Thirteen

Mary

Mary watched in horror as Jack slid overboard.

"Jack!" Anne screamed, running to the rail after him. Then, with the heavy wind bearing down on her, she nearly went over herself.

Mary hauled Anne back onto the deck just in time. "Don't be a fool, Bonny! Get back!"

Frantically, the girl shook her head, wet curls plastered to her face. "I have to get Jack!"

They both looked into the choppy water just as Jack's head surfaced above the waves. "I'm all right. Get Bonn to safety! Please!" Jack shouted in Merish.

"I will!" Mary called back. "Be safe! Storms are dangerous underwater, too." As Mary very well knew.

Anne hadn't heard any of that, of course. She glanced around wildly, grabbed a piece of a broken barrel, and threw it down into the water. "Use this to stay afloat!"

But it was no use. The wind caught the wood and carried it away. The storm was turning into an actual hurricane, lightning cracking across the slate-gray sky. Wind keened across the deck, forcing the rest of the crew to grab handholds as they moved across the planks.

"Storm sails!" Mary shouted as another gust of wind roared up, sending wave after wave across the deck. "Drop the sea anchor! Secure—"

Lightning flashed. Thunder boomed. Rain sheeted, obscuring everything. A wave rushed over Jack's head. He didn't surface again.

"I'll never let go, Jack! I'll never let go!" Anne sobbed as Mary hauled her away from the rail.

"Stop. Making. This. Harder," Mary said, pulling her along the deck.

"Please!" Anne begged. "There's got to be something we can do! Some way to at least give him a chance . He'll drown!"

"I'm sorry," Mary growled, fighting both the wind and Anne to move up the deck. "There's nothing we can do for him now."

"You're heartless," Anne cried. "There should be something on this ship to help save him, some sort of flotation device."

(Your narrators here. Anne has a point. There should be something. Like a life preserver. Or a life jacket. It turns out that humans have always had some sort of floatation device, basically since ancient times. In the ongoing effort to avoid drowning at sea, humans have used things like inflated animal skins, bits of driftwood, and other floating debris. This worked just fine when ships were mostly made of wood. Though, of course, if you got thrown overboard like Jack here and the ship was still intact, then there probably wasn't as much floating debris to grab hold of. It wasn't until much later, when ships were constructed from less-floatable iron, that life jackets as we might recognize them were invented—think 1850s—with cork vests. And it wasn't until quite a while after that , with the sinking of a very famous ship—yeah, you know the one—that life jackets (and lifeboats) were required for every passenger on board. But none of that could help Jack right now, could it? Fortunately, Jack couldn't drown, being that his legs just fused into a tail and he was back to breathing water. Un fortunately, Anne didn't know any of that. Now, back to the hurricane.)

Still holding fast to Anne, Mary scanned the slick decks for the rest of her crew. "Get to cover!" Mary shouted, hooking her other arm around a nearby pole to brace against the wind. They were all in action, everyone moving to secure barrels and spars and anything that might come loose. This storm was serious. It was a ship killer if she'd ever seen one.

Maybe she shouldn't have dumped the entire bottle of storm potion into the sea.

"Captain!" Quint was hauling himself toward her. "Should I send the crew belowdecks?"

"Do it. And take Bonny here. Tie her up if you must." Mary shoved Anne at Quint. Anne fought, of course, but they wrestled her down the stairs and into the crew quarters.

Mary went back up to see to the rest of the crew. She gripped the rail as wind shoved at her. With the sea anchor down and the storm sails up, the Ranger had turned, and now the bow was pointing directly into the wind. They rode up a huge wave, crested, and slammed into the trough on the other side.

Every movement was an effort as the ship rolled and yawed violently along the waves, but slowly, Mary made her way to the main deck and counted her men as they went below—into the safety of the crew quarters.

But someone was missing.

Tobias.

Mary squinted against the sheeting rain, scanning the yards and decks. But with the storm, her visibility was shot. And when she called out for him—"Tobias!"—the wind sucked her words away.

The ship rose and fell over another immense wave. Water crested and surged, dragging at Mary's legs as she braced herself until the deck was horizontal again. Several minutes passed as she searched the weather decks, calling Tobias's name, until an enormous gust of wind knocked her down hard enough to bruise. Mary skidded across the deck, grasping for something to hold on to, and then, before the wind threw her overboard, she caught hold of a line. Quickly, she looped the rope around her wrist, ignoring the chafing pain as she pulled herself upright again.

She couldn't stay out here. If anything, the storm was getting worse.

And Tobias? She hoped he was safe below.

One painful step at a time, Mary hauled herself to the captain's quarters—but her fingers were so wet she couldn't grasp the knob. She wiped her palms on her sodden clothes, then tried again. But the door wouldn't budge with the wind and pressure.

"ARRR!" she screamed.

Then the door burst open, and Tobias reached out, grabbed her, and dragged her into the cabin. It took both of them together to pull the door closed again.

Mary dropped to the floor, her legs too weak to hold her up any longer. Every muscle was aching, slowly stiffening thanks to the cold and overexertion. But... she'd found Tobias? So yay?

"Have you been in here the whole time?" Her voice was thinner than she'd intended. Everything hurt.

"I came to secure the maps and logbook. The astrolabe and sextant." He motioned to the cupboards where they kept the navigational instruments. All of them were delicate, irreplaceable, and totally necessary if they were going to figure out where they were once this storm was finished. Without them, they'd be lost.

Mary blew out a long breath. "Right. That makes sense. I should have thought of that."

The Ranger rode up another wave, then crashed down.

Tobias pulled the blanket off Mary's bed and draped it over her shoulders. "Hang on," he said. "I'll get you some dry clothes."

Mary shivered, holding herself against the bulkhead as the ship pitched and rolled. She hoped Jack was all right. And the other crews, whose lives were her responsibility.

While Tobias rifled through the wardrobe and chest of drawers, Mary closed her eyes, remembering, as the ship pitched beneath her, another storm. Her first.

The one that had changed her life.

She recalled with perfect clarity darting between broken beams and planks, searching the raging waters for Charles's sinking body. And then—once she had him—pressing her mouth to his. Later, after the storm died down and she'd dragged him up onto dry land, she'd dropped, trembling, by his side, relieved to see his chest rising and falling, breath puffing from between his parted lips. She'd traced along his cheekbone with the tips of her fingers, finding his skin, so clammy before, now warm under the sun.

He was so, so beautiful, she'd thought.

He was alive. It had taken all her strength to save him but save him she had. Her kiss had worked.

"Here." Tobias passed her a bundle of clothes. "I'll turn around while you change."

Mary shook herself, returning to the present— this storm, which she knew how to weather, and this man, who saved her life (almost) as often as she saved his.

"Thank you." The moment Tobias was facing away, Mary peeled off her boots, stockings, trousers, and shirt. They were all sopping wet. Using the blanket, she dried her damp skin as best she could, then pulled on the fresh clothes.

"I'm decent," she said, drawing the blanket over her again. "Still freezing. The rain is like musket balls."

"Here." Tobias slipped into the blanket den with her. "Is this all right?"

He was warm. Really warm. Mary found herself leaning toward him, pressing her arm against his. She cleared her throat. "Listen, I've been meaning to thank you for offering your pa's treasure. You don't have to do that. You know that, right?"

Tobias twisted to look at her. "I want you to win," he said softly under the rumbling thunder and keening wind. "Even if I don't know why it's suddenly so important to you."

She swallowed a knot in her throat. The ship rolled over another wave, causing her to press even more into Tobias. When it settled again, she reached into her pocket and removed the magic hourglass. (She hadn't transferred it from her wet clothes to her dry clothes. But then, she hadn't needed to. The wretched thing always jumped into whatever pocket she happened to be wearing.)

"What is that?" Tobias asked.

Mary turned it over in her hands, watching as the sand continued to move from the cloud chamber to the water chamber, even when it was upside down.

Tobias gasped. "Is... it supposed to be doing that? How? Just— how ?"

"Magic," she said with a sigh. "It's magic."

"But there's no such thing?"

Mary tossed the hourglass across the cabin, where it rolled under the door and out onto the deck. Unfortunately, it wasn't lost to the storm, because seconds later, she fished it out of her pocket again.

"Oh my God." Tobias was very still, staring at the hourglass in her hand. "That's—That's not possible. But I just saw it with my own eyes. Unless you have several in your pockets?" He shook his head. "No, that's ridiculous. Why would anyone have a pocket full of gravity-defying hourglasses?"

The corner of Mary's mouth turned up with a smile. "A good question."

"Okay," Tobias said. "I'll bite. What does this, uh, magic hourglass have to do with you winning the contest?"

Mary bit her lip. "My father found me," she said finally. "Jack told his mother we ran into each other, and she told my father and, well, he's demanding that I go back."

"Your father found you," Tobias repeated softly. "Mary, did you—Did you run away from home?"

"It's complicated, but yes. That's what happened. And unless I can prove myself to him, he'll force me to return home when the sand runs down. That'll be the full moon."

"And to prove yourself to him, you have to win the contest." Tobias was quiet for a long moment, like he was absorbing it all. Outside, the storm raged on. "That's why you said this is about your freedom," he said at last. "Not just your freedom as a woman on a pirate ship, but your freedom to be who you are, go where you want, and do as you please."

Her freedom to be with him. "Yes," she said softly.

"Mary, where are you from? Because I'm certain it's not Holland. Or Paris."

She closed her eyes and exhaled. It was now or never. "I'm from Underwhere."

His brow rumpled. "Under... where?"

"Yes."

"I'm not following," he said.

She pointed down. "Under there. Far, far below the ocean's surface. And when I lived there, I was a princess."

"In Underwhere."

She smiled. He understood. "Yes."

Tobias opened his mouth. Then he closed it. Then he said, "I have follow-up questions."

Mary laughed a little. "Fine. I'll start from the beginning."

There, under the blanket, while the storm raged outside, Mary told Tobias about her life before this, when she'd been the littlest of princesses, overlooked and babied, laughed at for being fascinated by the human world—and all the scraps of Above that floated down around Underwhere.

"Jack and I had a secret hideout where we kept all our human stuff," she admitted. "That's where we learned to read—at least until the books disintegrated—and learned about human culture. Obviously there were some gaps in our knowledge. There were no pirates in the books we read. And the stories all had happy endings."

Or so she'd thought.

When she finished telling him about her fight with her father, visiting the Sea Witch for help, and then everything that happened in Charles Town, Tobias was quiet. He was quiet for a long time.

Perhaps she had revealed too much. "Toby, say something."

He cleared his throat. "I apologize. I was merely thinking about how everything I thought I understood about science, nature, and humanity in general is wrong. This is a lot."

"I know. Why do you think I didn't want to talk about it before? It's not only my secret, but the secret of a whole world. I can't trust just anyone with it."

"And you trust me?" he asked.

"I always have." Mary tilted her head. The ship's rocking had stopped, and the sound of wind had died. Finally, the storm was done, the potion's power spent. She pushed aside the blanket and got to her feet. "I'm sure the storm blew us way off course, so find your fancy instruments, Mr. Teach, and figure out where we are. I'll see to the crew."

"Aye, aye, Princess."

Mary shot a look at him. "That's Captain Princess to you."

Tobias smirked. Then he got to work.

The ship was a mess. One of the masts had cracked, though according to Mr. Gaines, a quick repair would get it back into working condition—as long as they didn't come across more unusually bad weather. The storm sails were in tatters, though those could be mended. And, obviously, the deck was in dire need of swabbing, a fact that Nine Toes was ranting about.

"Stop stepping where I just mopped!" he cried as the rest of the crew scurried about, hauling up the sea anchor and trimming the mainsail. "You're getting boot prints everywhere!"

As Mary strode across the deck (keeping clear of Nine Toes's mop lines, if only to spare the rest of the crew more of his wailing), she paused to assess the damage, give orders, and ask after anyone she hadn't already seen. That was when she spotted Anne at the bow, leaning over the rail and looking forlornly out at the water.

"Need a job to do?" Mary asked, approaching her. "Or is there something wrong down there?"

Anne glanced up, unshed tears shining in her eyes. Her voice was rough. "I don't see him."

Oh. She was looking for Jack. Mary wasn't sure what to tell her, though.

"He's probably fine, though, right?" Anne asked. "He's a good swimmer. He told me that before. So he might have made it."

"Nope," said the guy with the chicken. "After a storm like that, he's surely down in Davy Jones's locker. No one can outswim a hurricane. Poor fellow."

"Begawk!" agreed the chicken.

Anne gave a noisy gulp and a sniffle, and tears slipped down her freckled cheeks.

Mary shooed away the guy with the chicken. "Off with you! Find something useful to do." Then she put a hand on Anne's shoulder and they both faced the waves while Anne fought to keep her tears under control and Mary wondered where her cousin was. Or if she should say anything to comfort Anne. And if perhaps the hurricane had gotten Jack. Those winds had been strong, and if there'd been any debris in the swirling water—well, Mary knew from experience how difficult it could be to swim through it. Still, she wasn't ready to count Jack out just yet.

"There, there," Mary said after a few minutes. Because she had to say something. "Sorrows, sorrows. Prayers."

Fortunately, Anne was too busy with her own feelings to notice that Mary was oddly unemotional about her cousin's (unlikely) untimely demise.

"I can't believe he's gone," Anne said hoarsely. "He only wanted to be a pirate because of me. I got him into this."

"You can't blame yourself," Mary said.

"I thought—" Anne wiped her face with her sleeve. "When he went over, I thought I saw... something. So I was hoping..."

"Uh, what did you think you saw?" Mary asked.

"It sounds mad," Anne said quietly, "but I thought I saw—"

"What are we looking at?" asked a voice right behind them.

Mary and Anne spun to find Jack there, fully dressed (thank goodness) and craning his neck to see around them.

"Jack?!" Anne shouted incredulously. "Gawl! I thought you were—" She threw her arms around him.

Jack lifted Anne and spun her around, then kissed her right in front of everyone. A few pirates whooped.

Mary watched the reunion, hardly aware of her own small smile. It was good to see them both happy. "Glad you made it, Jack," she said. "Not that I was worried. I knew you would."

"How did you make it?" Anne asked, stepping back from him. She looked him up and down. "And not a scratch on you!"

"I, uh—" Jack shot Mary a frantic look. " Help? " he asked in Merish.

"Like you said earlier," Mary said out loud, "he's a good swimmer. One of the best I know."

"That's right!" Jack let out a nervous laugh. "A little squall can't keep me from you, darling." He kissed Anne again.

"But the storm went on for hours," Anne protested. "I don't see—"

"Don't you both have jobs?" Mary clapped her hands together twice. "Go find something useful to do, or I'll put a mop in your hands and you can swab the deck with Nine Toes."

"I wouldn't mind the help!" Nine Toes called.

"I'll get to mending the sails," Jack said cheerily. "And Bonn, I'm sure there are sharp objects that could be made sharper."

"Aye," Anne agreed. "I'll take care of that right away."

Mary smiled as they headed away. "I'm glad you're not sea foam, cousin," she called to Jack in Merish. "But you'll want to keep an eye out on Anne. She suspects something."

"I'm sure everything will be fine," he replied.

And for the first time, Mary thought he might be right. Tobias had taken the Mer thing remarkably well.

Perhaps not every relationship was doomed, after all.