My Diary from the Edge of the World (27 page)

As Mom hurried Sam downstairs, the captain gave a signal and several of the deckhands rushed downstairs, returning with several crates, lids sealed tight.

“I keep these in the hold for just this possibility,” he explained. “Try not to worry. We have a good chance here. I've stockpiled these items especially for this kind of situation.”

The phantom ship pulled up beside us, and its crew—luminous, gaunt, glowing—busied themselves tying up to the
Alexa
. Oliver stepped closer to me, protectively, but it crossed my mind that, as the far more fiery and bloodthirsty one, I should protect
him
. I scanned the horizon for Virgil again, but of course, he was nowhere to be seen. This, I thought bitterly, would have been the ideal time for him to step in and really
guard
us.

The ghost crew numbered in the thirties or forties—some just glowing bones and gaping eye sockets, and some more human-looking. They floated over from their ship onto ours in a wave of dim light and gentle moans as my family and Oliver and I clustered together.
They eyed us excitedly, their jaws curving at the hinges in chilling smiles.

One woman in khakis—maybe the only woman on the ghost ship—reached out to touch Millie's long gray skirt, and the captain rapped his cane down on the decks between them, cutting her off.

The ghost frowned, her eyes turning deadly angry, but the captain put on his most charming expression. “Now let me direct you to some items that I think you'll like even better,” he said. She, and many of the others, trailed behind him dubiously to the collection of crates on the forecastle. With a flourish, the deckhands opened them all at the same time. There was a collective gasp. The crates were full of shiny objects—silver bars, pewter, and brass bowls and cups. I remembered Grandma, with her box of shiny objects for the ghosts in her yard.

There was a flurry of excitement and grim smiles and a rubbing together of filmy hands, and all phantom eyes turned to the one who seemed to be their captain—a tall man in a rain slicker, with piercing hazel eyes that flickered as he gazed around the decks, and a dark slash down his bluish nose. He nodded, and his crew began to transfer the crates to their own ship. It was all so simple and quick, we were dumbfounded.

When all was loaded, the ghost captain stared around at us for a moment more, sniffing, as if trying to smell out whether there was anything else on board that he particularly wanted. And then he nodded to Captain Bill, who nodded back. He drifted backward, keeping his eyes on us as he floated over the rail and onto his own ship.

*  *  *

Watching them drift away a few minutes later, we could see the phantom crew squabbling over the contents of the crates. Their ship got smaller and smaller in the distance, and it wasn't until I looked back at Captain Bill that I saw he'd been sweating, and that his fingers were trembling as much as mine were.

Maybe he knew, at that moment, what I hadn't even guessed. That we'd only just had a taste of what was coming.

*  *  *

I'll start again at about ten minutes ago.

I was down in my berth trying to quiet my nerves with a game of solitaire, when Oliver appeared in my doorway, looking shaken.

“What's wrong?” I asked.

“We have a problem,” he said, swallowing.

“Another ship?”

He seemed not to know how to answer. “A bigger problem,” he finally said. He stood back and nodded for me to head up the stairs. Sensing his urgency, I climbed them two by two.

Millie and Dad were already on deck, looking over the railings. I walked up beside them.

At first, I couldn't comprehend what I was seeing. It was too much to be believed.

Not one, but
hundreds
of shadows were moving toward us the same way the ghost ship had, as if gliding on air.

“It's a fleet,” Dad said, his voice empty of hope. I could see on Millie's face too, only despair. Mom and Sam had come up behind us and were just taking it in.

There had to be hundreds of ships—some burned and charred, some missing their sides, some barely holding together. They were still far enough away that their crews looked tiny and indistinct, but there was no doubt they'd spotted the
Alexa
and were shifting sail toward us. I could hear the sound of their moans even from here.

“The Kraken has drowned them
all
,” Captain Bill said from his post at the ship's wheel a few feet away, his eyes hard and flinty, his lips colorless. “Every last ship
that's come here. This isn't a trading post anymore, it's a graveyard.”

“What do we do?” Mom asked frantically. We were fast approaching the edge of the enormous fleet. Soon we'd be in the thick of it.

“We can't fight them,” Captain Bill said. “We have nothing to offer them.” He rubbed his hands against the railing in front of him in agitation, thinking. After about thirty seconds, he finally spoke again. “The only thing we can do is hide below. Hope they think the ship's deserted—that maybe the Kraken's taken us already.”

“I suggest . . .” Dad glanced up toward the sky and around, opening his mouth to speak, stopping, and then going on, “When I picked Virgil, he said he was an excellent . . .”

“We'd better all get belowdecks before we're spotted,” Captain Bill said, impatient.

“Well, I don't know much about ships, but I think . . . ,” Dad ventured apologetically. We all turned to go without hearing what he went on to say.

*  *  *

So here we are. Hiding isn't a good plan, but it's the only plan we have. I can hear the crew banging around above—tossing barrels and nets all over the top decks so
that it'll look like maybe we were attacked and that the
Alexa
is deserted. They'll come below too, in a minute.

I've been glancing out the window from time to time, but otherwise we're all sitting here like statues, Sam on Mom's lap, Dad with his arm around Millie, Oliver and me side by side.

Oh! I just heard the crew coming down the stairs! They've retreated to the galleries behind us, and I can feel the ship turning with the tide because it's no longer being steered.

I guess I'll stop now. I can't steady my hand enough to keep going.

I can hardly believe I'm alive to write this down. I just kissed this page because the last time I closed this diary, I thought I might never open it again. Millie and Oliver and Sam are dancing around in circles, and the strangest thing of all is that we owe our lives to . . . Virgil!!!

I must be getting very disciplined, because I'm not even tempted to jump ahead. I'm going to write down exactly how it happened and not leave out one detail.

After I put down my diary last, we all just sat in the
galley, waiting and watching out the windows. For a few minutes nothing but ocean floated past us. None of us even whispered to each other. The
entire Alexa
had gone silent; the only sounds were the creaks and groans of her floorboards and walls.

When the bow of the first ship drifted into view, I felt like my heart might break out of my ribs and make an escape without me. And then came another ship, and another, their hulls gliding past us and blocking out views of anything else. Most of them were old like the
Alexa
, but some of them were newer steam ships and ocean liners. We were drifting right into the middle of them, surrounded on all sides. Still, none of them moved closer to tie up against us or try to attack us. I had to keep reminding myself to breathe.

“This could work,” Dad whispered. We slid our way along, or rather the phantom fleet slid along around us, parting to make room for us but otherwise keeping a steady course. This went on for what seemed like forever.

The moment things changed, I think we all knew it. I know now they must have been just lulling us all along. Because right when it seemed that we were in the very middle of the fleet, the ships suddenly began to drop
anchor all around us, turning toward us from all directions. Somewhere ahead of us we heard the captain yell, “Hands on deck!” Then (the thought of it makes me break out in goose bumps) we saw one ghost floating down the side of his ship, holding a rope. He turned to look toward us, made eye contact with me, and smiled.

“Sam,” my mom said, gazing at the ghost. “Get under the bench. And don't come upstairs, no matter what.”

*  *  *

The captain and the shipmates were already above deck when we emerged, and everything was in chaos.

“Starboard port!” Captain Bill yelled, throwing himself at the ship's wheel and trying to steer away from the closest ship, which was bearing down on us so fast it was nearly on us. A cluster of ghosts stood at the other ship's bow, jumping up and down and getting ready to come aboard.

Even
I
could see the captain's efforts were useless. Steering away from one ship only moved us into the path of another, and we wouldn't be fast enough to maneuver through whatever space was left within the fleet. Still, Millie threw herself onto the wheel beside him to help. The rest of us scattered across the deck, looking for weapons; Mom grabbed a loose plank and held it back
over her shoulder like a baseball bat, Oliver grabbed two empty champagne bottles from a barrel the captain used for trash, and I grabbed a rusty barrel lid.

Suddenly Sam was on the deck beside me, and even though I hissed at him to go back belowdecks, he too went looking for a weapon and ended up with a grubby old fishing net. He came to stand right beside me, and I reached for his hand. Oliver moved to his other side.

“Are you going to net them to death, Sam?” Oliver asked, giving Sam a smile that—looking back on it now—seems so brave, since we knew at that moment we were facing certain doom.

“I might have to,” Sam said solemnly.

“Can ghosts even be hit with
anything
?” I asked softly over Sam's head, and Oliver mouthed back,
I don't know.

That's where we were, standing with our useless weapons waiting to be boarded, when there was a deafening sound above us. I can only describe it by saying that in Cliffden, when I was little, the man at the shoe store used to give me a free balloon whenever Mom took me to get new shoes. He'd blow it up right there in front of me with a big metal helium tank. The sound was like that—a whooshing and whistling of air—only times a thousand.

We all looked up at the same moment—even the ghosts on the other ships.

Virgil was hovering high above us. But he didn't look like Virgil. His head and feet and arms and legs were all normal and Virgil-size . . . but his usually skinny chest was now enormous and expanding outward—like he was sucking in gallons-full of air.

Actually, it turns out he
was
sucking in gallons-full of air. Because in the next moment he began to blow.

A wind came out of Virgil's mouth that was stronger than any winds we'd encountered on the entire voyage. He blew right into the backs of our sails, and suddenly we began to move—so fast that I, and even a few of the crew, went tumbling onto the deck.

We were cruising, and now Captain Bill and Millie threw themselves against the ship's wheel with renewed strength—their arms and backs trembling from the effort. The captain kept shouting orders over his shoulder and the crew obeyed. Suddenly everyone had a job, easing the sails, adjusting the jib. The
Alexa
slid narrowly between the two ships on either side of us, which had been just about to board—missing each of them by a few yards—and then veered right. We immediately pivoted left and slipped between another two.
The ghost ships, without Virgil's wind working right behind them, moved too slowly to adapt.

Carving a crooked and chaotic path, with barely any idea of what we were doing or what we'd do next and at breakneck speed, we made our way through the ships coming at us in all directions. Any wrong move would have sent us crashing into another boat's hull, but Captain Bill made no wrong moves. Every once in a while the wind would stop for a moment as Virgil took in more air, but he did this marvelously fast, and his lungs seemed like they could blow forever. He never faltered once.

Finally, the fleet began to thin, so that soon we were passing through the stragglers, which were more and more spread out. The deluge had slowed to a rush, and then to a trickle, until finally we left the last of the ships behind us, its vaporous crew gazing after us and trying to turn about in mute rage.

It wasn't for another few minutes that Virgil let up on the blowing, and we finally all began to relax. Captain Bill let out a long, ragged sigh and beamed at us. He put his arm around Millie, who stepped away with her head held up, looking at my dad. Dad stepped up and laid a hand on the captain's shoulder.

“Thank you, Captain,” he said. I wonder if I was the
only one who remembered that Dad had tried to tell us about Virgil before, and the captain had cut him off.

“Who knew Virgil could breathe like that!” Mom said, gazing into the sky and beaming.

“Of course he's got good lungs,” Dad said, looking befuddled. “Why did you think I hired him?” He looked around at all of us as if it was the first time it had ever occurred to him that we'd thought he'd hired a useless angel.

Above us, now back to normal size and hovering above the topmast, catching his breath and with a hopeful smile on his face as he looked down at us, Virgil didn't flicker. He blazed.

We're far into the Southern
Sea, and the world has gone white. The water is pearly, almost colorless, and still as glass. White slabs of ice float along the ocean, butting against the ship in little thuds as we move south. There's hardly any land, and the land that we do see is covered deep in snow. The Cloud, up high and directly above us, is the darkest thing in sight.