You found me.
The words still lingered in the air, as though clinging to the salt-laced wind.
Crewmen scrambled around him, voices raised in frightened confusion.
“Did ye see her vanish?”
“By me deathless soul, I ne’er seen the likes o’ that!”
“Blast me eyes, I swear she were a sea spirit!”
“Nay, a cursed mermaid come to drag us to the deep!”
Caleb clenched his jaw.His gaze remained fixed on the damp planks where she'd stood only moments before.A glint of moisture shimmered there, as if the sea had tried to follow her.Female…or something else?A sea creature with black, shiny skin and wide webbed feet?
Her eyes.That’s what haunted him most, those eyes.Deep sea blue with flecks of turquoise, like the Caribbean just before a storm.He’d never seen eyes like that.Yet…he had…in his dreams.Aye.Since he was a boy.That gaze had followed him through nightmares and longing alike.
He exhaled sharply, drawing the crew’s attention.
“Enough,” he barked, his voice sharp as cutlass steel.“Back to your duties, the lot of you.”
They hesitated.Liam O’Neill, his boatswain, narrowed one pale brow, arms folded across his chest, blond hair flailing in the wind.“Ye saw her too, Cap’n.Don’t tell me ye didn’t.”
“I saw something strange, aye,” Caleb replied, low and measured.“But I’ll not have fear unraveling this crew.The wind’s with us.We sail due north till further orders.You’ve the deck, Liam.”
With that, he turned, his long coat snapping behind him as he strode toward his cabin.
The door closed with a creak and clicked behind him.Caleb had barely taken two steps before shadows shifted in the corner.
“I felt her,” Ayida Noire whispered, stepping into the light.
The ship’s cook stood there, shawl pulled tight, her dark eyes two eclipses in the low light.“She weren’t woman.She weren’t angel.She was mermaid,Capitaine.A harbinger.”
He arched a brow.“Of what?And why are you in my cabin?”
“Of drowning,” Ayida said, curling her fingers like claws.“Of destinies twisted.De sea opens for such as her and swallows de rest.”
Before he could reply to the madcap woman, the door opened.Alden Shaw, his quartermaster entered, scar cutting across his cheek, polished wooden cross glinting at his throat.“Was it her?”A knowing look passed between them, the look of friends who shared secrets in the night.
Not answering, Caleb moved to stand by the stern windows and stared out upon the rolling sea glittering in the afternoon sun.Wasit her?Whoever “her” was.Shaking his head, he crossed arms over his leather jerkin.“I don’t know what I saw.”
“Extraordinary.”Oliver Brandt’s muttering spun Caleb around to see the ship’s surgeon limp inside the cabin, coat damp, spectacles fogged.“I’m hearing the tale all over the ship.A woman appeared out of the sea and then vanished?”
“Nay,” Caleb said a bit too harshly.“’Twas no woman.And whatever it was, it didn’t just vanish…it”—the way the lady separated bit by bit was forever imprinted on his mind— “unraveled.”
Alden raised a skeptical brow as Ayida finally turned to leave, mumbling in Creole beneath her breath.
“Rest assured, whatever it was, it is gone,” Caleb scrubbed his jaw.
Brandt leaned his cane against the chair and folded his hands over his portly belly.“There’s an explanation for everything.Science and logic need govern our thoughts, not spirits or mermaids.”
“There are many things around us we cannot see, my friend.Much of them evil,” Alden said to the doctor before he faced Caleb again.“You best make up some tale for the crew.They are a fearful, superstitious lot as you well know.”
“Aye.”Caleb nodded.His glance landed on the Bible perched on his desk with its worn edges and stains.He’d done his best to tell his crew about Jesus, to allay their belief in fearful myths and fables.Thus far, he hadn’t much success.But he wasn’t ready to give up.
Brandt cleared his throat.“Captain, this… whatever this is—it does not change your mission, does it?”
Sails thundered above them as they filled with wind, and theSentineltilted to larboard, creaking against the strain.Balancing his boots on the deck, Caleb shook his head.“The mission remains.For my father.For my grandfather.The destination is the same.”
