The Edge of the Ocean Read online

  Flick jumped as she felt the warmth hit her face. The shade cast by the hanging sails was already only half the size it had been. The daylight bounced off every curve of the water, right into Flick’s eyes so she had to scrunch up her face.

  “This can’t be only one sun, surely,” Jonathan said, putting a hand to his eyebrows to shade his vision. “It’s far too bright. This is the daylight from more than one world.”

  “Whatever it is,” Avery said, hunching into what was left of the shade, “it’s hot. And it’s getting hotter.”

  She was right. The sun, or suns, beamed through the rips in the fabric of the sky, white-hot.

  Flick couldn’t believe how quickly the air started to cook. She, Jonathan, and Avery took large gulps of the fresh water they had, their bodies crying out for hydration as the air started to bake. Flick trailed her fingers in the ocean surrounding them, splashing the seawater up her arms as the heat really started to make itself known. When the water dried on her skin, it left streaks of white salt behind. Flick wondered if the salt would dry her skin out even more, and suddenly felt rather frightened. She could feel the sun crisping her hair and draped her jacket over her head like a scarf to try to stop the top of her head catching fire.

  The heat and light were relentless. Flick felt certain that it would have to stop eventually, run out of energy somehow. But it didn’t. Avery’s spiky hair flattened itself against her skull, and Jonathan’s glasses kept slipping down his nose with sweat.

  “We need to make a shelter,” Flick rasped. “Help me.”

  Together, they lifted the oars and leaned them against the mast. Jonathan wrapped some rope around them to hold them in place while Avery and Flick cut the bottom of the sail and dragged it and their jackets over the long sticks to make something like a tepee-style tent. Then they tried to shelter beneath it.

  “We’ve got about a liter left,” Avery said, weighing the water bottles in her hands. “I think. And that’s each.”

  “Try to use the shade before drinking the water,” Flick gasped from next to her. She could feel the searing heat coming through the sail, threatening to roast her. The three of them were leaning together, taking shallow breaths.

  Avery let her head loll onto Flick’s shoulder, but Flick couldn’t even find it in herself to properly acknowledge it besides wishing it wasn’t so heavy and sweaty.

  Jonathan licked his dry lips. “I suspect we may have made an error in leaving the Aconite.”

  Flick didn’t have the energy to answer. She could feel sweat running down her back. It didn’t make her feel any cooler, just damp and uncomfortable. She wondered vaguely how long it would be before she was turned into a raisin.

  Avery slipped down, lying in the belly of the boat, her dark eyes staring up at nothing. Jonathan poured some of the precious water into his hand and rubbed it over his face.

  Flick realized she couldn’t even feel scared. She was too warm.

  She wondered, just as her eyes closed, if they ought to have gotten in the sea, or if the water would have somehow magnified the heat and made it worse.

  And then she didn’t think anything at all.

  * * *

  She had the sensation that they were on the move, again. There was a shadow—a vast shadow, like a mountain looming over the tiny lifeboat.

  Flick thought she ought to say something, maybe wake up one of the others, but then it was like they were flying… the wind was back, but it was blowing in the wrong direction. They were moving into the wind.

  It was like they were being carried in the hand of a giant.

  * * *

  She woke up, but she couldn’t open her eyes.

  I’m blind. I’ve gone blind.

  She sat bolt upright, hand flying to her face. Her fingers met something cold and soggy where her eyes should have been, and for a horrifying moment Flick was certain that her eyes had melted into goop and that was all that was left of them—but then she smelled it.

  Cucumber.

  Or something like it.

  She touched the soggy substance again and brought her fingers to her nose. Definitely cucumber-y.

  Probably not one wrapped in plastic from Tesco, either.

  She let her hand drop in relief.

  “Oh, you’re awake at last.” A voice came from the left. Flick reflexively turned her head. “We didn’t want to wake you up before you were ready, and you needed a bit of treatment anyway. Ready to risk losing the bandage?”

  “What’s wrong with my eyes?” Flick asked.

  “Nothing, I hope. But you were in the sun for goodness knows how long, and that’s not good for anyone. You’ve got some bad sunburn on your arms, too.” Hands, rough at the fingertips, started to undo the bandage. “Now, when I take this off, don’t start rubbing at your eyes. I’ll get you a cloth. Thank Jones you had that sail over your heads or you’d have a face like a boiled beet.” The pressure of the bandage gave way, and cool air kissed over Flick’s face.

  She sighed in gratitude. “Thank you.”

  “Well, I think that’s done the job. The swelling’s gone down. Nothing like a tea and gourd compress for soothing the eyes.” A cold, damp cloth was put into Flick’s hand. “Be gentle with yourself.”

  Flick did as she was told, carefully wiping the cloth over her face, forehead, nose, cheeks, and chin, before doing her eyes last. Her eyelids were covered in some sort of gloopy mess, and it took several wipes to gather it all out. When Flick finally opened her eyes, her vision was blurry, but a few blinks soon cleared it, and she found she was below deck on a ship.

  A woman in a dark blue dress, belted at the waist, was smiling at her. “There, now. Right as rain.”

  “Thank you.” Flick handed the cloth back. “Where am I?”

  “You’re in my nurse bay, onboard the Serpent,” the woman said. “We picked you up. Captain Burnish ordered you brought back to health.”

  Captain Burnish? This is a Buccaneers’ ship, Flick thought, half-relieved and half-nervous. “That’s kind.”

  “No, that’s fair,” the nurse said. “We owe you nothing, now.” She turned away, and Flick couldn’t help feeling as though she’d leapt from the fishing net into the saucepan.

  “Where’s everyone else?” she asked, trying to ignore the way her heart was thundering.

  “Your friends?” The nurse indicated a corner of the cabin with her chin. “Over there.”

  Flick turned, and saw Avery and Jonathan asleep on separate benches. Avery had a thin blistered line of bright red sunburn down one cheek, but Jonathan seemed unharmed, aside from the bandage over his eyes. As if knowing he was being watched, he gasped and sat upright suddenly, pulling at the bandage.

  “What in the world—oh my—have I been—?” He scrabbled at the scrap of cloth.

  The nurse went over to help him, and Flick climbed down from the shelf that had been her makeshift bunk. Her joints were aching, and she was so sore that she felt as if she’d been rolled down rapids in a barrel, but she was alive. They all were. Whatever Captain Burnish had in mind for them now, they owed him their lives.

  She remembered the weird flying sensation she had felt. Surely they hadn’t really been taken through the air? That had to have been the heatstroke.

  Avery was shaken gently, then, and sat up with the same panic as her cousin before being calmed down.

  Flick stared around the cabin. There were dried herbs hanging from the ceiling, clay pots and bottles stacked in boxes. There was a big bottle of black ink and a selection of needles lying in a box beside it. There were also skeins of wool and cloth hanging from hooks drilled into the walls.

  “Where are my glasses?” Jonathan demanded as soon as his face was clean. “I need them to see.” Without the frames on his nose, his eyes looked small and weirdly naked.

  The nurse shrugged. “I think the sailors on deck were having a scrap over them.”

  “They can have a scrap over my dead body,” Jonathan said, standing up in a vibration o
f rage. “Those are mine.”

  “I don’t think they’d mind fighting over your dead body, to be fair,” she said. “Ask for them back yourself.”

  Jonathan squinted at her. “Are you one of the Buccaneers?”

  She laughed. “Is that what Nyfe’s gang of hooligans is still calling us? Yeah, we’re the Buccaneers, if you like. But we’d prefer to be called Captain Burnish’s crew. I’m Marcie.”

  “Burnish is the one who rescued us?” Avery asked.

  “Well, in a fashion. You were delivered to us.”

  “Delivered?” Flick’s mind went back to the flying sensation. “Delivered by who?”

  “Ask the captain yourself. He’ll want to see you now that you’re awake.” Marcie climbed the ladder up and out of sight.

  Jonathan glared after her. Then squinted back at Flick. “I can’t see a thing.”

  “Are you seriously that blind?”

  “I can see where you are, but I wouldn’t want to chance the ladder. Who steals someone’s glasses, I ask you?”

  “Someone who has no chance of getting a pair any other way?” Avery suggested. She gingerly touched her sunburn. “Ouch. This smarts.”

  Jonathan groped his way over to a water jug, before dipping a finger into it and licking it to confirm it was safe. He didn’t bother searching for a cup. “Looks like the Buccaneers found us,” he gasped, after guzzling half the jug.

  “Yeah, but they’re not happy.” Flick took the jug off him and had a swig. It tasted stale. “The nurse said something about them not owing us anything now. I don’t like the sound of that.”

  “I don’t like it, either,” Avery said. “They want a clean slate so they can, what—make us walk the plank without guilt? I know we wanted to find them, but is anyone else getting a bad vibe?”

  Flick and Jonathan were saved the trouble of answering by the sound of heavy boots stomping down the ladder. A man with wild gray curly hair and a beard to match crashed down into the cabin. He had a green dragon—the long Chinese kind with a snake-like body and flaring nostrils—embroidered onto the front of his dark shirt. His trousers were heavily waxed, like the ones sailors on board the Aconite had worn, and his boots were knotted firmly around his ankles.

  He was the captain. He didn’t have to say he was; he radiated a captainness that needed no introduction. He gave them all a quick once-over. “No injuries?” he barked.

  “No, sir,” Flick said, adding the sir without really thinking about it.

  The captain took a pair of glasses from his pocket. “These yours?” He offered them to Jonathan.

  “Oh, yes. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome to them. They didn’t work for Old Samm. Said they made his eyes even worse.” He sniffed. “You came from Captain Nyfe’s ship.” It wasn’t a question. “Well, now. What would you be doing in my waters in an Aconite jolly boat, hm?”

  “We were coming here to find you,” Avery said. “We’re not trying to start a fight or anything.”

  The man raised his eyebrows in a you-don’t-say expression. “No, I didn’t think the three of you would be up to that task. A bunch of dried-up jellies if ever I saw them. You know what I’m thinking?” He leaned a hand on one of the benches and gave a cheery smile that went nowhere near his eyes. “You might not be here to fight, but you don’t fool me.”

  Flick blinked. “What do you mean?”

  Captain Burnish turned his eyes on her. “We know Nyfe Shaban’s game. Thought she’d appeal to our better nature, did she? Well, I’m sorry to say… I don’t have one. I reckon that you three”—he flicked his free hand and suddenly there was a knife in it—“are spies.”

  Flick went stiff all over in fear. The captain hadn’t lunged or moved at all, but the knife in his hand looked extremely sharp. She raised her hands, slowly. “We’re not spies,” she said. “The opposite, actually. We stole the boat without Nyfe knowing. We were trying to get away from the Aconite.”

  “You expect me to believe that you were able to steal a jolly boat from the Pirate Queen? Why would you risk doing that?”

  “We know about the end of the world,” Flick said. “And we want to help.”

  Captain Burnish scoffed. “I never heard such rubbish in my life. I don’t know what your game is, but I don’t trust liars or thieves. Get yourselves up on deck. There’s things that need settling.”

  And with that, he hauled himself back up the ladder.

  21

  They had no choice but to follow.

  As soon as Flick climbed up, shouts and jeers hit her ears, making her duck her head to try to shield herself. She’d been lucky at school, never bullied beyond having her tie yanked and that one week when everyone pretended her name was something that rhymed with Flick. But this shouting was hateful and unpleasant. The pirates were laughing and egging one another on, stamping on the deck and clapping their hands.

  Avery glued herself to Flick’s side as soon as she climbed up, and Flick was weirdly grateful for it.

  But Jonathan, climbing up last, went through a face-journey that started at shocked, hurtled through anger and ended up at the extreme nonchalance that Flick knew meant he was one twitch away from exploding. A sailor flicked one of the embellishments on the shoulder of his jacket, and Jonathan slapped his hand sharply away without even looking at him.

  The captain leaned again the mast, waiting for them. “This way, little spies. Let’s see if we can’t get all this straightened out.”

  “Fat chance,” Avery muttered as they walked over.

  The jeering died down as Captain Burnish raised his chin a little.

  “You were delivered into our waters by our mer-folk allies,” he began. “They say you sailed straight from the Cove of Voices, which proves you’re part of Nyfe’s crew. There’s only one way to decide if you’re lying or not. A trial.”

  There was an uproar of cheering from the crew.

  “A trial?” Flick asked.

  Burnish’s grin widened through his beard. “Oh, yes. But, since we don’t have time to assemble a court back at Dagger’s Island, we’ll do this the old-fashioned way—and let the gods decide whether or not you need punishment.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Jonathan elbowed his way forward.

  “It means,” the captain said, “that we have one short, sharp fight. The gods give strength to the one they know is in the right.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Avery said, saying what Flick was thinking. “The winner will be the one who’s best at fighting.”

  Burnish shrugged, but there was a sparkle in his eyes that showed he didn’t necessarily disagree with Avery’s words. “That’s how we settle things on the Serpent, lass.”

  “Fine. Fine! What’s it to be, pistols at dawn?” Jonathan drawled, folding his arms. His eyebrows twitched as one of the surrounding men drew a nasty-looking cutlass.

  “We favor swords on this vessel, lad. And why wait until dawn?” The Buccaneer grinned, showing teeth so brown they might have been made of wood. “Afraid to fight, little spy?”

  “Don’t point that at me.” Jonathan sniffed, looking down his nose at the cutlass. “You’ll poke someone’s eye out.”

  The captain laughed and looked at the three of them. “How about it, then? Either you fight to prove you’re not here on Nyfe’s orders, or else you go for a long walk off a short plank. What’s it to be?”

  Flick’s insides went cold. How could any of them fight the captain?

  But Jonathan shrugged as if nothing in the world could interest him less. “If you like.”

  Flick tensed. “Jonathan…”

  “One on one?” Jonathan ignored her. “No ganging up from either side?”

  The captain glanced at Flick and Avery, clearly wondering what exactly they were capable of ganging up on. “Aye.”

  “And the winner calls their own terms?”

  The captain tipped his head to one side. “If I win, you get off my ship in the manner of my choosing. Exactly w
hat are you proposing, should you beat me?”

  “A truce, and a few favors.”

  “Ha! You take me for a fool, young man? Me? Captain Ezra Burnish, leader of the Buccaneers, a man who’d throw away a few unspecified favors? Never. Not in a month of daylight!”

  There was a chorus of laughter from the rest of the Buccaneers.

  Flick glowered at them, her fingers tingling as she balled her hands into fists. To Flick, magic always felt as if it were only a touch away, but now, as her fear began to twist into anger, she felt as though it was unfurling, like a snake that had spotted its prey. If this went on, she wasn’t sure what she might do.

  “Besides”—Captain Burnish grinned—“it’s a big ask from a flowery wee lad, the most cutting thing about him being his clever words.”

  The crew howled louder.

  Flick gritted her teeth and looked at Jonathan. She expected him to be flushed with anger, but he stood patiently, perfectly still on the deck, hands clasped behind his back like a teacher who is waiting for the giggles to stop so he doesn’t have to shout when he starts dishing out the punishments.

  Gradually, the laughter died down.

  Flick watched Captain Burnish’s expression change, melting from amusement to some sort of irritated confusion. In that moment, Flick could have believed that his crew had been laughing at him.

  Jonathan smiled humorlessly. “So you won’t fight me? Flowery little me is too much for you?” The unspoken coward hung in the air, like a dark cloud ready to burst.

  Burnish stood straighter. He drew his own cutlass and lifted it slightly, the point aimed toward Jonathan with a casual sort of menace. “You must have a death wish.”

  Flick inhaled sharply. A death wish. That was what she had been thinking, without realizing it. Jonathan was acting as though he was happy to throw his life away. She suddenly wanted to step between him and the cutlass, but her boots seemed to be drilled onto the deck.

  “I simply wish to beat you and call my terms,” Jonathan said, checking his fingernails. “That is, if you’ve recovered your nerve enough. Captain.”

  Burnish went red, blush staining his skin like blood dripped into water. “Get this boy a blade,” he snarled.