Gemma jerked her head to the side, and they followed her silently along the deck of the ship toward the aft-deck where the pirates sang a joyous tune.

“Heave Ho! Away we go!

We're off again to sea!

No starboard drift!

The wind is stiff!

It's only port for me!

We once drank rum. Had five whole drums.

We forgot to keep her tied.

Our tiny sloop, it sprung a leak,

and sank before our eyes.

A friendly cutter, pulled us outta the gutter,

So we stole off with her hide.

Heave Ho! Away we go!

We're off again to sea!

No starboard drift!

The wind is stiff!

It's only port for me!

We drank all night, vodka with bite.

We sipped until the fall.

At pointed tip, we took a new ship.

And captured a passing yawl.

After we woke at dawn, to find sails torn.

Oh what a lucky haul.

Heave Ho! Away we go!

We're off again to sea!

No starboard drift!

The wind is stiff!

It's only port for me!

The yawl was no trouble, and full of bubbles!

Champagne, it kept us warm.

A new prize awaits, a schooner ahead.

A chance to test our brawn.

Twas a curse that we drank, for soon both were sank

Dropped down by a galley, worn.

Heave Ho! Away we go!

We're off again to sea!

No starboard drift!

The wind is stiff!

It's only port for me!

By stealth and steel, we took the wheel.

Barrels and barrels, her belly bulged,

A treasure trove inside.

We drank it all, right through the storm,

No lesson did we abide.

We lost our liquor, to the sinker.

But a barque gave us a ride.

Heave Ho! Away we go!

We're off again to sea!

No starboard drift!

The wind is stiff!

It's only port for me!”

The singing drowned out their creaky footsteps.

Halfway along, the deck took a turn inward. Gemma peered around the corner, hoping to see a way down into the belly, but what she saw made her jerk backward and hold up a hand for the others to stop. She then put a finger to her lips and pointed at the corner.

“Now what?” Bobby mouthed at Gemma.

She mouthed something back. He squinted, then he mouthed something else to her.

She frowned in confusion so he mouthed the words again.

Gemma made a motion with her hands.

Bobby frowned, not understanding and not sure if she had understood him.

Salem thrust his gameboy between them.

Both of them blinked at him in confusion.

Then Gemma noticed that the screen displayed a blinking cursor and what looked like a blank page with a digital keyboard. She took the gameboy, pressed the arrow buttons and realised she could select letters. Swiftly and silently she wrote out a message.

‘1 man around corner. Passage goes all way through. Stairs going down. Create a distraction from the other side?’

Bobby took the gameboy from her and typed out his own message. ‘A distraction might make him suspicious.’

Katrina fished the cat necklace from her pocket and dangled it between them with raised eyebrows. She dreamwalked so often that they would know what she was suggesting at the sight of that necklace. It was her favorite power to practice. Dreamwalking could be dangerous, many monsters lurked in the cracks between worlds and the crevices of the mind, where the lines between reality blurred and injury was not always imaginary. But despite this, for some reason, mind magic scared Katrina less than physical magic. She had captured, on another charm in her pocket, some of her fathers strength magic. It was stored within a tiny anchor that hung on a long chain. It was a pretty charm but it scared her more than almost any other, the idea that if misused, she could easily accidentally crush something. She had it only because her father had offered it and because she had wondered if tonight they might need to bend through some bars or a post to free Seraphina.

Katrina was not well practiced in strength magic. Dreamwalking on the other hand, she excelled at. The problem was, her aunt did not, and that was whose magic she had borrowed.

Bobby knew this, and so he typed back, ‘Aunt Cat can’t put someone to sleep from this distance so you won’t be able to either.’

Katrina frowned at his words and shook her head. She took the gameboy, but just as she started to type, a message popped onto the screen and a little red light blinked in the corner. ‘Low battery,’ read the message, right before the screen went dark.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Katrina thrust the gameboy back to Salem who put it away with a sad sigh. She whispered to Bobby, as quietly as she could. “Let me try.”

They argued back and forth for a little bit, words getting a little louder every back and forth.

Gemma moved to check around the corner again but just as she was about to take a look, a sailor appeared right in front of her.

Before he could shout, Gemma grabbed him by the shirt, pulled him forward and jabbed him in the throat. He crumpled to the deck unconscious.

“Jackos Gemma!” murmured Bobby.

“I learnt that from Aunt Cat,” Gemma replied, with a sideways glance at Katrina, obviously thinking it a far more useful skill than their aunt’s shoddy dreamwalking.

“Well, he’s not going to stay unconscious forever,” Bobby pointed out.

“You’re right. We need to bind and gag him.” She was already on her knees, rope out, tying his wrists behind his back and his feet together. Then she made a gag from the loose fabric she’d brought with her.

“Did you learn that from Aunt Cat too?” Bobby asked, not impressed that she was so adept as such unscrupulous skills.

She shook her head. “From dad.” She smiled, enjoying the thrill of the adventure. “This is how you deal with a pirate.”

“You know, I could have used the empath magic to make him sleepy and then the dreamwalking would have been easier, and I might have been able to put him to sleep from here,” Katrina whispered.

“Well, he’s already walked around the corner so that ship has sailed,” Gemma replied as she stood back up.

“How about now?” Bobby nodded down at the gagged and tied man, who was already starting to stir. “Can you put him back to sleep?” He glanced at Katrina. “No need to do it at a distance now.”

Katrina nodded. She had no trouble doing that. She laid a hand on the man’s arm, causing his movement to relax and his mind to drift back into unconsciousness.

Gemma peered around the corner. “Right, that was easy, and the way is clear. You’re up Salem.”

Salem paled, but before he could could speak, Bobby said, “I’ll go with Salem. Hand me that infused knife.” He held his hand out and the knife was passed to him.

“That won’t last long,” Katrina told him.

“That’s fine. I’ll only need it if we run into anyone, and Salem can do us both on the way down, so we only gotta worry about the way back up.”

Salem didn’t object. He was glad Bobby was coming with him.

Gemma gave a single hard nod. Then she moved around the corner. “I’ll just check the next corner.”

Bobby turned to Katrina. “Stay here. Stay quiet. And make sure he stays asleep.” He nodded at the unconscious pirate.

She nodded silently.

Bobby and Salem disappeared after Gemma.

Gemma reappeared a moment later. “We’re to make howling sounds if there’s trouble.”

“What if there’s actual howling?” Katrina glanced at the darkened dunes up the beach. But the beach and dunes were silent. She turned and focused her gaze on the glow of their own ship further down the beach. It’s warm lights looked so very inviting, and so very far away.

“I think they’ll be able to tell the difference,” Gemma replied.

And so, the girls waited, while the wind blew softly past, pulling at strands of red, black, and blonde hair, as if it sought to paint the sky.

Down the beach, Sirius stood on the deck of his own ship, looking out toward the other ship, unaware his children were on board. His wife came up behind him and wrapped her arms around him.

He turned and pulled her into a hug. "Perhaps I should let the crew sing." He nodded toward the other ship. "They are. And Neko's right, we're not in the village tonight."

"We're still close though."

He turned to look back at the town. "I’m just thinking it might boost moral. You could give em a song. Get em started."

"Mmm. Well, I'll tell them they can play some quiet stuff then. We still need to figure out how to get off this beach though.” She took a step toward the stairs.

"I was thinking we just stay here," Sirius joked.

She laughed.

He caught her arm and pulled her close again. As he hugged her, he glanced up at the sky. “It’s not so bad here.”

She leaned her head back against his chest and glanced skyward as well. The night sky was clear and full of bright stars. Amanda smiled. She knew Sirius loved the stars. They always put him in a good mood. He could just about name every constellation in the sky. “It’s not,” she agreed.

In the belly of the enemy ship, the boys were sheltered, but they were far from safe. These halls were not lit like their own ship, and they dared not cast a light.

“We should have brought Gemma,” Salem mumbled as they made their way by touch. “This is useless.”

“Shh,” replied Bobby. Although he agreed that a light would have been nice, he did not trust Katrina and Sasha with their own protection, and the less of them in the belly of the beast, the safer they all were.

“Or a torch,” Salem added. He gripped Bobby’s hand, and despite the darkness he had made them both invisible. However he seemed to keep forgetting that invisibility did not apply to sound.

“Shh,” Bobby whispered again. “Be quiet. Like a mouse.”

“Mice aren’t quiet. I’m just saying, at this rate-”

“Shh!” Bobby cut him off again, this time much more insistently, for up ahead he had heard the distinctive sound of a creak made by a footstep.

Salem did as he was told and they both waited. They were met with silence and Bobby began to wonder if he’d just imagined the sound.

He waited a little longer and then he tugged Salem along, same slow pace as before. One hand against the wall. He headed in the direction of where he thought the brig should be, hoping that was where they had her.

His hand found a corner and he made to turn it. Someone coming from the other direction crashed right into him.

The other person gasped. It was a small and feminine gasp. They were small in stature too, shorter than Bobby, and even if he hadn’t guessed from her sound and her size, he could smell the faintest scent of honey. That was when he knew for certain, for no pirate had ever smelt so sweet.

“Seraphina?!”

“Bobby?!” She sounded as surprised as he was. “What are you doing here?”

“We came to rescue you?”

“We?”

“Me and my brother and sisters.”

“Hi,” Salem whispered from behind Bobby.

“Hi,” Seraphina replied.

Bobby could hear the happiness in her voice. “I was worried they had you tied up somewhere.”

“They did. I was. I had to break my hands to get them free. I’ve been trying to find my way out, but now, I’m not even sure which way I came from.” Her tone became one of worry.

Bobby reached for her hands. He sensed with his magic. He could feel where she had broken them, and he could feel them already healing. He caressed them gently and added his own magic to hers to speed up the process.

“Thank you,” she whispered as she felt his magic sooth her injuries.

“Follow me. I know the way out,” he whispered gently.

They abandoned their invisibility and retraced their footsteps quickly, without encountering any of the crew. Not one wrong turn was taken. Each of them breathed a sigh of relief when they saw the staircase with no guard at the top. They emerged up onto the deck, thinking they were free, right as a cry went up all around the ship. It was followed soon after, by a loud howl that most certainly did not come from the dunes.

“Intruders!” Someone yelled.

They stepped from the doorway onto the deck, just as a man wielding a sword rushed at Bobby. Bobby drew his own sword, and swung back in a defensive move. He pushed Seraphina and Salem behind him and toward the railing of the ship where Katrina and Sasha stood close together.

But there was no salvation there. Katrina and Sasha were watching in terror as further along the deck, and blocking their exit, Gemma matched swords with a feisty pirate. From the opposite direction, they could hear the approaching footsteps of several more pirates.

Gemma glanced back with a worried expression on her face. She struck several blows, hard and fast at her enemy, forcing him into a defensive position, and pushing him back. Then, before he could retaliate, she withdrew, leaving space between them. Without thought for what magic he might be able to do in return, Gemma set the deck between them alight. Bright orange and yellow flames sprung up, eagerly eating the wood, separating her from the man, and blocking their own escape.

She ran back to her siblings and reached them right as a new man rounded the corner up from the direction of the aft-deck. She did the same again. The man skidded to a halt, eyes drawing wide as he took in the flames that almost licked his boots and now hungrily engorged the ship. There was no way through.

That left only the passage through to the other side. The area where Bobby fought an almost losing battle. His opponent had gotten several scrapes in, nothing yet so serious that Bobby couldn’t heal. But it was only a matter of time and that last swipe had come awful close to taking his ear right off.

Sasha had tried to come to his aid. Bending low and laying her hands on the ship she had created a sheet of ice. It had formed at her fingers and it had grown out from there. Alas, this man, like Bobby was sure-footed and neither slipped on the frozen floor. But their battle became much more deadly. Bobby wobbled.

Sasha pressed her hands to her mouth as she realised that if either fell that would be the end, and if it was Bobby who fell first, then it would be her fault. She tugged at Katrina’s arm. “Do something!” She urged.

“Do what?” Katrina asked. She had her infusements but she was in far too much of a panic to think clearly.

Luckily, that was when Gemma reached them. She aided Bobby, not with sword, but with flame. She aimed for the man who Bobby was fighting, but their movements made it a difficult task, and a moment later they both stumbled apart, each now fully focused on the flames that engulfed their arms.

As Bobby moved away from the pirate, Gemma tried to pull the flames from him, to snuff them out, but it was no good.

Even worse, the other man, turned out to be a water elemental. He called forth from the air, thousands of droplets of water to dowse his burning arms. It was not a wave or heavy downpour. He was not a strong water elemental, but it was enough to save his own skin, while metres away Bobby still burned.

Gemma fixed her sword to her side and ran for him, shouting at the others as she did, “Over the edge! Over the edge! You have to jump!”

Salem peered over the side of the ship. They were far enough along and the tide only half out, such that water still lapped at the ship directly below them. But how much water? How deep? The bare beach was close. “It’s too high! It won’t be deep enough!” Salem cried.

Gemma grabbed Bobby, with no thought for her own skin, and she pulled him toward the railing where the others still stood, afraid to jump.

“It drops off. There’s no other way! Go! Now!” Gemma shouted to them as she sprinted past and leapt from the side, pulling Bobby with her.

One glance around at the surrounding flame and newly approaching pirates, and the others followed with little hesitation. Each one, leapt out from the ship, and plunged swiftly toward the dark, silently waiting water of unknown depth.