The Ship Beyond Time Page 6

  He cocked his head. “How will you prevent it?”

  I spoke through my teeth. “I’ll find a way.”

  “Where your father never could?”

  “I’m not my father,” I said, but the words rang hollow. To cover, I opened the bottle of pills and dry-swallowed two. Kash slid his hand up under my hair to rub the back of my neck; his fingers were cool on my skin. I took a deep breath, trying to relax, but the heat hit me like a fist as we stepped outside again.

  Tossing the bottle of aspirin into my bag, I squinted up at the blackening sky. “We’re about to get soaked.”

  Kash preened and plucked at his thin white shirt. “Glad I’m dressed for it.”

  I tried to laugh, and we hurried down the block so quickly I didn’t register the first time the girl on the sidewalk called me by my name.

  CHAPTER SIX

  There was something odd about her eyes.

  They were the color of polished mahogany, almost doll-like, as though they were made of glass. Everything else about her seemed normal, or normal enough. She looked like she was my age, or maybe a bit younger. Her skin was rich brown, and her black hair, thick and glossy, was twisted into a bun. She wore a white bohemian top and carried a canvas tote bag, like a hundred other New Yorkers. I might never have looked at her if she hadn’t said my name.

  How did she know me? My scalp prickled and my heart started to race, the blood pounding in my aching head. I pressed my fingers to my temple. The last time a stranger had hailed me in port, he’d come with a deal we couldn’t refuse—no matter how much I wished we had. So what did this girl want?

  I bit my lip and glanced at Kashmir. He stood with his hip cocked and his free hand resting quite casually near his pocket. I knew he kept a knife there.

  The girl had beckoned us to the meager slip of shade under the black awning of a retail shop that was selling, by all appearances, a single wooden chair, or perhaps the silk shirt draped over the chair’s back. The store was empty but for a hopeful saleswoman. The woman kept casting glances toward us, but the door was closed against the heat; there was no way she could hear what we said. Still, I was not in the habit of speaking frankly to strangers.

  “How do you know me?” I said at last.

  “I don’t think I do,” the girl replied with a soft accent and a sideways look. “Not yet, anyway. But my father sent me to give you something.” Her small hand dove into her tote bag. Kashmir tensed, but rather than a weapon, she lifted out a scroll.

  A map.

  A jolt went through me—but I could see immediately it wasn’t the one my father was missing. The paper was too clean, too pale, and it was rolled instead of folded. It lay across her hands like an offering; beneath it, her palms were decorated with an intricate henna mehndi. What did the map depict? Part of me wanted to snatch it from her, and part of me was afraid to touch it until I knew where the strings were attached. “What’s your name?” I said, stalling.

  “I’m Dahut.” The name was familiar, but I couldn’t recall why, and she continued before it came to me. “Take the map. It’s for you.”

  A distant grumble of thunder echoed her urgency—the storm was approaching, and if I stood here much longer, the paper would be damaged in the rain. I tugged on one end of the leather strip, and the map unrolled, crisp and white. My eyes skimmed over the curving lines of the brick-red ink, the same color as the design on her hands. They delineated an island city in the Iroise Sea, off the westernmost coast of France. I sucked in my breath. “Ys.”

  Kash peered over my shoulder. “Is what?”

  “Ville D’Ys. Or Ker-Ys, if you’re from Brittany rather than Bretagne. The city.” I glanced up at Dahut. Then I took Kashmir’s arm and pulled him closer. “The mythical city,” I whispered. “A utopia. Supposedly the most beautiful city in Europe before it fell.”

  “Fell?” He cocked his head.

  “Drowned.”

  “Like Atlantis?”

  “Or Cantre’r Gwaelod, or Lyonesse. Or New Orleans, really. Much of Ker-Ys was built below sea level, and the Iroise is one of the roughest seas in the world. There was a wall protecting the city, you see?” I pointed at the map. “One day, at high tide, the king’s daughter . . .” I looked back at Dahut, and now I remembered where I’d heard the name before. “Who’s your father?”

  She pressed her lips together—why did the question bother her? “His name is Donald. Donald Crowhurst.”

  I blinked at her. The mythical king of Ker-Ys had been Grandlon . . . but the name Crowhurst was still familiar. “An Englishman? Born in India?”

  Her eyes narrowed then. “You know him.”

  “I know of him.” I let the map roll shut. Kashmir was watching me closely, trying to piece it together, but I couldn’t put it together myself. This was certainly not the myth I knew. “And he’s the king?”

  “In Ker-Ys? No,” she said slowly. “Ys has no king. Not for many years. At least, that’s what my father tells me.”

  “Really.” I gave her a hard stare, but she didn’t elaborate. Her hand went back into her bag; she drew out a letter.

  “He wanted me to give you this, too.”

  A sudden wind rattled the envelope in her hand and kicked a newspaper down the street. “It’s about to pour,” Kash said.

  I shook my head, frustrated; the heat was pressing down like a great hand, and I couldn’t focus. I took the letter. It was sealed, but the mystery of the map was more compelling. It was clearly an invitation from Crowhurst. But why had he sent it to me? And was it safe to accept? Would we sail to Ker-Ys only to be caught in the flood? Joss’s warnings echoed in my ears: lost at sea.

  “So you’ve been here?” I said to the girl, gesturing with the scroll. “To Ker-Ys? What’s it like?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Is it as beautiful as the legend says?” A low roll of thunder thrummed in the air. “What happened to the king? And how did your father find Ker-Ys in the first place? I didn’t think it had ever been mapped—”

  “I don’t know,” she said, interrupting me. “I . . . I don’t remember.”

  “What?” I stared at her. “Why not?”

  Her jaw clenched, and a dark shadow dimmed the shine in her eyes. “I have a condition. With my memory.”

  “Oh.” Another gust of wind pushed between us; overhead, the clouds curdled in the heat. A memory condition? I wanted to ask, but I was sure it would be rude.

  “So?” Dahut lifted her chin, making the word a challenge. “Will you help me?”

  “Help you?” I tensed, remembering the words of the fortune-teller in Chinatown. “Help you do what?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  I swore under my breath. Then we both looked up as a crack of thunder split the sky. The rain began to hit the ground, distant, but coming closer, like the feet of an approaching army. Kash pulled me back under the shop’s awning as the downpour swept over the sidewalk. Dahut only raised her ink-stained hand in farewell.

  “Wait. Wait!”

  But she walked off through the rain as steam rose from the hot concrete. I stared after her, still deeply curious—was she a Navigator too? Would she vanish as I watched? No, she only continued to the end of the block and turned the corner.

  “I am torn,” Kash murmured as we huddled under the canvas. “I’d like to see where she’s going, but I don’t want to leave you alone.”

  “You think she’s dangerous?”

  “You think she isn’t?” He laughed. “What’s that saying? About Trojans and horses?”

  “Greeks bearing gifts.”

  “That’s the one. But Doubt is not a Greek name.”

  “Dahut, I think,” I corrected automatically, softening the T and giving the word a slight emphasis on the second syllable. I tucked the map into my bag. “It’s the name of the princess from the fairy tale.”

  “The tale of Ker-Ys?” He raised an eyebrow. “And what did she do at high tide?”

  I closed my eyes and
pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to remember the story. “The sea gates were one of those utopian marvels. There were counterweights and springs and the like, so they opened when the tide went out, and closed when it came in. Of course, in any myth, there is always room for human error, so there was a key as well. The king kept it on a chain around his neck.”

  “He should have thrown it into the water. Why don’t they ever do that?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he did and a frog brought it back in exchange for a kiss.” Kashmir cocked his head, and I waved my hand. “Different fairy tale. Never mind. Anyway, the story goes that one night, a red-bearded man—or a man dressed in red, the versions differ because of Celtic and Germanic influences on the—”

  Kashmir interrupted me with an airy singsong. “Anyway—”

  “Yes, sorry. Anyway . . .” I took a breath—where was I? “One night, he comes to the princess and asks her to run away with him. All she has to do is steal the key so they can lock the gates behind them and prevent the king from tracking them down. Of course, the strange man is the devil, and he uses the key to open the sea gates at high tide. Just as the city floods, a saint appears—”

  “To save the town?”

  “To denounce the princess for witchcraft. The town is doomed, I’m afraid.”

  “What kind of fairy tale is this?” Kash muttered.

  I gave him a twisted smile. “Fairy tales can be pretty horrible, when you think about it. There were likely a few survivors who spread the story. But the myth only mentions the king escaping on his magical horse—a black steed that could run over the waves.”

  “And the princess?” Kash glanced down the sidewalk, but Dahut was long gone.

  “She drowns,” I said softly. “Or maybe turns into a mermaid, depending again on the version.”

  Kashmir lifted his hand, catching raindrops in his palm. “I suppose in this weather, either could happen.”

  I laughed a little. “It does seem a little . . . far-fetched.”

  “It seems we’ve met her before her story ends.”

  “But even before the mermaid thing, the myth paints her as a . . .” I sorted words in my head, trying not to blush. “Well. You know how people talk about pretty women in power. They said she was . . . sinful.”

  “You mean sex.”

  The blush I’d been fighting won. “Yes. That’s what the legends say—that she took a new lover every night, or that she was a witch and slept with the devil to get her powers. It was an allegory meant to focus on the wicked ways of the pagans. But she didn’t seem . . .”

  Kashmir grinned. “You can’t tell just by looking.”

  My cheeks were hot. “She didn’t seem like a princess, is what I was going to say.”

  “You can’t always tell that, either.”

  “And the king’s name in the myth was Grandlon, not Crowhurst. Crowhurst is definitely not a king.”

  “Then what is he?”

  “Every sailor’s heard the story.” I dug my cell phone out of my back pocket. Typing with a thumb, the name autocompleted once I hit C. “Donald Crowhurst,” I read. “The Dark Horse of the Sea, they called him—very dramatic. Disappeared in 1969 while pretending to sail single-handedly around the world.”

  “Pretending?”

  “He was trying to win a contest.”

  “Hmm. Money?”

  “And fame. But he barely knew how to sail.” I looked at the picture accompanying the article; a pale man in his thirties with deep-set eyes and a boyish grin. “Still, he was brilliant. He spent months alone, sending false calculations back to London that showed him in the lead. He tricked everyone—the judges, the newspapers. Even his family. They were planning a hero’s welcome in England when his yacht was found abandoned in the Sargasso Sea, along with most of his logbooks. They were filled with wild ramblings and formulas for time travel. The last page showed a countdown to the end of some cosmic game. Everyone thought he’d gone mad from the strain and committed suicide, but . . .” A thrill kindled like a flame in my chest. “But he must have figured out how to Navigate instead.”

  How had he done it? I had learned my skills from the captain, but Slate had discovered his abilities on a drug trip. Had months of solitude and uncertainty led Crowhurst down a similar path? But Kash was frowning. “His family? You mean aside from his daughter.”

  I scrolled down the screen. “He had a daughter, but her name wasn’t Dahut.”

  Kash tapped his finger on his chin. “But Dahut is the name of the mythical princess.”

  “That’s the weird thing.”

  He laughed. “Yes, that’s the weird thing.”

  Tucking the phone back into my pocket, my hand went to my pearl pendant; I slid it back and forth on the chain. If there was no king, then Dahut was not a princess; if there was no princess, no one was fated to flood the city. Perhaps the map was safe to use. But was it worth it? I couldn’t deny that I had questions—and more than that, I longed for this adventure. A journey to a strange utopian isle. But there were more pressing issues at hand than the mysterious fate of a mythical island.

  Reluctantly, I dropped the pendant with a sigh. That was when I noticed Kash watching me, his eyes expectant. “If you’re not going to read it, at least let me,” he said.

  “What?”

  Quick as a wink, he snatched the envelope from my hand; I’d completely forgotten about it in my study of the map. He slid his finger under the flap and unfolded the paper. “‘Dear Nixie,’” he began, and grimaced—even from the back, I could see the letter was written in nearly indecipherable cursive. “‘Please accept my most . . . sincere apologies for . . . borrowing your father’s map’?”

  “What?” I snatched the letter back from him, rage pooling in my stomach. “The gall—”

  “Keep reading!”

  My voice was tight with anger, but I continued aloud. “‘I had to ensure you would accept my invitation, as I have great need of your assistance in Ker-Ys. I have grand plans; already I have saved the island from its fate. I think it will be of particular interest to you and your father that, using the skills we share, I’ve conceived of a way to change—’”

  I stopped then, the end of the sentence sticking to the back of my tongue.

  “Change what, amira?”

  My lips moved, but no sound came out. The rain drummed on the canvas overhead, falling so hard that the drops bounced from the concrete, wetting the toes of my shoes. The air was much cooler now, and smelled like minerals. Water flooded the gutters and ran in rivulets across the pavement.

  “Amira? Change what?”

  I cleared my throat and forced the words out. “The past.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Kashmir shook his head. “This is the most obvious con I’ve ever seen.”

  I glanced up from the letter. “A con?”

  “Step inside, I’ll show you wonders!” He gave me a grand gesture and a huckster’s smile. “Payment up front, of course.”

  Scanning Crowhurst’s letter again, I shook my head. “He doesn’t mention money at all.”

  “Your talents are more valuable. Remember, amira, this has happened before.”

  The air was cool now, but at his words, I went cold. “This isn’t the same as Hawaii.”

  “No? Tell me. Utopia—isn’t that another word for paradise?”

  “Paradises are generally god-given. Utopias are man-made.”

  “I trust men even less than I trust gods. Come, amira. Doesn’t this seem a little too convenient?”

  In spite of his words, excitement kindled a flame in my chest. “But she said there was no king—that’s very different from the myth. And if that was a new version of Dahut, he must have changed something.”

  “Version?” Kashmir stared at me, disgust thick in his voice. “What does that mean?”

  “Well. You know. What I said before—how the myth talks about the princess being . . .” I made a vague, voluptuous gesture with my hands. “And she’s still al
ive. I mean, if he’s saved her, maybe I can—”

  “What I mean is, how can a person have versions?”

  “All myths have versions,” I said with a shrug. “I mean, in some stories her name isn’t even Dahut, it’s Ahes. That’s one of the things that makes it a myth. It’s only once everyone agrees on one version of the past that it becomes history.”

  “But that’s because people tell different stories, isn’t it? Not because there are different versions walking about!”

  “I don’t know. Why does it bother you so much? I mean, you’ve been on the ship when we’ve visited mythological maps. You even came from a . . .” My voice trailed off at the look in his eyes. “Oh.”

  Kashmir turned his head, staring at the falling rain. I chewed my lip. For a long time, neither of us spoke.

  “Some people say that everyone has a doppelgänger,” I offered at last. “That’s like a different version of you. Like a twin. But usually evil.” I frowned as the next thought came. “Or sometimes just a harbinger of bad luck.”

  “That’s not helpful.”

  “Right.” I pressed my lips together to keep my foot out of my mouth. Kashmir did have a larger point. Crowhurst was infamous for his lies; moreover, his invitation did seem suspiciously well timed. And how had he found us in the first place? I wished Dahut had been more forthcoming—or that Crowhurst had come himself. Odd that he’d had sent her with a letter instead. Especially in light of her condition.

  A memory disorder? It was hard to imagine; my own memory had always been encyclopedic. I made a new search on the cell phone. The link to the Mayo Clinic listed Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s, dementia—but the girl hadn’t been older than sixteen. I kept scrolling. Traumatic head injury? No, she’d still be in the hospital if something like that had happened in the last few days. Retrograde amnesia was very rarely caused by brain tumors—I bit my lip; poor thing—but more often by alcohol, drugs . . . depression. I held my breath, my mind no longer on the girl.