The Ghostfaces (5 page)

chapter
six

W
ith the wind on her starboard beam,
Heron
positively flew across the ocean, reeling off kilometer after kilometer as she went. The perpetual, and slightly nauseating, pitching as she rode up and down each successive wave was gone, and the relentless pounding into the waves, taking them head-on, was a thing of the past. Now she swooped at a diagonal angle to the waves, shouldering her way through the crests and sliding down into the troughs. She rolled and pitched, certainly, but the rhythm of her movement was exhilarating. She was alive. The rigging creaked and groaned in a constant song. At last, the crew felt they were actually going somewhere.

The problem was, they still had no idea where that might be.

Irrationally, Hal had hoped that they might see some sign of
land in the first day. They had certainly covered plenty of distance. But as the night fell and the following morning broke over them, there was nothing in sight but the endless sea around them, stretching to the horizon in all directions.

Stig doled out the miserly pittance of water to the crew. Hal tried to refuse his, but the entire crew protested when he did.

“We're in this together,” said Wulf. “And we need you as healthy as possible.”

The others mumbled agreement and Hal submitted to their will. He slowly let the small portion of water slide down his throat, trying to make it last as long as possible.

“Not sure how healthy that'll keep me,” he mused, his voice thick, as he handed the empty beaker back to Stig. It was getting difficult to talk, he noted. All of their voices had thickened and coarsened as their throats and mouths were left swollen and dry. The momentary effect of the small portion of water they were given twice a day did little to relieve the feeling.

The lack of water was making him lethargic too. He had to force himself to take his position at the helm when his turn came, asking himself why he bothered, when they could all be dead within a week.

Stefan had at one stage suggested they might try to drink small quantities of seawater. “At least it's water,” he said. But Thorn quickly scotched that idea.

“Get rid of that thought!” he said, his voice muffled by the dryness in his mouth and throat. “I've seen crews go mad doing that.”

Stefan looked down, embarrassed by his own suggestion. For a second or two, it had seemed to make sense. But he saw now how
right Thorn was. Seawater would only make their raging thirst feel worse.

“Maybe it'll rain,” Wulf said hopefully.

“Maybe it won't,” Ulf replied.

Another night passed. The wind remained constant and
Heron
continued to speed westward. The rising sun the following morning seared their eyes with its red glow. Slowly, it rose up the eastern sky. Once again, Hal was concerned to see how high it sat in the sky before beginning its descent once more.

“Bear left!” Jesper was in the bow, keeping a lookout.

His sudden shout roused Hal, and he realized, guiltily, that he had actually dozed off at the tiller. Now, with Jesper's warning, he shoved the tiller bar over and the ship swung instantly to the left. A black mass passed down the starboard side—long and shining wet, almost submerged, with a crooked branch sticking up into the air. A dead tree trunk, he realized, watching it dully. Had they hit it at the speed they were traveling, they could have shattered
Heron
's bow.

Might have been a good thing, he thought. At least that way, they'd get it over quickly, without the lingering agony of thirst and the unbelievable weariness they were all feeling.

He sank back into his lethargy. He realized now that he had been wrong. There was no land to the west. This ocean really was endless and they would sail on into it until they were dried-out husks hunched over in the ship. A ghost ship with a crew of dead men—and one woman, he amended.

Lydia had felt the sudden alteration in the
Heron
's course. So had the others, but none of them were alert enough to be bothered commenting on it.

“What was that?” she asked. Although with the dryness of her mouth and thickening of her tongue, the words came out sounding more like “Wha' wa' tha'?”

Hal shrugged. “Just a tree trunk,” he said, his tone showing his total disinterest in the matter. “Nearly hit it.”

Lydia frowned. She sensed there was something significant here, but she couldn't figure what it was. She pushed her brain to think, but it responded slowly and ponderously. Thinking was hard work. It was easier not to think. Probably better not to think, as well. When she expended energy thinking, all she thought of was water. Finally, a small light of intelligence burned in the back of her mind.

“Where did it come from?” she asked.

Hal glanced at her dully, a little annoyed to be roused from the torpor that was creeping over him. Now he had to think, to work out what she was asking. Where did what come from? And what did it matter, in any event?

“What?” he asked eventually, realizing that she was going to insist on an answer.

Lydia waved a weary hand at the sea over the side.

“The tree trunk. We nearly hit it,” she reminded him. She was irritable in her turn, thinking that Hal was being intentionally annoying.

“I know that,” he replied.

She gestured angrily at him once more. “So where did it come from?”

“Up for'ard,” he replied tartly. “Nearly hit our starboard bow. Would have sunk us in all likelihood.”

She glared at him, wondering how he could be so dense. He was usually quite intelligent, she thought.

“I mean, where did it come from? It was a tree. A tree has to grow somewhere before it falls into the sea.”

“Well, how the blazes would I know where it grew? I'm not an expert on—” He suddenly stopped, as the import of what she was saying struck him like a battering ram. His mouth hung open for a few seconds. “It was a tree,” he said eventually.

“I think we've established that,” Lydia replied.

He waved his hands defensively. “But you're right. It had to grow somewhere. Trees don't just appear in the middle of the ocean. It had to come from land. An island. Or something bigger.”

He lashed the tiller in place and clambered awkwardly onto the bulwark, holding on to the backstay for balance. Even as he did so, he realized how badly he had been affected by dehydration. Normally, he would have sprung lightly onto the railing. Today, he struggled to make it. But he shielded his eyes and peered ahead into the gathering gloom, hoping against hope that he might see land.

“Well?” said Lydia expectantly.

He shook his head, downcast. “Nothing but the sea,” he told her.

She frowned. “But it must have come from somewhere,” she insisted. He climbed stiffly down from the railing and took the tiller again.

Thorn, who had noticed the little scene being played out, walked aft to join them. “What is it?” he asked.

“There was a tree,” Hal told him. “It came out of nowhere and drifted past us.”

Thorn looked at the two of them. The meaning of Hal's words wasn't lost on him.

“If there was a tree, that means there's land,” he said.

“We know,” Lydia replied. “The question is, how far is it? And which direction?”

“I guess we'll have to wait for morning to find out,” Thorn said. “It's getting too dark to see anything now.”

Hal came to a decision. He called to Stig, who wearily made his way aft to join them. He raised his eyebrows in an unspoken question.

“How much water is left?” Hal asked him. Stig pursed his lips, then licked them, dry and cracked as they were. The very mention of water reminded him of how thirsty he was.

“Two or three liters,” he said. “Enough for two beakers each . . . maybe.”

“Dole it out,” Hal said.

Stig looked at him in surprise. “All of it?”

Hal nodded. “All of it. I'm sick and tired of having my mouth thick and parched. Let's all have one decent drink. Tomorrow morning, we're going to sight land.”

Stig's surprised look turned to doubt. He wondered whether Hal had lost his senses. “We are?”

Hal nodded definitely. “We are.”

• • • • • 

But they didn't.

Dawn found them swooping steadily across the heaving ocean, with no sign of land in any direction. Buoyed up by Hal's unreasoning optimism, the crew had lined the bulwarks since first light,
scanning the horizon ahead. Jesper clambered painfully up to the lookout position on the bow post. But even his keen eyes couldn't see a trace of land.

The memory of the night before, of the luxury of having one long, satisfying drink, was behind them now. They knew there was no more water, and with that knowledge, their mouths grew dry and tongues grew swollen once more. Speech was difficult, so for the most part they remained silent.

They sat in the windward rowing well, downcast and dejected, heads lowered, shoulders hunched. The true enormity of their situation now faced them. But none of them begrudged Hal's impetuous decision to drink the last of the water. Better to enjoy one last meaningful drink than to eke out the remaining few drops, they all thought.

Such was the measure of their despair that none of them noticed the gull when it first landed on the tip of the yardarm, spreading its wings for balance before folding them neatly away and beginning to preen itself. It had been there for over ten minutes when it finally emitted a loud squawk and launched itself into the air, plunging almost immediately into the side of a wave to capture the fish that its keen eyes had seen just below the surface.

It bobbed on the heaving ocean as it tossed the fish it had caught, turning it so it would be easier to swallow, then gulping it down.

“It's a gull,” said Edvin.

Lydia regarded him incuriously. “So?”

He pointed at the bird as it shook itself. “A gull. Not an albatross or a frigate bird. They can fly hundreds of kilometers from
the land—way out into the oceans. But a gull stays close to land.”

As he spoke, the white-and-gray bird raised itself from the surface and flapped its wings vigorously, taking flight almost immediately. It gathered height and flew in a large circle to approach the ship again. Now twenty eyes were fixed on it. For a moment, it seemed about to land on the yardarm once more.

Ulf rose up, waving his arms violently, and yelled in a cracked, croaking tone, “Shoo! Get out of it! Go home!”

Startled by the sudden movement, the gull wheeled away and steadied on a course to the west. The Herons looked at one another, and hope sprang up in all their hearts.

“He's going home,” said Ulf.

Wulf, as ever, chose to bicker with his twin, even at a time like this. “How do you know it's not a she?”

Ulf let his shoulders slump wearily. “All right.
She's
going home,” he amended. “Home to dry land.” His uncharacteristic lack of protest was a sign of how weary he truly was.

“And all we have to do is follow her,” Hal said.

Stig grinned through cracked, dry lips. “How do you know it's a she?”

Hal didn't answer. He had already brought the bow round to follow the exact course set by the rapidly disappearing gull.

chapter
seven

H
alf a day had passed since they had sighted the seagull. The bird had long ago flown out of sight, and the ship continued to slide through the sea in its wake. Their initial excitement had died away, followed by disappointment and dejection as no sight of land eventuated.

Stefan sat downcast on the deck, idly kicking his legs back and forth as they dangled down into the starboard rowing well.

“I wonder if this is what happened to
Wolfbird
,” he said, more to himself than anyone else.
Wolfbird
had disappeared several years previously, after sailing out past Cape Shelter into the Frozen Sea.

Thorn looked keenly around the circle of glum faces. They needed something to shake them up, he thought, to snap them out of this renewed bout of apathy.

“I believe
Wolfbird
was taken by a giant sea monster,” he said artlessly.

Not one of them thought to ask him how he knew that. There had been no word of
Wolfbird
since she had passed beyond Cape Shelter. But the mention of the giant sea monster drove all other thoughts from their mind.

“Sea monster?” Jesper said. “What kind of sea monster?”

“A big one,” Thorn told him. “Enormous, in fact.
Big
hardly does it credit.”

“But what did it look like?” Stefan asked.

Amazing, Thorn thought. They've gone for this story hook, line and sinker. He searched his mind for some of the wilder stories he had heard from sailors in the past.

“Kind of spade-shaped,” he said, “with a huge staring eye on either side of its head. And it had fourteen long, bendy legs—like an octopus's tentacles,” he added, warming to his theme. “And a beak like a parrot's—big enough to tear a man in two.”

“Could it talk like a parrot?” Edvin asked.

Thorn turned his gaze on the brotherband's medic. Edvin's expression was skeptical, and Thorn grinned to himself. Edvin wasn't one to fall for tall tales. He'd probably seen the basic flaw in Thorn's story.

“No,” Thorn said, pretending offended dignity. “It could not talk like a parrot. But it could grab a ship and tear it in two.”

Edvin raised an eyebrow.
I'm on to you
, the expression said. Thorn winked at him.

The others were still digesting his assertion that the monster could seize a wolfship and rip it apart.

“What would a monster like that be called?” Ulf said in an awed tone, visualizing the giant creature Thorn had described.

“Anything it wanted to be,” Thorn told them. He was about to let them off the hook and say there was no such thing as a sea monster when there was a massive disturbance in the water twenty meters off their starboard side. A giant black creature slowly emerged from the depths. The water swirled around its glistening body and massive head, and one eye seemed to be rolled toward them, watching them. It was at least half again as long as
Heron
and it kept pace with them easily, sliding along on a parallel course.

Then, with a whistling roar, a huge spurt of water vapor erupted from the top of its head and the wind blew a cloud of reeking, fishy spray down upon them.

Thorn felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise in fear. It was as if the monster had appeared in answer to his joke. He wasn't normally a superstitious man, but now he thought he might have tempted fate too far by mentioning sea monsters in this mysterious, unexplored ocean.

For a moment, there was silence on board. Then, with cries of alarm, the crew scrambled across to the port side, away from the apparition—as if a further four meters would protect them in the event that the giant creature decided to attack. Hal leaned his weight on the tiller, swinging the ship away from the huge fish and snapping orders to Ulf and Wulf to re-trim the sail. The beast mirrored their course change effortlessly, maintaining the twenty-meter separation between it and them.

“Thorn?” Hal called nervously. “What is it?”

But the old sea wolf, for once, had no answer. His eyes were
fixed on the huge fish. Its left eye—he assumed there was another on the right side of its head—seemed focused back on him.

They heard a massive, whistling intake of breath, and the monster slowly arched its back and slid beneath the waves again, driving itself under with a huge fluked tail and leaving a swirling patch of disturbed water behind.

As it departed, the Herons dashed back to the windward side of the ship, craning over the railing, trying to see into the gray water, looking for some sign of the great beast. They broke into an excited, fearful chatter, all speaking at once, all voicing their wonder at the sight they had just seen. While Thorn's talk of sea monsters had enthralled them, none of them had
completely
believed it. Sea monsters were, after all, the stuff of myth and legend. They might or might not exist. Or so they had all believed until now. Now they had proof that huge animals did dwell in the depths of the ocean, and the knowledge unsettled them all—even Hal and Edvin, who had been inclined to be skeptical about Thorn's story.

Thorn himself was shaken. Up until now, the largest sea animal he had ever seen had been a bull walrus—but that faded into insignificance compared with the monster they had just sighted.

It was a sobering, and disturbing, moment for all of them. None of them doubted the fact that, had it wanted to, the great fish could have smashed their ship to splinters.

So intent were they on searching the ocean around them for any sign of the monster's return that Lydia's announcement came as a shock to them all.

She had climbed onto the bulwark at the very edge of the bow
to search for another sight of the fish. Seeing nothing, she raised her gaze to look farther afield.

“I think I see land,” she said, a note of wonder in her voice.

The excited chatter about the whereabouts of the sea monster was instantly stilled. The crew turned toward the bow, moving forward along the deck to join Lydia. A long, dark gray line stretched across the horizon ahead of them, reaching as far as they could see to either side.

“It's a cloud,” Jesper said.

But Lydia shook her head. “Don't think so,” she countered. “I've made that mistake twice before. This looks more substantial, more solid than any of the clouds I've seen.”

Thorn had sprung lightly onto the upwind bulwark, holding on to the rigging to maintain his balance.

“I think she's right,” he said, after a few seconds. “That definitely looks like land to me.”

The sea monster was immediately forgotten as a topic of discussion. Now the crew clamored out their agreement with Thorn and Lydia—with a few reserving judgment. Hal was one of the latter group. He felt that if he did believe it was land, and it turned out that he was mistaken, the disappointment would be too much for him to bear. But as the ship plunged farther to the west, the dim gray line began to take on harder focus and, finally, he joined in the chorus of relief.

“It's land,” he said. “It's definitely land. We've finally made it.”

Thorn looked at his young friend, unable to keep the smile of relief from his face.

“Wherever
it
may be,” he said.