A loud pounding at my door wakes me and I groan, tempted to cover my ears with my pillow and go back to sleep. I already know who is at the door, only the quartermaster pummels the wood that hard.
I glance at the pocket watch on my side table. I have only been asleep for four hours. The burning, throbbing pain in my stitched wound had kept me awake late into the night once again. It has been three days since I was stabbed and the cut on my arm is raised and inflamed, and greenish-yellow pus oozes from the stitches. Dusty has repeatedly tried to treat the injury with honey, but the infection still appears to be spreading.
As soon as I open the door, the quartermaster tosses a pouch of coins at me but, since I’m still not fully awake, my reactions are slow and it bounces off my forehead before dropping to the floor. Gold coins spill out and some roll further down the hall.
“Your earnings,” he says before briskly walking back outside.
I push through the pain to gather up the coins. I am picking up the last one at the end of the corridor when the door to the mess hall swings open. Dusty nearly tramples me as he rushes out, and I have to flinch to avoid his hooves.
“Sef!” he exclaims, “you’re finally awake.” At some point, the entire crew had caught on to Cail’s nickname for me and started using it.
“I was only asleep for a few hours,” I say.
“Is your arm still infected?”
I nod.
"Get dressed and come to the galley, I’ll add another honey dressing. I need your help with something in the kitchen anyway,” he tells me.
“Wycliff is in view, prepare for land docking!” the captain calls from the deck.
“I should probably see if they need help with the docking,” I say. “Can I meet you in the galley afterward?”
“Sounds good to me,” he says in a sing-song voice as he skips back inside the mess hall.
“Dusty!” I call out to him.
“Yes?” he clip-clops back and peeps his head around the door frame.
“Weren’t you going somewhere?” I ask.
He ponders for a moment. “Oh, yes, I was going to the hold to check the stock.”
I grin as he runs out and across the deck to the hatch. Being around him always raises my spirits, no matter how terrible my day is.
Back in my cabin, I rush as quickly as possible to pull on my dark blue land uniform. It’s still starchy from not being worn yet.
I manage to run out onto the deck in time for the Zarla to begin its vertical descent onto a flat field of grass.
“Do you need any help?” I ask Trevor who is leaning over the starboard railing shouting instructions to one of the two deckhands. They are climbing down the net ladder to prepare to release the docking stand.
“Nah, we have it all covered, missy. You rest up that arm of yours. How's it doing by the way?”
“It’s fine,” I lie, “nearly all healed up.”
“Good to hear.” He pats my shoulder. “Zerk, release the stand!”
I recoil as Trevor deafens me with his booming voice.
He quickly runs over to the port side as fast as his short legs can carry him and instructs Zaret to do the same. I follow him over. I had missed out on seeing the ship dock on land last time.
I watch as Zaret releases the leather straps holding the stand against the side of the ship. It swings down suddenly and the gear mechanism at the hinge locks it into place with a click.
“Why are we docking on land and not in the cradles?” I question.
“Wycliff is just a small city, it doesn’t have any cradles for airships. It’s only really the major trading cities that have those.” Trevor replies.
The ship slows down so much that it feels as though we are hovering until, finally, the ship jerks as the docking stands sink into the grass.
“Another job well done! Now let's get these pirate scum to the city guard so we can hit the tavern!” Trevor shouts.
The other crew members cheer in response. Their excitement is contagious, even though I have no intention of following them to the tavern.
Remembering my promise to Dusty, I hurry back to the galley as the crew starts leading out the pirates from the brig.
The young boy stares at me as I pass. He looks as fearful as he did on the ship, and his dirty face is streaked from where he has been crying. I hope nothing bad happens to him.
When I enter the galley, Dusty is on the floor sifting through crates of food supplies.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Graham asked me to take inventory of all the supplies we have, and then make a list of what we need to buy at the market—will you come with me by the way? I’m scared I’ll get lost and not be able to make my way back to the ship.”
“Of course.” I don’t tell him that I’m not confident that I’ll be able to find our way back either.
“These are all rotten,” Dusty mutters as he tosses a small pile of carrots onto an even bigger pile of rotting vegetables. “I don’t understand what the crew’s problem with vegetables is. They keep scurvy away,” he complains.
“That’s what I’ve always said,” I say, picking up a discarded carrot. This one doesn’t look too bad. I take a nibble out of it.
“Sometimes, Seffy, I think you’re the only one who really gets me.”
“Likewise,” I manage to say through a mouthful of carrot.
“Your arm.” He stands suddenly and maneuvers his way around the piles of food with surprising agility for someone his size.
When he returns with the honey and the bandages, I roll up my sleeve and remove the old dressing from the wound. It’s not a pretty sight; the skin is even more angry and red, and pus drips down my arm when I press lightly on it.
“I’ll get a washbasin,” Dusty says.
I do my best to drain out as much of the infection as I can and bathe the cut before applying the honey gauze and bandages.
“I don’t see why you don’t go to the medical room,” Dusty says, “I’m sure they’ll have something for infections.”
“Because Freya hates me,” I huff, “and I wouldn’t be surprised if she contaminated the needle herself to try and kill me off.”
“Then can’t you visit a healer in the city?” he asks.
“I don’t trust them either. Most of them probably scam you out of your money and send you off with a bunch of herbs that don’t even work for …” My voice trails off as an idea pops into my mind. There is a third option.
Dusty thrusts a piece of parchment and a quill in front of my face. “If I call out the supplies that we need, can you write the list? I can’t read my own writing.”
----------------------------------------
A few hours later, I walk through Wycliff with Dusty by my side. As Trevor had said, the city is much smaller than Winstar and much more shabby.
The weathered buildings are ramshackle and the streets smell foul from sewage and rotting waste.
The residents look as disheveled as the city they live in, and as Dusty’s hooves strike the cobblestone loudly, they turn to stare at him. They obviously haven’t seen a faun before, or perhaps it’s our uniforms that they find unusual in these parts.
“What a pleasant place!” Dusty says cheerfully.
“You really think so?” I ask in disbelief.
“No, I was being sarcastic. This city looks so miserable that it actually makes me miss my home.”
“What is it like where you’re from?” I am unable to stop myself from asking.
Dusty hesitates for a moment. “The glen is beautiful. The vegetation is lush and green, and the ground is covered in thousands of flowers.” He gestures outward with his arms and I can’t help but smile at how animated he is.
“Do you live in houses?” Judging by how domesticated Dusty is, it’s hard to imagine him just living out in the open.
“Hmm, maybe you wouldn’t call them houses. But then I also suppose they are, yes. You see, the trees in our forest are massive. The trunks can grow nearly as wide as our ship, and fauns hollow them out and build houses inside.”
“That sounds really peaceful,” I say.
“Oh, it is. Especially when you find a soft mossy patch in a sunbeam where you can lay down and listen to the birdsong.” His eyes have a dreamy far-away look.
“Why …” I let my voice trail off.
“You want to know why I left?” Dusty asks.
I nod. “You don’t have to tell me, I understand that you might not want to talk about it.”
“I don’t think I can talk about it with the others, but I think I can tell you.” He looks up at me with a faint smile. “I know you probably won’t judge me.”
“I won’t,” I reassure him, reaching out and squeezing his hand.
“It’s not so much the place or the lifestyle that pushed me to leave, but rather my people. You see, I’m not like them. Or I should say, I’m not what they want me to be. I managed fine until last summer, but the solstice was coming up.”
“What happen’s at the solstice?”
“It’s a faun ritual that every summer solstice, the fauns that become of age bond with a partner, similar to marriages in other cultures. My mother had picked out a girl for me to bond with at the solstice, but I didn’t want to go through with it.”
“Was she like Freya?” I tease.
“No,” he laughs, “she was really nice, but, well …” Dusty fiddles with his hands nervously before moving his head closer to mine and whispering quietly, “I like the boy fauns.”
“Ohh,” I say as realisation dawns on me. While it wasn’t common, same-sex relationships were embraced in the Curian culture, but Kai had told me that some other parts of the world weren’t as accepting.
“Do you think differently of me?” Dusty asks.
“Of course not, silly.” I tousle his curly hair. “Back on my islands, any kind of relationship was accepted, regardless of gender, as long as people are happy and of age.”
“It isn’t with my people,” he says sadly.
“So what happened?” I prompt.
Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
“I finally told mother and she cried. Before that, I didn’t know it was that big of a deal, no one ever talked about it. My sister overheard us talking and she told her friends, who told their friends. Then the whole glen knew and they started bullying me and treating me like an outcast. Mother said I should bond with the girl regardless and then my situation would improve. The night before the solstice, I ran away.”
“I’m sorry that happened to you, Dusty,” I tell him sympathetically. I can’t find the right words to say to make his situation better.
“It’s okay,” he says, patting my arm, “I have come to terms with it now. I miss my family and the glen sometimes, but at least I’m free out here.”
“Where did you go after you left?”
“Well, since cooking is my only skill, I got a job serving a wealthy family in Winstar. They weren’t very kind though, they kept calling me Fat Goat. One day, I had enough and walked out, then Trevor hired me, and now I’m here having fun in a smelly city with you.” He flashes me his cheerful, beaming smile.
I nudge him playfully.
“Where in the world are we?” I laugh. I haven’t been paying attention to the direction we’ve been walking in.
Dusty stops and sniffs the air. “There’s food this way!” he sets off in a sprint faster than I could have ever imagined from him, and I struggle to keep up as I chase him around the twisting, narrow streets.
Dusty’s nose manages to lead us in the right direction, and we soon come out into the market square.
I watch amused as Dusty gets overexcited while shopping for fruits, vegetables, and nuts, but he let me pick the meat since he doesn’t eat it himself. In the end, he is left with more produce than either of us could carry, and he pays a boy with a carriage a few coins to deliver the goods directly to the ship.
Once the ship’s stock is taken care of, I start focusing on picking up the ingredients I need. I pull out the hastily written list from my trouser pocket.
● Solenostemma Argel Plant
● Papia Root
● Wild Currants
● Lemon
● Honey
I had finally plucked up enough courage to open my mother’s notebook, and I had flicked through the pages until I found the recipe for a tincture to treat infected wounds.
Dusty tells me that there is plenty of honey on the ship that I can use, and I manage to buy the fruits easily from an elderly man running one of the market stalls, but the papia root and solenostemma plant are trickier to come by.
One of the street vendors points us in the direction of a herbalist shop, and we are lucky to find that they do indeed stock the papia root, along with a vast array of other herbs. Unfortunately, though, the woman who owns the shop has never heard of the plant. I buy one of the roots and some other herbs that I remember my mother using often.
As we are about to leave, the shop owner stops us.
“I don’t know how much help it will be, but I know of a woman who has a stock of plants and ingredients that are hard to come by. You can try asking her,” she says before jotting down the address on spare rice paper and giving us estimated directions.
“Are you sure this is the right place?” I ask Dusty ten minutes later.
“It looks like the right shop, there’s a potion on the sign.” He points to a small, creaky sign swinging above the door.
I wouldn’t go as far to call this place a shop; it’s the size of a small house and, from the outside, it looks completely neglected. A strange symbol is roughly etched into the dark green wooden door. Shrugging, I tap the door with the iron knocker three times. We only have to wait a few moments before we hear a shuffling from inside, and the door creaks open.
The woman who stands before us is younger than I expected, likely in her thirties, and has long wavy jet-black hair and piercing green eyes. She wears a long black shawl that’s embellished with dark glittering crystal beads. It appears to be the fanciest-looking object in the house.
“Can I help you?” she says.
“I’m looking to purchase a specific plant. The herbalist a few streets away said that you might stock it,” I say.
“Yes, I stock many plants. Come inside and I will see if I can find what you’re looking for,”
We follow the woman into the house. The first thing I notice is the countless jars of herbs, plants, and other strange ingredients that are lined on shelves on the wall, and the dusty surfaces in the room are filled with crystals.
I can’t help but feel that, despite the uncleanliness of the place, my mother would have felt at home in here.
“What is it that you’re looking for?” she asks.
“This plant here.” I show her the list.
“Ah the argel plant, that is a rare one in these parts. It only grows in the aridest of deserts.”
“Do you have any?” I ask. I feel hopeful just from the fact that she knows of it.
“Indeed I do. I only have it in its dried form, though, which is good for you since that’s how you’ll need to use it.” She heads over to the far wall and picks up jar after jar as she searches for the right one.
Dusty taps repeatedly on the stone floor with his hoof. It starts to grate on me and I look to him to see what’s wrong.
He glances down pointedly.
I follow his gaze and notice that he’s tapping a thick white chalk line. It leads to even more thick white lines that intersect within a circle. A pentagram. This woman is a witch.
“Ah, here it is.” She returns with a jar filled with long stems that each holds an abundance of small dried leaves. “Three stems should do the trick. Use half a stem per batch, and if mixed correctly, then the salve should heal the wound on your arm in three to four days. That will leave you plenty of the plant left for when you pick up further wounds on your journey.”
Dusty and I look at each other in shock. I hadn’t told her about my arm or our journey.
“Since it’s you, I’ll give you a half-price discount, which makes the cost twelve gold,” she continues.
Chills run up my arms and I decide to just pay her and leave rather than question her about her mysterious remarks.
“That was strange,” Dusty comments as soon as the door closes behind us.
The sun has started to set, and the sky is a washed-out orange colour.
“This whole city is strange,” I say as crows above us caw loudly, making us both jump.
“Back to the ship,” we both say at the same time.
I lead us through the city using my compass, and as we pass a small, shabby-looking tavern, we hear raucous drunken laughter from inside.
“Is that Trevor?” Dusty asks.
“I’m certain it is,” I say confidently, “no one else has a voice that loud. Should we go say hi?”
“Nah, they probably won’t let us leave without forcing alcohol down us first.”
“Good point.” I flush, thinking about the last time I drank alcohol. I haven’t seen Cail since, and I would be lying if I said I hadn’t been avoiding him. I was far too relaxed that night.
We make a start to move on when a loud squeaky wailing reaches my ears.
“What was that?” I ask Dusty.
He shrugs. “I think it was coming from over there.” He points to the alleyway down the side of the tavern.
“Let’s go take a look,” I say.
Dusty holds me back. “What if it’s dangerous?”
“I just took on a ship full of pirates, I’m sure I’ll be fine,” I reassure him.
“Yes, but you nearly died twice,” he points out.
The wailing sounds again. It’s definitely coming from the alleyway.
Setting my basket of ingredients down on the floor at the corner of the tavern, I draw my cutlasses and slowly make my way down the alley in a defensive stance. Dusty follows a few steps behind me. The alleyway is so packed full of waste food and rotting vegetation that I nearly lose my footing a few times.
We reach a dead end, just a stone wall stands before us.
“I could have sworn it was down here,” Dusty mutters.
The squeaking suddenly returns, this time louder, and coming from somewhere by our feet.
I yelp and jump backward, knocking into dusty, and causing us both to tumble down into a pile of mulch.
A couple of feet in front of us, inside a trap cage, is a small furry brown animal. It is crying in distress and chewing at the bars for a way out.
Poor thing. “What is it?” I ask dusty. The animal has a cute rounded face, a creamy white underside, and a thick, long pointed tail.
He picks himself up and tries to dust off his trousers. “I think it’s an otter.”
“An otter?” I question doubtfully. “I saw otters in the ocean while I was fishing sometimes. They didn’t look like that.”
“Those are sea otters, this is a river otter,” he says.
“There aren’t any rivers here though.”
“We passed a canal.”
“We did?” I don’t remember any canal.
“It was hard to recognise, it was filled with waste and algae.”
“Well if that’s where this little guy came from, it’s no wonder he left it.”
I reach out and fiddle with the door to the trap. “Come on, little one, let’s get you out of here,” I tell the otter in a gentle voice.
I get the door open, but instead of running free, the otter huddles at the back.
“I’m not going to hurt you.” I wait a few more moments before reaching in and hooking my hand under its belly to pull it out. The otter doesn’t show any resistance other than whining a few times.
Once it’s in my arms, the otter cowers into my jacket.
The back door to the tavern opens, and a man who I assume is the owner walks out with a pail of waste food.
“Oh, the pesky bugger has finally been caught,” he says angrily. “I’ve been trying to trap that thing for a week. Hand it to me, girl, and I’ll dispose of it.”
I hold the otter closer to my chest. “I don’t want it killed, it’s not doing any harm,” I tell him.
“Harm?” he says outraged. “Otters are vermin in these parts, they’re always breaking into pantries and stealing fish from the market. We need to cull as many as possible.”
“Well you’re not killing this one,” I say stubbornly before turning to leave the alleyway.
“What are we to do with it?” Dusty asks once we’re back out on the main street.
I feel at the whimpering otter as it tries to huddle into my armpit. The skin feels tight over its bones. “It’s starving, I’m going to go back to the market and buy it some food. It’s been through a lot of stress, it deserves a meal.”
“You have such a kind heart,” Dusty says fondly.
I pick up my herb basket from the floor and smile at him, unsure how to respond. After killing the pirates and being unable to save my people, I feel far from a good person.
We find our way back to the market easily this time, and I manage to convince the fishmonger to sell me some small trout as he is packing up to leave.
With the fish in hand, Dusty leads me to the revolting canal, where I set the otter down on the ground. It looks around disoriented.
“It looks like a young one. Probably not long left the nest.” Dusty points out.
I unfold the oil paper that the fishmonger had used to wrap the fish and hold one out to the otter. It snatches it with its paws and holds it in place as it greedily chews into the raw flesh.
I gently stroke the back of its head as it eats, and the otter makes a satisfied chirping sound. It only manages to eat two of the fish, so I place the others in my basket. Maybe Dusty could cook some fish stew for the crew one night.
With the otter grooming itself by the canal, we leave and head, once again, in the direction back to the ship.
We don’t even make it past the tavern this time when Dusty stops suddenly and spins around.
“Seffy, the otter is behind us,” he says.
I turn to see that he’s right, the otter is chasing after us as fast as its small legs can run.
“Why is it following me?” I ask exasperated.
“Perhaps it wants more fish.”
The otter catches up to us and starts trying to climb up my leg.
Sighing, I reach into my basket and pull out another fish. But, as I kneel to pass it to the small creature, it ignores it and climbs in my lap instead, snuggling up to my coat.
“I think it’s gotten attached to you,” Dusty snickers.
“But why me?” I tickle the otter’s neck and it chatters happily.
“I told you, you have a kind heart, animals can sense these things.”
“I can’t take you with me,” I tell the otter, placing it back down on the ground and standing quickly so it can’t climb back up. “Let’s just get out of here. If we ignore it, it’ll just give up.” It has gotten dark fast and my feet are hurting. Being stuck on a ship, this is the furthest I’ve walked in a long time.
As we keep walking, I can’t help but feel bad for the otter, as I hear its tiny paws pattering on the stone as it tries to keep up.
When we reach the ship, the otter lays down in the grass panting.
“Serves you right for following us the whole way,” I tell it.
“What are we going to do with it?” Dusty asks.
I sigh, rest my hands on my hips, and look up at the sky where the first stars are starting to appear.
“I don’t want to leave it here,” I tell him truthfully. “The city is one large slum, and the residents will kill it at the first opportunity.” I look down at where the otter is nibbling on its front paws. As if sensing my gaze, it looks up and starts trying to climb my leg again. I pick it up and tuck it inside my coat. “I’m smuggling it on board,” I say.
Dusty’s eyes widen in surprise. “How are you going to manage that? What if you get caught? You’ve heard how noisy it gets, there’s no way you’ll be able to hide it.”
I shush him and glance around cautiously. “I’m not going to keep it permanently, just until we get to Torver, then I’ll find it a nice clean river to swim and fish in,” I whisper.
“This is a bad idea,” Dusty mutters as we climb the ramp onto the Zarla.
I’m fortunate that the otter appears to have fallen asleep as we walk hastily across the deck to the crew’s quarters. I am in the process of unlocking my door when the quartermaster emerges from the mess hall.
“There you two are. You should have been here an hour ago, I wouldn’t have had to put my back out taking in your large food delivery,” he complains.
“Sorry, Quartermaster,” Dusty hurries to apologise. Like me, he seems to be holding his breath in apprehension for the man to leave.
“So you should be,” he says sternly and takes a step towards the door.
I wince as, at that exact moment, the otter decides to wake up and let out a squeaky yawn.
The quartermaster stops. “What was that?” he asks, spinning on his heel.
“I yawned,” I lie. I’ll never find out if he ever believed me or not because as the quartermaster looms over me, the otter pokes its sleepy head out of my jacket and blinks up at him.
His face starts to turn red with rage. This is not good.
“It’s just an ott …,” I start to say.
“You dare bring vermin onto the ship!” he all but spits in my face.
I flinch back and Dusty cowers.
“I knew you are a good-for-nothing witch who only brings trouble!”
With the loud shouting, the frightened otter tries to jump from my arms, but it is caught around the neck by the quartermaster’s hand.
“Let it go!” I threaten.
The quartermaster ignores me and raises his hand to snap the animal’s neck. My hand grips my cutlass and I start to unsheathe it.
“Julius, please refrain from killing the new crew member.”
We all pause to look where Cail stands leaning against the doorframe. He must have heard the shouting from out on the deck.
“Cail, they tried to sneak this filthy vermin onto the ship!”
“I believe that’s an otter,” Cail replies calmly, “and they didn’t sneak it on, they brought it onto the ship with orders from the captain.”
“And why would the captain order such a thing?” the quartermaster questions while the otter still hangs trembling by the neck. I want nothing more than to cut that hand off and comfort the poor animal.
“Because otters are notorious for hunting and killing insects and other small pests. We have an infestation of weevils in the galley that the captain wants to eliminate. He discussed it in yesterday’s briefing, but perhaps you were not listening.” Cail’s voice takes on an authoritative tone. I had always thought that he and the quartermaster were of equal ranking, but perhaps his close bond with the captain gave him an edge.
“Well if it is the captain’s wish then I suppose there is nothing to be done about it,” the quartermaster fumes. He tosses the otter at me and storms out onto the deck.
I catch the animal and hold it close, stroking it soothingly to try and stop its shaking.
Cail stands straight and turns to leave, and as he does, I swear I see him wink.
Dusty and I both let out the breaths we had been holding in as the doors swing shut.
“What in the heavens is a weevil?” I turn to ask Dusty.
“I have no clue, but whatever they are, we don’t have them. You watched me clean out that galley from top to bottom,” he replies.
“Come on little guy, let’s get you settled,” I tell the otter, and it lets out a happy chirp in response.