Haven Lost Page 5

  She slid her hands over the rail that ran the length of the boat. The wood was smooth and almost hot from the sun beating down upon it. It felt like a thousand other hands had slid down its length. It felt strong and solid. It felt real.

  She watched as another boat glided past, its crew hoisting huge sails as it headed out to sea.

  She realized, suddenly, that she was sweating profusely. She lowered her backpack to the deck between her feet, peeled off her heavy winter coat, and clumsily tied its arms around her waist before slipping her bag on again. She was still far too warmly dressed for the sunshine that blazed down from the cloudless blue sky above, but at least she wasn’t suffocating.

  Looking down at her jacket had dislodged something in her mind, and slowly, bits and pieces of last night’s events began coming back to her. Had it only been last night?

  She remembered the missed goal, her strange stop into Starbucks, the warehouse, and her mother…

  Emily pushed that thought away. She could think about that later. Right now, she needed to make sense of where she was and what was going on.

  She reached out and touched the girl’s shoulder again.

  “Emily,” she managed through her parched lips. The girl blinked at her. “My name is Emily.”

  Some of the girl’s brusque manner slipped away, and she smiled. “I’m Celine,” she said, and she extended her diminutive, little hand. Emily took it, and the two of them stood hand-in-hand as the boat came into port.

  They had hardly stopped moving before the other girls were snatching up bags and lining up at the gangway. Emily followed Celine, the two of them standing at the back of the group, and watched as the sailors came down to unlock the gate.

  “Wait,” one of the sailors grunted at them, and he thumped down the gangway and onto the pier, where another man was waiting.

  The second man was one of the largest Emily had ever seen. His massive bulk seemed almost entirely muscle, and nearly every inch of him was covered in heavy leather garments despite the heat. A sword was strapped to his back, and a number of other items seemed to be hanging from his belt. His blonde hair and beard hung halfway to his waist, and a jagged scar ran across his cheek and over the bridge of his nose.

  The sailor and the man exchanged words, then the sailor turned and shouted at them.

  “Come on, then.”

  The girls crowded forward, all in a hurry to cross the narrow plank that connected the boat with the pier, and seemingly fearless of the lack of barriers between themselves and the roiling waters below.

  Celine started forward, and Emily followed, keeping her eyes firmly on the smaller girl’s back and trying hard not to think about the murky fathoms they were passing over.

  The girls stood in a bunch before the imposing figure of the blonde man, and the sailor started back onto his ship, calling over his shoulder with a nasty grin, “They’re yer problem now.”

  The blonde man grunted and surveyed them one by one. His gaze lingered longest on Emily’s coat and backpack, and a frown crossed his face for a moment. Then he seemed to dismiss whatever he was thinking and turned to address the group as a whole.

  “You are going to walk right in front of me, so I can see you the whole way. When I tell you to turn, you turn. When I tell you to stop, you stop. There will be no talkin’. If you do as I say, there’ll be no trouble, either. Understood?” His voice was like the low rumble of a jet engine, and it seemed to Emily she could almost feel it in the pit of her stomach.

  The girls all nodded solemnly, and the man continued. “Walk straight down the pier there. And stop when you get to the sand.” He pointed, and they turned to obey.

  He followed directly behind Emily and Celine, who walked side by side at the back of the little group. All around them, ships were pulling in and out of the harbor, and sailors ran back and forth between them, carrying crates of cargo, coils of rope, and countless things for which Emily had no names. If this was a hallucination, she was more imaginative than she’d ever guessed. Doubtless, that revelation would shock Mr. Fowler, her art teacher, at any rate.

  Celine stared quite as much as Emily, and she got the distinct impression that her new friend was nearly as stunned by her surroundings as she was herself.

  As they reached the end of the pier, Celine gaped as an enormous ox was herded past them toward one of the boats, and she tripped over the gap between the boards of the pier and the rocky sand beyond. She fell to her knees, crying out in surprise.

  Emily was reaching to help her back up when there was a blur before her eyes, and a red line appeared across the back of Celine’s slender neck, like a magicians trick. A sound like a gunshot rang in her ears.

  Emily looked around and saw the blonde man raising his fist again for another lash of the whip he held in it, and Emily moved without thinking, stepping to one side to shield Celine with her body. It was almost instinctual—something she’d done a thousand times to block shots from one opposing team or another.

  It all happened so fast. Emily felt the pain across her cheek before she heard the loud snap as the whip sliced through the air. She gasped but did not cry out. Her eyes filled with tears, but she stood her ground, staring at the man in disbelief. One hand went to her face, and the pain was suddenly enormous. It seemed to fill the whole of her world for a moment, blurring her vision, before receding to a dull throb.

  She opened her mouth to say “What?”, but Celine was up and pulling her forward again to join the other girls, who were waiting in a knot on the sand.

  The excitement had drained from their faces. They looked wary and frightened, but not much surprised. They watched the big man as he carefully stowed the whip away on his belt and stomped toward them. He didn’t look at Emily; he merely glared at them all and pointed down the shoreline to their left. The little company began moving again, all the nervous anticipation gone. Now, they had the look of the condemned marching toward the gallows.

  Ahead, the stone tower loomed over them, seeming cold and foreboding. Beside her, she heard a small sound, and she glanced over to see tears streaming down Celine’s hollow cheeks.

  As much to gain comfort as give it, Emily put an arm around the smaller girl’s narrow shoulders, and they trudged on together toward the tower.

  Chapter Five

  A narrow cobbled lane led in a gentle arc up from the beach to a pair of massive oak doors at the tower’s base. It seemed to be the hub of some kind of temporary market at present. Brightly painted wooden stalls lined both sides of the lane, and men, women, and even children were rhapsodizing like carnival barkers about their wares in every direction. The luscious aromas of cooking meat and baking pastries laced every breath, and Emily’s mouth began to water. She couldn’t remember how long it had been since she’d eaten anything at all. Here and there were booths offering colorful rugs, fancy garments of every description, and even small wooden trinkets and toys. Nearly everything seemed to have been handcrafted, much of it being created right there in front of eager and excited customers.

  From time to time, exotic birds of varying shades and sizes swooped down without warning to snatch at discarded scraps of food between the cobbles, apparently unperturbed by the people and the din around them. A hunchbacked old man hobbled past, carefully leading a mule down the middle of the lane. Both mule and master each possessed only a single milky eye that blinked out at the world from the center of their foreheads. Emily swallowed hard. If this was a dream, she was more than ready to wake up now. If not, she needed to find a way back to where she belonged.

  As their little procession made its way up the lane, many in the crowd turned to stare. Some whispered to their neighbors in excited tones. Others looked pointedly in the opposite direction as Emily and the others went by. A small boy, surely not more than nine or ten, who seemed to have horns growing in tight spirals from either side of his skull, stuck his tongue out at the best dressed girl in their party and let out a high-pitched screech of mischievous laughter.
<
br />   Celine’s tears had run dry as they’d made their way down the beach. Though she’d stiffened a little as she’d wiped the last of them from her face, she had not pulled away.

  Amidst the stares and pointing fingers, Emily was becoming distinctly self-conscious of her matted hair and the welt still burning on her cheek. Beside Celine though, clad in her filthy sheet, she supposed she must practically look like royalty. The feel of the smaller girl’s shoulders beneath her arm calmed her jangled nerves and served as an anchor for her in these insane surroundings.

  As they neared the end of the lane, they passed a man wearing a garish pink tunic and leather britches playing a spirited jig on an old and battered fiddle. Gaudy gold rings flashed in the sunlight as his fingers danced with preternatural speed between the strings. Perched upon his shoulder was a brown spider the size of a small dog. It was clicking its pincers in time with the music, and occasionally reaching out with one hairy leg toward passers-by. Emily wondered, in a vague and disconnected way, how long it would be before her sanity would simply turn to dust and be blown away across the rippling waves. She thought that might even be a relief.

  They reached the stone stairs leading up to the tower and began climbing. Celine stumbled on the uneven steps, but Emily held her up, glancing behind her shoulder at their escort. He hadn’t seen. At the moment, he was preoccupied, leering at a young woman clad in a tight denim vest and a woven skirt that flashed pale skin here and there from between the weave as she danced to the fiddler’s tune.

  As they reached the top of the steps, the man stomped his way up after them. Roughly, he pushed his way through their little group and stood before the mammoth arched doors.

  Across the seam where the doors met, at about chest height, was a large copper plate that was polished to a glowing sheen. Etched into its surface was what looked to Emily like a clover and a rose whose stems were wound together in a vaguely suggestive way. All of the girls were gazing upon that symbol, or whatever it was, with something akin to religious fervor, and Emily shifted uncomfortably. Add this to the list of things she didn’t understand. She hoped she’d have a chance to quiz Celine before her ignorance was discovered. If stumbling could earn you a lashing, what would be waiting for her when they realized she didn’t have a clue who this sorceress lady was?

  The man raised one huge hand and pressed his palm against the copper plate. There was a click, a whir, and, instead of swinging outward as she had expected, the huge oak doors parted, sliding into the stone walls on either side. One of the girls gasped in surprise. To Emily, though, it didn’t seem all that different from the automatic doors at the supermarket.

  The man stepped to one side, glowering at them from beneath his bushy brows.

  “In,” he grunted, and obediently, the girls shuffled forward and into the cool interior.

  They found themselves in a wide stone antechamber with a vaulted ceiling that vanished into the shadows far above. There were no windows, and as the doors slid closed behind them with a whoosh and a thud, they were left in near total darkness.

  The seconds ticked by interminably as they stood there in silence. There was a spark in the gloom, and suddenly a candle was burning before them, held in the hand of a tiny woman with pale skin and startlingly red hair.

  “Good ev’nin’,” she said perfunctorily, and Emily thought she heard the trace of an Irish accent in the woman’s voice. She stepped forward, holding up her candle and studying each of them in turn.

  “Eight?” she said over their heads. “I thought there was to be but seven.”

  “Hell if I know,” the big man rumbled from behind them. “This was the lot that came off the ship, just as they were.”

  The woman frowned and studied them for a moment longer, holding the candle so close to their faces in turn that Emily feared it would catch someone’s hair alight before she was through.

  When she reached Emily, she studied the welt across her cheek closely, frowning a little. Emily felt her face flush, and she dropped her gaze to the floor. For a moment, it seemed the woman would comment on the mark, but then she appeared to think better of it and moved on.

  Finally, the woman seemed satisfied. She set the candle aside, and it was Emily’s turn to gasp. The candle simply hung, suspended by nothing she could see, in the air beside the woman’s left shoulder.

  She rubbed her hands together briskly and said, “Welcome to Seven Skies. My name’s Caireann, and I’ll be watchin’ over yeh for the next few days as yeh become acclimated to things here. I’m sure yeh’re all very tired and hungry. Come along and we’ll feed yeh up before bed.”

  She turned and started from the room, and the candle followed along behind her, as though carried by an invisible servant.

  It guided them through several long and unadorned corridors, until they found themselves in a simple dining chamber with one long wooden table at its center. Narrow benches ran the length of it on two sides, and the candle came to rest upon it, its little flame the only light in the windowless room.

  Emily and Celine collapsed at the end of one bench, and the other girls took places around them. None of them spoke, but now that they were shed of the intimidating presence of the man with the whip, they were clearly more at ease.

  Caireann bustled from the room, and after a few more moments of silence, the girls began to converse in whispers.

  “You okay?” Emily asked Celine.

  “Yeah. Fine.” She looked at Emily defiantly. “Why?”

  “It’s just…your neck…”

  Celine’s expression softened again, and Emily got the distinct sense that there were two sides to this girl that were battling with one another. In a way, Emily could understand what that was like. For too long, she’d tried to blend in with all the other kids at school. But all the other kids didn’t have stepfathers who drank and mothers with tracks up and down their arms. She knew what it was to force a smile when your stomach was twisting into knots with fear and anger and guilt.

  “It’s fine,” Celine repeated. “I’m fine. Forget it.”

  Caireann came back into the room, carrying a tray with eight tiny bowls set in two rows on it. She set the tray down and began passing out bowls to each of them.

  The bowls were filled with some kind of steaming gray mush that Emily could not begin to identify. She stirred it uncertainly with her spoon. It did not look appetizing in the least.

  She looked over at Celine. The other girl had wasted no time digging into her meal. She ate ravenously, as if it was the first meal she’d had in days. Just watching her made Emily’s stomach cramp with hunger. How long had it been since she’d eaten? She had no way of knowing. The space of time between being in the warehouse and waking up on the boat may have been only half an hour, or may have been several days. It felt like half a lifetime.

  Tentatively, she raised the spoon to her lips and took a small bite, bracing herself for the worst.

  It wasn’t as bad as it might have been. The mush had a vaguely sour tang to it, like cream that is on the verge of going over but hasn’t quite made the leap. After the first bite, her hunger took charge, and Emily ate slowly but methodically.

  She paused halfway through her bowl, and her stomach performed an uneasy somersault beneath her ribs. She stared down into the muck, thinking of the things she’d seen in the market. Giant spiders…horned boys…one-eyed men and mules…

  It made her wonder just what, exactly, was in this stuff.

  She dropped her spoon with a clatter. Beside her, Celine was already scraping the last of the gray mush from her bowl, and she looked over longingly at Emily’s, apparently entirely unconscious of doing so.

  Emily pushed the bowl toward her. “You can have it.”

  “Yeah?” Celine looked wary, as if she expected Emily to shout, “April Fools!” and take it back.

  “Yeah,” Emily said. “Take it. It’s yours.”

  Celine took the bowl and devoured the remaining mush in three heaping spoonfuls.
/>
  “What is that…stuff?” Emily asked softly, unsure she really wanted to know.

  Celine gave her the same incredulous look that Emily was becoming accustomed to all too quickly. “Porridge, o’ course,” she said.

  “Okay…” Emily said slowly, “…um, what’s in it?”

  Celine shrugged. “Same stuff that’s in any porridge, I suppose. Whatever they can find.”

  That was not particularly comforting, but Emily decided she didn’t dare pursue that line of questioning any further.

  Around her, the other girls were finishing their own portions. Emily noticed that the two girls who looked like they’d come from wealthier families had eaten less of the “porridge” than she had. Now they seemed to be doing little more than pushing it around with their spoons.

  Caireann, who had been engrossed in a tiny leather-bound book at the far end of the table while they ate, suddenly snapped it shut and got to her feet.

  “A’right, then. Time for bed. Come along and I’ll show yeh to yer rooms.”

  They followed her once more through the maze of twisting corridors, the candle bobbing along in mid-air once again in her wake.

  She led them up a long spiral staircase that opened up into a small circular room with doors leading off in all directions.

  “Two to a room,” she said, turning to them and surveying them over her clasped hands. The candle hung suspended at her shoulder. “Yeh may talk amongst yerselves if yeh like, but yeh may not leave this tower until I come for yeh in the mornin’. Chamber pots are under the beds. Any questions?”

  Emily had thousands of questions, not the least of which was “Chamber pots?”, but she didn’t think Caireann would have many of the answers she needed. She nodded along with the rest of the girls, and the group began to break into pairs to claim rooms.

  She and Celine took the one across from the stairs. It was long and wedge shaped, with the only door at its point. Two narrow beds were situated in each of the other corners, and a large arched window was open to the evening air between them. A small wooden trunk and a worn and dented copper basin stood at the foot of each bed.