She starts, beginning to protest. ‘I thought you would be used to it, since – you know...’
‘Since I’m always putting it around?’
She blushes hard. ‘That’s not what I meant.’
I sigh and slap open the door. ‘I’m going for a piss.’
I’m hydrated and then some. I barely make it to the lavvy to untie my troos before I’m pissing like a horse. When I return to the mess, the others are having a little sing-song:
‘My love sleeps underwater.
Salt-swept with pearls for her eyes.
Her hair tangled in seaweed.
Dreaming eternal, she lies.’
Ris surprises me most of all. Her voice is low and strong, an unwavering alto that rings out across the room. Isagani has some stone pipes on a string around their neck and accompanies Ris’s singing. It’s the first I’ve seen of them, but Isagani’s full of surprises. The mess takes on the quality of a tavern deep in its cups. But Paranish, this is not the place for it.
‘Have you all taken leave of your senses?’
They startle to a stop. Sinigang says nothing.
‘No singing. Nothing that could tempt a storm.’
‘But we sang before, to haul away,’ Ris protests.
‘That was different. You don’t sing about drowning out on the sea.’
‘Sailors are superstitious, the lot of them,’ Sinigang says.
‘Yes, well, aren’t you supposed to be good luck in a storm?’ I snap.
The smirk on Isagani’s face dies. ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’
‘We are merely visitors to these waters,’ I continue. ‘And we must pass through with as little disturbance as possible.’
A whistling. A groaning of the wood. Ris bounds up the stairs faster than I can. We’re all on deck. I look at her, the shimmer in her eyes.
The skies open and the rain begins to pour headlong on top of us. The rain barrels will be full again. I’m soaked through, not with sweat, but with a heady mix of salt spray and rainwater.
‘I hope you’re happy now!’ I spit pettily as the ship crests another wave.
‘You don’t really think we caused this?’ Ris insists, grabbing at a rope for purchase.
Isagani surfs the deck, trying to grab anything not bolted down and shove it into the chambers below.
‘I don’t believe in coincidences,’ I shout back. We can barely hear each other over the wind whipping like claws. My heart is pounding in my ears. I’m used to the weather turning foul out at sea, but not as fast as this. It’s not natural. Lashings of stormwater hit the deck. For a moment I don’t recognise our skeleton crew, and it feels like I’m with my old crew, the forms shifting in the rain.
I remember Larkin there, hauling rope. The man whose name tripped so sweetly off my tongue when Isagani and I were shaping our disguises. A name I would never forget. I try to blink away the rain from my eyes.
‘Captain, what do we do?’ Isagani shouts.
I swallow, throat dry and my tongue sticking awkwardly to the roof of my mouth. A swig from my waterskin. Except it’s not water, but palm wine. I choke it down. Better than naught.
I familiarise myself with the situation, taking note of the wind, planning my next instructions.
Ris has the spyglass up to her face, nearly giving herself a black eye as the ship rocks. ‘What is that?’ she shouts.
