“A storm?” Amanda asked Shiv as they entered the mess hall. “Is that bad?”

Shiv shook his head. “Nothing to worry about.” The tone he used was more offhanded however, and Amanda found it little comfort.

Amanda ate her food and then chatted with the men. They seemed to have largely forgotten that she wasn’t meant to be on board the ship. They joked and laughed and chatted about all sorts of things. Eventually the topic turned to the events of the day.

“I can’t believe after Billie’s incident with the snake that it was his stupid coconut that saved the the day.”

“Yeah, man that kid is lucky.”

“I been telling him for years he’s a flaming idiot.”

“Thank the devil you were there,” one of the men said to Amanda. There was a murmur of agreement around the table.

She just shrugged. “It was nothing. Benny’s the one who summoned the antidote.”

The men continued chatting between themselves.

“You know what I don’t get. I don’t get why the beetles didn’t each the bones?”

“What bones?”

“The vamp bones.”

“Why would they eat bones?”

“Bone’s a living thing.”

“What? No it ain’t.”

“Yes it is.”

“No it ain’t.”

“Ye-ah, it is.”

“No. It ain’t.”

“Sirius said it is. He was the one who was wondering how come they don’t eat the bone.”

“Sirius didn’t even finish high school.”

“Most people here didn’t finish high school, but he’s smart, he knows shit.”

“Only cause in comparison to you everyone knows shit.”

“Would you two quit it,” Shiv banged on the table. “If Sirius says that bone’s alive. Then bone is alive.”

They were silent for a moment and then one of the started up again.

“Well then how come they didn’t eat the bone?”

“I don’t know,” Shiv replied before the other man could get his own word in. “Maybe it was too hard for them.” He sighed and held up a knife. “Any one up for a game of four finger fillet?”

“I thought it was called five finger fillet?” Amanda replied.

Shiv just chuckled.

“Yeah alright, I’ll play,” one man said.

The two played a game of it. Amanda watched. She’d heard of the game before but never seen it played quite so well. The idea was to spread one’s fingers wide and then stab the table in the gaps between. The players would each play at the same time and the whomever could go the fastest the longest won. The bystanders judged if a player wasn’t going fast enough. Amanda was intrigued. She didn’t think it looked so hard. She’d practiced a little before. They looked fast, particularly Shiv, who won several rounds, but she reckoned she could give it a good go. Eventually she got her chance.

Shiv turned to her. “How about you? Are you keen to play?”

Amanda nodded.

Shiv handed her a knife the same size as his. She gripped it’s dark handle. “Ready?” he asked.

She nodded again.

Shiv gave a wide grin. “Three. Two. One.”

Amanda gave it her best. It wasn’t too hard. She stabbed quicker than some of the other men had. The trick was to keep your hand relaxed and let the knife slide a little. No one called her slow. She grinned. Maybe she could win this.

But Shiv was fast too and as time went on Amanda found it got harder to keep her hand moving where she wanted it. But she was so determined to keep up.

Eventually “Shit!” Amanda stopped and pulled her hand back off the table. She’d felt the knife nick a finger. She hadn’t stabbed it but she’d caught a slice, of that she was sure. She could feel the blood warm in her hands.

Shiv grinned at the victory giving one loud “Haha!” Then his face fell and he looked at something past Amanda. He swept his own knife off the table and out of sight.

Amanda glanced back for a moment. Sirius stood in the doorway looking at Shiv.

“Don’t tell me you lot are playing that damn game of yours again Shiv. A sailor ain’t useful if he doesn’t have any fingers. I’ve told you…” Sirius paused as he saw Amanda’s posture and expression. “What happened?” he asked calmly and with a modicum of resignation as if he’d expected something like this.

Amanda, who had one hand tightly pressed against the other to stop the bleeding, risked another glance up at him. She tried to look innocent. It fooled nobody.

“Let me have a look,” he told her.

“Can’t, I need to keep the pressure on, but if you’ve got any medical supplies somewhere? Maybe a bandage?” she replied.

He nodded then gestured for her to follow him.

“It’s just a cut I think. I don’t need a healer,” she said as she followed him into the hallway.

“Good because the healer is still out.”

“Still?” Amanda asked. It wasn’t unheard for overuse of magic to knock someone unconscious for several hours but it wasn’t common either.

“In here.” Sirius led her into what looked like a small supply room. There were some barrels of something, a few guns, knives, and tools. He reached for a small red box. Inside were an array of bandages. Amanda could feel the boat rocking underfoot more than usual and she wondered if they were in the mentioned storm. She couldn’t hear any rain though. Perhaps it was just the effect of the storm on the nearby sea.

“Sit there.” He pointed to a stool. She did as asked. She could feel the blood dripping from her fingers. She was sure she’d left a trail down the hallway.

Sirius pulled up his own stool. “Now let me see.”

Amanda decided not to argue. After all she did need to look at it herself. She held her hand out. There was bright red blood everywhere but the cut was still obvious. It was worse than she’d suspected. The knife had made quite the slit deeply almost halfway between two knuckles. She was used to wounds and the blood didn’t bother her. She knew this was going to sting when she wrapped something over it though. It already throbbed badly and probably she needed to stitch it.

“I don’t suppose you’ve got any liquor?” she joked.

“You shouldn’t clean that with liquor. That’s a common misconception.” Sirius replied as he studied her wound.

“I didn’t mean for that,” Amanda replied with a smile.

“Oh.”

“It’s going to need stitches I think, or I can wrap it and your healer can take a look tomorrow?”

Sirius frowned. “I don’t think you should leave that.” He started rifling through the first aid kit. “I think there’s a suture needle in here, although I don’t think it’s ever been used.

“Well that’s probably more sanitary than a used one.” Amanda joked. She rested her finger on her lap. It was still bleeding but less slow than it had been. She put some pressure back on it and winced at the pain.

A moment later Sirius sat back down with a tiny curved needle and thin thread. He pulled out some antiseptic and used it to clean the needle.

He handed her the bottle and a cotton pad. She winced again at the sting as she wiped around the wound.

Sirius held the needle up. He hesitated. “I’ve never done this before?”

“Have any of your other men?”

“I don’t think so. We don’t usually have an exhausted healer. Not that he’s the best at it but...”

Amanda removed her good hand from the wound and held it out so he could give her the needle.

“You can’t stitch it yourself.”

“Why not? I’ve done it before.”

“You’ve given yourself stitches?”

“No, but I’ve given stitches to horses, and trust me that’s a lot more dangerous.”

“What do you need?” Sirius asked.

“A bottle of whiskey,” Amanda replied.

He sighed and gave her a disapproving look.

She stared right back at him.

“Fine,” he sighed. “Don’t start until I get back. Just in case you pass out.”

Amanda nodded and Sirius left.

She was tempted to get started anyway but then decided it was going to be much easier after a shot or two of whiskey. She waited for Sirius to return.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

He was fast. She suspected he’d run, either that or the whiskey had been stored close.

He handed her the bottle then sat back down with a frown. “You know I don’t think that will actually help.”

“Trust me it’ll help.”

He spoke his next words carefully as if unsure. “I thought, alcohol thins the blood, makes you bleed faster?”

Amanda nodded. “Yeah but it numbs the mind.” Amanda took a long swig. Then with a glance at Sirius to see if she was being too obvious she held the end of the needle between her fingers and heated it up.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to touch the end.” Sirius ventured.

He was right again but in this case Amanda figured the heat would kill anything. She couldn’t tell him that though. She pulled her hand away. “You’re probably right.”

“Although I’m not sure how you’d avoid touching some part of it.” he looked at the needle in puzzlement.

“Usually there’s some tongs or tweezers or gloves.”

He looked in the first aid kit again. “Oh you’re right.” He handed her a pair of gloves.

She took one but sat it under her hand to catch the blood rather than use it. There wasn’t much point to it now. Then she took another couple of long swigs of the whiskey. Before she lost her nerve she pushed the needle through. She paused on the other side afraid she was going to pass out. She tried to focus on the lingering burn from the whiskey instead.

Sirius watched with a concerned look on his face. “You know I could probably…”

She shook her head. Now she had started she was determined to finish. Giving her head yet another shake, this time to clear her mind she did another two passes with the needle in rapid succession. Another swig of the whiskey and then more needle work. She was almost finished, only a few passes of the needle left to go, when she started to feel her vision going. She blinked a few times but it didn’t help. Darkness crept in from the edges first and then in little spots that expanded bigger and bigger.

The next thing she knew she was waking up on the floor. She glanced down at the stitching on her finger to find it was all done and neatly tied off. She sat up with some help from Sirius.

“You finished stitching it.”

“Yeah well I figured it was easier while you were out.”

“How long was I unconscious?”

“Not that long. There wasn’t much left to do, and I never want to have to do that again so please don’t play any more four-finger fillet with Shiv. I once saw him play a guy for over an hour.”

“Over an hour!? I thought I was doing alright.”

“Uh huh.” He handed her a cup of something.

“What’s this?”

“Water.”

She made a face and looked around for the whiskey but it was gone. “What happened to the whiskey?”

“I put it in the cupboard,” he admitted. “It’s your body but I’d suggest you don’t drink any more until that heals up a bit.“

Amanda eyed her finger, nodded and reluctantly took the water. It tasted good. She hadn’t realised how thirsty she was. She did feel a bit drunk already. She was aware that getting drunk not once but twice on a crew filled entirely with men, even if they did all seem pretty nice, probably wasn’t the smart move. But she’d made stupider decisions in the past. Sneaking inside a crate about to be put on a random ship was just one of the more recent ones. That said when one has the ability to set things on fire with their mind the focus on being careful has a tendency to slip the mind. Besides even if she hadn’t intended to be on this ship she figured she might as well have some fun. The effect of being tipsy, combined with probably a little high from the adrenaline, was making her feel bolder.

“So how do you know alcohol’s a blood thinner? You left school at sixteen right?”

“I read it in a book. It was an adventure story, about some teenagers who go caving.”

“What was it called?”

He got a faraway look. “I don’t remember.

“Where did you run away from?”

He met her eyes and paused thoughtfully for a moment. Then he glanced away. “Little Rock,” he answered finally.

“You’re from Little Rock?!” She hadn’t expected that answer.

“Went to Pelsbrook.” he replied meeting her eyes again.

“Fancy.” Amanda gave a crooked smile. Pelsbrook was a touch south of Little Rock and cost money to go to unlike the publicly funded school she’d attended. It explained why they’d never met despite being similar in age. Little Rock was small but it still had it’s class divides.

“What was your strong suit?” she asked remembering the conversation from earlier.

He raised his eyebrows, not remembering as much as she.

“Or did you hate school?”

“No, I liked school. I don’t know. I liked linguistics and math. I don’t know if I was good at them. I can’t speak much of any other languages but they were interesting to learn about. Same with literature and music and most subjects actually. I miss school sometimes.” He had that faraway look again.

Amanda studied him. “Did you just say you liked math?”

He glanced back down at her surprised and then he chuckled at the look on her face. He shrugged. “Yeah, you always knew what the answers were.”

“I never knew what the answers were.” Amanda laughed in a kind of bewilderment.

He in turn seemed amused by her reaction but she also noticed he was blushing a little. “No, I mean, even when they were hard there was always an answer. It wasn’t like when we were studying debate where the answer wasn’t clear or it depended or… actually I never really liked debate, hated public speaking.” he made a similar face to the one Amanda had made in regard to math.

“You’re the captain of a ship!” Amanda exclaimed between laughs.

“Yeah…” He trailed off with a grin as if it were the first time he’d thought about it that way. “There’s not really a lot of speaking as captain.”

They met each others eyes silently and then both burst out laughing.

“Yeah, okay I’ll admit that’s weird.” They both laughed some more and then he paused thoughtfully. “I wanted to ask you something?”

“Yeah?”

“What did you do to my arm earlier? When the beetle was inside, you killed it right? How?”

Amanda hesitated. This was a question she’d been hoping to avoid. She glanced down at his arm. Now that she was close she could see a few other scars along the back of his forearm. They weren’t obvious. They looked like knife cuts. She wondered if they were from fights. She met his eyes again. He was still waiting.

She tired for distraction. “Why’d you leave? If you liked school so much.”

She had expected him to point out that she hadn’t answered the question. But he didn’t do that. Instead he sat back and thought for awhile. She wasn’t sure what he was thinking about until he answered. “I told you that.” He met her eyes for a moment and then dropped them away. He looked sad somehow. Amanda felt guilty.

“I mean on the day you left, what made you go?” She wasn’t sure if this were too personal so she asked in a soft tone.

He met her eyes again. He seemed to be trying to read her face. Whatever he saw it must have been reassuring or at the very least kind.

“I don’t know. I was down by the port. I liked watching the ships. I’d always wondered what it would be like to get on one and sail away. It wasn’t really something I planned. There was a ship and no one was watching the gang plank. Next thing I know I’m walking up it. I suppose I could have come back but… this life, once you’ve had a taste, it gets addictive you know.” He eyed her as if it were something that might happen to her too.

Amanda could see that. She thought about the red sky she’d seen earlier as the sun had dropped, as the waves turned purple. There had been something magical about it. It drew her thoughts to the sky, reminded her why she was here. But she had one more question first.

“Didn’t your parents worry?”

He met her eyes then looked away again. “I don’t have a mother, she died, and...” He was quiet for a moment.

“I’m sorry,” Amanda replied when she realised he wasn’t going to say anymore.

“We should get back. You should get some rest. I’m surprised you managed so many stitches before passing out,” he replied.

Amanda shrugged. She had to admit she was pretty tired. “I’m used to it. I’ve broken a few bones in my life, mostly from falling off horses, and one pegasus.”

Sirius frowned.

She continued. “That and working in this business you see a fair number of horse injuries too. My mother’s horse broke its leg once, tripped on a rabbit den and fell into a particularly nasty cactus patch.”

“Did it have to get euthanised?” Sirius asked.

Amanda shook her head. “Normally that’d be the case but mum loved that horse and dad couldn’t bring himself to do that to her. So we nursed her back to health. We had to stich some of where the cactus had sliced her and then keep her off the leg till it was healed. Took ages and was a flaming pain, but you should have seen the look on mum’s face when she saw that horse walk again. Dad’s too, except he was looking at mum.”

Sirius smiled at that story but it seemed a sad smile. She didn’t want to push her luck with any more personal questions though. Maybe later. It seemed like he’d had enough before. There was still one other topic she wanted to cover though.

“You know that pegasus you have in the hold?”

He looked down at her, his facial expression hardening ever so slightly, preempting a difficult conversation.

“He’ll need some exercise, you can’t just keep a pegasus locked up like that.”

He frowned and then shook his head. “I’ve never transported a pegasus before.”

“Well I have, plenty of them, and I know exactly how to handle them and look after them, something your animal handler doesn’t seem to be aware of at all.”

“Except he was hired to handle the animals,” Sirius replied but he was rubbing his beard and didn’t sound too sure.

“Come on, that guy’s an idiot, even without knowing anything about animals you can still see that.”

Sirius sucked his lips in thinking. “How would you even exercise that thing? It might fly off.”

Amanda shook her head. “It won’t, unless it spies land. They mostly stick to one area though. But if you’re worried you can tie a rope to it.”

“How would we get it down?”

“You’re a strongarm aren’t you?” Amanda replied boldly, regretting it as she saw him smile softly. But he didn’t ask what she was.

“Just pull her back in and then walk her down to the hold?”

“Him,” Amanda corrected. He had a point though, force might get the pegasus to deck but it wouldn’t get him back into the hold. “If you let me ride him I can land him and get him calmly back inside.” She wasn’t certain about it but her gut told her it might be possible.

Sirius narrowed his eyes. “I’ll think about it.” With that he turned and walked back out into the hall. He held the door open so she could follow. They started their way back to the mess room.

They were almost there when the sound of feet on wood came towards them. A moment later a crewman followed.

“We need your help with some navigation decision making. Shiv reckons we should skip Wildwater cause of the forecast but Crawly reckons we’re good.”

“Which way’s the storm headed?”

“North-west, right into Wildwater. Shiv reckons we can beat her if we keep on going.”

Sirius frowned “That would risk us running out of water. Alright, let’s take a look.”

Sirius followed the man down the hallway laving Amanda behind. She considered following but then she remembered how Sirius had been interrupted the last time they’d been on their way to the mess hall. She could have headed back to her cabin at this point too. She wasn’t far and she was very sleepy but it didn’t seem right given she was part of the reason the captain hadn’t had his dinner yet. She headed for the mess room.

The room was largely empty bar for a couple of men playing cards. They looked up as she entered. “You wanna play with us?” one of them asked.

“Maybe later.” She gave them a smile as she slipped past and through the door that led to the galley. There she found Bruce, the cook’s hand.

“Hey Amanda.” He greeted her cheerfully.

“Who’s that?” a gruffer voice asked. She guessed it was the cook but she couldn’t see where it was coming from.

“Amanda, the stowaway,” Bruce told him.

When a large hunchback of a man appeared out of thin air right next to her she nearly jumped out of her skin.

“What stowaway?” the hunchback asked. He was a ghost, that was what they called someone with invisibility powers. But even without the powers he resembled a traditional ghost. He wore a white chef’s shirt, grey pants, and his long chalky hair almost reached his knees. Amanda wondered if he wore a hairnet when he cooked and decided she didn’t really want to know the answer.

He gave her a sniff. “We ain’t got no stowaways on this ship. We ain’t got no woman either.”

“It’s alright Kip, the captain knows about her,” Bruce explained.

The chef narrowed his eyes.

“What do you want Amanda?” Bruce asked cheerfully.

She eyed the chef warily but Bruce seemed to think it fine to ignore him so she did likewise.

“The captain didn’t get his dinner, I was thinking I would take some to him,” she said.

The chef made a weird sort of growl. “No extra rations,” he said as he turned toward the back of the galley and promptly vanished into the air.

“It’s not for me, it’s for the captain. He hasn’t had his yet,” she said to the air. There was no answer. Amanda glanced at Bruce.

He nodded. “I’ll sort something, gimme a sec.”

Amanda’s gaze darted around the room, disconcerted at where chef may be.

“Here ya go,” Bruce said returning with a small board covered with a lid. He was faster than she’d expected.

“Thanks Bruce.”

“Yer too nice Billy,” came the gruff voice from the back of the kitchen.

“It’s Bruce,” Bruce corrected. “Billy was the last helper remember.”

“Coconut ankle Billie?” Amanda asked.

Bruce grinned. “Nah, different Billy.”

“How many Billie’s are there?”

“Three, except the last one we call ‘Sue’.”

“Sue?”

“Yup. Kitchen hand Billy got banned from the kitchen though. He gave everyone food poisoning. Twice. One guy died.”

Amanda gave him a surprised look.

“He used the wrong mushrooms,” Bruce explained. “Not that I can tell them apart, I just don’t use them at all, except the ones you can get at the market. Billy liked foraging though. The first time wasn’t so bad. The second time though. Most of the crew were out for days. We just drifted. If it weren’t for Thatch not liking mushrooms we probably all would have been goners. He made sure everyone got food and water and he kept an eye on where we were. His cooking was eeeugh but it kept us alive for those few days. We need a new chef really. I don’t suppose you know how to cook?”

Amanda shook her head “What about..?” she glanced toward the back of the galley which was dark and mostly hidden behind a rack of hanging pans.

Bruce shrugged. “He’s getting old, forgets a lot of stuff. I think he’s getting on around 300 these days although some of the guys reckon he’s more than 500 years old. Anyway you should get going or the food will get cold.”

“Thanks Billie, … Bruce, sorry”

He chuckled.