image [https://i.imgur.com/15eGPa6.jpg]

rum and beer – The Royal Navy’s official ration is as follows: a half pint of rum and a gallon of beer every day, twice again should a prize ship be won or an enemy vessel sank. It is typically more on pirate vessels. Pirate crews stay drunk most of the time.

THE JOURNEY WAS arduous. The two ships ploughed through choppy waves like blunt tills through thick soil, battling the sea. The sea only kept heaving, with sometimes twelve- and thirteen-foot swells that reminded them all of the squall. But the cold wind became even more powerful and it drove them in exactly the direction they wanted to go: ever west.

The Lively maintained the lead, and by careful seamanship and piloting was she able to navigate around troublesome cays that were tortured by the heavy tide. The hours crept by, first five, then twelve, then thirty, and still no sign of a sun. The moon and its new brother both appeared again from another horizon, which was troublesome, because it only underscored their plight. The moons were spinning around the globe faster than the sun (if there truly was a sun) could rise. The stars continued moving slowly, but soon no one could see them, for heavy clouds moved in. And this was a relief, though no one mentioned it, because it concealed the stars and the moons and, at least for a while, gave the impression that all might be normal.

Over on the Hazard, the crew was industrious, and of course they drank. Hour after hour, they drank. Rum and beer were passed around upon request. Okoa checked with the Ladyman, who only encouraged them to drink more. If it gave them courage—and it seemed to—or made them sleep more—which it did—then let the rum flow.

They maneuvered through a vast sea tormented by a cataclysm no one understood. “Leviathans!” shouted the lookouts on both of the vessels. The captains of both Lively and Hazard rushed to the main deck with the rest of their crews to see the creatures. The shadowy humps of whales, dozens of them, erupted from beneath the surface and crashed all around them. Men commented that it seemed like they had gone mad. Dolphins soon joined them. Then marlins and sharks, which leapt out of the waters like they were trying to escape something. One of the men of the Hazard leapt into the water, laughing and crying, and was never seen again.

This new phenomenon lasted almost an hour before the sea creatures settled and vanished. Hazard and Lively ploughed on.

Days could not be counted properly, only hours. Men on watch flipped the hourglass, again and again, watching the sands fall but no sun rising.

The clouds lingered and there was a storm of freezing rain. It lasted an hour, and the waves were far too large for such a minor squall. When it finally dissipated, both ships were battered and had to reef all sails and conduct repairs on yardarms and rigging. The prisoners in both bilges were working constantly in shifts, which they organized themselves to keep Lively and Hazard from sinking.

They sailed on, into the unending night.

A distant light appeared on what ought to have been the third day. It shone brilliantly, a sparkling pinpoint of pale blue light that some of the men thought was yet another moon, but it moved too fast across the sky. It left no trail like a shooting star ought. It was first spotted on the southeastern horizon, and appeared to plunge into the sea on the northwestern horizon. Aboard the Hazard, Anne Bonny stood upon the bowsprit, naked. She said she had had a dream about the strange object in the sky, in which it spoke to her, and told her that only a woman’s nakedness could keep evil at bay. No one questioned her. As always, they let her be.

Aboard the Lively, Collins, the man who had been on the watch the first night the sun had not risen, and who had been the first to report the sun’s absence, went missing. Two crewmen saw him walk up to the quarterdeck at what the glass said should have been three in the afternoon. One of the men thought he heard a splash, though it was difficult to tell, what with all the tall waves slapping against the hull. Two of the prisoners in Lively’s bilge got into a fight, and one of them drowned the other in the frothing, filthy waters. Vhingfrith took the body from Jacobson, who repeated his vow he would one day see the captain swing from a gallows. Galbraith said nothing, he only stood behind Jacobson, his face saying he backed the first mate.

Vhingfrith tossed the dead body into the water. Men started asking the captain why they had not yet reached Jamaica. “The island ought to be visible by now, oughtn’t it?” they said. Captain Vhingfrith told them to be patient, and they eyed him as he retreated back to his cabin and barred the door.

Night rolled on, and the two ships plunged deeper into a world they did not understand. Secretly, every crewman began to wonder that, if the days had become longer, perhaps the seas had too? Perhaps this phenomenon was not only one of the skies, but of the seas and land, as well. Perhaps the world had been stretched, they said.

Aboard the Hazard, a man named Rothlis emerged as a replacement for Abner in religious foretellings. Nobody knew much about him, besides he was a carpenter originally from London, who had served in the Navy and worked closely with the chaplain of the Winfield. He had been picked up by Hazard when last she was at port, and had remained quiet and lonesome all this time. But now he began reading from his Bible by candlelight during his off-shift. At first, Rothlis only read aloud to no one but himself, but soon others were gathering round, quietly listening, shushing anyone that interrupted him. Rothlis was the first among them to mention the firmament.

“It comes between us and the sky, ‘between the waters and the waters,’ the Scripture says,” Rothlis told them all.

More than once, someone would ask, “What does it mean, between the waters and the waters? That makes no sense.”

“The waters below us, and the waters above,” Rothlis explained, looking up. “They were once one, and in the beginning, the water would overflow, like a basin. So, God had to place something between the waters deep below us, like a stopgap, ye see?” He spoke at first in whispers, knowing full-well the Ladyman disliked religious talk aboard his ship. But with the slow passing of the stars, the man became bolder, because he knew the Ladyman could not afford to lose any more crewmen. “Yes, brothers, the firmament is what the Lord placed deep below the seas, to keep the waters below the firmament from rising. But that firmament ascends farther, into the sky, for it is a dome upon which the stars sit. This is our problem, ye see, brothers? D’ye see? The firmament, it’s been damaged, blackened by—”

Rothlis went quiet whenever Captain Laurier strolled through the room, or whenever he could be heard just down the companionway. But if Rothlis thought he was above suspicion, then he was a fool, for Laurier had seen too many men lose their minds, had watched them crack and spew nonsense, and he knew that a healthy crew did not shush one another when the captain was near.

And Laurier also had a few secret weapons, such as LaCroix, Dobbs, Okoa, and Akil. Akil was a killer, Laurier soon realized, after watching him carve off the end of a broken yard with a knife, and then use that same knife to make the notches for the replacement, and again when he carved up the battens to put around the hatches. The African was especially good at sharpening. And when Laurier looked Akil in his scarred face, in his eyes, he saw only a barren coldness there, as well as a fortified mind. Laurier knew he’d chosen wisely when assigning Akil the task of killing Abner Crane.

One night, Laurier invited Akil into his cabin, along with Okoa to translate. He offered them both wine, which Akil declined, with a few words in his tongue. “He say he thank Captain,” Okoa said. “But his father warn him long ago, wine robs men of their good sense.”

John said he understood and invited both men to sit. Hazard was still swaying, though not as heavily as a few hours ago. In this room, they spoke of Akil’s people. John wanted to know how far he had come, and how had it happened that he became a slave. Akil said he was from a place he knew only one English word for: the Cape. He could not point it out on the globe. He said he grew up in the Cape, along with three brothers and six sisters. His father was a war chieftain, and Akil inherited his father’s office when he came of age. His mother died of a mysterious illness, and his father was murdered by unknown members of another tribe. Laurier listened patiently as Okoa translated every word, invigorated but also mystified by the tribal order of kingships and family lineages.

But it was already clear he had been right, Akil was a warrior. More, he was a kind of prince.

Akil described a Dutch colony along the Cape, which had expanded quickly over the last three decades, and during that time, there were many clashes between the Dutch and Akil’s tribe, called the Hadza. Akil claimed the Dutch had started by first slaying the Hadza, then enslaving them, and once the Hadza fought back, the Dutch created a false story that it was the bloodthirsty Hadza that started the war, which, Akil later learned, allowed them to legally take the survivors as prisoners.

The Dutch took only these “prisoners” at first, and once there were laws in place to allow those prisoners to be quickly transferred out of Africa, many of the Dutchmen began to claim to be victims of violence. They would claim a Hadza boy struck them in the street, or a Hadza woman bit one of them, or a Hadza man had robbed a street merchant. Any justification to put them back in chains and sell them.

John listened intently, and asked Okoa to explain to Akil that he would describe his own folly that brought him here. And Akil listened patiently as John Laurier explained his upbringing in Kent, how he was always hated by his father, beaten mercilessly, unlike the rest of his siblings. John never understood why his father hated him so. Then one day John trespassed on a neighbour’s property, and the old man held him at knifepoint. Furious, the neighbour lashed out at John, beating him and saying that he was not his father’s son, that his mother had whored around, that he was not in fact the son of Benedict Laurier. John had not believed him, but once he confronted his mother about it, she sobbingly confessed the truth. Benedict Laurier had already known, and this was likely the source of his hatred for John. “I was a constant reminder he had been cuckolded by another man,” he explained.

But the Ladyman went further, and was bold enough to admit he had had other problems, such as having trouble reading. “The letters appeared backwards to me, and so my learning was severely stunted. My mother had a sister who had worked with troubled children in London, and sent me to learn from her. It helped. But it was in the city where I also found an even greater shame to bring on my family.”

John did not go in depth, he only mentioned that his first love’s name had been Joshua, which he had to explain to Akil was a masculine name in English. Once Akil understood, he gave only a slow nod. John continued, explaining how he changed his name for a time, ran away with a friend named Ellis and joined the Royal Navy, and would likely have remained forever in England’s service had it not been for a chance encounter on the ship HMS Equinox, when he crossed paths with a legendary pirate, and his fate was forever altered. The Equinox was nearly sunk, and it was fortunate he and his friend Ellis had survived at all.

“But it was while I was stuck there on that pirate ship,” Laurier said, “that I found out who I truly was.” He leaned forward to look Akil in the eye. “And you, Akil, do you know who you are?”

He spoke briefly, and Okoa translated, “He say, ‘I never forgot, Captain.’”

“Good. Very good. You and I are survivors. And if we wish to continue surviving, we must stamp out what poison England has put into the minds of many of these men, up to and including their religious predispositions.” And so he told Akil about Rothlis, giving every detail about why this man was dangerous. Then he said, “You helped send the quartermaster on his way, but that was easy. He was old and unprepared. Some of the men…they may now be wary of me.”

Akil needn’t be asked what to do next. He only nodded and spoke to Okoa.

Okoa nodded. “Akil say, ‘Leave it to me.’”

Hours later, a cry came from the mainmast. That was the last sound Rothlis made as a rope mysteriously snapped during a particularly raucous storm, and he fell into the water. Akil and two of his African friends had been up in the mainmast with him. They reported that they saw Rothlis fall, and then they shouted some of the few English words they had memorized: “Man overboard!”

But, of course, Rothlis was lost in the waves, utterly swallowed by the same black waters that had taken so many of them. If any of the crew suspected Akil and his people of murder, they never made an accusation. There were certainly those that saw the Africans hovering near Captain Laurier, almost like personal guards, and while some of the crew mumbled about this observation, they never began formulating a plan against the captain. The Ladyman had successfully cast a spell: Plot against me at your peril.

Laurier learned the names of the other five Africans that followed Akil: Bogoa, Femi, Lethabo, Omari, and Hakim. He told Okoa to make sure they understood they had all earned Rothlis’s shares now, as well as part of the captain’s own, and that they would receive more for any other services rendered while en route to Jamaica. The Africans were astonished they would ever own any gold coin or other plunder, and Okoa made sure they knew how rare and generous this was, that no other besides the Ladyman would ever be this fair to them.

The Ladyman had made strong new allies. But he had a new problem. Rothlis was gone, but talk of the firmament was just beginning.

____

It was then nine days since the phenomenon began. No sun had appeared, only the two moons. On both ships, the crews huddled together whenever they were off-shift, to share warmth and talk and sometimes to pray. There was no ice or frost growing on the gunwales, nor on the sheets or yardarms, but the cold was cutting deeper—an invasive enemy, patient, willing to wear down their defences over time. They kept turning the glass, watching the sand pour from one end to the other, and they kept track of the hours and still called the passage of twenty-four hours a “day,” though the sun remained gone.

And they saw no ships. That was perhaps most disconcerting, for it was common out here in the busy Caribbean seas to spot other ships traveling through, to occasionally catch a sail peeking over the horizon—the moons ought to have provided enough light to see that.

Men spoke of the firmament while they worked, when they ate, before they slept. Laurier knew he could not prevent it, but as long as it did not swell into bouts of despair or melancholy, he would allow the men to think whatever they wanted. But he knew it was going to get harder, especially since Jamaica remained stubbornly nonexistent. The damned island would not appear on their horizon! The moons came and went, but no island. No island of any kind.

Aboard the Lively, Captain Vhingfrith struggled with the same. One crewmen slit his wrists and jumped into the water in full view of everyone. Men were beginning to ask, out loud, to the captain’s face, if he was certain he had not made a mistake in navigation. Without the stars, and without any landmarks, they were having to sail in the direction the compass said was west. Vhingfrith assured them all would be well, and that the winds had merely “veered” them off a little. “So we are having to circle back around, isn’t that right, Mr. Dawson?”

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“Aye, sir,” said the helmsman, maintaining a unified front for the sake of morale.

That mollified them some, but still they pestered Vhingfrith whenever he walked about the main deck, or passed through the companionway, or checked on Jacobson and the prisoners in the bilge. And those prisoners sang at almost all hours, and their singing disturbed the crew to no end. So the crew pestered Vhingfrith more, demanding that he do something about Jacobson and Galbraith and all the others. Some of them claimed that since Jacobson had proven himself a Judas, he ought to be slain. “Might that not appease God?” one crewman said.

“Appease Him to what end?” the Devil’s Son queried. “You still think He’s the one robbed you of the sun? For love of all things holy, man, you sound like one of the Carib tribes, thinking that by tossing someone into the volcano you can bring good luck.”

The crewman shied away, and went to his hammock to sleep.

Vhingfrith was soon locking himself in his cabin again, if only to be away from their prattling and begging and crying. Frustrated, he went back to the main deck and signaled the Hazard with a gunshot, and used light signals with the lanterns to indicate he wanted for them to dock again. When Vhingfrith came aboard the Hazard, he was surprised to find himself relieved, and that he actually felt safer on the pirate vessel than he did his own brig.

Neither captain spoke of their last intimate encounter, nor the argument that had followed. They remained focused on the charts, the rutters, the logs. John mentioned it was funny to him that they had come across no other ships, and Benjamin merely dismissed it as coincidence. “Besides,” he said, “these are pirate latitudes, it is not all that uncommon to go weeks without seeing anything besides a sail on the horizon, people fear running into your kind. And in this permanent night we cannot see everything.”

They both looked out the rear window, at the two moons, the pink one slightly faster than the white one, which seemed now to follow it like a little brother, though it was the larger.

“What if we’re the only ones left on Earth, Benjamin?” John asked.

Ben looked at him, but deliberately ignored the question. He asked, “Have there been any more problems with your crew?”

John explained the firmament, and only said that the man spreading this theory had died by accident during the last storm. If Benjamin suspected him of foul play, he said nothing. He paced a moment and scratched his days-old stubble and said, “If you are representing Rothlis’s words accurately, then the man had it wrong. At least, that is not the true interpretation of the firmament from Genesis.”

“What is the firmament?” John asked. “Is it a story that would explain all of this?”

“Not exactly, no.” Benjamin had on an extra coat to keep himself warm, and it made him appear bulky, even brawny. It was almost comical to look upon him this way. “The Scripture says that the sun, moon, and stars are in the firmament, and that the firmament is a dome, across which all heavenly bodies are moving, including the wandering stars, and what some call planets.”

“Is it possible Rothlis was on to something? Might the firmament be ‘blackened’ like he said?”

“The Scriptures are filled with contradictions, John, which is why so many men have given it varying interpretations. The authorship of every book in the Bible is questionable, and many of its claims about the Universe were obviously made by spurious men.” He shrugged. “But name me one historical document that isn’t.”

“So, what is your conclusion, Captain?”

Vhingfrith ran a hand over his face and stared at the pink moon racing across the heavens. “The firmament has no rooting amongst the cultivators of science.” He shrugged. “Who knows what happens if a bird flies high enough, and reaches the limits of the heavens? Who knows if there even are limits?” Vhingfrith was plagued by dark thoughts that had been circling his dreams, and what little sleep he was getting was therefore incomplete, unsound, and oftentimes tortuous. At all times he sensed a dagger pointed at his back. And there were dreams that included John Laurier, swimming naked in silk sheets, and Ben’s own father warning him to flee to Massachusetts Bay.

“All right, here’s another question, then. Why have we not reached Jamaica?” the Ladyman asked.

Vhingfrith began pacing again. “If we believe everything da Vinci said about planetshine is true, and if we believe Anaxagoras was right when he said two and a half thousand years ago that the moon does not have its own light, and if we believe that Newton was correct about the alterations the moon makes on our globe’s rotation and tides, then the heavens have been altered in a predictable way.”

“What way?”

“Rothlis may have been wrong about the firmament’s exact position—for Genesis says it comes between the ‘two waters’—but he may have been right about some medium that comes between us and the stars. If we assume all of these things are true, then the days themselves may not be the only thing that has lengthened. Perhaps also…the seas have been stretched. Time. Space?” He shrugged.

The Ladyman winced in consternation, and waited for an explanation.

“I did not want to tell you this,” Vhingfrith went on. “But the island cay where we tried to careen?”

“Yes?”

“It was a little more than a hundred miles beyond where it should have been. At first, I thought it was merely a miscalculation on my part, one brought upon me and my navigator Mr. Fuller by the exigencies of our situation, by the panic in our own hearts, which we all endeavoured to hide, I as much as anyone.”

Laurier was astonished, and felt a little betrayed. “So then, where is Jamaica?”

“Captain, I am asked every waking moment where Jamaica is, please do not add to that fugue of voices.” Vhingfrith sighed. “All I can say is that both Mr. Fuller and myself are confident we have navigated to the best of our ability, considering the changes in wind, the changes in the stars, and the chaotic currents, the latter of which seems to obey no rules set down in the rutters of other captains that have previously been in this region.”

John looked out the window with him. “Christ, Ben, we’re alone in the dark. Lost in an unending cave without another soul in the world.”

Vhingfrith ignored the frightening comment. He paced a moment before concluding, “If the first cay we came to was not where it ought to be, then it stands to reason Jamaica itself may not be where it’s supposed to be, either. It may be miles further on, or it may have been pushed north of us by several hundreds…thousands of miles. It may—”

He cut himself off.

John nodded. “It may not even be there.”

“Yes.”

“And the cay we came to…”

“May not even be the same cay we were looking for, yes. It may have merely been another anomaly.”

“I’m almost afraid to ask, but what would that mean for the cay you were looking for?”

“Sunk to the bottom of the ocean, swallowed by a kraken, how the bloody hell should I know?”

“Ben?” John said. “What in God’s name is going on?”

____

On the tenth day, they saw lights on the horizon, which danced and swayed across the tumultuous waves. Up in the Hazard’s crow’s nest, Jenkins swore it matched the profile of a man o’ war, but as they sailed towards it, the lights dimmed, then winked out entirely, like candles being snuffed. They sailed a bit southward to see if they could find it again, but if it had been any kind of ship, they saw no more sign of it.

Two more men leapt into the waters to their deaths, one from each ship. The crews were getting small enough that both captains were having to join in with their crew to reef and hand. Captain Laurier made the decision to toss some of their ballast overboard, as well as some of the extra cannon shot they had taken from the Nuestra. This would keep them from sitting too low in the waves. All men were drenched at all hours, Lively and Hazard were enduring waves like they would in a prolonged storm, and the cold winds only grew stronger.

Meals were prepared aboard Lively by a man named Maxwell, and aboard Hazard by ol’ Reginald. Both men were somewhat lame with old injuries, and, following the tradition of the sea, these otherwise terrific seamen were made into ship’s cooks. Aboard both vessels it was difficult to cook and prepare meals in near darkness. Light was scarce, since both captains had ordered lantern oil and candles to be used sparingly—no one knew how long the night would last. Most meals were hominy grits, weevil-riddled hardtack, and bits of salted pork, with ample portions of beer. The prisoners had to be fed, too, but they were only given half portions. This made them sing louder, in protest, to keep the rest of the crew from a good rest.

Aboard the Lively, men still had some semblance of order, but aboard the Hazard they were getting used to overindulgence, and they ate to have something to do while trying to sleep, and vomited because their rum-filled bellies sloshed in the violent waves.

The singing from the prisoners in both ships became loud enough some nights to be heard all across the waters, even above the waves. Perhaps it was a concerted effort to annoy the men above, to drive them insane enough to release the prisoners. It did not work, the two captains held fast to their crew. But it gave them sleepless nights. Or days. Or whatever this was.

____

Neither ship had been allowed to properly careen and repair, and so they began to suffer more hardships, stemming from the damage they took from Nuestra. It was Hazard that fell into trouble first.

“Come into the wind,” John commanded. “Let loose all sails.” That brought them to more or less a halt. Lively saw their plight and came into the wind about two hundred yards ahead.

Sheets were torn and needed replacing; extra beckets were laid to confine the ropes from being caught in the wind; extra bibbs were bolted to the mainmast to support the trestle-trees; the trestle-trees themselves needed replacing when they began to snap; the prisoners in the bilge worked the pumps at all hours, and both John and LaCroix joined them to drive more oakum into holes that had been made by the Nuestra’s cannons, and were reopening; the rope that led from the ship’s wheel down to the rudder became frayed from so much overwork, and had to be replaced, which took several hours with Hazard thrashing about; canvass was resewn; carpenters worked at all hours, syphering bulkheads and prioritizing one repair over the other.

John gave them more rum, more beer, as much as they wanted. He shouted at them, “I want the task done within the turning of the glass! And nothing of gimcrack quality, you understand, gentlemen?” They barely muttered their solemn acknowledgement. They were exhausted, at their wit’s end, operating now more out of habit than anything. More than one crewman commented that if this was indeed Hell, it made sense they would be forced to sail for all eternity in fear of darkness.

A kind of madness took over. The crew on both ships were singing at all hours, as were the prisoners down in the bilge and in the spare hold. Fights broke out on the Lively, one man was stabbed but survived his wounds thanks to Mr. Tyndall. The Hazard’s men sang “Drunken Sailor” over and over. Not to be outdone, the Lively’s men repeatedly sang “Bend the Sails Away.” And louder. The two crews started competing to see who was loudest, shouting their songs across the water at each other, until some began to lose their voices.

The sea frustrated them as they got underway once more. They were swamped by waves, and they pitched even more fiercely when both moons were in the sky, and the sea responded angrily. One more man went overboard from the Lively, though it was never clear whether it was purposeful or not.

The next time the moon rose, it did so alone. Everyone noticed, and everyone commented. Where was the pink one? The moon they had known since children, that mankind had known since its earliest primitive cradle, was once more alone in the sky. Not long after it appeared, the waves became much less choppy, the seas calmed for the first time in ten days. There was cheering, and singing, and drinking. The men were soaked in more alcohol than seawater, but they were happy.

Aboard the Lively, Captain Vhingfrith breathed a small sigh of relief, but he never let his men stray from their duties.

Aboard the Hazard, Captain Laurier took the wheel from Kepler and allowed the men their celebrations. It was Jenkins, still up in the crow’s nest, who spotted a trio of small cays.

On the eleventh day, they careened on one of these cays, and waited for the tide to become low enough to tilt both ships. The men went to shore, and the captains agreed to release only half their prisoners to help with the work of lashing ropes to both ships and tying them to trees and using pulleys and winches to lean them more to one side.

LaCroix led the repair work on Hazard, while Gibbons (one of the only carpenters still loyal to Vhingfrith) led the repairs on Lively. They had to work fast, for the tides were still not retreating as low as they ought. Men worked in ankle- and knee-high waters to repair holes on the outside of the hull, right at the waterline, where a few of the Nuestra’s shots had found their mark. They did not get nearly as much work done as they would like, but the men were now chattering happily about the inevitable return of the sun.

The two ships were careened within a hundred yards of each other, and both crews sang as one, singing “Randy Dandy O” like never before:

“Heave a pawl, oh, heave away,

Way ay, roll an’ go!

The anchor’s on board an’ the cable’s stored,

Timme rollickin’ randy dandy O!”

By the time the full tide returned the ropes were released and the ships were let go, back into the water, where they slowly leaned and splashed into the water, heeling heavily to that side that impacted, almost to the point it looked like they would sink. Then all crew were all aboard and headed away.

The twelfth day was marked by more joy, for the moon returned again, alone, and the seas remained as calm as they should normally be. Some men brought up the Hellmouth again, but John Laurier did not much care, for now they were talking about how they had successfully sailed back out of it.

Benjamin Vhingfrith felt a little easier about walking about the ship. Never would he have thought he would be so happy to see only a single moon in the sky, or that it should lessen the fear he had of the permanent curtain of night that had been draped over them. But the stars were still spinning slowly, with still no sight of the sun. But they are the stars as normally seen in the night sky. They are no longer distorted, he thought. That has to be a good sign, yes? A new theory formed in his mind. It’s like a timepiece that hasn’t been wound, slowly returning to its natural state of stillness. He now imagined that whatever they were passing through, it was more like a machine than a cave or a Hellmouth or even the firmament. We got tossed into it. And now, are we being spit back out?

He made himself busy, to distract himself. The Lively had an elm-tree pump, a special piece of equipment that connected a bored-out trunk directly to the sea, and transmitted seawater back and forth, and the men used that seawater to swab the deck. Vhingfrith stripped to his waist and got on his hands and knees, since they were down so many men, and scrubbed the deck himself. He would keep the ship clean, on his life.

On the thirteenth day, though, a light appeared on the eastern horizon, a kind of reddish-gold glow, and the men on both ships were screaming and tearing off their handkerchiefs and tossing them into the air in jubilation, for surely this meant the sun had finally returned. But that glow suddenly vanished in the span of a few breaths. It was like a great fire had been over yon horizon, and been snuffed out instantly.

The men stopped cheering, and sailed on, a bit more glum than before.

On the fourteenth day, the sun rose.

____

John stood on the quarterdeck, watching the red-glowing, spherical ingot rise behind their ship. It came from the eastern horizon, just like it ought. Behind him, men were cheering. Screaming so loud he thought their lungs would burst. A captain ought to maintain order and composure, and so he did. But a captain ought also to rejoice with his men when it was called for, and so he flung his skirt off and stood naked on the railing and they all cheered. He looked over at the Lively, a hundred yards to their port, and could see crewmen dancing and hugging each other.

John held back tears. He would rejoice with his men, but he would not let them see him cry. They couldn’t know that he had also held the same fears as they. They couldn’t know of his secret fear, for they already knew of his weakness for Vhingfrith, and were eager to hold that against him. But, for the moment, they forgot about his unnatural love for the Devil’s Son, and danced with him. All of them danced.

The sun was back.

The sun was back!

Surely they had only experienced some unnatural phenomenon, or perhaps even sailed through the Hellmouth. Whatever the case, it was all behind them now. The nightmare was over. Many of the men were already swearing off piracy forever, saying that once they were back at Port Royal with a pair of tits in their hands they were never setting foot off dry land again. By the bowsprit, Anne Bonny stood holding on to a stay. John noticed she wasn’t moving, she just kept looking up at the sky, like she suspected the other shoe to drop any moment.

Cannonfire! The Lively’s crew fired her fore and aft cannons out of sheer celebratory bliss. Some of the Hazard’s crew rushed to answer the same, but stopped when Okoa said it was a waste of cannon shot. Some of the men looked to the Ladyman, who still stood naked among them, with a solemn face. Then he cracked a smile and gave the order to fire off a single shot. The men rejoiced and fired perhaps more than a single shot.

The last of the rum was drank. Beer was brought down to the prisoners in Hazard’s bilge. Some of the prisoners were even allowed topside, while still kept in chains, to join in the dancing. Tomlinson brought out a fiddle, and Jenkins had a flute that he played badly, but everyone danced elatedly. Even Dobbs was out there dancing. The men invited the Ladyman to dance with them. He started to join them—

“Land!” Anne Bonny cried.

The celebrations were suddenly cut short. Everyone rushed forward in solemn silence. Their joy was soon sucked dry. Because they had found Jamaica. And they had never seen it like this.