Zypheria's Call (A Tanyth Fairport Adventure)

  The Dream Time

  Tanyth awoke with the sun. The ship still rode on heavy rollers, but at least the corkscrew movement hadn’t come back. Rebecca lay curled under her covers, just a bit of her brown hair showing above the blanket. Tanyth clambered out of her bunk and into her clothing, heading for the cookhouse. The sun had barely cleared the horizon and she heard four bells ring out loud and clear as she crossed the bit of open deck between the companionway and the deckhouse door.

  “Well, good morning, mum,” Cook greeted her with a look of surprise. “You’re up and moving early enough this morning.”

  She hung her coat on the peg and pulled up her sleeves. “Need my tea, I think.” A yawn caught her and she blinked in helpless surprise.

  “Did you not sleep well, mum?” Cook asked, handing her a hot mug.

  “I thought I did, but I woke up and just had to move.” She shrugged and sipped, blowing a bit across the top of the mug before taking a careful taste. “Now, I’m up, I’m feelin’ groggy and wonderin’ what the hurry is.”

  “Well, you get your tea inside you, mum, and I’ll just get this stove fired up. Would you like oatmeal this morning, mum?”

  “Thanks, Cook. That would be grand.” She sipped again. “What’s on the menu for today?”

  He cast a look out the cookhouse door and shrugged. “I’m planning on baking beans today. The weather should stay quiet unless that storm decides to come back and take another pass at us. I’ll give ’em a nice chipped beef in gravy for lunch, I think. You feel like making biscuits again, mum?”

  “Whatever you need me to do.”

  “Well, the lads will be looking for their breakfast soon, but the oatmeal is done. Beans don’t need much work, now that they’re soaked. If we give them a bit of beef for lunch, that’ll make up for cold rations yesterday.” He shrugged. “I can make ’em if you’d rather just lounge around today, mum. There’s not much extra work to do.”

  She sipped her tea and thought about curling up in her bunk for the day. The idea had little appeal. “Well, let me help with breakfast at least. We’ll see how my strength holds up.”

  “Good plan, mum. No need of overextending yourself this early in the voyage.”

  She laughed a bit at that. “We’re not even halfway yet, are we?”

  Cook shook his head with a sorrowful look. “Not unless that blow did us a real big favor, mum. We’re still more than a few days out yet.”

  “The captain said he needs to get a fix today, assumin’ the sky is clear.”

  Cook checked the firebox on the stove and tossed in another stick of wood for good measure. “Aye, mum. He does that every day he can. Right at noon. That’s how we find our way out here. Mr. Groves usually takes a sighting along side him, just to double up and to give him practice.”

  “What do they take a sighting of? I didn’t think there was anything to see out here.”

  Cook smiled over his shoulder at her. “We go out to sea to see the sea and when we see we saw the sea, we wonder what we ever saw in going out to sea.”

  She laughed at his bit of doggerel and waited for him to finish pouring the soaked beans into a heavy crock.

  “There’s lots to see out here, mum. Sun. Moon. Even stars. If you can measure good enough, and know what you’re doing, you can find your way from here to there right well.” He up-ended a jug of molasses over the beans and let several glugs-worth flow into the crock. “Noon sightings are for the sun. They measure it and that tells ’em what they need to know to figure out where we are.”

  “Sounds easy enough,” Tanyth said, “but I s’pose if t’were, then young Mr. Groves wouldn’t need the practice.”

  Cook nodded. “There’s that. Wouldn’t do for something to happen to the only man who knows how to navigate, now would it?”

  Tanyth felt her heart beat race at that thought. “Nothin’ could happen to Captain Groves, can it?”

  Cook shrugged. “There’s always a risk when you go to sea, mum. Sheet coulda broke and dropped a boom on him in that storm yesterday. Wave mighta caught him and carried him over.” He looked pointedly at Tanyth’s gray hair. “I don’t need to tell you the dangers of getting on, do I?”

  Tanyth thought of all the things that might go wrong and it must have shown in her face.

  “Easy, mum. We’ve been sailing with the old man up there for years now. No reason to expect something’s gonna happen to him soon.”

  She didn’t feel much reassured.

  “But we take measures to be safe even if it does, mum. Man be a fool to ignore reality.” He reached into a bin under the counter and pulled up a handful of empty onion skins. “Bother,” he muttered. He felt around in the bin again and then looked in several of the others.

  “Problem, Cook?”

  “I need to get some more onions out of the hold. Looks like some potatoes and flour, too.” He looked in a cupboard and muttered a bit more.

  “I thought the hold was sealed.”

  He nodded and looked over at her. “Main hold is, mum. How’d you know that?”

  “Chattin’ with Mr. Jameson last night. There was some question about how the cargo fared in the storm.” She let him assume the conversation happened in the captain’s cabin.

  “It got a bit bumpy. That’s sure,” Cook said. “Ships stores aren’t in the main hold, mum. That’s sealed up for the voyage. We need to get to the stores underway so we’ve got our own hold.”

  “The Small Place,” she muttered.

  “What’s that, mum?”

  “Nothin’, Cook. Just an odd idea.” She paused before asking, “Where do you keep the stores, then?”

  Cook smiled and waved her back into the corner. She stepped back and he reached down and pulled up a ring set flush in the deck. “Right here,” he said with a grunt. A big square of the deck lifted up and folded back against the bulkhead. A hook and eye there latched it open. A broad-stepped ladder led down into darkness. With a grin, Cook hopped down and started rummaging around.

  In a matter of a few minutes he had a sack of onions, a bag of flour, and what looked like another hundredweight of potatoes lined up on the deck beside the hatch. He reminded Tanyth of the ground squirrel that lived in Mother Alderton’s back garden.

  “Just need to get a tin of beef for lunch, and we’ll be ready,” he said and disappeared into the darkness under her feet.

  “Blast it!” his voice sounded muffled and she heard him grunting and cursing.

  “You all right down there, Cook?”

  “Oh, aye. Just a minute.”

  Something thumped and then she heard three loud bangs.

  “That’s got it,” he said and came scampering up the ladder with a big can of beef under his arm. He put the can on the work counter and reached up to release the hatch. “Watch your toes, mum.”

  He lowered the hatch carefully and then let it fall the last couple of inches. It landed with a heavy thump. He dusted his hands together and said, “That’ll hold me for a while.”

  Tanyth chuckled at his performance while he poured the onions into the bin and stood the bags of flour and potatoes off to the side. He pulled a couple of the onions out and peeled and chopped them with a few economical motions, scraping the pungent onion into the pot of beans and giving the whole thing a stir.

  Mr. Jameson came into the cookhouse then and looked back and forth between Tanyth and Cook.

  “Good mornin’, Mr. Jameson,” Tanyth said.

  “Morning, mum. Morning, Cook.”

  “Morning, sir.” Cook handed him a steaming mug.

  “Well, thank you, Cook, but I came to see if everything was all right in here.”

  “Oh, aye, sir. Just needed to get some supplies out of stores.”

  Jameson sipped his tea and nodded. “I gathered that but what was all that banging?”

  “Banging, sir?” Cook looked puzzled for a moment and then said, “Oh! Sorry, sir. One of the barrels of hardtack fell over and the top came off. Spilled crackers
all over the hold.” He held up the can of beef. “I stood the barrel back up and pounded the top back down with this. Musta made more of a racket than I thought.”

  Tanyth felt the blood leave her face and she was glad she was leaning against the corner of the cookhouse.

  “Mum? Are you all right?” Jameson stood next to her, his concern obvious on his face.

  “Yeah. I’m all right, I think.” She looked from Cook to Jameson and back. “Must be hungrier than I thought.”

  “Oatmeal’s ready, mum, if you want some,” Cook offered.

  “Thank you, that would prob’ly be good.”

  While Cook busied himself filling a bowl, Tanyth turned to Jameson. “You need to check the hold,” she murmured.

  He gave her a quizzical look, but Cook was already handing the full bowl to her. She took it with a smile and gave Jameson a small shake of her head.

  He took the hint and didn’t press the matter, turning to Cook instead. “Well, good enough then. All that banging, I didn’t know but maybe Mother Fairport was beating some sense into you.”

  Cook grinned. “And you came to protect me, sir?”

  “As if. I came to help.” The men laughed, and if either one noticed that Tanyth’s laughter wasn’t quite jocular, neither mentioned it. With a nod to both of them, Jameson took his mug and left.

  After a moment, Cook turned to Tanyth. “So, mum? Ship secrets or would you care to fill in old Cook on what’s goin’ on?”

  Tanyth took a deep breath and took a spoonful of the oatmeal. “You’re gonna think I’m a crazy old woman, Cook.”

  He shrugged. “Could be worse.”

  “How?”

  “I could think you’re a crazy young woman.”

  She cocked her head at him. “But I’m not a young woman.”

  He lifted a palm up and said, “There ya go.”

  “How is that worse?”

  “Well, mum, because then I’d be crazy, and for me, that would be much worse.”

  The silliness of it struck her funny and she laughed against her will.

  “Come on, mum. Give. What’s going on?”

  She got her laughter under control and said, “all right, but I warned ya.”

  “I’m warned.”

  “I have dreams that I see things through the eyes of animals.”

  He laughed and leaned back, hands on the counter behind him. “If that’s supposed to make me think you’re crazy, mum? You are crazy.”

  “They’re true.”

  He stopped laughing. “What do you mean, they’re true?”

  “What I dream? It happens.”

  “Like what, mum?”

  “Well, lately I’ve been dreaming about a mother who lives down in the ship. She scampers about in the dark down below. She has four babies and is always looking for nest material and food.”

  “Sounds like a rat.”

  “Well, Mr. Jameson assures me that Captain Groves knows there are no rats on the Zypheria’s Call.”

  “Oh, yes, mum. That’s true. I forgot about that.” He lifted one eyebrow. “And you know this is true because...?”

  “Last night, I had another dream about her. After all the banging and shaking, she went looking for food. She found a pile of food spilled out of a barrel down below.”

  “And then what, mum?”

  “And then she ate her fill, did a little creative gnawin’ on a crate in the main hold, then went back to her nest to sleep.”

  “That seems a long stretch from dream to true, mum.”

  “The food she found was a barrel of hard tack. She likes it well enough, by the bye.”

  Cook screwed up his face. “How can a rat know what hard tack is, mum? That’s silly.”

  “She doesn’t. She just knows it’s food. But in my dream, I can see it. I know what hard tack looks like. Well, what it must look like. Can’t say I’ve ever seen it” She put the bowl down on the counter and held up her hands. “Rectangular, about that big, and has holes in it.”

  “How many holes?”

  Tanyth tried to picture it in her mind, but the dream was too elusive. The image of the hard tack wasn’t clear enough to the rat. “I don’t know. Some. Couple of rows of ’em.” She shrugged. “It’s dark down there.”

  Cook stepped back and stared at her.

  “Do you believe me?”

  “I don’t know, mum. You have to admit it’s a bit of a strange story.”

  She picked up her oatmeal. “You don’t know the half of it,” she said and took a spoonful.

  “Has it happened before?”

  She shrugged and then gave a little nod. “I used to see through a raven’s eyes.”

  Cook’s eyebrows shot up. “A raven?”

  Tanyth nodded, chewing her oatmeal. “She liked rabbits.”

  “What? As pets?”

  “As meals.”

  “She caught them?”

  Tanyth shook her head. “No, dead ones. She also liked apples, frogs, and even hornets. She ate almost anything that didn’t eat her first. But she liked rabbits best.”

  “And you saw through her eyes?”

  “Yeah. It was odd at first, but flyin’ was fun.” Tanyth grinned at him.

  “Now you’re just teasing, mum.”

  She sighed. “No. I wish I was.”

  Seven bells rang and sailors started lining up outside for their breakfasts. Tanyth poured the tea and Cook doled out the oatmeal until all the sailors had bowls and mugs. Rebecca came through the line with the sailors and smiled when Cook gave her an extra helping of oatmeal.

  “Mornin’, mum,” she said and scurried off before Tanyth could answer.

  With the crew fed, they had a few minutes before they needed to start cleaning up.

  Cook didn’t mention their conversation the whole time, but Tanyth could see him thinking it over, occasionally shooting her odd glances as he finished putting the crock of beans together and then slid it into the oven for the long day of baking.

  Tanyth finished her now-cold oatmeal and washed it down with hot tea before putting her bowl in the tray. Within a few minutes, sailors started stowing their own dirty dishes and by the time eight bells rolled around breakfast was done.

  Tanyth set up her folding work surface and Cook lifted the tray of dirty dishes up for her, filled the rinse bucket with hot water from the tank, poured half of it into the tray and then placed it at her feet.

  “You gonna say something?” she asked when his considering looks became unbearable.

  “You’re not crazy, mum.”

  “Why d’ya say that?”

  He shrugged. “Well, granted that I’ve only known you a few days, mum, but you’ve never once struck me as a crazy, old lady. I know a few. Related to some, actually, but you’re not like them, mum.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, mum. They’re all sure they’re not crazy, but then they say the craziest things like they’re just normal as apple cobbler on a winter day.”

  “And?”

  “And you say crazy things, but you know they’re crazy. They make no sense. For you, they’re true.” He paused, looking her straight in the eyes. “And it scares ya, don’t it?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. I don’t know what’s happenin’ or why. That scares the stuffin’ out o’ me.”

  He filled the tea kettle with fresh, cold water and put it on the stove to heat. He stepped back and considered Tanyth.

  “So, why are you starin’ at me like that?” she asked.

  “I’m wondering what you’re not telling me, mum.”

  “What I’m not tellin’ you? I just told ya I dream I’m a rat.”

  He shrugged. “That could just be coincidence, mum. Dreams are funny things. Sometimes I dream I’m a ship sailing in the warm southern seas.”

  “How would I know there was a broken barrel of hard tack?”

  He shrugged again. “Coincidence. There’s bound to be food all around. Dreams are funny that way. They make your brain see st
uff in odd ways.”

  “That’s true enough.”

  “So, what else did you tell Mr. Jameson that you’re not telling me, mum?”

  “My lil four-footed friend thinks somethin’s not right in the main hold. I want Mr. Jameson to check it out.”

  “What? The cargo shifted in the storm?”

  She shrugged. “I’d rather not say, Cook. I feel foolish enough already. I’ll feel even worse if Scott gets down there and finds nothin’.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “Scott, is it now? My, my.”

  She took a deep breath to answer but he just smiled at her.

  “Finish up the dishes, mum, and then if you’ve still a mind to, we can make a bunch of biscuits for the lads for lunch.”

  “You don’t think I’m crazy, then?”

  He pursed his lips and shook his head. “No, mum. I don’t know what you are, but you’re a long way from crazy.” He examined her for a long moment before asking, “How did your little friend get in to find the hardtack?”

  “There’s a gap between two of the planks. It’s wet and a bit slimy. She slips through from the main hold that way.”

  His eyebrows shot up and he blinked several times in apparent astonishment. “Interesting, mum. Very interesting.” He pulled a huge cast-iron skillet down from an overhead rack in a single smooth movement. The pan was so big that Tanyth wasn’t sure she could have lifted it with both hands, let alone one.

  “What are you goin’ to cook in that monster?”

  He grinned over his shoulder and started winding the key on the tin of beef. “It takes a lot of gravy for these lads, mum. Sometimes I think a bathtub wouldn’t be big enough.”

  The look on his face made her laugh a bit. She splashed a little more hot water into her dirty dishes and dug in with a will. “Well, you’re right on one score, Cook.”

  “What’s that, mum?”

  “Dreams or not, the work still has to get done.”

  “Aye, mum, it surely does.”

  Cook set to with some onion and spices while Tanyth finished the dishes. When the last of the crockery sluiced into the rinse, Cook helped her pour the dirty water into a bucket for disposal. He stuck his head out of the deckhouse and did a double take. “Scooter? You spend way too much time lurking out there!”

  He laughed at some comment that Tanyth couldn’t hear.