Nibo didn’t get a chance to respond. One of the “birds” fell on top of him, knocking him away from Valynda. The moment it did, Valynda dodged to the railing and jumped overboard before anyone could stop her.
“Vala! No!”
Nibo scrambled after her, but it was too late.
She was already being picked up by the ghostly crew and added to their murderous number.
Valynda floated above the planks as if she were in a dream. She hadn’t felt so disconnected from her body since the night she’d been murdered.
Bitter memories burned as she recalled that day so vividly. When she’d felt her will bend not to her own desires, but to those of another. One who’d held no love or care for her whatsoever. No regard. He’d only cared about himself and his selfish wants. It’d been the sickest kind of cruelty. To have another person seek to take away her free will and to force his desires on her. He’d been determined to make her his poppet.
Fury rose up inside her as she remembered trying to fight against it but having no ability to do so. No words could describe the helpless, hapless feeling of it. To know something was wrong and to have no one believe her, not even her own parents. No way to let others know what was going on.
She’d felt voiceless. Powerless.
Dehumanized. Even more so then than she did now as a straw doll. No one had seen her, even though she’d been right in front of them. Her soul had screamed out into the abyss and no one had heard or bothered to listen. To this day, she still didn’t know how it was that no one had noticed. How such pain could go unobserved by everyone around her when it was so blatantly obvious.
Yet it did.
Was the world really that self-absorbed?
That uncaring?
The truth was as scary as it was scarring.
And she wished to God she was as ignorant to the answer now as she’d been as an innocent, oblivious child, because the truth was that it was so much easier to pretend that the world and that people were what they should be. Fair, kind, and decent. That evil was always punished for the wrongs it did, and that good would win. She liked to pretend that that was how the universe worked. That the light would always prevail over the dark. Order would forever be restored.
Perhaps that more than anything was what marked the end of everyone’s childhood. The day when you realized that might was what made right.
That evil more often than not triumphed over good and that it never got what it should, and that karma didn’t go after the people it was supposed to. More often than not, life chose its personal whipping boys and girls for no reason and they were beat down at random, over and over again, without any justification whatsoever.
There really was no sense in the world. It was all chaos.
Because God knew that she’d done nothing to deserve her fate. Nothing more than fall in love with a man she shouldn’t have and believed in him, even while he lied to her. That she’d been a good friend to women who’d been bad ones to her.
Now …
She found herself standing on board this enchanted ship full of forsaken and damned women like her. Dressed in everything from gowns to breeches, they came from all walks of life and from every culture, it seemed. The only thing they had in common was their gender.
And the mutual mistrust and pain that glowed deep in their eyes that said each of them had been hurt one time too many. Just like the crew of theSea Witch IIwho had also been wronged by those they trusted. Abandoned by fate and kicked in their teeth by life. It was a chilling sight that was probably the nightmare of many a man, as well it should be, as hell hath no fury as a woman wronged. They were even more frightening than a woman scorned.
After all, there was a reason why wrathful vengeance and the Furies were all women.
“Welcome, sister,” a tall, shapely blonde said as she neared Valynda. Dressed in breeches and an ornate brocade coat, she stepped down from the upper deck and moved across the rough planks to meet her near the mainmast.
Other crewmembers encircled Valynda like she was some kind of prized trophy. Their piercing gazes left her feeling uncertain, and it gave her a prickling sensation that crawled over her body like vermin.
Still, there was something eerily familiar about their captain. Valynda felt as if she should know her. “Who are you?”
“Circe.”
She sucked her breath in sharply at the name of the Greek goddess who’d saved Odysseus on his way home from the Trojan war during his ill-fated voyage after he’d upset the god Poseidon. The goddess had borne him three children, and after caring for the man, how had he repaid her? He’d turned the gods against her for her kindness and set them upon her and their children with no regard for what it would do to them. Or what their futures would hold. He’d cheated on his wife, Penelope, who had stayed true to him at home in Ithaca for the entire twenty years he’d been gone, even though her fealty had cost her much as she stuggled to keep his kingdom intact and prosperous during his absence. And he’d broken the heart of the goddess now standing before her.
Faithless Odysseus, so lauded as a hero by the world and praised for his cunning, had stolen all Circe had lavished on him, and forgetting that he’d fathered three sons with her, left like a thief in the night, stealing treasure on his way out the door, without so much as a thank-you for all she’d done to save his life. Just as he’d conveniently forgotten his wife and son who had pined for him in Ithaca while he dallied with Circe and Io during his twenty-year hiatus from his responsibilities as king, husband, and father, leaving it all for brave Penelope to contend with on her own.
Of course, that hadn’t been his lies, or his story when he’d told it, but it’d been the truth, nonetheless.
No wonder Circe had been chosen to captain this beleaguered crew. “I see.”
