‘Really?’ says Hammer. ‘That what you reckon a captain’s job is, bossing everyone around?’ His eyebrows twitch. ‘Can’t wait to be part of your crew,’ he mutters.

‘Shut it,’ I murmur, peering at the rune tokens I collected. One of them is carved with an Yr , meaning bow, which makes me smile cos of my longbow. Others, showing the runes Fe and Ar , promise wealth and plenty – never a bad thing for a trader. But the last one has a long I chiselled into it, meaning ice, and I turn the rough piece of wood over in my hands. Everyone knows the runes hold secret meanings. What could this foretell?

‘We all miss your da, but it ent Squirrel’s fault he’s not home,’ says Ermine, glowering at me through his shock of white hair. ‘But it is someone’s fault we’re tethered to this ghost-harbour, waiting for the Hagglers to come for us, and that we’ve traded half our finest wares for timber what’s not even strong enough to repair that smashed mast.’

‘Say that again with your fists up and your teeth bared,’ I growl.

Hammer gets between me and Erm. ‘Settle your bones, both of you. Captain’s got extra crew on watch, so no one will dare board the Huntress .’

‘She went ashore without her glass eye in, just to make herself look more frightful-fierce,’ I tell them. Ermine breaks into a toothy smile and I grin back, heart-keen to drop the fight.

I grip the ice-rune tightly in my fingers. ‘Ent it odd that it’s already so icy and all the other ships have sailed?’

Hammer opens his mouth but then a great cry goes up and my head spins to look at the gangplank on the port side.

Grandma and her black-cloaks stride up the plank onto the storm-deck. ‘She’s back!’ I scramble to my feet, slipping on a stray pearl.

I’m running towards her to ask after Da when the black-cloaks move aside to let a tall stranger in a scarlet cloak climb aboard. I skid to a stop and stare. The man plants his gold-buckled boots wide and rests his fists on his hips.

The stranger’s face is long and pinched, with a crooked hawk’s nose, downturned lips and great black brows. But it’s his eyes I keep looking at, as he lets them crawl all over the Huntress . They’re grey and wide like rock pools stuffed with eels, ready to swallow me up. Suddenly they fall on me, dead and heavy, but I keep my face icicle-fierce. The man smiles, baring a row of sharp teeth.