By: Bryant R. Haake, Honors College, Presidential Honors Student, English Major
The mayor’s manor took up a small plot of land on the southern edge of the town, lying right between the people and the bog. What it lacked in height, it more than made up for in width. While it was only a foot or two taller than the tallest townhouse, it was more than six times that in square footage.
Jacob rapped a hand on the mahogany door which stood up front, guarding from intruders. It was similar in make to the one which guarded the Captain’s quarters on the Forsaken. A fair-dressed man in black and white opened the door a smidge and peered through. Jacob grinned wickedly at the man, who shuddered and opened the door in recognition. Jacob shoved past the man and headed for the back. Already he could see the luscious greenery growing over the windows, carefully pruned, snipped, and tended to by Georgiana’s calloused hands.
He pushed through the glass doorway and felt the temperature rise with the humidity. It was usually fairly balmy in Brokenbeaux, but something about this garden was almost magical in how it changed the world to match its own self-proclaimed climate. Georgiana knelt in the back tending to a bush with a few buds and flowers. She had changed out of her dress into a more comfortable pair of slacks and overalls. They were thoroughly stained green by the grass, so much so that Jacob could hardly remember what color they were supposed to be. The door closed behind him and she turned suddenly, then smiled when she saw who had entered.
“Hello, Jacob. Lovely day for a tavern brawl, is it?”
Jacob blushed. “We would’ve won sooner if you were there. I could barely handle one of those goons alone. Heilyn was incredible as always, though.”
“Of course.” Georgiana frowned and cupped her hand around Jacob’s face. “You broke your nose again, didn’t you?” She was slightly taller than he was, which would normally look intimidating. Her height wasn’t what made her intimidating to Jacob, though.
Jacob wanted to hit himself again for not cleaning up the blood beforehand. He probably looked like a demon of some kind, or a killer. “I’m fine, Georgiana-”
“Georgie, Jacob. Call me Georgie.”
“-Georgie. It was just a fist. I can’t have broken it too badly, right?”
Georgiana forced a smile for him, but he still felt bad for worrying her. She had a very motherly way of looking at the world, which Jacob thought might be why she liked plants so much. According to her, they behaved exactly as you treated them, never differing from whatever predestined path they were set for. Her garden here was good evidence for her theory, though it still sounded outlandish to Jacob. He’d just nodded and agreed with her when she told him, though. It wasn’t like he could prove her wrong.
Georgiana bopped him on the forehead in frustration. “Stop getting hurt. Your face is too pretty for that.” She began pacing around her garden. “There aren’t many pretty pirates, you know. Only ugly ones who’ve had way more than their noses broken. Some have no eyes, legs, hands, or teeth, and those hooks would make handling swords, guns and gardening tools much too inefficient. Do I need to come with you on your next adventure?”
You’d love that, wouldn’t you?
Jacob looked around for the voice, but decided it must’ve just been his nerves. “Well, you know I’d love to have you, but your father…”
“My father doesn’t rule over my life, Jacob.” She bopped him on the forehead again.
“Yes, ma’am, I know-”
“Don’t call me that.” She shook her head in further frustration. “Not you, too. Too many people here are formal. I can’t have you doing that. It’s been too long since…”
Jacob tried to fumble with his words but couldn’t get anything out. Instead, he fumbled with a small package in his pocket. “Your birthday was last week, wasn’t it?”
“No, my 19th was two months ago, why-” she stopped pacing and looked at the small package. “Jacob, stop getting me things. I don’t need anything…” She took the package anyways and unwrapped it, finding a small shell inside. It shimmered green, gold and black, earthen colors which perfectly matched the garden.
“I know, but this didn’t cost me anything, and it reminded me of you, so… yeah.”
Georgiana smiled. “You’re so awkward, y’know that? C’mere.” She pulled him into a hug. “You’re very sweet, but stop getting me things. Just… try to visit more. That’s all I need, okay?”
He nodded. They both knew he had no control over when he visited, but it was a nice thought. Heilyn decided the resupply schedule and locations, and only checked them with the Captain. Jacob still hadn’t even been taught how to manage the schedule.
“You and Captain Vexx will join us for dinner tonight, right?” she asked with hope.
“Aye, Georgie. We’d be delighted. What’re we having?” She grabbed his hand and led him back into the house proper, passing the doorman and heading straight to the kitchen. Inside, a plethora of cooks followed the orders of the main chef, who himself was working on a large animal of some kind. As they passed him, Jacob accidentally bumped the counter, knocking over the animal. Before it could hit the ground, Georgiana pulled him aside and caught it, easily lifting it back onto the table. Jacob apologized to the chef and kept following.
Georgiana showed him all around the room, carefully keeping him from the counters this time. As they were about to leave, a grisly man walked in which Jacob recognized. “Saltyboots?” he remarked. “What’re you doing in the Buckley’s kitchen?”
“I smelt something ‘ere from afar. Wanted to smell it fer my own eyes.” He took a deep breath in through his nose, then shoved away one of the cooks from their stovetop. “No, no, you need to add paprika to this.”
Georgiana and Jacob giggled and moved back to the garden. They sat there for a few more minutes before the doorman came to gather Georgiana in order to get ready for dinner. Jacob waved goodbye and saw himself out, walking back to the Forsaken to get changed for the night. Captain Vexx and Heilyn were waiting for him on deck.
“Captain, we’ve been invited to dinner with the mayor and his daughter.” Jacob could tell he already knew by the way he was dressed. A blue sailor’s uniform, black captain’s hat and soap suds still stuck to his pencil-thin mustache. The wind blew at them, but they were resilient little devils. He had even put on his spectacles, which he never wore because they “ruined the multichromatic wonder of his eyes.”
Whatever that meant.
Captain Vexx nodded and went back to his conversation. Jacob continued down below decks, but just caught Heilyn saying, “…really the best idea? It’s a blood moon tonight. Any Goldbloods will want to…”
Jacob didn’t understand what he had heard, and so pushed it from his mind. He didn’t have many fancy clothes — he didn’t have many clothes in general — but this wasn’t the first time he had been invited to dinner with the mayor. It happened a few times a year, and after the first couple times Captain Vexx had opted to have Heilyn buy him some better clothes only for use during these dinners. Those original clothes had long outgrown him by now, but he’d gotten a new pair last spring that still fit him, thanks to the fact that, aside from his muscle mass, he was pretty much done growing now.
And yet, he was still short.
Jacob buckled the buckles and tightened the laces all across his clothes and headed back above deck. He hated wearing these weird clothes; they inhibited his movement too much. But, he’d do what it took to go to the dinner. His black suit next to Captain Vexx’s blue was strikingly different, and obviously labeled him as the less important of the two.
“Ready?” Captain Vexx asked, but he wasn’t really asking. The two set off for the manor, careful on the streets to not muddy their already salt-stained boots. Captain Vexx led the way and knocked on the mahogany door. The doorman let them in and led them to the dining room. It was a smaller room than one may imagine, connected directly to the kitchen by a side door. A long table sat in the middle. Only two spots looked like they had received continual use, as stains splattered along the wood in those areas. Much of the table was still unused, but to Jacob’s surprise, there had been a fifth spot prepared.
“Captain, who else is coming?”
“That would be me, ink spot,” a deep, feminine voice said from behind them.
Jacob groaned. “Hey, Crimson.”
“That’s Captain Cri-”
“Aye, I know,” he said with a mock apologetic tone. “Sorry, Captain Crimson.Why exactly are you here?”
“I was invited, twerp,” she sneered, yellowed teeth bared. “By the mayor himself, in fact.”
“Yes, and please don’t make me regret that, Captain Crimson,” the mayor said as he walked past her. Georgiana walked behind him, keeping a wide berth from Crimson. She was dressed in the same dress as earlier, though her hair was done up a bit more. Her father hadn’t changed, still in his black and white suit.
The mayor sat down at the head of the table and folded his hands together. Georgiana sat down next to him and waved for the three pirates to do so, as well. Appetizers were brought out and the five began to eat in silence. It wasn’t until the actual meal was brought out that Captain Vexx tried to break the quiet veil.
“So, Captain Crimson, I suspect your privateering has been going well?”
“Better than yours ever could, Sunspot,” Crimson sneered. Jacob nearly shot up, but Captain Vexx laid a stable hand on his shoulder, steadying his mood.
“Yes, I’m sure that’s possible. It is rather rude to compare numbers, but what would you say has been your favorite job in recent history?”
Crimson smiled evilly. “Oh, that’d be the sugar grass raid we did a month ago, easy. We got this tip from some anonymous rogue-type that one of ‘em unaligned crews was smuggling the stuff into some small towns. Controlling the economy, selling it to druggies, the works. We caught ‘em as they got to port. Quick and simple job, nothing to it, until-” she leaned forward in her seat, mimicking the body posture of the mayor and Georgiana, “-I went up against their captain. The crackshot was a Stoneheart, believe it or not, kinda like your beanpole there, Vexx.”
Jacob frowned but didn’t say anything.
“His gift was from the Meg himself; kinda mirrored my own in a few ways. Gave him some strength and let him change into a giant an-thro-po-morf-is-ized shark monster thing.” Jacob saw Georgiana holding back a giggle at her pronunciation. “I won’t lie, it was a tough fight, but ain’t that why we do this job?”
“Well,” Mayor Buckley interrupted, “I prefer to think you do it because it is what is right, but to each their own, of course.”
Crimson snorted. “Yeah, aside from this short stack here-” she motioned to Captain Vexx with her head, “-you’re not gonna find many of us that think like that. Trust me, if I weren’t paid by the Company as well as I am, I’d be running sugar grass jobs, myself. Anyways, where was I? Oh right, this sharky chump who thought he’d go against the Shark of the Seven Seas, herself.”
The conversation went on like that until dessert, with the three pirates sharing their wildest stories and the mayor and Georgiana laughing and praising them in awe. Jacob did his best to fill in parts of his Captain’s stories that he had actually been a part of, but many of them had been before he was allowed to do anything very interesting. As the chef brought out crème brûlée, however, the topic shifted.
“Okay, I know we’ve been reliving our glory days, Lydia,” Captain Vexx started with a joyous smile, “but I’ve got something more recent. Jacob, you were there for this one. Do you remember the Kelpie scare last year?”
Jacob shivered and nodded. “Aye, Captain, though it is not something I find joy in recalling. Do you really want to tell them? It even scared some of the crew who weren’t there…”
“We can take it, son,” Mayor Buckley responded. “My daughter and I have feasted with many who told horrible stories. Go on, Captain Vexx.”
“Aye, Mayor Buckley. How much do you and your daughter know of Kelpie?”
“She’s a horse, right Captain?” Georgiana asked.
“Aye, Georgie, that she is. But, not just any horse. She’s a terrible horse of the ocean, thrice as big as any normal mare, with hair like seaweed, eyes like burning coals, and teeth like barnacles. Legend has it that, back before her tales became widespread, she used to lure unsuspecting victims onto her back, where they would become stuck to her like flies in honey. She would then drown them, for she was born from humanity’s fear of drowning.”
“Our story,” Jacob continued with a glance from his Captain, “began as all good sailor’s tales do. One dark and stormy night, several of our crew headed out on one of our dinghies to a small island. Honestly, it was more of an atoll than anything. No trees. Not grass. The only feature was a rock that jutted up like a tooth of Jörmungandr.”
“I had left Heilyn on the ship to lead the rest of the crew,” Captain Vexx took back over, “but I had been training Jacob to use his tentacles, so I knew that we’d be okay if we needed any help in the reach department. And, need help we did. See, we were on this atoll because we had received a tip about something buried there, a small ball of Krakenstone that would not only fetch a pretty price in the Company, but also keep it from the hands of any ne’er-do-well pirates.”
“Unlike yourselves, of course,” Crimson said with a roll of her eyes.
Jacob glared at her, but Captain Vexx continued. “Despite the dark and the pounding rain, we searched the place for hours. None of us could spot the thing. However, something certainly saw us.”
Jacob continued, “The atoll was shaped like a circle, and the rock stuck out of the ground at an angle from the center, sort of like a sundial. Moss and seagull remains were splattered across the sun bleached tip. We were spread out all around the atoll, and from the right angle, the rock could block your vision of anyone standing on the other side. I was busy digging a hole in the sandier bits when I heard… the scream.”
“The others on that expedition described it as blood-curdling,” Captain Vexx offered. “I would describe it more as… demonic. The man sounded like he was a creature from Hell, crying in pain from what tortures he was suffering. I knew at that moment that something terrible was there, and that it likely couldn’t be stopped by any mortal man.”
“I bounded across the sand, taking the path the atoll had laid out,” Jacob explained. “It wasn’t long before I saw what was happening. I didn’t know it at the time, but I knew exactly what the creature was. It was Kelpie, of course. She had rammed into one of the crew, and his hands were stuck to her side. I could see blood, though from what exactly I’m still not sure.”
“I, on the other hand, know it must’ve been from his shoulder,” Captain Vexx took over. “I was much closer, and I could see bite marks from where I stood. The skin was burnt black, and I could see now that the water around Kelpie was bubbling. That was something I had ne’er heard about her, that she was blazing hot, enough to boil the sea water with a single touch. It was also the moment I knew my man would die. I called out to Jacob here not to touch her, but…”
“I didn’t listen,” Jacob muttered. “I grabbed hold of both Darren — the man I was trying to rescue — and Kelpie, but I instantly wanted to let go of her. It felt like I’d wrapped my hand around a burning skillet handle. The only problem was that Kelpie really is magically sticky. I couldn’t pull back. So, Captain Vexx…”
The Captain’s face grew hard. “I instead ran to Jacob and cut off his tentacle. He was only using one, but they’d been damaged in battle before and I hadn’t seen any damage on them after he used them again. So, I took the risk. I couldn’t afford to lose two men in that fight. As you can see,” he gestured at Jacob, “my gamble was successful, though such a shear cut did damage his skin.”
Jacob held up his left arm, revealing a white line that wrapped all the way around his wrist. “From there, Darren was taken down into the ocean, still glued to Kelpie. She took my tentacle with her. Captain yelled for us all to get back to the ship by any means necessary. That was the first time I attempted to use more than one tentacle. I was able to row us back faster than we could with regular oars, but by the time we returned… the damage was done.”
“Did you at least get your quarry?” Crimson asked.
Jacob shook his head. “Captain didn’t feel the risk of losing more crewmates was a good wager to make. That stone is still there, or maybe it’s been picked up again by now. We don’t know.”
“I’m sure we’ll go back one day,” Captain Vexx said, “but that day won’t be soon.” He looked around at the spooked faces of the mayor and Georgiana. “Sorry, old friends, but I did warn you. I know it may not be the scariest tale, but it certainly is frightening to hear of the horrors that await us on the open seas. So, who wants dessert?”
Captain Vexx began to eat his crème brûlée without another word. Georgiana gave Jacob a look, picked up her dessert, and walked off. Jacob glanced at his Captain and the mayor, then did the same, following Georgiana. He found her sitting on a bench in her garden, nibbling at her dessert.
“Hey… that didn’t actually scare you, did it?”
“Mmm… not exactly.”
Jacob studied her face closer. He wasn’t great at judging people, but some things he could pick out — usually the obvious things — and what was obvious here was that she wasn’t nervous at all. She looked almost… excited?
“I wish I could join you out there, Jacob. The ocean, I mean. I know I sound crazy for saying that, especially after that story, but I feel it. I feel it deep inside, like… a calling? I don’t know. That doesn’t make much sense, does it?”
Jacob smiled warmly. “Actually, it makes perfect sense. Do you know the most common cause of pirate drunkenness?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Weird question, but I would guess the rum? It’s the most portable or something like that, right?”
Jacob shook his head. “Actually, it’s not alcohol at all. At least, that’s not what we say. We say it’s the wind. When you’re out on the ocean, up on deck, sea spray on your face, wind in your hair, you could be doing the most horrible job on board, and you wouldn’t care at all. I think that’s a large reason for why Deighly loves the crow’s nest so much. The wind feels like freedom. So, yeah, I get what you mean, ‘cause I feel it too. Every day.”
She smiled at him and quickly finished her crème brûlée. The sun had already fallen, and as Heilyn had said earlier, the moon was blood red. It cast an eerie glow over the garden, mixing with the greens and browns in a strange way, and laying a layer of crimson light over Georiana. Suddenly she turned to him, an apologetic yet mischievous look in her amber eyes.
“Can I see them?”
Jacob stopped eating. “Huh?”
“Your tentacles, I mean,” she laughed. “Can I see them?”
Jacob chuckled and set down his dish, already feeling the pinpricks along his arm. He summoned a small tentacle, replacing his left index finger. Georgiana stared at it, hand raised slightly. Jacob moved it closer to her.
“Don’t worry, Georgie, it doesn’t bite.”
“I know… it’s just kinda weird-” she stopped herself. “No, I’m sorry, that sounded mean. I just haven’t ever seen someone turn their finger into a tentacle before. Not that there’s anything wrong with that or anything, but… stop laughing.”
“I’m not!” Jacob said in between giggles. “Don’t worry,” he said, trying to compose himself, “I get it. You think it wasn’t strange to me the first time I saw them? I may have had them since birth, but they are still tentacles.”
The purple flesh of the tentacle merged awkwardly with his tanned skin, making it look like his finger was more so bruised and mangled than changed into something else. However, the suckers on the bottom part of it didn’t lie, and neither did the unnatural smoothness or constant damp, slimy feel despite him not having been even close to the water for a few hours now.
Jacob reverted his finger back into its normal form, causing Georgiana to look away for a moment. She glanced up, noticing the red sky for the first time.
“Isn’t there an old wive’s tale about the red moon? Something about it bringing out the bad properties of blood?”
“Yeah, but that’s just a story. I’ve seen blood moons before, and nothing weird has ever happened. Why?”
Georgiana shrugged, and the garden around them exploded.