I woke up before dawn on the morning that was the beginning of the end. Too restless to go back to sleep and feeling a need I couldn’t explain, even to myself, I dressed in my oldest shirt and skirt, put on my half boots, slipped a small folding knife into my skirt pocket, and went down to the water—down to the stretch of sandy beach protected by walls of rock that jutted into the sea. That beach had been turned into a baited trap that Captain Starr’s men had set for whatever might leave the water and come ashore. Or for whatever—whoever—might be desperate enough to risk the trap to claim whatever bounty might be found.
That morning I found one of the feral ponies, his front feet caught in the tangles of net. He had a barrel body and chubby legs, but it was his coloring that made me shiver and yet, at the same time, conjured fanciful thoughts. His body was the midnight blue of the sea in the darkest hours of the night, and his mane and tail looked like surf and moonlight.
He was just a feral pony, but I could imagine him being one of the beautiful, deadly steeds that raced over the Mediterran Sea, harbingers of the dark ship’s appearance.
I scolded myself as I made my way carefully down the path through the rocks to that stretch of beach. Wasting time imagining things could get both of us killed.
I paused when I reached the last rock and my feet touched sand. I’d have to step into the open in order to reach the pony, and I had a feeling there wasn’t much time before Starr’s men arrived with knives and clubs. If they found me here...
Hilda had been caught trying to free one of the village orphans who begged on the streets and was too hungry to resist the bait. The boy had tried to grab the thick piece of bread smeared with butter and honey—a barely remembered treat from the days before Captain Starr and his crew dropped anchor off our shore and became both terror and law for our village. The child was human, was known to us, had once had a family who lived in Pyetra. None of that had mattered. No one but the captain or his first mate decided the fate of anything caught in the trap, and to free something...
Captain Starr made some of us stand on the beach and watch as his men clubbed the boy to death. He made us watch...
Hilda wasn’t dead after Starr’s men finished with her, but she was too broken to save herself when the tide came back in. We watched and listened as she drowned. Then we were allowed to return to our homes or businesses, mute accessories to murder because no one had dared speak out against that cruelty or had taken one step to save Hilda or the boy.
So I knew the risks when I approached the trap. Being here was foolish. Trying to save one feral pony wasn’t worth my life. And yet, watching a sea eagle circle above the net before heading out to sea, Iknewsomething bad would happen to our village if the pony died.
The wind shifted. The pony snorted, having caught my scent.
“Easy,” I said quietly as I scurried toward him. “Easy. I’m here to help you.”
The pony neighed and tried to rear, but its efforts to get free tangled its front feet even more.
“Shh!” Now I was sweating. If any of the men heard the pony, they would hurry down to the beach. “If you don’t keep quiet, we’ll both be clubbed to death!”
He quieted and stood still, allowing me to approach. I took out my folding knife and worked as quickly as I could to cut just enough of the net to free his feet—and tried not to startle and cut myself every time the pony lipped my hair and snuffled to breathe in my scent.
“There.” I pushed the net away from his feet before reaching up and pressing a hand to his chest. “Back up. Back.”
He backed away from the trap, but he didn’t turn and run while I smoothed the sand and arranged the net so that it wouldn’t look like someone had messed with it. There would be footprints in the sand—the pony’s and mine—but there was nothing I could do about that. The men would know from the size of the print that an adult male hadn’t been walking this way, but unless someone saw me, they wouldn’t know I had been on this part of the beach.
“Go home now,” I said. “Go home.”
I ran back to the narrow path in the rocks. I had to get home before Mara noticed I was missing and told my father, who would use his belt on me. I had to get home and wash up and make myself as presentable as possible. But not too presentable.
I used to be pretty. I’m not pretty anymore. Father took care of that. He claimed it was for my own good, but afterward not even his friends believed that.
I ran—and the pony ran with me.
I stopped. He stopped.
“Listen to me.”
He pricked his ears.
“You have to go home. If the men see you, they will kill you for the meat, for your hide. You need to go home so that you can stay free.” I paused, then added under my breath, “One of us should be free.”
He looked at me for a long time, and I could have sworn that something like sympathy filled his dark eyes.
He turned and galloped to the water’s edge, running in the surf. A large wave rolled onto the beach, rolled right over him. I stared at the spot, expecting to see him struggling with a broken leg or something just as bad, but when the wave receded, the pony was gone. Just gone. And so were my footprints.
As I turned to climb the path up to the road, I saw a man standing on the nearest rock wall, watching me. He was tall and lean, dressed all in black, and he had black hair and olive skin. More than that I couldn’t tell. If he was one of Captain Starr’s men...
Keeping my face averted, I climbed the path as fast as I could, grabbing the rocks for balance and taking some skin off my palms in my haste. If I could get back to the dockside tavern my father owned, maybe I could get inside and disappear before the man had time to figure out who I was.
Panting, I dared look back when I reached the road.
No man stood on the rock wall. All I saw was smoke drifting toward the sea.
