Before the Sky Fell

[ 6 ] Of Shells and Ghosts

-6-

Of Shells and Ghosts

Geoffrey Marg sat upright in the dinghy. The caped boy sat in the front, with two chubby boys to his side. Jasper had a hand on the rudder, while two of the Talia sisters rowed them into shore. 

Palm trees stretched out from the forest like snakes, some fallen with fronds on the ground around them. The survivors had already felt what sort of weather these lands could bring. The storm they had endured just days prior tore Hydra in two. Marg didn't know who was on that ship, besides the quarter master, with whom he'd shared a drink only a week ago. No one would know the names of the people who almost made it to safety, but had fallen to the sea instead.

It would be chaos once the rest of the ships unloaded. Lowering the wounded into the dinghies would be difficult, if not impossible for some. The sea current near the island might tug at the anchors and sway the ships into each other. The rest of the fleet would have to anchor farther out.

"Be cautious," he told his crew in the dinghy. "We haven't had a report from Sebolt in over three months. Impossible to tell what shape she's in."

Marg's crew would joke that he should have been born with fins. He had spent most of his life in or on the water. If it wasn't for his bush of a grey beard, he might have passed for younger. Yet nearly five decades of life made his age apparent on his tired canvas of a face. His hands, lined with scars from years at sea, were more accustomed to tugging at halyard lines or adjusting pulleys than helping children into dinghies.

Whik leaned forward and arched his back as if trying to propel the canoe himself. His feet tapped in spasms on the floor, splashing water onto the other child beside him.

Whik turned to Geoffrey Marg and squinted into the sun. "Why did the Larks attack us?"

"Because they're cowards," one of the Talia sisters said. Adriana, it must have been. They looked so alike that Marg often couldn't tell them apart. He'd never seen a set of three that looked so much the same, let alone wanted to join an old sea captain's crew. They were new, but they worked hard, twice as hard as some of the men, as if they had something to prove.

"Because they would have frozen to death up there," Jasper added.

Because they wanted what we had. Marg suspected that something, or someone, had united the tribes of Larks from the northern lands. But how? And why? It was this unknown purpose that sent a shrill shiver down the back of his neck and motivated him to push his crew to their limits. An enemy unable to reason and compromise was the worst kind.

Marg said nothing. He stood and placed a boot on the bow as the shore grew closer. Another beach. Another chance. The first time Marg landed on an island like this, a storm had split his ship in two. He was another man back then, with different demons to battle, with a cargo hold full of southern slaves he'd hoped to sell for a profit. But the sea had something different in store, and instead of finding wealth, he found disaster. Much of his crew died that day, what with the way the waves crashed onto the vessel, tore the boards into a million splinters, and washed a selfish sea captain and his slaves onto the beach. But those slaves didn't turn on him. They dressed his wounds, helped him forage for food, even taught him the songs of cuffs and chains. Jasper was one of them, a slave turned friend. Marg would never forget that. Best not to think of that now. This is a different time. I'm a different man.

A wave pushed them onto the beach. Clumps of sand flew over a scurrying crab when the bow plunged into the shoreline. Marg's boots stamped their prints on the burnt surface, displacing the grains. Other dinghies had already unloaded and turned back for more. It would be an endless process, lasting far into the night. There were wounded to hoist down, supplies in the holds, crying children and angry parents.