The Third Uncle

Chapter Thirteen: Old Friends, New Friends

Chapter Thirteen: Old Friends, New Friends

    Something wet ran down his cheek.

    A tear? 

    No. 

   Now he could feel it again, and again. Upon his neck, his forehead, his cheeks, stinging his closed eyes. He licked his lips, tasting it. It was cold, he was cold. He tried to open his eyes ... but found he couldn’t. His body was asleep, frozen. He shifted his weight, wincing as his body was suddenly shot through with painful pins and needles. He was immobilized. So Joseph did the only thing he was able to do - he lay still. He lay there and he listened to what was happening around him. 

    Recumbent upon the hard ground, he quietly concentrated. He noticed the cool humidity of the air, the sound the wind made as it passed over his face. Something familiar greeted his ears. It was the sound of water! Rushing water, playing, bubbling and rippling water ... and then the reality of his situation dawned upon him. 

   ‘Bollocks.’ 

   He groaned and moaned, and he may have even have cried a little. He was on another damned boat!

    I’m obviously being punished, he thought. I’ve been cursed by my Grandad. He said evil would find me for joining the Aero Corp instead of the Navy. He said I should have followed in his footsteps, and look, just look where I am now!

     ‘You happy Grandad?!’  Joseph began shouting. ‘Well?!’ He paused, hesitating, half expecting to hear his grandfather’s gravelly voice telling him to show some respect. He didn’t. He yelled again. ‘Well, here I am, on a bleedin’ boat again! I hope you’re happy now, you old ...’ He stopped himself. Did he hear voices? He thought he heard someone approaching. Joseph tried to lift his head, and strained his ears, listening for it. He did! Someone nearby was whistling! Whistling? And singing? Yes, he heard the unmistakable aria from Mozart’s Don Giovanni in a deep, rich baritone ... and it was approaching, a low hum that faded and reappeared as if the singer was walking back and forth nearby.

    The song was suddenly interrupted by a crash and clatter off things being dropped to the ground to his immediate right.

     ‘Um, hello?’ Joseph tried so hard to open his eyes, but they remained frozen shut.

    No one responded, but he could hear the scrapes and scratches of weighty objects being shifted about over the rough deck. The singing started up once more, and the footsteps faded away. 

    He had been left alone again.

    He sighed.

     Joseph frowned, and tried to stretch his neck and shoulders a little, and this small effort elicited a low, sorrowfull growl from his stomach. God, he would kill for a decent omelette right now! 

    What had happened? He clawed at his conciousness and dug up a memory of a room. An uncomfortably warm, humid and bright room. A room dense and heavy with the scent of sweet perfume and flowers. He frowned. he remembered violence and ... a dagger? Was there a dagger? Yes! The memory made him squirm where he lay. It shone like Death’s own rotten tooth. It was a black dagger, an ebony dagger and -

    Marie Antoinette! 

    Oh! He twitched, remembering now. The beautiful Queen smiling at him, his friends just standing by as she came for him, the layers of her skirts spinning outward like a daisy as she lunged at him, and - oh God, he thought. She had stabbed him! Impossible! His face was soaked now, and the ground beneath him suddenly jumped and pitched to the right. He was certain the boat was moving. He felt the twist of the currents in the wood under his back, of the deck pulling the craft forward faster and faster.