I blinked in the darkness and focused on calming my breathing.
“Only…stay with me.Keep close.”
“Of course,” he said, pulling the blanket over his chest as he gazed at me with reassuring concern.“I hate to see you struggle.”
I made an attempt at a laugh.“So silly to be so undone by a nightmare.”The noise of my heart beat thumped in my ears.
“Well,” he said, “happens to the best of us.”
I gazed down at him.“Have you ever been plagued by such horrors?”
He gave me a look.“As an ex-navy officer and now a regular brigand?Yes.My sleep is not always peaceful.”
I didn’t say anything, wanting to learn more but hesitant to ask for clarification.
He put a hand to his forehead.“I’ve seen things that…well, that I’ll not forget.”
“What’s the worst thing that you’ve seen?”I asked, then regretted the question.“Never mind.You don’t need to—”
“There was a young fellow—a jolly, cheerful chap whom everyone liked—about nineteen, I think.Regular deckhand.He and an officer were sentenced to hanging for sodomy.”
A cold fear hit me in the chest.
“Fuck.”
“Yes.Nasty business.I fail to see how it is anyone’s regard where a man decides to put his cock, unless he does so without leave or with a person who has not yet reached adulthood.In this case, two grown men had engaged willingly together.Yet the deed was still considered a hanging offense.”
I nodded, not wanting to say anything and thinking how awful to pay for such a thing with your life.
“I had to watch the sentence carried out.The nineteen year-old survived.He received a stay—a pardon—at the last moment.”
“Oh.Well, that’s good, isn’t it?”
“Mmm.Not really, I’m afraid.They did him and his friend up, all ready to go through with the sentence.The older man panicked and began to flail about and ended up with a bullet to the head.The young lad was given a reprieve and taken down, but he was not right after that.His mind had been shocked past the point of repair.”
“Bloody hell.That is…horrible.”
“I shouldn’t have told you that.The tale is not a pleasant one.”
“I’m not a child.You don’t have to coddle me.”
“At any rate, on occasion, the things I’ve witnessed return to me in the depths of my slumber,” he said.“But, since you’ve been sharing my bed, my sleep has been peaceful.I wish yours was as well.”
“Sometimes I wonder…” I began.
“What, my precious lad?”
“I wonder if the visions are a dream at all.”
He stilled, as if I’d voiced a possibility that hadn’t occurred to him.
“What do you mean?”
My heart pounded in my chest as I tried to explain.
“Only that…the nightmare is always the same.The same…creature.The same song.The same,” I gulped.“Teeth.”
“Song?”he asked, his body relaxing as if a musical affinity meant the beast couldn’t be a threat.“The creature sings?”he asked, amusement in his voice.
