Riven Isles

32 | Recovered and Rattled

If there were ever a need to worry for the wounded captain, that need vanished when he appeared at our cabin door the day after Dorian's appearance, asking Mrs. Marks—who is a woman, and was offended—to clean his favorite coat. While she accepted, begrudgingly, the task, she did give the rest of us—who, honest, would never ask her to do our washing just because she is a woman—a firm warning that if we were ever to make such demands, she would send us over the waterfall.

Meanwhile, the captain vaulted himself all around the ship throughout the day, engaging in chatter with his crew. Loud, and laughing, as though nothing was wrong, holding his stub leg out like a trophy. He brought sound to the overwhelming silence of the cave that, before his appearance, was filled only with rushing water. Dorian's anxious appearance at our cabin the night before seemed almost imagined as the day progressed. He returned to repairing damages around the ship.

The clever little carpenter had fashioned Captain Avery a smooth wooden crutch with a spring in its foot. When the captain puts his weight on it, its length reduces, then it springs up, which takes some pressure off the man when he moves.

My medical companions spent the day ranting to one another about Captain Avery's inability to take instructions and rest, and his refusal to hear them out when each approached him over the afternoon, claiming the same to each of us, "I don't need to be looked after, as I have recovered very well."

How could we argue? Eventually, the dinner bell tolls. It is disorienting how the light in cave is so constant, though since last night, it seems to have dulled a shade. Still, the only perception of time we can have is through Professor Woods' and the doctor's watches, our sleepiness nearing nine o'clock, our hunger around mealtimes, and the heavy tolls of the bell.

***

"My leg was in his iron grip one second, and the next, it was swallowed by the red, red water, and was thrown into the clutches of much fiercer beasts," the captain carries on, recounting the night of his injuries with fervor. He tells the story with his hands as well as his voice, making it hard to look away. "In seconds—mere fleeting moments—razor teeth, jagged and sharper than the sharpest of blades, shredded through my boot, through my flesh, through my bone—but they couldn't get the rest of me..."

Half-listening, I turn my attention away to look across the table. Simon had moved away from us and his usual place to sit beside Elian at the beginning of our dinner time. They whisper to each other, Simon pressing his glasses to his nose in an anxious manner that is most unlike him and smiling. All they are doing is discussing one of his thick, boring books, laid open in front of them, underneath his ever-so-slightly trembling hand, but the queer enthusiasm and shyness of the always-pedantic professor almost makes me sorry to be missing out.

Mrs. Marks and the doctor, by my side, quietly murmur about their different methods of dealing with uncooperative patients.

I shovel the last of my stew into my mouth and stack my bowl with theirs, then lean over the table with folded arms and return my attention to the captain. His bandaged stump is propped on the table like a trophy, and his teeth glint in the blue and orange lighting.

"Using the boy as my crutch, I barreled from my cabin—unstoppable—to have my revenge..."

Eventually, his wild-eyed story comes to its end, and he clasps his hands together, taking a breath, and suddenly becomes very still. As though all the energy in the room is trapped between his palms, every breath, every sound, every thought seems to pause. Even Simon lifts his head and takes his finger away from his spectacles.

"I realize that I am late to acknowledge my lost crewmen," the captain says solemnly, "and I am sure that many of you will have already counted how many are missing. We were fortunate, in this case, to only lose seven of our good sailors. Due to the quick thinking of our officers, with the help of our guests, we remain in solid numbers of thirty-four hardy men. We had four traitors, all, as told, sent to the Trough."