Chapter 14: : Chapter 13

IT TOOK some convincing, but it made sense. If the Blood Tide was how the ghost ship traveled, then they would have to follow it themselves to see where they were traveling from. Nora reasoned that the only way to do that was to trigger the Blood Tide, and they had access to one of the ghosts. Eric’s greatest desire was to find the Isle. He could spill blood in the water and let his mother’s ghost tempt him, and then the crew could follow her—or the ghost ship, if it appeared—to wherever she went after he made the deal. If anything went wrong, Sauer’s crew knew how to stop the ghosts. They would simply play music if Eric was in danger.

Although it was far from a perfect plan, Eric was on board. Sauer took longer to talk into it. They weren’t so sure their boat could follow the same path as the ghost ship since it wasn’t magical. There was only one way to find out, though.

They decided to sail for another hour until they were far enough away from Cloud Break Bay that there was no risk of the ghost ship heading there. Ariel lingered at the edge of the forecastle as Eric discussed the plan with Sauer. She played fetch with Max, glancing at them every now and then. Eric nearly missed Sauer saying they should go ahead and move his mother’s ghost to the deck.

“Ariel.” Eric approached her once everyone else around them had dispersed to get ready for what came next. “Can I talk to you?”

She nodded and followed after him, gesturing at Max to sit.

The little traitor did, and Eric couldn’t help smiling.

“I’m sorry that I was annoyed by you stowing away, but this is a dangerous voyage.” He led her to the crate holding his mother’s ghost. “This is going to sound odd, but I am currently attempting to find an isle that is the home of a witch. She’s hurt too many people to be allowed to live, and on top of all of that, we think she has been luring people to her using ghosts.”

Ariel let out a little squeak and clutched her throat.

“One of the ghosts is my mother,” he said, removing the canvas covering the crate, “so, Ariel, may I introduce you to either an illusion or what is left of my mother, Eleanora of Vellona.”

Ariel gasped and stepped back. Her eyes swept up and down his mother’s translucent form, settling on her expressionless face. Ariel waved a hand before her, but his mother’s ghost didn’t even flinch. Ariel looked back at him.

“In an hour, we will essentially follow her to the Isle of Serein. Or we will get attacked when the other ghosts show up.” He sighed and tossed the canvas aside, his mother’s ghost as stoic here as she had been in Cloud Break. “It’s a toss-up.”

Wiping her eyes, Ariel gestured from his to his mother’s face and smiled. His heart lurched, and Eric ducked. Ariel was a threat to him through no fault of her own. He wanted to hold her; he wanted to dunk himself in another lagoon to escape her. He could do neither, though, and knowing more about magic and witches was a necessity.

“We did look alike,” he said. “I wish you could’ve met her before…”

He gestured to her ghost, and Ariel moved to touch his shoulder, then pulled back.

The strongest of Sauer’s crew came over and moved his mother’s crate to the deck. Eric waited for them to finish and then beckoned Ariel toward the prow.

They walked there in silence. The sky before them was a hazy shade of darkening blue, sun drowning on the horizon. She came to stand beside him, and he took a half step away from her. Ariel glanced down at their feet and then up at him, an eyebrow raised. He shrugged and gestured to the deck. They sat.

“So, the lagoon back home. When we nearly kissed,” he said, hoping his voice came out less awkward than he felt. “I know I acted strangely after. It’s silly to even say, but it’s me, not you. There’s simply a lot happening in my life—I don’t think I can explain it all yet—but I’m sorry we capsized and then I just left.”

Her mouth opened in an of surprise, and she nodded, setting a small cloth bundle she’d been hiding under her coat between them. From it, she pulled out two slices of hard bread covered in thin slivers of marbled capocollo, halved figs, and honey. She must have gotten them from Vanni while Eric was with Sauer. He sniffed and caught the sharp sting of garlic and peppers in the honey. Eric stared at the food and realized he hadn’t eaten since before the lagoon.

“Thank you,” he said, suddenly unbearably guilty over dismissing her wanting to go on this voyage, and over letting her stay. “We should’ve come up with a better way of communicating before trying to have a conversation about complicated things.”

She laughed and made the gesture again.

“You’re sorry?” Eric asked.

One knock.

She held up a slice of bread to his mouth. He hesitated, leaning away slightly. Embarrassment flashed across her face for a moment, and she instead took a small bite of the bread. He winced and picked up a fig drizzled with honey. She froze.

“Here—try this.”

She was trying, despite being an unknown person in an unknown land, and this was as good a time as any for Eric to try, too. Soon they wouldn’t have the chance to discuss what had happened and go on delightful dawn tours. Ariel took the fig from him with two fingers and ate it in one bite. Her eyes lit up.

“Well,” Eric said, “if dangerous, depressing adventures don’t keep you in Vellona, maybe the food will.”

She laughed and scrunched up her nose. The daylight continued to leach away, the time to beckon the Blood Tide growing closer. Eric ran his fingers over his arm even though the notes weren’t there anymore. He had to be brave.

“I have trouble getting close to people,” he said, “and letting them get close to me.”

He usually never talked about it. With Vanni and Gabriella, it felt too much like the little princeling whining. Grimsby would have scoffed at him, and Carlotta, whenever he broached his feelings, got that look in her eyes and patted his head like he was a five-year-old or Max. Even that single sentence to Ariel felt too silly to consider, but she didn’t laugh. Ariel let out a long breath through her nose and nodded. She used her hands to draw a circle in the air between them and then rocked her hand like a boat.

“Exactly. At the lagoon, I realized we were getting closer, and I panicked. There is a lot going on in my life. Adding a new person was more than I could handle.” He gestured to the ship. “To be honest, I probably won’t have time to deal with my issues letting people get to know me for a while yet.”

Holding out both of her hands palms up, she let them rest on top of the bundle between them. She didn’t touch him, didn’t demand an explanation as to why he had trouble, and didn’t dismiss it and try to prove she was the exception. Eric hesitantly laid one of his hands atop hers.

“I will try to move past my awkwardness as regards to getting close to people,” he said. “To you, really. Everyone else is still exhausting.”

She smiled and pointed at herself. One hand lifted to the sun, and she moved it in an arc as if it were setting. She held out that hand to him.

“You’ll give me time to do that?” he asked.

She raised one finger, and he laughed.

“Thank you. I appreciate it,” he said, and held out his hand. “Friends?”

She paused for a second. Slowly, she took his hand and mouthed, “Friends.”

Ariel gave him a small smile, but Eric couldn’t help noticing the disappointment on her face. His heart rate quickened, but he did his best to ignore it.

“Good,” said Eric. He leaned against the rail. “I cannot believe you climbed up the side of the ship barehanded.”

Ariel shrugged and flexed one arm. Eric glanced over his shoulder to look out at the sea. It was a good day to sail, the water smooth and the waves small, but he still couldn’t image swimming out from the dock and clinging to the side. Beneath them, dolphins glided next to the ship, a few diving deep and breaking the surface in graceful leaps. A speedy yellow and blue fish zigzagged between the dolphins.

“I’ve never seen one like that,” he said, pointing to the little fish. “Have you?”

Ariel smiled at the bright little fish and tossed a dried apricot piece out ahead of the ship. The fish darted for it.

She rapped once against the deck and leaned against the rail, a sad smile on her face.

“Is it one of the fish from where you’re from?” he asked. “Or do you have a little school of fish following you everywhere?”

She laughed and made several motions as if teaching a class.

Eric snorted, and Ariel doubled over in silent laughter. She looked livelier at sea. The wind curled her hair around her shoulders and pinkened her cheeks. The reflection of the waves in her deep blue eyes felt fuller. The white crests were whiter. The silver of the dolphins gleamed.

Footsteps approached behind them, and Eric turned. It was Gabriella and Vanni, Nora a few steps behind them and holding a knife.

“It time?” Eric asked.

Gabriella nodded. “No time like the present.”

The five of them made their way to his mother’s ghost. The crew had dismantled the crate and placed the salty piece of the ghost ship in one of the small rowboats so that they would be able to see her among the waves. Eric stopped before the ghost, and she shimmered. Her eyes focused on him.

“Our plan, so that we are all clear, is for me to offer up some of my blood to trigger the Blood Tide and hope that she leads us down it to the Isle,” he said. “And we think she’s going to row?”

Nora made a noncommittal sound. “They usually take the fastest option available, and they do sail an entire merchant ship.”

“With magic,” said Eric.

“And,” Sauer said loudly, holding up a gnarled finger, “if the other ghosts don’t show up, perhaps she’ll take the rowboat.”

Eric sighed. Worst came to worst, they would just have to follow his mother walking atop the waves.

“What if my mother’s ghost compels me to do something?” asked Eric.

Nora shrugged. “Closest person to you throws a punch. Problem solved.”

They lowered the rowboat to the sea. Eric accepted the clean knife from Nora and backed away toward the starboard rail. Still, the eyes of his mother’s ghost followed him. Carefully, he nicked the pad of his left finger and let a few drops of blood splash down into the water. A trail of red shot through the darkening sea to the horizon. His mother’s ghost turned from inside the boat.

The ghost of Eleanora of Vellona didn’t waver. Her hands gripped the oars, forcing them forward and back. She made no sounds of effort, and her expression didn’t change. Eric leaned over the ship to keep her in his sight. The scarlet of sunset spread out before her, and the barrelman shouted to Sauer. Most of the crew peered down at her as well, whispering to each other. Gabriella and Vanni flanked him. Even Max poked his head between Eric’s legs to see.

His mother followed a path of deep, dark red that cut through the water and led off toward the horizon.

“There’s something out there,” said Sauer. “My crow’s got an eye on it.”

The line of Eric’s blood, darker and somehow deeper than the rest of the water, seeped out from beneath his mother’s boat. She kept an exhausting pace, no wave slowing her down. She didn’t look tired or hungry; the only expression he could occasionally glimpse on her face was grief. She rowed as if everything she wanted was just out of reach. Eleanora of Vellona had been a force to be reckoned with. This was her determination reduced to a single, unfathomable focus.

And the sudden, terrible idea that this really was his mother in some way took root in his soul. He had to free her.

“Help us all,” said Sauer. “Look at the sky.”

Eric did. Heavy gray clouds gathered above them, lightning flickering from storm to storm. The sky was the color of Grimsby after an hour at sea, and the ocean roiled as badly as the old man’s stomach. The sickly smear where red water met green skies darkened and blurred, fog white as bone oozing out across the waves. Ariel grabbed Eric’s hand and pointed it toward the waters directly beneath them. Max howled.

Eels rose up from the water and twisted around his mother’s boat. She rowed another powerful stroke along the blood-red path, and dozens more writhing eels tore through the surface of the red water. They gnawed at the wood of the boat and sunk once she passed. Their presence unnerved something deep in Eric.

Eels didn’t swim in open waters like this. They hid in caves and crevices, waiting until their prey came to them.

“The fog has never looked like this before.” Nora snatched a monocular from Sauer’s pocket and pressed it against her eye. “That’s magic if I’ve ever seen it.”

Sauer stomped away from the rail. “Follow her!”

Eric inhaled sharply. How quickly was she row-ing to outrun a ship? Ariel leaned so far over the rail he feared she would fall, and she looked between his mother’s ghost and the horizon. A worried wrinkle appeared between her brows.

“There was no ship in that fog,” said Nora. She looked up at Eric. “We might have done this right.”

“She didn’t offer me a deal or compel me,” said Eric with a shudder. “Why not?”

“My previous guess that her ghost recognizes you still stands,” Sauer offered.

Ariel touched Eric’s arm and gestured to the fog.

“We’ll lose her in the fog,” Eric said. “Or bypass her and lose sight of her in our wake.”

Ariel’s fingers tightened and she tugged his arm.

Eric’s mother vanished behind a tall wave, and he moved to get a better look. “We have to do something.”

Ariel tapped his shoulder once and grabbed one of the mooring lines on the deck.

Eric turned back to Ariel. His brows furrowed in confusion. “She can’t hold on to a—”

But before he could finish his sentence, Ariel backed up, kicked off her boots, and took a running leap over the side of the ship.

Eric threw himself against the rail as the sound of a splash met his ears. He looked for Ariel among the eels, but he couldn’t spot her against the waves. He started taking off his boots.

“There!” Sauer pointed toward the ghost.

Ariel’s red hair was a beacon among the eels, and they parted where she swam. Her movements were sloppy at first, her legs flailing behind her as if not used to the water, but in just a few seconds she seemed to grow comfortable and began gliding through the ocean with ease. Heart hammering against his chest, Eric tried to spy any wounds but couldn’t spot any from this far away.

Sauer hummed. “What’s she doing?”

Ariel waved back at them. His mother’s ghost was barely more than a shimmer against the waves. Ariel swam after her, already nearing the rowboat. She pulled herself into the boat next to his mother’s ghost and waved to them. She knotted the rope around the seat.

The rope would keep them from losing his mother’s ghost.

Sauer let out a low whistle. “She sure has guts.”

A flush of affection surged through Eric, and he gripped the rope. The sky turned to a fog-mottled pale green, and a minute later, the fog blanketed the ship. It softened everything till Eric couldn’t hear the sails or see Sauer’s bright red hat next to him. Eric tugged hard twice on the rope, and two sharp tugs answered him. All he knew was that the ship was moving and the rope was still connecting him to Ariel. A flicker of light lit the fog.

“Sauer!” Eric shouted. “Do you see that?”

The light grew so bright Eric winced. Sauer’s answer echoed unnaturally in the fog, incomprehensible and distant.

The bowsprit broke through the wall of fog. Sunlight seared into the wood. They emerged atop a quiet, clear sea, and the warm beams of a noon sun burned away the fog. A few stray wisps clung to the ship.

“Magic,” Eric said and brushed a tendril of fog from his shoulder.

Gabriella slammed into the rail next to him. “You all right?”

“I’m good,” he said, ruffling Max’s fur as the dog whined at his feet. “Everyone else?”

“All good.”

“Ariel!” Eric shouted. “You all right?”

From her spot behind his mother’s ghost, Ariel lifted one arm and flexed. Gabriella let out a laugh next to him.

“Look,” she said, “if she’s not your true love, I’m not as picky.”

Eric bristled and hated himself for it. “Stick with your thief.”

He tugged the green scarf looped around her neck, and she flicked his cheek.

“You’re missing the forest for the trees,” she said. “Look ahead.”

Eric frowned and turned. Beyond Ariel loomed an island. A maelstrom of fog swirling with shadows that might have been ships or storms or ghosts encircled the island and trapped them in this odd, bright noon. A thin trail of red cut through the water before his mother’s ghost and ended on the shore of the Isle of Serein.

It was a crescent of lush greens and sandy browns in the middle of the open ocean. The island itself wasn’t large; what looked like a glass-green lagoon took up most of its center, but the lagoon was hidden behind tall trees heavy with oranges. They swung in the breeze, littering the ground with ripe fruit. Brambles thick with berries grew all the way down to the rocky shore.

“A paradise,” Gabriella whispered.

Not a paradise. Not a coincidence. He was right—it was all connected.

“The Isle of Serein,” said Eric, heart soaring. “We found it.”