Vampirates: Tide of Terror (16 page)

21

THE WOUND

Grace opened her eyes and was thrown into deep confusion. She had slept heavily, but for how long? What time was it? And where was she?

The room in which she found herself was large and unfamiliar. An expanse of black-and-white marble tiles swept off toward a pair of open French doors, with sheer curtains billowing in a faint breeze onto a balcony beyond. Where was she? Was it possible that she hadn’t even properly awoken and was trapped in one of those strange dreams which opened up like a Russian doll — tricking you into thinking you’d woken up when in fact you were still just as tightly enclosed in sleep?

She raised herself up on a large mound of pillows to gain a better view of her surroundings. As she did so, her head felt heavy. However long she
had
been sleeping, it hadn’t refreshed her. She felt decidedly groggy. There was a small carafe of water at the side of the bed and she poured out a glass. The water was deliciously cool on her tongue. She drained the contents of the glass in a few gulps and refilled it. As she drank again, she glanced about the room.

It was light and airy. There was a tall ivory-colored armoire, with mirrors on the front reflecting a matching chest of drawers. Across the room was a dressing table made entirely of mirrored glass, off which the light bounced back into the center of the room. A tall cabinet was filled with books, but it was glass fronted and this too was bathed in light, making the panes opaque and preventing Grace from reading the titles on their spines. On the walls were navigational charts and paintings of fine old ships. Above the chest of drawers hung a particularly imposing woodcut of a ship.

Grace pushed back the bedclothes to take a closer look. Her head was still heavy but she was sufficiently
compos mentis
to realize that she was in the room she’d been assigned at the Pirate Academy.

She stood staring at the ship, a distant memory stirring inside her. At the foot of the picture were the words
The Pequod.
Of course! Grace recognised it as the “whaler” from
Moby Dick.
It had been one of her dad’s favorite books and he had read it to the twins several times. He had a wonderful old edition of it, with woodcuts just like this one. Perhaps there was a copy of it in the cabinet of books. She walked across the floor, the marble tiles cool under her feet. The glass doors of the cabinet were closed and a small key was resting in the lock. She twisted it and the lock released. Even so, the wood had warped a little and she had to pry the door open.

The shelves were crowded with books, some familiar — including
Moby Dick
in what looked to be the very same edition as her father’s — but others less so. Her eyes were drawn to an old volume called
Lives of the Most Notorious Pirates.
The book was covered in navy-blue cloth with the gold outlines of a skull and crossbones and a ship at sea decorating the spine. She reached into the case and took out the book, finding that it was encased in a three-sided box. It must be quite old and precious, she thought. Gently, she eased it out of the box and carefully opened up the yellowed pages.

Then there was a sudden noise, like footsteps. Grace turned, jumping to find another girl across the room. The girl looked equally surprised to find Grace there. For a moment, they stood still and silent, taking the measure of each other. Slowly, Grace realized that she was simply looking at her own reflection in the mirrored door of the armoire. She felt exceedingly silly. She must still be half asleep. She stepped nearer to the mirror, examining her reflection. She looked a mess — her eyes bloodshot and her hair sticking out in a hundred directions. Still holding the book, she raised her other hand and tried to push the strands of her hair into some kind of order.

This, she realized, was going to be a job for two hands, so she set the book carefully on the floor and returned to the mirror. She continued to tweak her hair until it met her satisfaction. It wouldn’t have been good enough for Darcy, she thought with a smile. “A young lady really oughtta give her hair a hundred stokes of the brush at night,” she had once told Grace. Grace had taken her advice but had grown bored, lost count, and then felt incredibly sleepy. Just like she did now.

Even after a few minutes’ standing, she felt as tired as before. It was rather like being back on the Vampirate ship during those first days. Indeed, if she hadn’t been able to see, beyond the sheer curtains, the balcony and the view of the harbor beyond, she might have imagined herself to be back on the ship. Her eyes thirstily drank in the turquoise water of the harbor, glinting temptingly in the sun. She realized, from the direction of the sun, that it was morning.

Feeling woozy again, she decided she was going to have to sit or lie down once more. Well, perhaps she’d at least be able to read rather than simply fall back into sleep. She reached down for the book and, having retrieved it, stumbled back toward the bed. As she threw her body down on the counterpane and closed her eyes, she felt as if she were in motion. The bed itself seemed to be moving.

As Grace lay there, her limbs still and heavy as boulders, the movement of the bed increased. It was both a familiar sensation and a new one. She realized, with excitement, that she was being taken back to the Vampirate ship again. But this time, it appeared the bed was going to carry her!

To her amazement, the iron bed rose up from the marble floor, hovered a few inches from the surface, and then, gathering speed, took flight toward the balcony. Surely the bed would be too wide for the narrow opening? She held her breath and shut her eyes, expecting an impact, but either the bed narrowed or the doorway expanded because soon she was seeing the balcony from the other side, as the bed soared higher and continued its flight over the Academy terrace far below. She sat up on the bed, feeling more steady than she had just now when it was still rooted to the floor. Her energy seemed to be similarly restored and she was able to enjoy the rush of the breeze on her face and the stunning view down over the Academy gardens. There was the jacaranda tree and the lecture theater down by the harbor. And there, running by the dockside, was a pack of students. Grace remembered Captain Platonov talking about the morning run. She searched for Connor in the crowd, but all the students were dressed alike and she was simply too high up now to identify him. She wondered what the students would think if they looked up and saw her. Part of her hoped they wouldn’t, but another part made her wish Connor would glance skyward to witness her extraordinary ride.

Within seconds, unnoticed, the bed flew beyond the edge of the land and was speeding over the harbor and out beyond the tall stone arch, out to the open ocean. The speed of travel increased. The landscape raced by as it had on Grace’s last journey. Ocean blended into rock into sky in one continuous flowing stream of light.

Then the mist engulfed her, crisp and thick as newly fallen snow. It was cool and she folded her arms across her chest instinctively. But it never became too cold. She luxuriated in the mist, letting its soft arms engulf her. All too soon, it began to part. She found that she was indoors once more, still on a bed, but not lying fully on it — hovering a couple of inches above it. When she glanced up, there were silk hangings above her head. The ornate stitching on the cloth was familiar. She realized that she was no longer on the Academy bed but back on her bed in her cabin on the Vampirate ship. Just as if she had never been away.

Except, the candles were not burning. Not all of them, anyhow. When Grace had occupied the cabin, she had been surrounded by burning candles at all times of day and night. Now, just one tall candle was lit. It burned away in a glass, set on the nightstand. It made her ponder.

The candles had always been a mystery. They had never seemed to burn down and, even when she had thought she’d extinguished them, they had sparked back into light. She had realized that they were not in her control. But what might it mean that now — now that she had left the ship — only one candle was lit?

She stepped down from the bed, keen to renew her acquaintance with the rest of the room. There was the little writing desk. She had taken several of the pens and note-books from it and those that were left were in disarray. The pens were scattered on and around the desk, and the jar they had been stored in had fallen to the floor. Instinctively, Grace reached out for it. But, as before, she was unable to properly touch anything on the ship. The mess remained.

There was further disarray on the other side of the room, where the hairbrush and other items had fallen from the dressing table. The ship must have passed through rough waters to cause all this chaos. Cushions had been thrown from the bed to the floor. Grace reached out her hands again, in a last attempt to clear up the clutter. But, instead of gripping the cushions, her hands closed on thin air.

Her eyes fell on the gramophone, with the pile of old records stacked beside it. Indeed, a record was turning even now, though somehow she had not registered the sound earlier. A woman’s voice — strangely familiar — was singing above a background of violins and the crackle of the ancient recording:

I wish I could forget you, yes I do,

But to forget you would be like forgetting my own name. . . .

How, she wondered, had she not heard this when she first arrived in the room? Perhaps the mist not only cut off her sight but her hearing, too, carrying her into a state of suspension while it wove its curious magic about her. But now the song and the singer filled her head. The woman’s voice was high and breathy:

But to forget you would be like forgetting how to smileTo somehow fail to remember how to speak....

She stepped closer to the gramophone, watching the black disc turn and trying to read the writing on the label. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought she recognized the name there. She sat on the edge of the bed, waiting for the song to finish.

Yes, to forget you

Would be worse, much worse, than never having met you.

At last, the disc slowed and eventually stopped turning. Grace looked down and saw that she had been right.

Miss Darcy Flotsam,

accompanied by the Royal Palm Revue,

sings Songs of Love.

Grace smiled. So Darcy Flotsam had once made a record. It was strange hearing her friend sing on the ancient disc. The vinyl record was over five hundred years old! It truly was a wonder it had survived. She wondered how much the recording had distorted Darcy’s voice, and realized that she had yet to hear her friend sing for real. She’d have to ask her next time she saw her.

Just then, she noticed for the first time that she was not alone in the cabin. This time, her eyes did not deceive her — there were no mirrors here. She was fully alert, perhaps even in a state of heightened sensation. And there, as clear as day, was the chair, and there, sitting in it, was Lorcan. How could she not have seen him before? He appeared to be asleep, bundled up in a blanket which she recognized as one he must have grabbed from the bed. He looked far from comfortable, one arm hanging down over the side of the chair, the other clamped over his eyes and forehead.

Grace stepped closer. Lorcan’s breathing was uneven, coming in fits and bursts as if he were in the throes of a dark dream. Should she wake him? He did seem to be deeply asleep, in spite of her arrival and Darcy’s singing. She looked at him, hoping he might wake of his own accord. How she longed to see his blue eyes again — they had always been such a comfort to her. But when she had last visited the ship, his face had been turned away from her and in shadow. Now she was similarly frustrated as his arm rested over his eyes. Oh, if only he’d wake up, she thought.

Grace stepped backward, sitting down on the corner of the bed, watching Lorcan as, in times before, she knew
he
had watched her. It was strange watching somebody sleep. It felt intrusive, as if you had caught them at their most defenseless. And as you watched them, motionless, you couldn’t help but wonder — if only for a moment — whether they had died, and watch furiously for signs of life.

Cheng Li’s voice filled Grace’s head, reminding her of the questions she must ask Lorcan. Sitting with Cheng Li in her room at the Academy, it had seemed entirely logical that she must ask Lorcan and the others some very searching questions. But now that she was here, the importance of those questions receded. All she wanted was to see him open his eyes.

Suddenly, Lorcan gave a deep groan and his whole body twisted. Had he woken? No, he had simply reached some new portal of sleep, for he assumed a new position in his chair — but then stopped still just as suddenly as if they’d been playing “musical statues.” His hand had fallen from his face and now hung down on the other side of the chair. A dark shadow fell across his face. Grace leaned nearer, realizing with a shock that it wasn’t actually a shadow. There was a livid bruise spreading out around Lorcan’s eyes, purple at the edges but darker, almost black, toward the center. His eyebrows were singed and — Grace felt sick to see — over the eyelids and brows, Lorcan’s pale skin was blistered and burnt. It looked unbelievably painful.

She felt a pull on her heart, remembering that he had tried to prevent her from seeing this devastation last time. That was why, though he had allowed her into his cabin, he had remained in the darkness and kept his face hidden from her. He had been protecting her, as he always did.

Grace could barely look at his terrible disfigurement. She stole another brief glance but it was too much. She turned away with a sob. As she did, a hand reached out toward her shoulder.

“Grace?”

“Oh, Lorcan,” she said, turning slowly back toward him.

She had expected his eyes to open but, even though he was awake now, they remained tightly closed.