The Painted Room Page 15

  Chapter 12

  Drowned

  From high above their heads, May heard a loud manic yell as Carlisle vaulted over the guardrail of the ship.

  He landed less than a yard away. A great surge of spray erupted out of the sea, gushed over the rowboat and drenched them in icy water. May cringed and let out a shuddering breath.

  She saw his hand rise up over the side as he placed the sword in the boat. He swam to the ship's rope ladder, hoisted himself out of the water and stood on the last rung. "Get out of the way," he hollered in sulky anger before stepping into the rowboat.

  Happily, she and Sheila plunked down on the bench opposite.

  Carlisle, streaking water, sat down heavily in the rowboat. He rubbed his eyes and face, discovered that his hands were shaking, and put them quickly on the handles of the oars.

  "Thank you," said May with a triumphant smile as she pushed the rowboat away from the ship's hull.

  "Five minutes, May!" he yelled at her as he began rowing away the last of his dark energy, making huge slices through the water. "That's all I asked."

  She blew a loud raspberry through her lips. "For Fowler? Oh, please. That guy's not worth two minutes let alone five. Besides, have you ever actually killed someone?"

  Whatever he had expected her to say, it had not been that. He stared at her with his mouth ajar and blinked.

  She swallowed. "Intentionally, that is?"

  "No," he said huskily, shaking his head. "Never."

  "Well, there you go," she exclaimed with relief. "How could you have lived with that on your conscience?"

  "Believe me, for Fowler I could've got by somehow."

  May wrung out the bottom of her t-shirt over the side of the rowboat. "You know, what were you thinking? You nearly hit the rowboat on the way down. Couldn't you have aimed a little better? You couldn't have done worse if you hadn't looked at all."

  Carlisle just rowed.

  "You didn't look, did you? We could have all been killed!" she shouted.

  "Well, it was either that or not at all, because I sure wasn't going down the ladder," he shouted back.

  "I can't believe—"

  "I'm just glad you came," piped in Sheila, sending May a look.

  Carlisle nodded a moody thanks.

  "And I think what you did was amazing," Sheila added.

  "Well, I wouldn't say—"

  "No," said May. "She's right. It was amazing. How did you learn to do that?"

  He looked out at the sea a moment and then said, "My father thought I was a bit ... ah—" he searched for the right word and shrugged, unable to avoid the first one that had come into his head, "clumsy, when I was young. He thought fencing might do me some good. It was no hardship, but I'm not sure it ever cured the problem. I never dreamt I would use it for anything like this."

  "Are you left handed or right?" asked May.

  "They tried to teach me to use my right, but I just couldn't get it."

  "Could have fooled me. I'd love to be able to do that even half as well."

  "I'm out of practice. Lucky for me, Fowler was sloppy."

  "And drunk," May added.

  "Believe me, not as much as I would have liked. You know, I've seen a few women fence and they can be quite good. When you get home, you should find someone to learn from."

  "Have you ever fenced any?"

  "Any? Any what?"

  "You know, women."

  "That's not exactly sporting, is it?" said Carlisle.

  "Well, have you?"

  "I might have," he said, then scowled at the oars as if they suddenly needed his intense concentration.

  "Were you ever beaten by one?"

  "I have a longer reach."

  "That's not really an answer, is it?" said May.

  "It's the only one I have for you."

  "Well, since you got us out of there and all, I guess I can cut you some slack."

  He shook his head. "The truth of it is, if the captain hadn't stepped in, none of us would have got off that ship alive. I should never have brought you there. It was too much of a risk."

  "Oh, I'm sure you would have thought of something," said May, though she wasn't entirely sure at all. "By the way, I didn't know that a pirate ship was what you had in mind when you said you wanted to find a place for yourself."

  "Not my first choice."

  "But it has its appeal, don't you think?"

  "Well, there wasn't much choice under the circumstances."

  "Oh, of course, of course. And thank you. I only meant that it's definitely an adventurous life, and pirates—well, they seem to have their own misguided sense of purpose somehow. Though I'm not really sure what that is."

  "Every man for himself?" said Sheila.

  "Yeah, I'd say that's probably it," said May. "Not a real bright bunch either. It's definitely a good thing the captain keeps them on a short leash. They get too much time on their own they might start thinking for themselves, and I'm not so sure that's such a good idea where that pack of cut-throats is concerned." She snorted a laugh. "Heck, they'd probably just all kill each other anyway. Come to think of it, maybe that wouldn't be such a bad idea after all."

  Sheila said, "Well, for what it's worth, Mr. Carlisle, I think that guy was wrong. I don't think you belong there at all. I'm glad we're all off that ship together."

  "Besides, those pirates aren't going to fare too well," said May. "They pretty much fall apart after the captain dies. Even if you survived the battle, with all that pillaging, killing and dirt ... " she looked down at her hands as if seeing them for the first time and made a face, "… I can't imagine any of them live too long." She leaned over the side of the boat and washed her hands in the salt water.

  Sheila's eyes narrowed to slits. "Serves 'em right. What a revolting bunch of evil men. I hope their ship burns to a crisp and they all drown in the ocean." And whether to get the taste of the man she bit out of her mouth or to curse them all, she spat into the water.

  All three of them jumped as the sound of a loud gunshot erupted from the deck of the Royal Fortune. May held her breath, and Carlisle stopped rowing to watch the ship.

  Over the rail of the galleon, the pirates threw a green velvet rag doll. From across the water, they heard a loud splash.

  May looked at Carlisle and watched a sinister satisfaction creep across his features. When he became aware that her eyes were on him, he extinguished the look and started rowing again.

  In the distance, they watched the Swallow approach the Royal Fortune until the two ships were squared off, broadsides. The Royal Fortune struck the French flag she had been pretending and sent up the Jolly Roger. The other ship struck her own French colors and hoisted the flag of the British navy.

  In a matter of seconds, the sea around the rowboat darkened to the color of ink and a cold wind began to blow the rolling waves into white crests. Leaden clouds covered the sky and began to send out silver lightning bolts down onto the surface of the ebony water.

  "How—how can the weather change so fast here?" cried May, watching the churning black water around the rowboat with mounting anxiety.

  "It's the battle," said Sheila. "The battle is causing it."

  "That's not possible," said May.

  All the emotion was drained out of Sheila. "Sometimes May, I think you're so busy figuring out what's supposed to happen that you don't actually see what does happen."

  The loud cannons of the two ships began firing on one another.

  A thunderous crack rang out from the pirate ship as the towering main mast split in two, midway up. They watched the top half of the mast teeter back and forth in the wind for a brief moment, then plummet down with a splintering crash onto the deck.

  There was a pitiful, tumultuous outcry of men's voices from the Fortune.

  "The captain's dead," said May.

  Several minutes later, the pirates slipped a scarlet red figure over the side into the cruel black sea.

  The wind increased to a gale, and cold ha
rd raindrops stung May's face and hands. Clutching the side of the rowboat with one hand and the underside of the bench she was sitting on with the other, she clung to the small boat as it was tossed around violently on the waves.

  The rowboat suddenly rose high, hung in the air a moment and then dropped. May's stomach jumped. The boat hit the surface of the water brick- hard, and the impact sent a shock of pain up her spine as she slammed against the wooden seat again.

  The raging ocean left the tiny rowboat suspended on the edge of crests, oars uselessly clawing air. Carlisle gave up rowing. He shipped the oars and spent his time hanging on and making sure neither the sword nor the oars were lost. Massive amounts of frigid water splashed over the boat, drenching them all and making the interior of the rowboat even more slippery and wet than it already was—if that were possible.

  The slight vessel rose high once again and came down with a tremendous smack on the surface of the water, knocking May's handhold loose. At that precise moment, she felt a powerful rush of water take her as an enormous wave struck and washed over the boat.

  The ocean absorbed her into itself and she became a part of it. Overwhelmed, she had no choice but to go where the wave wished on its own purposeful quest for the final release of its energy. The world spun around in confusion.

  Just as suddenly, she was disgorged abruptly into air. Herself once more, she was desperately in need of oxygen. She gasped then crashed into the sea. With her lungs aching, she somehow found the surface again. She coughed out seawater and attempted to replace it with air.

  In the dark chaos of the storm, she saw the rowboat tossing on the waves not more than a few yards away from her. She could see Sheila and Carlisle spinning around, searching the water, shouting her name.

  She tried to call to them, but a frozen knife of a wave crested against the back of her neck and her head went under. At first she fought against the watery menace that pressed her on all sides; she pushed her hands against it resentfully. Then, some brief semblance of reason took over, and she attempted to use it to propel herself forward. But the water resisted, even flowed between the minute spaces between her closed fingers. Panic set in as her lungs began to ruthlessly demand air. She clawed at the water, trying to find the way up, not even sure where it was anymore.

  Then all at once, she was distracted by her limbs thrashing about. She tried to remember why they were making such an ungainly motion. And unable to remember something that seemed so far away and such an effort to recall, the fight left her, and she went with the billows where they took her. She felt forces push and pull on her body as the currents and waves shifted against her.

  She floated along with them effortlessly.

  Her lungs no longer hurt anymore. From what seemed a great distance away, she felt a pressure surrounding her, like a cloth wrapped snugly around her body, comforting in its own restrictive way, and even though some lost part of her knew it should be otherwise, strangely warm.