Brine and Bubbles

The hold of The Sultry Siren smelled of bilge water, dried tallow, and tarred oakum. It was a suffocating, low-ceilinged cavern beneath the main deck, where the endless creaking of the hull sounded like a giant wooden ribcage straining against the weight of the sea.

For the first six hours, the children were treated not as mysterious travelers, but as dangerous deadweight.

“Keep your mouths shut and your hands busy,” First Mate Bob had snarled, hauling them down the hatchway by their collars shortly after their interrogation. He shoved them toward a pile of stiff, saltwater-soaked hemp cables and wooden tubs. “The Captain may have a soft heart for children’s tales, but I don’t. You scrub the tallow off these deck-planks, or I toss you over the rail to feed the reef-sharks.”

The children labored under the watchful eye of a scarred pirate named Ned, who sat on an overturned cask of salt pork.

For Marc, the work was straightforward enough, though the heavy oak buckets strained his arms. But for Rudy and Jane, every minute was a nerve-wracking exercise in observation.

“They’re repeating themselves,” Jane murmured, her voice low over the scrape of her brush. She watched three sailors in the gloom of the berth deck rolling a barrel of black powder toward the hatch. “That sailor in the red kerchief told the man next to him his boots were leaking half an hour ago. Same tone, same words. And the other man laughed at the very same second.”

Rudy paused, his scrub-brush hovering over the wet floorboards. He watched the berth deck. The sailor in the kerchief spat into the bilge, leaned against the bulkhead, and spoke.

“I’m telling you, Tom, these bloody boots are leaking salt water straight through the soles.”

The man beside him barked out a short laugh that cut off instantly.

Rudy felt a sudden prickle of cold air on the back of his neck. “A script,” he whispered, his eyes widening.

Above them, shouting erupted on the quarterdeck. Heavy boots thundered across the pine planks overhead.

“That’s Bob’s voice,” Marc said, dropping his rag and stepping toward the ladder.

“Marc, stay down here!” Rudy started, but Marc was already scrambling up three rungs, peeking his head just above the coaming of the hatchway. Rudy and Jane followed right behind him.

On the main deck, the sun was bright, but the sky had taken on an unnatural deep indigo along the eastern horizon. Lynn Morgan stood near the wheel, her hand resting on the pommel of her cutlass.

“You’ve kept us lingering in these cursed shoals for three days, Captain!” Bob roared, his broad face flushed red with rage. Several crew members gathered in a half-circle around him, their hands resting on their cutlass hilts or pistol butts. “The men are tired of dodging Spanish patrols while you stare into your trinkets! If that stone can show us a safe passage out of the Bahamas, we take it now!”

“You don’t understand how the pearl works,” Lynn said quietly. “It isn’t a chart. It doesn’t yield to demand.”

“It yields to whomever holds it!” Bob growled.

The mutiny happened quickly. Bob and a dozen pirates seized the quarterdeck while Lynn was consulting the pearl. They disarmed her before she could draw her pistol, and Bob ripped the cord from her neck, holding the purple pearl aloft like a trophy.

“By the authority of the crew,” he bellowed, “I’m taking command of this ship!”

The moment Bob’s fingers closed around the jewel, the air aboard The Sultry Siren snapped.

Static hummed through the deck timbers. The rolling blue waves flattened into an oily sheet of dark purple glass. In Bob’s fist, the pearl flared with a harsh violet light, casting stretched, angular shadows across the crew’s pale faces.

Bob gasped, his eyes bulging as he stumbled backward, trying to drop the stone. But the Pearl seemed stuck to his palm, pulsing like an overheated coal.

“Sails off the starboard quarter!” a voice shrieked from the crow’s nest. The lookout’s voice cracked with panic. “Spanish colors! Three sail of the line!”

Rudy felt his stomach drop into a cold abyss. He reached into Jane’s canvas bag and pulled out the Speculum Mirror. The polished metal surface hummed against his fingertips, reflecting three towering Spanish line-of-battle ships rounding the jagged spit of Cayo de la Cruz, their gunports open and their red battle ensigns flapping.

“Don Cristóbal’s fleet,” Rudy breathed. “It’s happening.”

“Clear the deck for action!” Lynn shouted, her voice cutting through the panic as she drew her cutlass. She lunged forward, slamming the brass pommel of her sword into Bob’s wrist. The heavy blow forced his fingers open, and the Purple Pearl tumbled onto the deckboards, its glare dampening into a throb.

“To the guns, you fools! Run out the larboard battery!” Lynn commanded.

“Traitorous devils!” Bob screamed, clutching his swollen wrist as he pointed a trembling finger at the children peaking out of the hatchway. “They brought them to us! They’re Spanish scouts!”

Before Lynn could stop them, three burly sailors lunged forward, seizing Marc, Jane, and Rudy by their arms. They dragged the children down the hatchway, shoving them into the dark, timbered brig cell in the forward hold. The iron bolt slid home with a heavy clack.

“Hey! Let us out!” Marc yelled, slamming his shoulder against the iron-reinforced door. It didn’t budge.

“It’s no use, Marc,” Rudy said, his voice quiet as he leaned against the curved oak hull. “This is how it played out in 1719. The attack, the trap, it’s all proceeding exactly as the historical record said.”

Outside, the world turned into absolute thunder.

A broadside from the Spanish fleet slammed into The Sultry Siren, throwing the children onto the damp bilge planks. Iron balls tore through sea and timber in a continuous roar.

Overhead, wood groaned as shot shattered a rail. An instant later, a deafening crack split the wall beside their cell.

Blinding white splinters and choking black powder filled the air as an iron ball sheared through the oak bulkhead, leaving a jagged breach into the hold.

“Marc! Jane! You okay?!” Rudy coughed, staggering up through the swirling smoke.

“I’m fine!” Jane called out, cradling the Speculum Mirror to her chest.

Marc didn’t answer immediately. He was down on one knee near the shattered bulkhead, his right hand gripping his left upper arm. Blood leaked rapidly through his torn sleeve where a jagged oak splinter had raked across his flesh.

“Marc!” Jane gasped, dropping beside him.

“It’s a graze,” Marc grunted through clenched teeth, his face pale. “It stings, but I can move it. Look, the wall’s down! We can get through!”

Using a fallen, smoking oak knee as a lever, Marc and Rudy pried away a twisted iron bar from the broken bulkhead, creating an opening just wide enough for them to squeeze through. They scrambled out of the ruined cell and up the ladder to the gun deck.

The scene above was pure carnage. Smoke hung thick and grey across the bay, illuminated by bursts of orange flame as Lynn’s crew desperately returned fire with their few small 6-pounder guns. But their shot bounced harmlessly off the thick oak armor of the Spanish flagship.

Through the haze, Lynn appeared, her face smeared with soot. She had reclaimed the Purple Pearl, holding its silver chain wrapped tightly around her knuckles.

“You three!” Lynn yelled, grabbing Marc by his good shoulder as he stumbled onto the deck. She saw the blood on his sleeve and her eyes widened. “You’re hit! Get to the lee side, now!”

“Captain, your fleet can’t win this battle!” Rudy shouted over the roar of another Spanish broadside. “The historical records say your ships were completely destroyed here!”

Lynn looked out across the water. Her two escort schooners were already burning to the waterline, their rigging collapsing into the sea like charred cobwebs.

“There is no escaping them by sail,” Lynn said, her voice dropping into an eerie calmness. She looked at the Purple Pearl in her fist. “The stone will find a way. It always finds a way.”

“No! Don’t use it!” Jane cried, reaching out to grasp Lynn’s arm. “Lynn, look at the sea!”

Herding the children down the lee side, Lynn shoved them into a small wooden cutter boat away from the Spanish guns. She dropped into the stern, holding the pearl, and urged them toward the shallow shore reefs where the heavy warships couldn’t follow.

They rowed hard, oars biting into the dark water.

A sudden jerk threw them forward. The boat halted dead in its tracks.

There was nothing in front of them, just wide, open turquoise sea.

Rudy reached out his hand, extending his fingers into the empty air two feet in front of the bow. His palm flattened against an invisible, solid surface. A sharp, high-pitched hum vibrated through the air.

“What is this?” Lynn muttered, staring at Rudy’s flattened hand hanging in thin air. “What’s holding us?!”

“It’s like a barrier in a video game,” Marc said. “An invisible wall at the edge of the map.”

Below them, where the invisible wall met the ocean, the water was behaving unnaturally. Thick, white brine and sulfur-scented bubbles boiled up from the seafloor, hissing as they hit the air.

Jane stared at the rippling water. “It’s surrounding us,” she whispered.

“It isn’t just a wall in front of us,” Rudy said, his voice trembling as he looked around at the entire bay. The invisible barrier curved around them in a vast, perfect arc, enclosing The Sultry Siren, the burning escort ships, and the three towering Spanish line-of-battle ships.

“It’s a circle,” Rudy whispered, watching the white brine boil along the curving boundary line. He looked out toward the horizon, where the edges of the tropical sky seemed to be creeping inward, turning into a strange, flickering shade of violet grey. “And it’s shrinking.”