I stare at the door, focusing all my energy on it, ready to warn Nicolas if I see even a shimmer. There is none, and Nicolas grunts again as he positions himself better. Wood has fallen in front of the door, and he must move it aside. He’s doing so when he stops. He’s tugging one thick plank, and it isn’t moving.
“It is stuck.” Another tug, sharper.
“Careful, Nico. Please. It must be wedged in. Find where it is sticking.”
He runs his hands along the plank. Then he goes still.
“It... it has been nailed on.”
“Nailed...?”
“Nailed over the door. On both ends.”
His hands move over the plank. Then he grabs another and pulls, only to have it stay in place.
“This one as well. Also one below. Three planks have been nailed in place to keep the door shut. That makes no sense.”
“It does if there’s treasure within.”
He glances over at me and then relaxes in a laugh. “Yes, of course. I did not dare approach the ship while she was in the harbor. She sat there for months. Someone must have secreted treasure in the pantry and nailed shut the door. Then the ship was moved, and the galley damaged. Either they could not get to the treasure, or they thought it safe.”
As he talks, he is prying loose the nails with a pocketknife. He removes each board, talking as he does.
“Does this mean you understand, Andrés?” he says. “You understand that I did not abandon you, and so you are showing me this? It is not necessary. I need no treasure, and I would prefer to have the chance to speak to you through Miss Hastings, but as this seems important, I shall look.”
He finishes removing the boards. Then he tries the knob.
“Locked, of course. Luckily, I have the key.”
He takes the galley key from his pocket, which also fits into this lock. He turns it and pulls open the door. A smell rushes out. A smell that has my hand flying to cover my mouth and nose. Evidently, without a cabin boy sleeping in the pantry, the rats returned and found themselves locked in, dying amid the—
Nicolas lets out a cry. It is a horrible, anguished cry, and I lunge forward so fast I almost stumble into the hole.
“Nicolas? Nico!”
“Non.” The word comes as a whisper. “No, no, no!”
Another cry, this one choked with rage, and I leap over the hole before I fully understand what I am doing.
I slip and scrabble and manage to grab the doorknob. Then I pull myself upright and push into the room to find Nicolas kneeling with his back to me. In front of him—
“Oh!” I say, and for a moment, I cannot breathe.
Nicolas doesn’t hear me. He doesn’t notice me there, no more than he did when I slipped, and I would not expect him to. Right now, he hears nothing but his own ragged breathing. Sees nothing but the figure curled up on the floor.
It is Andrés. His body, long dead, lying on the pantry floor.
Tears spring to my eyes, and I look around for the boy’s ghost, only to see him in the shadows beside Nicolas. Watching Nicolas kneel over his mortal remains.
“I am so sorry,” I say.
At first, Andrés does not look my way. Perhaps he presumes those words are for Nicolas, for his grief. But when I say them again, Andrés looks. Our eyes meet.
“I am so sorry, Andrés,” I say. “This is...” Tears stream down my face. “It is...”
I cannot find words. In that moment, I do not want to be blessed with imagination. I do not want to be a writer who has learned the art of putting herself in another’s place, imagining their lives. I am not imagining Andrés’s life here. I am imagining his death. Locked in, with plenty of food but no water, pounding on the door for help that never came. It is too horrible to contemplate, and I can do nothing but cry as quietly as I can so I do not disturb Nicolas’s grief. When I am able, I move behind him and kneel and lay my head on his back.
“I am sorry for you, too,” I whisper. “Sorry that you saw this.” I look at Andrés. “But you needed him to see it, didn’t you? You needed him to know.”