The Ship Beyond Time Read online

  He shook his head a little. “Kash went to get me some antibiotics.”

  “I have that mercury in my cabin,” I offered. “The bottle I took from Qin’s tomb. It’s supposed to be a cure-all, if you want to give it a try.”

  Slate laughed—or was it a cough? “Save it for someone who needs it. I’ll be fine, I told you.”

  “Okay.” My hand fell back to my side, and I stared at him for a while. His eyes were closed again, and his breathing was slowing, but the question ate at me like a shipworm. “What did Joss say?”

  Shifting, he murmured into the crook of his shoulder. “She promised I’ll see your mother again before I die.”

  “No, I mean . . .” I made a face—I almost stopped myself there. Joss had offered to tell my fortune once, back in Honolulu. I’d declined, but that was before I knew her prediction concerned Kashmir. “What did she say will happen to me?”

  “Oh. She . . . Nixie.” Blinking, he peered at me with bleary eyes. “I tried so hard. But you didn’t listen, did you? You’re in love with him.”

  “Dad—”

  “You are, I can tell.” He tried to smile but coughed instead, a thick, phlegmy sound. “I know what love looks like.”

  My cheeks went pink; I clenched my jaw. I didn’t want my love to look like his. “Just tell me, Slate.”

  “Fine. Here,” he said, rolling onto his stomach, struggling free from the sheet, and looking over his right shoulder. There, high on his back, an old tattoo in a familiar handwriting, sharp and choppy—three columns of Chinese characters running down his shoulder blade, short, medium, long. “Joss got one of her goons to do it while I was . . . you know.”

  “Right.” I’d seen it before, in passing, but my father was covered in tattoos, and I’d learned not to ask him their stories. “What does it say?”

  “It was more than fifteen years ago. Just after I got back to Honolulu and found out your mother was . . .” His voice faltered; he cleared his throat. “I don’t remember the exact words. But . . .” He tried to reach back over his shoulder with his left hand, then he swore, giving up. “That first line, that’s where I die—down in Joss’s opium den, back in 1868.”

  I shuddered at the words, spoken so casually, but Slate had never feared death. I’d always attributed it to a morbid twist in his mind, or maybe a manic optimism, but perhaps it was because he thought he’d die happy.

  He went on, like it was nothing. “And next to that, it’s where she promised I’d see your mother before it’s all over. The last part’s about you.”

  I wet my lips. “What about me, exactly?”

  “It’s a warning.” Slate sighed. “She said you’ll end up just like me.”

  “But how?” My frustration was rising. “An addict? A captain? Covered in tattoos?”

  “You’ll lose the one you love!” he shot back, but his tone was not half so harsh as the words. He swallowed. “To the sea,” he added softly. “It will break your heart.”

  “Lost at sea?” In the silence, my heart pounded. Behind my eyes, I could see the white wake, when Kash had gone over the side. I stared at the characters, stark in blue ink, but they were indecipherable to me. “When?”

  “I didn’t ask. I didn’t believe her, back then.”

  “I don’t believe her either,” I said, as though saying it could make it true.

  “Yeah?” Slate’s eyes narrowed. “Good for you.”

  He closed his eyes and turned his face toward the wall. A pang of guilt hit me, but not as painful as the truth: Joss wasn’t some showy mystic making fake predictions. And she had clearly taken measures to make sure I’d know the fate she’d seen for me. But why?

  Surreptitiously, I slipped my cell phone out of my pocket and snapped a picture of the tattoo; this way I could go to Chinatown and get it translated. Maybe there was more to it than what my father remembered. Maybe he’d gotten the wording wrong. Joss was a hard woman, but not cruel—she would not have sent this fortune just to taunt me. But what good was a warning if she had already seen it happen? Did she expect me to simply brace myself for the inevitable?

  Or did she want me to try to change it?

  The thought surfaced like a bloated body; bile burned on the back of my tongue. For years, I had watched my father try to do that very thing, dragging me in his wake, unsure whether each journey would be my last. After all, not even science knew what would happen if the past were to be remade. Would I wink out of existence? Would the present bend to a new reality? Or would the tapestry of history unravel completely?

  All my life, Slate had failed to find the answer to those questions, dashing himself against the rocks, as ceaseless and uncaring as the tide. It was only after this last trip—after Honolulu, after he’d almost killed us all—that he’d finally promised to stop trying.

  Was I fated to take up where he’d left off?

  My mind churned, turbulent. I shoved my phone back in my pocket and looked for distractions—in the captain’s cabin, they were easy to find. Vigorously, I began to clean, clearing away the medical detritus, tossing Slate’s bloody shirt into the bin, capping the tube of ointment, closing the first aid kit. What was I going to do?

  My first instinct was to tell Kashmir, but could a warning avert his fate? Or would Joss’s prediction only hang over his head like the sword of Damocles? And how would he view what amounted to an admission of star-crossed love, complete with an unhappy ending? How would we both have reacted today, had we known what Joss had predicted? Despair can drag a man down deeper than a kraken.

  Swearing under my breath, I rolled the map of Tahiti, glaring at the flat-eyed demon decorating the compass rose. The beliefs of the mapmaker influenced what the Navigator would find on any map, I knew that. I should have paid more attention before choosing, instead of daydreaming about—about oranges. Any one of us could easily have died out there in the Margins.

  But was the open ocean any safer? Kashmir could be swept overboard in a storm, or even slip on the pier and drown. Futures I’d never imagined played out in my head: Kash and me, leaving the ship. Moving inland. Forging a life far from the sea, far from my home. The thought made my chest constrict, as though I were deep underwater—I couldn’t imagine trading terra incognita for terra firma. But better to lose the sea than let it take Kashmir.

  We’d never buy our own ship, then. So what would it be? A cottage? A flat? I could hardly build this strange life in my head; I had no firm foundation for it. And visions of global warming and massive tidal waves washed those plans away. If I’d learned anything from studying myths, it was that fate could not be cheated. I shook my head to clear it, wishing I’d never asked. What was the use of knowing? How could I ever protect Kashmir from all harm?

  A soft knock at the door cut through my Gordian thoughts. I glanced at Slate, but he didn’t move; his breathing had slowed and deepened into sleep. So I went to the door and found Kashmir standing just outside.

  At the sight of him, my heart leaped, a fish on the line. He’d changed out of his wet clothes and into something typically dashing—a pair of artfully ragged jeans and a white linen shirt, open at the throat. In the fading light, the fabric glowed against his golden skin. He’d even tucked a sprig of seaweed behind one ear, as though to thumb his nose at the sea.

  As for me, the salt had made my curls unruly, and my clothes were stained with blood and ink. But when he saw me, he drank me in with his eyes as though I’d come to the door wearing a full-length gown—or perhaps as though I were wearing nothing at all.

  The thought made my blood rush. I looked down at my feet before he could read it in my expression. “What’s going on, Kash?”

  “I brought these up from the hold,” he said, rattling a plastic bottle of pills. “Antibiotics,” he added quickly, but I only nodded. “How is he?”

  I shrugged. “Still alive.”

  “Was that ever in doubt?” Kashmir gave me a grin. “I thought Joss said he’d live till he got back to 1868.”

&n
bsp; I clenched my fists, and the map of Tahiti crumpled in my hands. “Joss said a lot of things.”

  Kashmir’s brow furrowed; he cocked his head. “Is something wrong, amira?”

  For a moment I wanted to shout a warning, like some weathered witch—the weird sisters standing over a cauldron, beware, beware. “Nothing.” But I could see it in his eyes: he knew it was a lie. I reached for the pills, to cover. “I’ll give him these. But how are you feeling?”

  “Fine, thanks to you.” He ran a casual hand through his hair; his fingers shook, ever so slightly. “But I’ll admit it. I’d never been more terrified in my life.”

  “Really?” I kept my voice light. “I wouldn’t have expected you to be scared of any old Tahitian octopus demon.”

  “That’s not what I was afraid of.”

  His tone brought me up short. I knew his fear. I’d shared it: the threat of loss. Suddenly, I wanted to hold him again as I had held him out in the water—though I did not know which of us would be keeping the other afloat. And the older terror resurfaced like a leviathan in the depths: the fear of having something to lose in the first place. My father’s lesson to me, and the one I’d learned best. How could I reach for Kashmir, knowing he’d be torn away? Or worse—what if by following my heart, I sealed his fate? I cast about for something else to say—a way to change the subject. “How’s Blake?”

  Kashmir’s expression didn’t change, but he shifted on his feet, the bells on his ankle chiming softly. “Settling in, I think. I gave him some clothes that should fit.”

  “You gave him your clothes?” I blinked at him, but Kash waved away my disbelief.

  “I didn’t say they were nice clothes.” The ghost of a smile crossed his lips and faded. “I explained things as best I could, but he still has questions that only you can answer.”

  “I’ll go talk to him. Thank you, Kash.”

  “He’ll need his vaccines soon, don’t forget. I think there’s a veterinarian just up the block.”

  “Right.” I hid my smile and started to shut the door.

  “One more thing, amira,” he said, as the laughter in his eyes gave way to shy hope. “I know it’s a beautiful night for sleeping under the stars. But I hope you know you’re always welcome in my cabin.”

  “Oh?” My voice cracked; my mouth was dry. I tried again. “Oh. Thank you.” My heart was pounding—could he hear it? A word echoed in my head: yes, yes. Instead I slammed the door and leaned against it; it was some time before I heard the sound of his ankle bells as he walked away.

  More than anything, I wanted to go after him—to follow him to his cabin, to tell him what I felt, what I feared. But what a cruel thing, to lighten my burden by making him carry it!

  Sighing, I pushed off the door, depositing the pill bottle at Slate’s bedside. The map of Tahiti was still in my hand, crushed and sweaty; I smoothed it out against my thigh as best I could before sliding it back into its section: HISTORICAL MAPS OF THE PACIFIC. Beside it was one Blake had drawn for us—a map of Oahu, the only home he’d ever known.

  Blake was an artist and an explorer. He and I had bonded over maps the day we’d met. He had showed me the healing spring that had saved his life, and sketches of hidden paths and secret places all over the island he knew so well—the island that would have been my home if my mother hadn’t died. That had only been a few weeks ago, but in the time since, I had managed to betray his trust, to commit treason against his country, and to force him to choose between my life and his father’s. Until Slate had given me Joss’s fortune, I had thought that making peace with Blake would be my greatest challenge in the coming days. Could the two of us ever go back to before?

  Perhaps it would be better to find a new route forward.

  Opening a different cabinet, I rummaged through a set of charts until I found what I wanted. Then I slipped back out into the dusky night, taking a deep breath of the summer air: the diesel and the docks and the exhaust from the city, all of it so much fresher than the miasma in the captain’s cabin.

  It was very late and I was deeply tired, so I nearly didn’t notice on my way toward the hatch—my hammock, already strung between the rail and the mast. A light quilt was folded neatly in the center, and on my pillow lay the sprig of seaweed that Kash had been wearing behind his ear. He must have known I wouldn’t come to his cabin. Or maybe he’d wanted me to know that he hadn’t confused hope with expectation. With a sigh, I slid down the ladder into the belly of the ship.

  The Temptation hadn’t been built for trade, but comfort. Space usually given to guns or cargo had been fitted out with spacious cabins on either side of a long hall lined with sky-herring lamps. My eyes adjusted to their shifting light as I lingered at the base of the ladder, close to the galley at the stern. At the far end of the corridor, toward the prow of the ship, there was a door that closed off the little triangle of space behind the forecastle.

  It had been a storage space once, cramped and uncomfortable—the worst place on the ship, especially in high seas when the waves slammed the prow and the Temptation dipped like a duck on the water. But when Kash had come aboard, I’d moved my things there to give him a proper room. How many times had I walked this hall? Today, it seemed impossibly long.

  I hesitated again outside the makeshift cabin. What would I say to Blake? What questions did he have? The little fish in the nearest lamp swam to the glass, hoping to be fed, but the bee pollen was in the hold. Soft light shimmered along her scales, illuminating the grain of the wood, the scarring on the finish; it was an odd feeling, to knock on my own door.

  “Come.”

  Blake was sitting cross-legged on my tattered old quilt—the one my father had wrapped me in when he’d taken me from the islands. He had changed from his linen suit into an expensive pair of jeans and a vintage T-shirt with a mermaid on it; no matter how Kashmir teased, he hadn’t been stingy. And across the knees of those nice jeans lay one of my history books, open to a black-and-white photograph . . . 1941, the explosions at Pearl Harbor, as seen from beneath the overhanging leaf of a palm.

  Inside, I groaned. Why hadn’t I taken my books before letting Blake into the room?

  He looked up at me from under his thatch of blond hair. His cheeks, always pale, were now wan, and the skin under his blue eyes looked bruised. It startled me; for a moment, his face reminded me of my father’s. “I wish you’d told me it was all for nothing,” he said, his voice rusty.

  “What was?”

  “My hope that the kingdom of Hawaii could be saved.” He closed the book and ran his hand over the cover. “It’s in here, you know. The theft of the gold.”

  “Is it?” I blinked; my memory was usually faultless. “I don’t remember that.”

  “A little footnote about an unconfirmed report in a California newspaper.” He sighed. “It is a strange thing, reading the future written as the past. It feels like a fairy tale, where I’ve slept for a hundred years. You knew what would happen to the kingdom long before we met. But I can’t help feeling I could have prevented it, had I made a different choice.”

  I toyed with the door handle. “What choice?”

  “To stop you, rather than to save you.” His eyes held mine, and I did not drop my gaze. “You must have known your actions would pave the way for the downfall of the kingdom. So why did you help my father rob the treasury?”

  “The downfall was never in doubt, Blake. There were too many people, with too much power, all working against the monarchy. And we needed your father’s map. The one of Honolulu in 1868.” I sighed. “The captain would have done . . . almost anything to save my mother’s life.”

  “Oh?” Something like compassion blunted the edge in his voice. “And has he saved her?”

  I did look down then, at my bare feet, awkward on the threshold. “No.”

  “So it really was all for nothing.”

  Irritation stabbed through my guilt. “Don’t you think I would have changed things if I could? For you, and for Slate. But it wasn�
��t up to me.”

  “Who do you blame it on, then?” His smile was as twisted as a noose. “Your father? Mine?”

  I gestured to the book. “History.”

  “History?” He shut the book and tossed it aside. “What a pointless existence you must lead! How can you bear to see tragedy coming and not try to stop it?”

  At his words, I went cold. “What would you have done instead?”

  “Some Hawaiians fought for the monarchy. In 1893.”

  “If you read about them, you know they failed. Seven dead, and for what?”

  “Your book says eight.”

  “Does it?” I half wanted to ask to see the book—but what did the difference matter? “Even worse.”

  “Why? A hundred years later, and everyone I knew is dead. But some were right, and some were wrong.”

  “So you prefer a pointless death to a pointless life?”

  “Why shouldn’t I set my sights higher, Miss Song? With a little luck, I could have both.”

  I bit my lip, trying to trim the sails on my anger; I’d wanted to help Blake, not bicker with him. I took a deep breath—then another. “May I come in?”

  At his gesture, I stepped through the doorway. Blake’s eyes darkened, taking in my bloody shirt, my wild hair, the blue rings of the bruises coiling up my right leg. “There was a storm,” he said, leaving it up to me whether to answer the question implicit in the statement. But I only shook my head.

  “It’s over now.”

  The room, already small, felt crowded with the both of us in it. My trunk was open in the corner, and all my clothes and books were still scattered across the floor; I made a mental note to move everything into the hold in the morning. Folding my knees, I sat down by his side on the scrap of quilt. “Here. I brought you something.”

  “What are these?”

  “They’re all New York. This is from 1981,” I said, smoothing out a hand-drawn map, shaded in watercolors, of the city’s neighborhoods. “This one’s a hundred years earlier. From 1880, around your time. Look how the coastline changed. And here’s a subway map,” I added, unfolding the colorful cartoon version from the modern day.