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Captain Betts

“Go away,” I shout at the knock on the cabin door. I’m so angry, the top of my head hurts. It may blow off with the thundering of my blood. “If it’s Hybris on the other side of that door, I have another dagger ready to hurl at your head.”

“Good thing I’m a foot shorter than him,” Chub says as he enters. He looks up at the first knife I lodged in the door, the broken glass, and the oil stain. When he smells it, he rears back like he caught something foul. “You can kill him, you know. I mean—that’s what you’ve been hired to do.”

“Shush, shush,” I tsk, yanking him inside and slamming the door.

“I want to kill him, just not in such shallow waters. If his head floats to shore, there may be a murder investigation. Plus, I must be provoked. I mean, I want to honor my contract, but I’m not the sort of woman to drive a knife through a man’s heart unless attacked—then all bets are off.

Right now I’m breaking my word, but I’ll fulfill my promise eventually. Does that make me a bad person?”

“Nae, if you were a bad person, you’d be a better captain,” he says, giving me a half-smile that means I’m being a child.

He’s condescending to everyone, but I guess that’s what you become when you’re older than dirt.

Not one grey hair in his red beard, but nobody can live as much life as he has and not be ancient.

Good thing this is his last voyage before settling down with Catalina in Mexico.

He deserves some time outside of the sweet trade.

“I feel like a bad person because I smashed Teeth’s last jar of oregano salve. Now, Hybris will be in agony while the antidote drips down my door. The crew probably thinks I’ve lost my senses.”

“It would be a good thing if they did,” he replies in his cryptic way.

He leads me across the cabin to the map room and invites me to sit down at the battle plans we’ve been practicing with tiny replica boats.

“This crew is used to sailing under ruthless Branko and his unhinged wife, Magda. Hell, some of them sailed with me under Blackbeard—and he put firecrackers in his beard. Didn’t care if he blew off his own face.

That’s what happens when you lose your senses, not throwing jars at fresh-mouthed landlubbers.

Your showdown increased the crew’s respect for you. ”

“I feel like I’m not a very good captain,” I whine, folding my arms on the table and lowering my forehead into the crook of my arms.

“You aren’t, but who was? Teeth, who didn’t know his arse from his elbow? Branko, who spent half the time trying to please Magda and the other half fighting with her? Or Magda herself, who would drain the crew dry if they stepped out of line…when half the time they weren’t sure what she wanted?”

“Why have you never stepped into the captain’s role?”

“Blimey, ask me arse, but you’d have to be delusional to do that,” he says with a chuckle. “I hate the pageantry and bravado. I’m smart enough to avoid a job that requires a target on my back.”

“You’re smart,” I say with a tearful chuckle.

I thought this job would be a breeze because my idiot brother-in-law was my predecessor, but I was wrong.

It takes an emotional intelligence that’s not taught in schools—whether they be brick houses or groups of Kraken hatchlings.

Bravado is my sister and brother-in-law’s area of expertise.

“What would you do? You’ve never steered me wrong. ”

“Because I have twenty years at the helm,” he says with a chuckle while I groan at his bad pun.

“Take some time to cool your head and stick to the plan of offing the gobshite when we make the turn around the Florida panhandle. In the meantime, give him hard labor. A good day’s work is just what that brat needs. ”

“Maybe I’ll put him to work in the kitchen—”

“Now, Captain, let’s not be hasty,” Chub says, grabbing my arm to shake me a little. “If he ruins the crew’s food rations, there may be a mutiny.”

“Maybe they’ll push him overboard for me,” I reply with a bitter shrug. “Besides, how can he mess up those hardtack biscuits you eat?”

“Don’t mess with our tack,” he says, pointing a finger at me. “Bringing Leaf, a true cook, aboard saved Branko from certain mutiny. Catalina floated Teeth’s brief stint as captain and will make up for any mistakes you make. A full belly makes a crew overlook a lot of injustices—”

“I haven’t been unjust—inexperienced, maybe—but never unfair to them.”

“Not yet,” he says, nodding. “Every captain has a moment where they must make the unpopular choice because it’s what’s best for the boat or themselves. Teeth jumping overboard with your sister was his moment.”

“Well, no handsome kraken is coming to drag me overboard anytime soon—”

“Here I thought humans were more your type.”

“Avast ye, that’s why I married a boat. I gave up on both humans and Others —”

“Teeth knew what he was doing when he made you our captain,” Chub says, tapping his temple as if we both don’t know Teeth gave me the boat on a whim.

While Chub laughs at his own joke, I ponder what Teeth would do.

Teeth wouldn’t have been propositioned and then triggered by the infuriating satyr for starters.

Teeth’s skirt-chasing and loose morals would have delighted our new sailor, making him one of the boys.

Once again, I’m the problem. But was I a problem before Pastor Richard used me while his wife was away?

If I had kept away from him or had a man like Chub to look out for me, so I didn’t fall prey to a man like him… that’s it!

“You’re right,” I say, sitting up straighter.

“The captain always knows best or, at the very least, pretends to know best so the crew believes it. This idiot believes he was sent aboard for an apprenticeship. You believe he needs hard labor to leave me alone and learn some manners. Well, as your captain, I hereby order you to take him under your wing. Work him to the bone and see if there’s a shipshape pirate underneath his finery and fancy hairstyle. ”

“Wait, what? Now, Captain—”

“Don’t you now, Captain , me. You wouldn’t second-guess Magda, would you?”

“Not if I liked the blood in my veins—”

“Then don’t question me either,” I reply. The smirk on my lips gives away how clever I believe I am. Working on a fierce expression is something I practice in the mirror, but never use on Chub. He would just laugh at me. “Hybris is yours to order around as you see fit.”

“Would you consider taking him on as crew and kin if he shapes up?”

Hybris’s horrid words ring in my ears. I’ll never forget how he put down my legitimate problem with him to my needing sex.

Women are toys to men like him, and I’ll never be someone’s toy again.

I may not have my soulbeak, virginity, or heart after what the reverend did to me, but I won’t let another man break what’s left of me—especially a scoundrel like Hybris.

“Never,” I whisper. “Even if we maroon him on some tropical island where he can seduce the natives, I’ll never see him as me hearty.”

“Then it’s settled,” Chub says, gathering the small wooden ships and putting them into my hands.

“I’ll treat him as a greenhorn until you decide to kick him off the boat—be it in a port or into Davey Jones’s locker.

Since you are a fierce Captain, you might be interested in knowing that a prize is on the horizon.

She’s not a treasure galleon, but I don’t think you’re ready to take one of those yet.

This is a man-of-war like us, but of the French variety.

She’s our size but half our speed—sitting low in the water, too. ”

This would be my first time taking a boat’s cargo as captain. My insides bubble like a soup caldron with a mixture of excitement, anxiety, and terror. I’ve participated in only one boat takeover in my life—and none in my short time as an official member of the sweet trade.

That day, I was so sick with fear over my sister’s capture that I threw myself at the mercy of the then-Captain Teeth.

He made me wait to rescue her until he took over a merchant ship, where I made my first kills.

A trio of soldiers were poised to attack my person when I beheaded them with a cat-o’-nine’s tail as if it were one of my tentacles—tentacles I no longer have, thanks to Richard.

We haven’t taken another boat since, probably because I was finding my footing as their new captain.

Sigh. It always boils down to my fault, doesn’t it? Probably another reason Genius Chub never stepped into the role.

“Don’t look so green. Or if you must, head to the poopdeck before you cast up your accounts,” Chub says, rubbing my shoulder. “You’ve studied Magda’s logs, right? She wrote everything in detail while waiting for the sun to set.”

“I’ve read them several times.” The problem is, I couldn’t visualize what she meant half the time.

Between her European spellings, pirate lingo, and dithering about how pissed she was at Branko, the logs aren’t an easy read.

I’m used to reading children’s stories and the bible to orphans, not technical plans filled with nautical terms I never learned.

My schooling happened under the sea, where weather, boats, pirates, and treasure are myths, and monsters are real.

“Good,” he says, placing the black pawn that represents Patricia’s Wish on the map. He places a brown pawn with a French flag in another position before leaning back in his chair. “What’s the plan, Captain?”

“Well—” I pause to clear my throat and scoot my chair closer, “—if we come at it from the west and zigzag to this position, we can blow out her sails with grapeshot—”

“Let me stop you—”

“I just sunk our boat, didn’t I?”

He sighs as he studies his toes. Yeah, I killed us at least once in my instructions.

“The wind is moving north with a strong gale. It’ll blow rain the next two days. We have that time to decide—”

“What did I do wrong, and what would you do? Chub, let’s not kid ourselves. I’m rubbish at navigation and need you to feed me the answers until I gain more experience.”

“Which you’ll only get if you take a few turns at the helm,” he says with a wagging finger.

“Our boat drifts east when the wind blows north, so coming from the west would capsize us in larger swells. You must learn how the boat behaves in different winds, how tightly she turns, and whether zigzag is in her range of abilities—which it’s not. I’ll give you that one for free.”

“I promise to double my shifts at the helm.”

“And I will correct your course no matter what you do,” he says, nodding.

“Just act like you know what you’re doing and don’t sink us.

That was the third problem with your fledgling plan.

Grapeshot is wild. It takes out sails when aimed high and blows holes in the hull when aimed low.

Can clear the deck in between, too. While you are flinging grapeshot everywhere, they’ll puncture your hull with one round of cannonballs.

We will sink while they lick their wounds. ”

“That’s three strikes,” I say with a sigh. “I killed us three ways in one sentence. I’m the worst.”

“Aww, lassie,” he says, placing the pawns in my hands again. “I’d never give the crew reason to give you the blackspot. What happens on this board is a child’s game between us. By the time comes, you will know how to be a fine captain—or at least enough to play one in their eyes.”

“Thanks, Chub, what would this boat do without you?”

“That depends on you. Remember your promise? After you push that satyr off the plank, we’re sailing to Mexico, where Catalina and I are retiring to a homestead. I’m tired, Betts, so eventually, I need you to stand on your own.”