“Your ship, I take it.”
“Aye, and bloated she was with our treasure when all was said and done.”
“And the ring?”
“Cap’n Bonnet took it right off the king’s bony finger. Saw him do it, too.”
Amberhill did not think it a good omen that the ring only seemed to come off the fingers of the dead. He suppressed a shudder and gazed at his ring anew, at how the ruby caught even the dimmest shreds of dawn leaking into the library.
“We mighta gotten away clean and good,” Yap said, “but for that ring.”
“How’s that?”
“Those islands, they were the dominion of witches I’m thinking. That’s what the stories say, anyway. And the one whose island we were on? She wasn’t too happy we took her treasure, and somehow she knew when the cap’n took the ring from the king. The air, it changed. Got thick. The wind keened with her voice, grief and anger in it. It was enough to skin ya. We ran back to the Mermaid right quick and pulled anchor. She tried to swamp us with huge waves, but Cap’n Bonnet, for all he was a bloody, murdering thief, he was a good seaman. When the storm settled, we laughed at our luck and cheered the cap’n’s prowess.
“And then ...” Yap squeezed his eyes shut and shuddered.
“Go on,” Amberhill encouraged in a quiet voice.
“You won’t believe it.”
“There is much in what you’ve already said that I could refuse to believe.”
“It’s true,” Yap said. “All of it.”
“I’m not disputing your words. I am simply stating that your story is of a rather incredible nature.” Amberhill had seen enough that was strange of late that he was not about to dismiss Yap’s tale. “Tell me what happened next.”
“You got drink, sir?”
Amberhill was quite sure he’d get nothing further from Yap without it, so he poured him some brandy. Likely Yap had never tasted anything so fine, unless he and his crew had stolen quality liquors off some ship and shared them out.
“None for yerself, sir?” Yap asked.
“It’s a little too early for me.”
Yap shrugged and threw the brandy down his throat as if it were some third-rate whiskey. Amberhill frowned, but said nothing for the drink appeared to bolster Yap’s courage to go on.
“We heard her voice, a mourning song for the old king it sounded like. Then she chanted the curse.”
“Who? What was the curse?”
“Why the witch, sir. Haven’t ya been listening? The curse, why that was a bunch of mumbo jumbo, though some of it we could understand. Something about being stuck in mist, out of time, no land to see until the bottle is broke.”
“Bottle?”
“Aye. Musta broke, cuz here I am. Why the ship ended up in a house, though, I can’t say.”
Then it resonated. Something Captain Bonnet had said about being “bottled up,” and then later, the Berry sisters mentioning that one of their father’s “things,” an arcane object, had broken, leading to a pirate ship emerging in their house.
“A ship in a bottle,” he murmured, and instantly he pictured one of those clever renderings craftsmen made to sell in shops. For many a sailor or shipwright it was winter’s work. But for a full size vessel to be bottled? He exhaled a long, deep breath. What he knew of the world had been deeply challenged since autumn. Best not to dwell on ships in bottles. Best just to accept the impossible and move forward.
“After the witch spoke the curse,” Yap continued, “the wind, it got real calm, too calm. It never picked up again. Never ever. We were dead becalmed, like the Listless Ways of the southern seas. But at least the Listless Ways will pick up now and again and ya can eventually find the trade winds. No trade winds here. We got all twitchy. Some thought mutiny. We’d soon run out of food and drink, and in time we did. It was somethin’ terrible. We had all that treasure, but we were stuck someplace where the stars made no sense. By day sea smoke hung on the horizon, surrounded us like a wall. We were trapped there on that patch of sea for a long, long time. It wasn’t regular, and only a curse would do that. Nope, that witch was not happy we stole from her island.”
“Do you remember,” Amberhill asked, “where the island was?”
“That was long ago, sir,” Yap said, “and I was no navigator, just a lowly hand. All I know is that it was in the Northern Sea archipelago.”
Which contained hundreds of isles.
“Do you think you’d recognize the island if you saw it again?”
“I dunno. Maybe. But ...” The pirate shuddered. “I’d never want to see it again. Curses and bad luck.”
“Hmm.”
At that moment, a flicker of golden light illuminated the library. Amberhill whirled to find his manservant, Brigham, standing in the doorway with a lamp in hand. Even in his sleeping clothes and robe, the man was impeccable.
“My lord? Is all well? I heard voices.” Then he sniffed and frowned with distaste, his gaze falling upon Yap. He blinked and his frown deepened.
“Good morning, Brigham,” Amberhill said. “All is well.”
“Then shall I rouse Mistress Landen to make breakfast for you and your ... companion?”
Amberhill glanced at Yap, and the additional light revealed just how squalid the pirate appeared in his rags, with dirt imbedded in pores and wrinkles, and what looked like seaweed tangled in his hair. Something tiny scurried beneath the snarled mats. Something with little claws and antennae.