“I’ve seen you sneaking around the past few weeks,” the captain said, winking, as if he had discovered a great secret that could now be a funny joke between them.
He almost wanted to laugh. Didn’t the idiot realize what it meant?
“I wasn’t doing anything to the ship,” he said, finding his voice finally, keeping it calm and level.
“That’s alright, then.” The captain turned to a stack of crates that were standing on the deck a short way off. “I didn’t get a chance to put everything away properly earlier. Be a good lad and help me shift these.”
He stood up, going mechanically toward them. He didn’t know why he was helping, really. Maybe it would be a good alibi to have. The fact that he had helped him move the crates, which was why his fingerprints were on the ship. It would be hard to prove otherwise.
“Your Dad taught you where these things go, didn’t he?” the captain asked, his voice underscored at moments by that vague German accent that seemed to come and go. It had been the same for his father, sometimes, a little accent that slipped in now and then on certain words or with certain emotions.
“Yeah,” he answered, his own voice American through and through, sounding almost odd next to it in the dark.
“Off you go, then,” the captain said, hefting his own load and moving off across the dim deck. Only the moon was illuminating them now. Not enough to really see by, only to see ghosts of things, outlines and highlights, the occasional silvery gleam. Most of them reflected off the waves, tiny silver tips to each crest that seemed to mock him louder and louder with each swell.
He moved mechanically, doing what he was told. He always did what he was told on the ships. That was how his whole life had gone. Follow after your father and work on the ship. Do what you were told. Never look too long at the sea. Never show any fear or weakness in the face of it. Avoid the water as much as you could, make any excuse necessary. Work, and work hard. Work on weekends. Work in the evenings after school. Forget your schoolwork: the sea was going to be the life for you. Work at cleaning the ship, learning to sail, and learning to steer. Learn the history of the area, learn the stories, learn the myths, and scare the tourists. Make the tourists laugh. Do what you’re told.
And all the while, the sea was watching and waiting.
He headed below decks and dropped the crate into the right place with a thud, looking around inside the hold. Down here there were electric lights fitted up, hooked up to the same generator that powered the engine. So inauthentic. It was like the captain hadn’t even tried to make his ship period appropriate. TheSaint Mariewas a mutant, a mutt, neither modern enough nor old enough. It was the kind of ship that would make a real sailor laugh.
And down here there was even more evidence of the blasphemy of the ship. Cables running to speakers embedded in the wood, trailing to the upper deck through small holes cut into the frame of it. It was all fake. But what more could you expect from a man who lived the way he did? He was an abuser, a trick, and a cheat.
At least his father’s boat knew it wasn’t the real thing. At least it was a game of dress-up on purpose.
But even so, here, he was still not safe. The water dripped in through any tiny point of entry it was allowed. It trickled through the holes in the deck when it rained, oozed into the hold through the boards. Some of it had been puddled here long enough to go stagnant. The place stank of fish and sea and stagnant water. Another reminder that he was never safe, not until he finished his job. What was he doing down here? Why was he wasting time?
“I heard you had an accident a couple of weeks back,” the captain said, lugging a barrel down the steps. By the sound of it when it hit the floor, it was only heavy with the manufacture of thick wooden boards and metal rings, not actually filled with anything. “Slipped into the water, was it?”
He turned away, not wanting his face to give him away. “Yep,” he said. That was it. Short and clipped. Not inviting any further comment.
But, of course, the captain had to go there anyway.
“I thought you’d got over all that, lad,” he said. “I remember when you were a boy, and you were afraid of the water. But you learned to swim in the end, didn’t you?”
“No,” he said through gritted teeth. The one big shame of his life. The reason his father had always favored Tobias, even up to his death. “No, I never learned.”
“But you work on the sea,” the captain said. He couldn’t see him, but he could hear the look on his face. The incredulity. The frown. Even the beginning of the mockery. How he would taunt and tease him. “You’re taking over your father’s boat with Tobias, aren’t you? How are you going to manage that when you can’t swim?”
He closed his eyes for a moment. The sound, the fury of the water, the way it engulfed him immediately. The cold of it. The way it had been waiting for him all this time, unchanged, always the same since he was a child.
Twice in his life he had nearly drowned. Twice in his life, and the water was the same. Like it had been just waiting for him to slip up again. Waiting for him to come into its icy grasp so it could fill his lungs, weigh down his limbs.
And when he did surface, his father had only laughed.
“It’s not funny,” he snapped.
“Well, it’s a little funny,” the captain said. “A sailor who can’t swim. That’s funny in an ironic way.”
He turned on the captain. “The last time someone laughed at me for nearly drowning,” he said, his words slow and measured. “I killed them.”
The captain’s eyes bugged and bulged for a moment, but then something else crossed his face and he laughed. “You nearly got me with that one, Jens. Come on. Let’s get the last crate.”
He turned to go, turned toward the stairs that would take him back up to the deck. Jens watched him, the way his back moved, easy muscles underneath his pretend old-fashioned clothing. The results of a life spent on a ship, heaving this and hauling that. Spinning the wheel against the current.
Just like his father.
And this hold—just like the hold on his father’s ship—the same constant dripping—the same danger—