The Voyage of Lucy P. Simmons (10 page)

The man across from the threatening woman grinned slyly and slammed the top shut with one hand, his cards still pressed securely against his vest.
You're bluffing. I'm not folding! I'll bet my money on the girl and play my hand to the end!

In that moment, I recognized them—she, the queen of spades. He, the king of diamonds!

With that realization, I was violently lifted and thrown from the room, engulfed again in water and waves. I jerked to the surface, coughing. Spewing. Lungs bursting. Someone grabbed my wrist, wrenched it behind my back. Twisting, I was subdued by an iron arm clamped across my chest. Steely fingers locked in the hollow beneath my arm. I thrashed. Smacked the water with my free hand, desperately trying to regain control.

Again, underwater, until I broke the surface once more, gasping and gulping. The blinding blue sky assaulted my eyes.

The bow of a dinghy bobbed closer and closer, amidst an array of floating objects—a carpenter's bench, a life buoy, a wooden shelf. A hand reached over the side of the rescue boat, latched on to my arm, and yanked. My chest thumped against the hull, and the viselike arms around me pushed and prodded until I was thrust over the edge of the small vessel, flopping about like a fish on a hook. Walter's face came into view above mine, his features a tug of war between panic and relief. Then a splash, the boat dipped, and I heard someone climbing over the side. One narrow, bare, dripping foot, then another flapped beside me.

I struggled to sit, Walter's arms pushing me back, but still I managed to pull myself up. “Easy does it, Lucy,” he said. “Careful!”

Marni knelt beside me, her silver hair slick to her head, chest heaving, her face knotted in concern. Her dripping arms trembled from exertion. The captain, along with a collection of faces, peered down over the starboard rail of our ship, her prow looming over us. I looked up at the two carrottops, Tonio's shining bald dome, Irish's head of black curls, and Coleman's faded features. Rasjohnny waved his arms wildly. I heard Addie's voice, high-pitched and thick with emotion. “T'ank the Lord, she's alive, she is!”

“She's got herself sittin' up pretty,” Rasjohnny called. “Yessiree, she do. Miss Annie, ya can stop yer bawlin' now! Pugsley, stop yer howlin'! Everything gonna be okay!”

“Lower the rope!” the cap'n hollered. “Be quick about it!”

Rasjohnny heaved a rope ladder over the side. It thwacked against the boat's wooden timbers as it unfurled and hit the water several yards from where we were. Walter grabbed the oars and rowed toward it. Under Quaide's direction, Georgie threw a line attached to a makeshift harness crafted from a thick leather belt. “Just in case,” Quaide shouted. I could hear the sneer in his voice. “Strap it around so if ya don't make it up ya won't fall in again.”

“I'm right here!” Walter shouted. “I won't let either of them fall!” He looked intently at me. “You girls ready?”

“Hey, kid,” Quaide called to Walter. “Collect all the floatin' stuff we threw overboard fer nothin'. No sense lettin' it all wash away.”

I looked at Marni, still catching her breath. She closed her eyes and nodded.

“Marni . . .” I began, suddenly overwhelmed with emotion. This was the second time she'd pulled me from the sea half dead—the first back in Maine, when Mother and Father had drowned. And now again. I reached toward her. “Thank you.”

She opened her eyes and fingered the locket at her throat. “I couldn't lose another one,” she said, her voice husky and spent. “Let's get you back aboard.”

Walter grabbed the belt and strapped it around my waist. “Can you climb?” he asked.

My arms and legs felt like jelly. “I think so.”

I grasped the ladder several rungs up and planted my foot on the bottom one.

“Here she comes!” Addie yelled. “Be careful, child! Oh sweet Jesus, I can't bear to look!”

I climbed slowly, muscles quivering. Kept my eyes peeled straight ahead so as not to think about the distance between the deck and the ocean. Walter was right behind me. “Atta girl, Luce. Yup. One more. That's the way!”

After what seemed like an eternity I chanced an upward glance. The cap'n leaned over, arms outstretched, Coleman and Irish on either side of him. “Take my hands!” Cap'n shouted. I reached up and he clasped my forearms with strong, sure fingers. Up, up, they hoisted me, Quaide cranking the harness line over a squeaky winch. In one last burst my legs dropped over the side to the cheers of our crew. The Reds stood back awkwardly, wringing their hands, tentative smiles on their matching pale faces. Tonio gave a sharp salute with two fingers. His thick black mustache twitched. Coleman sighed heavily, raking his fingers through his tuft of goose-down hair.

Then, Addie was beside me, her fingers running over my cheeks like hungry tentacles. She swept me into her arms and hugged me with a force that threatened to cut off what breath I had left. Pugsley leaped in the air over and over, panting and wagging his curlicue tail. Annie wrapped her arms around my legs and squeezed, and Ida bleated and butted me with her head. Georgie stared at me, his eyes giant
O
s. “You was nearly drowned!” he said, incredulous. “What'd you go and jump for, anyway? I saw you
jump
!”

“Georgie!” Addie admonished. “Don't be speakin' such nonsense! Course she didn't jump! Why would she do that, I ask ye?”

Quaide smirked. Grady shrunk back, peering at me through narrowed eyes, rubbing thumbs and index fingers together. “And where's the schooner?” he asked, his head bobbing. “Anybody care to answer that? A specter ship, I tell ye, perhaps the
Flying Dutchman
itself! Disappeared as soon as the little missy here took the plunge. Lured, she was, by a siren's song or such. It ain't right. Ain't normal.” He clamped his mouth shut when Marni pulled herself over the side, the cap'n surrounding her with a blanket. Javan pressed steaming mugs of coffee into our hands, as Walter climbed over, took up the ladder, and prepared to raise the lifeboat. “It ain't right,” Grady repeated. I looked out to sea. Grady was right. There was no sign of the phantom vessel. It had vanished.

“No means of identifying the ship,” the cap'n mused. “No name. No markings. Spotted her at a distance a few times. How she managed to move out of range this quickly is a mystery to me.” The men stared at the horizon, Irish scratching his head, the Reds frowning, Tonio pursing and unpursing his lips.

“Enter it into the log, Coleman,” the cap'n said. “The rest of you—be watchful. On the ready!” As the crew dispersed he stared out across the water, concern knitting his brow.

“Come,” Marni said, placing an arm around me. “We both need to get out of these wet clothes. Rest. Then we can talk about what happened out there.”

She studied me with her deep green eyes. Had she gotten a glimpse of them? Or was it that sixth sense of hers that always seemed to guide her where she was needed most? Arm in arm we headed below, me to my cabin and Marni to hers.

I stripped off my wet clothing and dried myself with a towel sheet. Put on my softest, oldest shirt and cozy frayed trousers and fell into the hammock. It rocked back and forth, back and forth. I stared at the ceiling. My mother's face appeared in my mind's eye, and I thrilled at the memory of it. And Father. Victor and Margaret. I shuddered at the thought of them. All of them. All of the Simmonses who'd died at sea. And the other two—the queen and king. I shivered, recalling her words:
Your next wager? You want her to join the game?
And the king:
I'll play my hand till the end!

The curse. They were all talking about the curse.

She's our last hope, this one—she and my Pru.
That's what my grandfather had said. And the queen of spades—
Not a word of this to any of your mates! That would be cheating.
Pru, I thought, how I wish you were here with me! What would you make out of all of this?

A gripping chill raised gooseflesh along my arms. I felt cold down to my bones. Shut my eyes, but all I could hear was the sound of phantom cards shuffling, snapping. And Mother's words:
It's all in the cards, dear one.

W
e sat huddled together in Marni's stateroom, Walter, Addie, Marni, and me, the ditty box of amusements there where I'd left it. Together we connected the pieces of the events that had unfolded.

Grady, on watch, had spotted the schooner first. He'd sounded the call and the cap'n had adjusted our course accordingly. No cause for concern just yet, except, according to all accounts, the peculiar ship continued to bear down on us, no matter which way we tacked. And that wasn't all—the way the advancing ship seemed to shimmer and glow, almost above the waves, skimming the surface like a seabird.

“Never have I witnessed the likes of it,” Addie said, shaking her head. “Save for, of course, back in Maine, with the passin' o' the mansion into the sea. 'Twas of the same source, these goings-on. Indeed it 'twas!”

“And then, there we were,” Walter said, “struggling with the sails, doing all we could to turn her around, and I see you, Lucy, sailing through the air. Hit the water and disappear.”

I felt my face color.

“What happened, child?” Addie asked. “What were ye doin' up there in them ropes durin' such an emergency?”

Marni's emerald eyes studied me closely.

“I'm . . . not sure,” I mumbled. “I . . . didn't think at all, really. . . . I saw the ship and then . . . I was scaling the ratline. I didn't intend to climb out to the yardarm, but . . .”

“It was like Grady said, wasn't it?” Walter asked quietly. “That was no ordinary ship. Something about it lured you.”

“I had no choice.” As the words left my mouth, I felt the weighty truth of them. Terrifying that I could be drawn into danger against my will. And yet, I'd seen Mother. Father. Felt their love . . .

Addie wrung her hands, her eyes wide, as though reliving the scene again. “In the mayhem of it all, Miss Marni—they tried to hold 'er back, they did, but she dove right over the side—Georgie and Javan and me heavin' anything overboard that'd float, in hopes of ye grabbin' hold! Coleman, quiet ghost that he is—never saw 'im move so fast as when he pitched the life ring o'er the side. Walter lowerin' the dinghy with breakneck speed. Thought we'd lose ye both! But in a flash, between the life ring and the wooden bench, there she was—Miss Marni—haulin' ye up out o' the deep!”

Marni, a far-off look in her eyes, ran her hand along the ornate wooden trim that framed the inside of the cabin. “That ship—the specter ship—I have the feeling it shares the same source of power as our own vessel—that they're connected in some way. If that's the case, I suppose it shouldn't be surprising that we're drawn together—like sister ships pulled by a force we can't understand. The question is, why? She must hold some secrets necessary for our quest.”

I was amazed, as always, by Marni's instincts. Before I could respond, I spied the shadow of two large feet outside the stateroom door. Marni raised an eyebrow, almost imperceptibly. Bolted and shoved open the door.

Quaide, hunched forward, straightened up, turned, and walked on, but it was clear he'd been eavesdropping.

“Stop right there!” Marni commanded. “What do you think you're doing, skulking about?”

He shrugged, arms hanging by his sides, fingers opening and closing. He chewed the inside of one cheek, distorting his face. “Wasn't doin' nothin',” he mumbled. “Just stopped to . . . buckle me shoe.” An insolent smirk inched across his mouth and pulled his face back to normal.

Marni stepped up, her face within inches of his. Her voice dropped to just above a whisper. “I'm watching you, Quaide. We're all watching you. And—trust me—I'll be having a word with the cap'n.”

He shrugged again, shoulders creeping up his thick neck. His tongue swept across his fleshy lips, circling top to bottom. “Nothin' you could say to the cap'n that'd be concernin' me.” He hulked toward the companionway, letting the door to the stairway bang behind him.

“Everybody, keep an eye on him,” Marni said. “I notice he's taken Georgie under wing—having him help run out the booms, the studding sails. Feigning an interest that doesn't feel genuine to me. We need to watch that closely. The boy's impressionable. Quaide's motives are seldom anything but self-serving.”

“Don't worry about Georgie,” Walter said. “I'll be sure he's on the straight and narrow. It's my job, after all.”

“Good,” Marni replied. “Let's try and keep that specter ship in our sights. Hopefully, it will prove to be a force for good. . . .” She glanced at me, her eyes a question. I nodded. I hoped so too. Marni stood up. “I think we've discussed all of this enough for now. Lucy here's been through a lot.”

I smiled at her faintly with my eyes. How was she always able to read my heart? She and I both knew there was more. But I thought of the queen of spades's warning:
Not a word of this to any of your mates! That would be cheating.
How I longed to tell Marni what I'd seen, but I bit my tongue. “I am a little tired,” I said.

“You sure you're all right?” Walter asked.

I nodded. We walked together to the door, Walter and I behind the others. “Oh, wait,” I said, tugging his sleeve. “Look what I found!”

I pulled out the ditty box and spread the contents on the floor, gladly putting off returning to my cabin. Once I was alone I'd be forced to think about what had happened. I hoped he didn't notice the tremble that shook me as I picked up the book of chanteys and the pen-and-ink set and gestured toward the rest. “Amusements for days at sea . . . take what you'd like and give the rest to Georgie and Javan.”

“Swell!” he said. He knelt, fingered the leather satchel of carving tools, turned the scrimshaw over in his hands. “Something to capture Georgie's attention besides Quaide.”