Siren Ch. 08

"Captain," the man whined as he stood up. "I was—" he sputtered.

"Coming to the hold with me." Roland finished for him. "Very good, Mr. Dooley."

With that Roland turned on his heels and made his way across the gun deck, checking in on the crew as he passed, Dooley following begrudgingly behind him.

*

A shrill sound punctured the thickness of sleep that had shielded her from the storm. The first thought that followed it was that she was still, at least relativity, and the sensation of the arm across her belly was very much not a fantasy. She opened her eyes slowly, her head still aching fiercely from when she'd struck it. She raised her hand to the back of her head, feeling the large knot of flesh beneath her hair and hissing at the sharp pain elicited by her fingertips.

The man at her back did not stir until the sound rang out again and Kenna jerked to sitting, her head protesting the movement but the rest of her too eager to slow down. Roland groaned and turned on his back as she wriggled out from under his arm and threw herself at the bench below the windows. The latch gave and the smell of long grass and swampy land rushed in. The seagulls above called out now, their shrill voices a welcome sign.

Kenna breathed in the smell of land, her eyes latching on the green expanse beyond the windows. The sea that stood between them seemed insignificant after so many weeks of nothing but sky and ocean on every horizon.

"Come back to bed." Roland's gravelly voice came from behind her.

"Where are we?" she asked, ignoring him and keeping her eyes on the trees that promised sweet shade over firm ground.

"The storm blew us into the coast, somewhere south of the Carolina's colonies." His hand came up and he beckoned her again, but her eyes were fixed outwards and she didn't see it.

"Carolina..." she whispered to herself, though not soft enough that her meaning was lost on her companion.

*

Roland rolled on his side and glanced her way, seeing her small form perched on the sill as if she might leap out at any moment. The boat rocked gently and he put his head down again. He hadn't returned to his chamber until they'd steered into the outcrop and dropped anchor and that couldn't have been more than a few hours ago. His body ached and his head hurt, but something in her voice troubled him enough to keep him from sleep.

"Is it safe to go topside?" she asked, the same edge of excitement in her voice. There was something reckless there that Roland didn't recognize.

"No," he said shortly, resting the bend in his elbow over his eyes to block out the light from the windows.

"Why not?" she demanded, her voice closer.

"Stephens is dead," Roland said it as bluntly as possible and moved his limb so he could see her reaction.

Surprise, a whisper of sadness and then back to her determination. "What happened?"

"The same thing that always happens in storms." Roland gave up the pretense of sleeping and looked up at her. "He drowned."

Kenna chewed her lip and looked to the door before glancing back at him. "Do Abbott and Dooley have the upper hand already?"

"No, but Dooley proved to be less of a coward than anticipated and might have helped save us all, so is now back in good graces with many of the men." Roland propped himself up on his elbow. He didn't like the way she stood, her body leaning ever so slightly towards the door. When he'd left her she'd been vulnerable, all softness and tears. That was not what he saw before him now.

"Well, perhaps I can help. I'll go topside and speak to the men." She gestured at the sounds of hammers ringing out above them. "Surely they could use a song to help the work ahead of them."

No, he though. The instinct to catch her arm and hold her still tickled his palms. But he thought better of it. Perhaps this was not the opportune moment to be hard with her. She'd shown herself to him, confessed and found comfort in it. His suspicious nature warred with his sense of triumph; that voice that warned him of her past wiped away all thoughts of sleep.

"Very well, Kenna," he said, lying back. "But don't stay too long, and keep a sharp eye out for Abbott."

She was gone without another word.

*

Topside, Kenna flew to the stern, her eyes fixed on the land at their backs. The New World, the colonies her sister had wrote to her about. Endless space, no wars or feuds to bring them to ruin, the beginning of something entirely new.

She breathed deeply, letting the smell of earth and foliage wash over her again. The terror and panic of the night before still resonated in her bones, and the promise of finally reaching a destination point created an intoxicating mix of excitement and nerves. Her hands shook as she held the gunwale, leaning over it a bit too far.

"You'll want to be careful, Mrs. Bell," Barnes said behind her. She turned quickly, suddenly aware that her flight up here was devoid of any of the caution Roland had advised.

"Mr. Barnes," she said, a nervous laugh escaping with his name. "It's just the smell, and the green..." she trailed off. Her mind felt jumbled, too many extreme emotions is too short a time. She felt off balance, overly excitable as though she was poised on the edge of something much more terrible.

"Aye, this long at sea, and troubled ones that they were, it can make the sight of land a powerful shock. Mind yourself that we won't be going ashore here as we're a mite too close to the ruffled types." Kenna cocked her head in a question and Barnes gave her a wolfish smile. "The proper folk with their skirts and collars and such."

Kenna only nodded, her mind galloping away on that sandy beach. Her wide eyes went back to the earth at their backs and she practically vibrated with unspent anticipation.

"Give us a song, love," a sailor called from below. Kenna turned, and for the first time she looked at the ship for longer than it took her to find her footing. The deck was littered with debris, groups sailors worked on mending sails that lay in crumpled heaps upon the wood, others hammering at broken planks and restringing lax lines. The missing foremast gave the space an empty feeling, and the jagged remains of it stabbed into the air in an ominous reminder of what had been and was no longer.

She felt a pang of sadness for Stephens. He had been a good man, at least to her, and loyal to Roland. His loss would be felt in short order given the tenuous positions of the crew. Kenna began running through the list of all the men who were on their side, as she'd done dozens of times in the last few weeks; it was becoming reflexive.

"How many others were lost?" she asked quietly, hushed tones in the face of the aftermath displayed before her.

"Well, Mistress, Paget, Jacobs and McGowan were on the foremast with Luke, Lyster and Gunn were lost as well though when or how no one can say."

Kenna nodded. Four from their list, one from Abbott's. Those were not agreeable numbers. A seagull screeched overhead, so close she almost ducked her head before looking up. She watched the bird dive between the masts and back out to sea, charging back towards the beach. The list in her head stopped, the question she was about to ask about Abbott and Dooley disappeared.

"Best sing for the crew mistress," Barnes said as he made his way down the stairs. "The faster the hammers fly, the sooner the lads have her back on the waters and we're skipping the rest of the way home."

Kenna barely heard him. But there was a song on her lips all the same. The song her mother taught her as they sat above the Eastern Sea, looking across its expanse, back to where they belonged. The same song that her mother wrapped up in the feeling of belonging and home, of hope and family. It was the song she sang when her loneliness became too much, when all felt lost, to remind her that there was still a way.

"Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing,

Onward! The sailors cry.

Carry the lad that's born to be King

Over the sea to Skye"

The familiar melody was like a balm to the turbulence inside her. She had a new point of focus, a chance to be free.

"Loud the winds hole, loud the waves roar,

Thunderclaps rend the air;

Baffled, our foes stand by the shore

Follow they will not dare."

The breeze fluttered through her hair, bringing that intoxicating smell of deep woods and greenery. The song swelled inside her, never sung at more than a whisper in the past, it flowed out across the bay, rolling towards the shore just beyond her reach.

"Though the waves leap, soft shall ye sleep,

Ocean's a royal bed,

Rocked in the deep, Flora will keep

Watch by your weary head."

She lost herself, her mind tripping over itself towards her escape. Nothing might stop her now; surely this is was the land where her mother's promises of finding her true place in the world would come to fruition. After all that time looking back, her parents had lost the perspective to look forward. But here her sister had found a home, and she would too. The song tumbled from her, louder than she'd ever sung before, a call to that future.

"Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing,

Onward! The sailors cry.

Carry the lad that's born to be King

Over the sea to Skye"

She didn't notice taking off her coat, or that her hands had wrapped themselves around the rigging, with the intent of pulling herself up on the gunwale. Her entire focus was lost in that singular intention, the only one that kept her from falling back into the pit he'd dragged her down into. She would not be caged again.

But when she pulled to bring her feet up, a steel bar crossed her middle, an impossibly hard wall at her back,

"Let go, Kenna," his voice was low and dangerous in her ear. Her thoughts struggled to keep her attention forward, but the fantasy unwound itself even as she clung to the ropes.

The sounds of the ship came back, the men banging in nails around her, the creaking of the wood and splashes of the waves against the hull. The world opened up, and ripped the dream away. Her fingers gave up their grip and she slumped back into him, disgusted when she felt safe as he held her.

Her head went back against his shoulder, her hands rested lightly on the arm he clasped her with. The fatigue and pain from riding out the storm alone and terrified dragged at her limbs; the great release and tragedy of revealing herself to him the night before it drained her energy. Whatever moment of reckless hope she had to tear herself away dissipated into the morning air. His arm relaxed as he felt her body lose its tension and he turned her into his body, blocking the sight of land with his chest, holding her there as her body collapsed against his.

*

"Do not run from me, Kenna." It was all the warning he'd give her. The next time she tried he would be forced to take more drastic measures.

She didn't acknowledge his words but the press of her body to his spoke of surrender. He pulled her back, looking into her face, disturbed to see the blank emptiness there. It was simply a matter of circumstance. Much had happened this last day. She needed to sleep and recover. He took her hand and made for the stairs, intent on his cabin.

A call came up from below and Roland came to a halt. The hammering had stopped and men lined the gunwales that overlooked the main deck. Some were looking at him but most had their eyes fixed below.

Barnes climbed the stairs before them, his face grave. He nodded to Roland, his silence speaking more than all his rambling talk ever could. Roland's grip on Kenna's hand tightened. So this would happen now.

Men poured out from below, surrounding the open main deck and crowding the stairs and banisters of the forecastle and stern. Dooley stood in the center of the main deck, Abbott not far behind him. His eyes met Roland's and he smiled with a cocky triumph Roland found both over confident and worrying. He could not leave Kenna unguarded, and bringing her down into the pit with Dooley was worse than stupid.

"If you don't mind me offering the service, I'll stay here with Mrs. Bell, Captain," Barnes said in a low voice.

"Charlie and I will be here as well." Roland turned to see Munro, scabbard and knives in his belt, waiting with his gangly apprentice.

They would have to do. The beast inside howled as he ignored every instinct they shared and released her hand. Every step forward was a punishment for letting her loose on his ship. The creeping feeling in his back as he strained not to look back a fitting price for his indulgence of her. He had worried holding too tightly would have made her surrender harder to obtain, but what were her feelings in the face of all this?

Roland stepped to face Dooley, his height and build far outstripping his mutinous quartermaster's. But Roland had sworn not to underestimate him, and would not again.

"You have a word to say to the crew, Mr. Dooley?" Roland locked eyes on the man, the pricks at his back irritating still.

"Aye, Captain Roland, I've called for a vote." The man shifted but kept his smile. "It's time you stepped down as captain of this crew, ill-gotten as it was."

"I see no cause to call for a vote, especially given the situation we now find ourselves in. Are you intentionally harming the chances of survival for this crew, pushing your own agenda as we sit not a few miles from those who would see us at the end of a noose?"

Dooley lost his smile. "You are the one who threatens our survival, Captain." The word dripped with derision. "You compromised this ship, you took us into that storm, you colluded with a woman who killed our captain." An accusatory finger joined the fray, aimed at his chest.

"I believe the storm was a better choice than the Navy, Mr. Dooley. And it seems I've been proven correct." Roland crossed his arms and drew himself up. He longed to swivel his head, to make sure she was still standing there. But he didn't take his eyes off Dooley, and Abbott behind him.

"Luck and the skill of your crew don't make it right. If it weren't for me, you'dve left the foremast attached to save your men at the expense of us all."

"I dare say your logic is impeccable, Mr. Dooley." Roland drawled, posture falsely confident.

"Enough of this!" Abbott stepped into the sunlight directly over Dooley's shoulder. "You are an unnatural captain for this crew of freemen! You are nothing more than a fat ruffled lord in disguise. We've all seen it, we've heard it. And then you bring that thing on board, after you let her murder Captain Dougray, and you let her whisper in our ears, and sing us into complacency." Abbott's tone rose as his rhetoric picked up. Roland could almost feel the men around him begin to sway to it. "This journey was cursed from the moment she arrived! The death of our captain was only the beginning. She's destroyed our rudder over and over again, sprung leaks in the hull to bring her precious life water into our ship. We have never suffered the ills we have on this journey, and it's your doing for bringing her here and not returning her to the sea as we should have! She's an unnatural siren who will sing us all into the grave!"

Roland's fury rose, and with it the hard grip he kept on it. He would not be baited. "Mrs. Bell has done no such thing. You'd be wise to keep your wits about you Mr. Abbott. Old age might be claiming your thoughts for the worse." He could hear it, the way his accent became more clipped as he spoke, how his tongue tensed around his vowels despite the years he'd spent losing those habits. He was losing the crew, and yet he couldn't turn from these men who threatened them so.

*

Kenna watched, aghast and then frustrated as Roland continued to ply logic and force to emotions and superstitions. If the men were not so ragged from the storm and the loss of their crew members, he might have been heard. But as things were, her gifts of pretty songs were nothing when her death might bring their ship home safely.

And she could not entrust her survival to him, not with the performance he gave below. If he did not win this vote they were both doomed.

She stepped away from the protective band of men at her back and to the top of the stairs down to the main deck. "Am I being accused of willfully sabotaging this ship?" She raised her voice, using a tone that managed to convey both incredulity and deathly seriousness. Roland's head snapped around, as did the faces of the crew as they looked to the small woman standing barefoot in weathered soldier's garb.

Abbott, in his unyielding conviction that she was indeed the enemy, was the first to speak up. "You are accused of being what you are, a devious siren who would like nothing more than to sink us to the sea so you can claim our souls."

Kenna took a step down, feeling Munro at her back. She turned and stayed him with her hand. "Your Master gunner has some strongly held beliefs," she said to the crew, meeting their eyes as she looked around. "I'm sure I've heard them spoken often enough, you lot must be sick to death of it." Someone chuckled. She continued to another step.

"I must admit, the story is a compelling one. Why if all my failings could be put on another, wrapped up on their head and thrown into the sea, I believe I might be tempted to do the same." She looked directly at Abbott this time. "We can't stand for a Jonas on board, now can we?"

"You are unnatural, woman!" he shouted at her. Dooley tried a calming hand on his partner's chest but it did no good. "You prance around in, indecent, sowing your discord with these men. You're worse than a whore and I should have slit your throat when I had the chance."

Kenna didn't blink. After all, she'd been called worse. "Mr. Abbott, I do confess to some confusion," she spoke plainly, without mocking that would turn the men away from her words. "If I am a woman, worse than a whore, can I also be a mystical siren who would sink you for your souls?"

The man fumed, his face red beneath his impressive beard. "You are a murdering witch is what you are!"

Kenna had set him alight now, and Dooley was concerned with actively holding him in place. She turned her attention to the crew, her eyes falling briefly on Roland's serious face. She refused to be distracted by the way her heart sank at his gaze. The task at hand was too important. They were not with her yet. Superstitions ran deep in these men, and Abbott's passion might not hurt him as much as she thought.

So she must become human to them. "I admit that the circumstances of my joining you aboard The Charon were unfortunate," she addressed the men above her. "But I am no different than any of you, flesh and bone, searching for a new life, far from the cruelty of the old world.

"Mr. Cummings," she called to one of the men hanging from the gunwale. He looked shocked at being addressed directly and the men around him swiveled their heads towards him. "Did you not flee your home as the lord of the manor became too vicious to be borne? Have you not told us of the way he beat all in his service?"

"Aye," the man answered, hesitant to be drawn into the drama below.

"And Mr. Fritz and Mr. Wright," she addressed a pair on the opposite side of the ship as they hung from the rigging for a better view. "Were you not starved out of your livelihoods by corruption and malevolence by officials protecting the rich?" They nodded.

"And Mr. Scott, Mr. Tandley and Mr. Cape," she addressed the former slaves who were clustered together by one of the cannons. She met the eyes of all those who she did not call by name. "Did you not cast off the chains of those who stole you from your homes?