* * *
SIXTEEN YEARS LATER
The point of May’s needle glistened in the sun before sideswiping to the left and missing the nose of her opponent. Her pupils shrank to pinpoints, enhancing iris-colored irises. Nostrils flared.
“Dare ye dodge again, Scallywag?”
May grabbed a fistful of curls and crushed them back inside her headscarf. She sucked in a breath, backed up three steps, and charged again. Scallywag, unarmed, twitched his whiskers.
“Rogue! Devil! Rascal!” She advanced with each insult. Yet the darting of her feet across the ship’s planks made no discernable sound.
The whip of her needle went unnoticed by the men who passed alongside and above the dueling pair. No one looked on, except a parrot—orange and gold, hook-billed, and slightly larger than May. The parrot lowered his head and then shook it back and forth.
May ignored him as she continued her assault. “This will be th’ last time ye board this ship, ye moochin’ Bilge Rat!”
“I’m not certain he appreciated the pun,” said the parrot.
“I found ‘im eatin’ our provisions, Swig. That’s all the food we have until the next pillagin’.” May gritted her teeth as she backed her opponent into a corner. “Feed the fish, ye will!”
The rat’s ears twitched. It wrapped his tail around its face to cover its eyes.
“See, now you’ve scared him. You weren’t this vicious when I first found you.”
“Swig! Not that ol’ fairytale again. Who d’ye think believes such flotsam?”
“Anybody who’s set eyes on you, dear.”
May squared her shoulders and lunged at the rat. “Arr!”
Swig cringed at the squeal that ensued. He averted his eyes from the slaughter, remembering the night he’d found a baby inside a sack of flour plundered from Sprite Island. That day, sixteen years earlier, Swig began believing in fairytales.
May had changed over the years, as any woman would, except that she wasn’t of a regular size. Her proportions were ordinary; her sixteen-year-old body was thin, rounded, and fair. But she was no taller than she’d been as a baby. At only nine inches high, May had been the smallest newborn Swig had ever seen. The girl was as delicate as a doll but more vicious than a rabid raccoon.
Swig blamed the pirates.
“Ahoy, May!” A leather boot crashed down alongside the girl, swiftly enough to crush her. “Ye caught another one, have ye? That’s me girl. Th’ ship’s finest huntress.”
The compliment tingled May from headscarf to boot heels. His girl. Her cheeks flamed as she tried not to stare too long at the familiar smirk, accented by a scar to the left of his lower lip.
Swig rolled his eyes. “This is not a proper place for a lady, Daniel. You’ve taught her to cuss, to fight—” His feathers ruffled as he glanced at the rat’s carcass. “You’ve turned her into a killer.”
Daniel’s grin widened. He tightened his tail of dark locks. Like May, he wore a headscarf, knee breeches, and a shirt belted with leather. “Captain raised us together. En’t that so, May?” He bent down and opened his hand.
May stepped up onto his palm. “Aye, he did.”
“If ye have a problem with that, Swig, best ye speak to th’ captain.”
“Will your leader officiate the wedding as well? Or is May free to choose as she pleases?”
Daniel’s eyes bugged out. The laugh that followed bounced May up and down. She held out her arms for balance. She wanted to laugh with him, but she was too busy trying not to fall.
“Flotsam, Swig! I can’t marry her.”
Every drop of the pint of blood in May’s body turned to ice.
“And why not?”
“She’s barely half the size of me forearm. A man needs a relationship—of th’ physical kind.” With a wink and a snigger, he added “Imposs—”
Daniel jumped, shouting curses of flotsam, jetsam, scabs, and dung. His hand flew up, bloodied and throbbing with pain.
May fell from the pirate’s hand to the floor, her landing softened by a wing of orange feathers. She scowled at Daniel as he stomped off, leaving her insulted and unarmed.
“Forget him,” said Swig. “And the needle.”