Chapter 28

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

V iktor and the crew had one job: to make up a series of excuses explaining why we were late to the special feast this evening that was being held in our honour.

Jerrik, Caspian, and I left Roscoe and Manny to handle the food. They were to pick as many berries, fruits, and other fresh produce as possible from around the beach and load them onto The Serpent. Sure, we had permission from Bjorn, the Chief of Canne himself, but I doubted loading the ship with as much as possible wasn’t what he had in mind.

“We need to hurry up and find something… anything ,” I whispered to the other two.

I probably could have done without whispering as everyone but us was at the feast, but we couldn’t be too cautious. Not when our lives were on the line.

“I think our best bet would be the rooms,” Jerrik said as he led the way across the top deck of one of the pirate ships.

Unlike the top deck of The Serpent, which was cleaned every day, sometimes even more than once a day, depending on the weather, this ship had definitely seen better days. Not only were a few planks missing–Caspian nearly put his foot through another one, which made me distrust the structural integrity of this ship–but there was a horrid stench that seemed to linger on everything. And now it lingered on us as well.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Caspian groaned and pressed his hand to his mouth. If he had time to spare, I would have felt bad for him. Instead, I yanked on his elbow and tugged him behind me so he wouldn’t fall behind.

If he was sick, it wasn’t like he could make this ship stink any more than it already did.

The two of us followed Jerrik as we explored the first ship, looking for evidence that these people were cannibals. The first few rooms we examined were messy and stunk even more than the rest of the ship, but there was nothing unusual. The same was true of the rooms following it.

“Maybe we need to head down to the bottom deck,” I suggested when we only had two rooms left to check.

“That might be a good idea,” Jerrik agreed.

We checked out the two remaining rooms on our way to the bottom deck. The first was akin to all the others before it, but Jerrik stopped so abruptly in the doorway of the second bedroom that I nearly ran into his back.

“Oh, God!” I exclaimed and pressed a hand to my mouth as I peeked around Jerrik at the bloody scene in front of us.

“I don’t think there’s any need for us to head down to the bottom deck anymore,” Jerrik groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose, looking as if he was trying to stop himself from being sick.

The same couldn’t be said about Caspian.

“I’m definitely going to be sick now,” Caspian groaned. This time, when he looked like he was going to be sick, I didn’t force him to stay with us.

This bedroom was similar to the others before it. Messy with a disgusting, pungent stink. There were only a few differences, one of which was a trail of blood spots that, when followed, led to a small pile of dead bodies. The blood looked dry and old, and it had seeped through the floorboards to the deck below, hence the more pungent stink.

I could only imagine just how worse the bottom deck was.

Although there were only three bodies in this room, the amount of blood surrounding them suggested that, at one point, there could have been more. Perhaps the bodies were removed as they were needed. And by needed, I meant when the people of Canne ran out of human meat.

“The teeth necklaces make so much more sense now,” Jerrik whispered, leaning forward for a better look at the bodies.

I followed his gaze and stared at the body peeking out from the bottom of the pile. The face was disfigured entirely, looking as if they had been bludgeoned to death. Upon closer inspection, it appeared that all his teeth had been individually plucked from the poor man’s mouth.

“I can’t look at this any longer,” I groaned and rushed to leave the room before I threw up like Caspian was most definitely doing.

“Me neither,” Jerrik muttered.

He quickly followed me out of the room, closing the door behind him as if he were worried about disturbing the people inside the room. Except, that wasn’t possible as they were already dead.

Jerrik and I gasped for breath when we emerged on the top deck. There was still a pungent smell–we now realised this was the stench of dead bodies left to rot–but it was nothing compared to the lower decks.

“How messed up must these people be?” The question dripped with disgust.

“It looks like they’re killing the sailors and then storing their bodies on the ship,” I tried not to gag as I spoke.

“And then retrieving them when it’s time for their next meal,” Jerrik finished my sentence, looking a little green in the face.

It was a miracle that neither of us had thrown up yet.

“Come on. Let’s get out of here before we end up like one of them.”

Jerrik’s words scared me more than I cared to admit, so I quickly followed him. When we passed Caspian on the way, throwing up over the side of the ship, I stopped to rub his back to help ease the pain. Once he was done, the three of us fled the ship faster than we had ever run before.

Only when we reached the sandy beach, several feet away from the ship, we felt like we could breathe again.

“I’ll never be able to eat meat again,” Caspian gulped, still very much green in the face.

“Me neither,” I groaned and shook my head. “Come on. We’ve been gone long enough. We must get to the others and join the feast before they realise we’re missing and get suspicious.”

Jerrik, Caspian, and I rushed down the beach and crouched behind the bushes where Roscoe and Manny were collecting fresh produce to take with us. I ignored the fact that this felt like stealing and reminded myself that these people were literal cannibals. Stealing fruit was the least of our worries right now.

Thankfully, no one paid attention as we snuck into the feast to join the others. Things were in full swing, and there was plenty of food. There was even entertainment in the form of a magic show and fire breathing, which would have been impressive under any other circumstances.

I glanced down at the plate in front of me. The meat looked suspiciously like boar, but I wasn’t fooled. I knew it was human meat.

“I can’t eat this,” I exhaled under my breath, keeping my face neutral because I knew people were stealing glances at us. We were the guests of honour, after all.

“Me neither,” Viktor agreed, and like me, he sported a poised smile. “Just cut into it and keep moving your mouth. Make it look like you’re eating it, but don’t swallow. Empty your mouth into the napkin each time.”

I gulped and nodded, quickly matching his happy smile, even though I felt anything but.

I didn’t need to glance around the crew to know that they were doing the same thing as Viktor and I, making it look like we were eating the meat but not really eating it. Instead, we feasted on cooked vegetables and baked bread, but I didn’t eat as much as a person who hadn’t eaten in several days typically would have. Discovering the truth about these people tampered with my appetite.

“Did you find anything?” Viktor leaned over to ask, pressing a kiss to my hair.

He still maintained the happy smile, but I knew him well enough to see through it. I could see that he was tense and worried, that his mind kept wandering to our grand escape tonight when the island of Canne fell asleep. The last I had heard, Bjorn had been talking about setting us up in a few huts, and while Viktor had tried to convince him that we were fine in our own beds on the ship, Bjorn wouldn’t take no for an answer.

Usually, being offered a warm, stagnant bed after spending weeks at sea would be an impossible offer to turn down, but knowing that we would be sleeping amongst cannibals made it lose its appeal.

“We found more than we thought we would,” I murmured so the people of Canne wouldn’t overhear. “They’re killing the sailors and storing them on the ships. They’re ripping out their teeth and using them to make necklaces for their wives. We think they get more from the ships when they run out of bodies. We don’t know how many there are because we got sick after checking the first one.”

“This is worse than I thought.” Viktor’s expression dropped for just a moment before that perfect smile was back on his face. “As soon as everyone is asleep, we’re leaving.”

“Roscoe and Manny have gathered enough fruit and berries to last a few days. If we ration tightly, maybe we can make them last longer.”

“And Bjorn has agreed to throw in a bag of flour with the nuts and dried fruits,” he said. “We just need to pick them up from the cooks after the feast.”

Viktor and I would have continued planning, but we realised Bjorn was watching us. He had an easy smile and watched us intently while he ate like we were putting on a show. I smiled at him and glanced away to speak to Odin on my left. Viktor did the same with Gustav on his right. We kept up the act for the remainder of the feast, and when a woman dropped by to collect our dirty plates, I kept the napkin out of sight so she wouldn’t see it.

“What’s wrong, Astrid?” Bjorn suddenly called out to me. Despite how far he sat from me, his voice was so loud and booming that he silenced everyone at the feast, turning all eyes on me. “Was the meat not to your liking?”