“Girly,” Clo heard from below. “Move not a whit. Boys, she’s not with the rest. She’s…” The bosun clambered onto the deck. “Ah, never mind what she is. You can take that lot to the cabins. A whole family there, that is. I’ve got this ’un.” He took Clo again by her shoulder. Scarcely knowing what she was doing, Clo allowed herself to be shoved along the deck and into the innards of the ship. “Here, here, here. Through here, girly, now here, take these stairs, mind yer head, an’ down here, ’nother stair, bit farther, down this passage, that’s good, mind the beam, duck a bit, an’ down here, through this bit now, an’ here we are.”
They were standing in a dim, cramped corridor. Clo could make out little of what was around them—just the narrow walls and a small, thick door that the bosun was now, with a jangle of keys, unlocking.
“Here you are. Yer half passage.” He pushed open the door, revealing an even more shadowy and cramped space. “It’s the locker. You’ll have t’ share it with some ropes and tools and such, but it’s yer own fer now. And yer voyage is not too long.” His mouth, drooping along its line of pebbles, looked almost apologetic.
Clo cast her eyes desperately around the chamber. Things were mounded everywhere inside it, and ropes snaked and coiled everywhere over the things.
“You’ll be needin’ a light, I gather. And maybe somethin’ t’eat? A half passage has got t’eat, I suppose. An’ to drink. I’ll see to it to remind the captain. Here”—he gave Clo an almost-gentle shove so she was now fully inside the room—“I’ll be bringin’ you somethin’ soon as I can. But we’re settin’ sail in a moment, and I’ve got to shut this behind me. Can’t have you wanderin’ the ship. Upsettin’ fer t’others. All right, then, girly.” His mouth sank deeper into regret as he pulled the door after him. “Closin’ up now.”
“But my father?” Clo pleaded, calling through the narrowing gap.
The closing door halted on its arc. From the other side, she heard, after a pause, “I’ve got no knowledge of that, girly, but Haros said he’s to come.”
The door finished closing, and Clo was plunged into blackness.
With the departing footsteps, she heard him mutter again, lower, “An’ they always do.”
Breaths too shallow, Clo swayed in the darkness. All around her, she could hear water lapping against the boat, and the floor rolled in time to its sound. Reaching out, she grasped at what she could not see and tumbled into what she thought must be coils of a rope.
The floor rose and fell, rose and fell. Her heart thudded heavily, a rapid, off-kilter knocking of fear. Her fear was not of the dark nor of the dank, salty smell of the things around her, but of the unknown… all that was unknown: her father, his whereabouts, his state, the boat, its captain, her destination… all the mystery that had been unfolding since the bells had rung at five the morning before and her father had not come home. “Why didn’t you come?” she whispered to the fatherless dark. “Why aren’t you here?” A sob filling her throat, she hugged her knees to her chest, but she could not stop the tears from coming. “Where are you?” She rocked herself as she wept.
In the blackness of the little room, with the floor rising and falling and the waves chucking against the walls in a warm liquid rhythm, her heart and then her breathing steadied and slowed, and her fear and anxiety began to ebb in the monotony of the motion.
Her eyes fluttered closed. Or else the darkness closed around them; she could not tell.
The floor rocked, gentle, gentle, gentle.
The water sloshed, sleep, sleep, sleep.
The darkness and the rhythm of the boat lulled her into a kind of dreaming that was also a remembering: she felt as she did when, as a small child, her father carried her on his back when their travels grew too long for her toddling legs. Cheek resting on his shoulder blade, calmed by the rocking of his stride, she would drift in and out of sleep. She remembered being carried by him through the forest shadows; she felt even now she was being carried by him through the shadows.
“Lambkin.” A dream. A whisper. “Are you asleep?”
Clo felt his shoulder blade against her cheek, felt her own warm breath against the wool of his cloak. “No, Father.”
“I need to put you down, lambkin. Can you walk for a time?”
“Yes, Father.”
Above them, the shadows of trees.
Her father limped. They walked slowly.
“Where are we going this time, Father?”
“Another village. Somewhere else. Perhaps better. Would you like me to tell you a story as we walk along?”
Her feet padded softly on the forest floor. “Oh, yes.”
“Once, Clo, once upon a time there lived a spider who spun webs so delicate and beautiful, they seemed made of starlight.”
“I remember this story, Father.” Her hand was small inside his. “This is the story about the spider who wished to be a moth, and when she spun herself a pair of wings to wear, she became trapped in her own web.”
“Yes, that’s the one.”
“Please don’t tell it.”
“Why, lambkin?”
“It’s sad. It makes you sad.”
His hand tightened around hers. “Yes.” His voice was soft. “I suppose it does.” He cleared his throat. “Would you like me to tell you a different story, then, Clo?”
In the half-light of the forest, her father looked strange. Some kind of veil or rag seemed to have fallen over his face; the lines around his cheeks and brow had grown darker, deeper: his eyes more shadowed. Hidden.
“Father?” She wanted to reach up and pull away the tattery thing. Where had her father gone? “Father.” She tugged on his arm. She wanted him to stop.
He knelt beside her. “What is it, lambkin?”
She placed her damp palm against his cheek. Her little fingers brushed his brow. His wispy hair. “Why are you so old?”
“Oh. Oh, lambkin.” He wrapped her in his arms. He took her face in his hands. “I’m not old at all, lambkin.” He made himself a little straighter before her. “Why, I’m not yet even thirty.”
He smiled. The tattery curtain lifted.
He ran his hand over the wrinkles that sloped across his cheek. “Though my face is not so lovely as it once was…” He grinned. He teased. “Though fate has made my skin more uglified…” He winked. “My hair more grizzled… my gait more… peculiar…” He tapped her nose. “I promise I am still a young man.”
“Really, Father?”
“Truly. Not yet thirty. It is just my poor fortune to look… three times that.” The rag drifted for an instant across his eyes again. She reached to push it away.
“Ah.” He laughed. “Would you like me to carry you again?”
She hesitated.
“Lambkin. I promise I am strong enough to carry my own daughter.”
“No, Father.” She raised her chin. “I want to walk.”
“Well, then. Should I tell you another tale—perhaps the one about the boys and the frogs now?”
“Yes, Father.” She took his hand.