Lorali Read online

  I start to feel proper sick.

  A STORM

  The whirling, purring wind is smashing now. The young boy, the new recruit, is being sick over the side of Liberty. Little undigested raisins are sliding out of his retching throat. Momo has fixed him some ginger but it isn’t working. I am too rocky now, no thanks to the howling sky. There is just some weather that seems to be out of Queen Keppel’s control, especially when it comes to a flapping little boat in the middle of the ocean. And her excitement of a potential homecoming from her beloved daughter means room for neglect.

  We begin to fight. The wind and I. Horns locked. Battling each other with elements. I curve and swamp and chop and foam. It snatches and rips and slaps and sucks. I fold and drop and scoop and leap. It rummages and roars and invades and steals. All the while, little lady Liberty trembles and quakes, and her limbs shake, and then she lets me into her home.

  I don’t want to be there. I’m sorry, Liberty, I even whisper in the shushes of my salty swallow as I enter the hold. The undergarments. ‘I’ll make this as quick as I can.’ I try to hold back as she breaks a little more under my weight. The Ablegares are screaming. The boy is inside now. Told to concentrate his vision onto something. Focus. Don’t lie down.

  And the wind still blows and torments. I fight back. The sky crackles. Rain falls. Nasty. But water I can deal with. The sky frowns, whipping up mousse-like clouds. Thunders. I arch. Try to bend. To stop each crash from impacting the boat. They hold on tight to their mother. She tilts. She is going. The wind is stretching. I can’t help it. I am eating her. I don’t want to taste Liberty. I don’t want to take her down with her boys. Not today. Not like this. I want this unfolded story to be put to bed properly. I want to see the end. How it will play out. Still the wind forces its weight. Like slamming a door on a loved one over and over again. The weight. The force. The power. I am meant to buckle here. Capsize Liberty. Devour her. Squash her like machinery. Until she splinters and the boys all perish. Until the sails rip off. Snatched into the mouth of the whisk. No more Rory. No more Lorali. No more Ablegares. No more Liberty. Over. Done.

  But I cannot. I cannot let that happen. In all my existence I have never broken the rule.

  She doesn’t fall. I don’t wait on fate. I oppress. I become strict. I reinforce. I strengthen. I shouldn’t. I turn myself to ice. Liberty slides to safety.

  THE CAVITIES

  After the storm they decide to hang me up again. They want me to be grateful to be taken inside, but I am not. I am not grateful to be kept inside a dark box, shuffling and scraping and scratching around. I would be grateful if they let me go. If they killed me.

  A BAD HAIR DAY

  I look a mess. In the mirror. I am green. White. My eyes. All veiny and blood-vessely. I look like some drug addict. My mouth tastes like battery acid. I spit again. Brush my teeth again. Spit. Chew the chalky powdery pill that Oska gave me. I am so grateful and surprised to be alive. I have to move with these boys. Where they go, I go; I have no other choice. I have to believe in them. That they are going to help me. Why would they show me this much sympathy if they weren’t? Why would they behave normally in front of me, as though I am one of them, if they are planning to backstab me?

  Up on deck the boys are fixing Liberty. Otto has been crying, it seems. He clearly cares very deeply for his ship. It hurts him to see her falling apart.

  He puts on a bright welcoming face when he sees me. ‘Ah, there he is! The man of the match! Feeling frowsy?’ He puts on a smile.

  ‘Is there anything I can do?’ I ask, hoping for a job of any kind – cleaning the toilet, anything.

  ‘What can you do?’ Otto looks at me like he is inventing a job for me inside his head; he knows I don’t know how to fix up a ship.

  ‘I can make tea?’ I suggest.

  ‘Tea!’ Otto beams. ‘What a great idea.’

  Egor winks at me as I head to the galley to make the pirates tea. Lorali was right. We do love boiling water.

  A SPANNER IN THE WORKS

  The knell has stopped clanging. The Cetus’s engine has stopped. The motor has jammed. I can’t think for the life of me how that happened.

  THE KNELL

  I must have fallen asleep to the jolting rhythm of the bell round my neck, so when the ringing stops it wakes me. Interrupts my peace. I am able to sleep upright. I never knew a down before, so it is OK. But my back hurts. My neck from the positioning of the rope. I am cold. I am thirsty. I am hungry. Why have we stopped? The Cavities begin to swear and curse.

  ‘Sumfin’s jammed up.’

  ‘We’re broke down.’

  ‘Nah, you don’t say …’

  Big puffs of black smoke chug out of the ship. Evaporating into the clear sky like blood in water. I watch the patterns dissolve. So their ship isn’t quite as unstoppable as they had hoped. Chink. Clunk. We are halted. Black smoke. Chug. Chug.

  ‘Get down there, Tush,’ one orders another, and we wait. Bobbing. I thought I saw the water turn to ice at a point but it must have been in my dream. It is getting difficult to tell what is real and what isn’t now. In this surreal lucid state, this in-between. I am starting to think that I never made it past the surface at all. That I died. That I am dead. That this is what it is like to be dead. That all this is nothing. This is my punishment for attempting to surface.

  ‘It’s a large rock.’

  ‘Must have been from that ice.’

  ‘That was odd, weren’t it? All that ice?’

  ‘Gone now though. Stop banging on about it.’

  ‘Get the bleedin’ rock out then.’

  ‘I can’t. Too stiff. Stuck right in.’

  ‘Try again.’

  ‘Turn the engine on. See if it will flip it out.’

  ‘Wait I’m still down he— WAIT!’

  Blood. Crying. The engine has taken one of their arms off. Blood. More blood. Crying. Panic. Shouting. Blame.

  ‘AGHHHHHHH!’

  ‘You idiot! Why didn’t you move?’

  ‘Why didn’t you wait?’

  ‘AGH!’

  ‘Look at him, his arm’s off completely! The bone is showing. Get Wallow to help him. Quick!’

  ‘AGHHHH! HELP ME!’

  ‘He’s losing a lot of blood!’

  ‘Stick him over there! His blood’s everywhere!’

  ‘MY ARM! AGH! I’M DYING!’

  ‘Did you get the arm?’

  ‘No. Shark feed.’

  ‘AGH! QUICK! HELP! HELP ME! SOMETHING, LORD, GOD, CHRISTOPHER, ANYTHING, HELP, THE PAIN, AGH, MY ARM!’

  ‘There’s no god for you.’

  ‘You shoulda waited!’

  ‘KILL ME, KILL ME NOW! I CAN’T! I CAN’T TAKE IT! KILL ME! KILL ME NOW!’

  ‘Get over it! It’s just an arm!’

  ‘Wallow, something for the pain.’

  ‘Yes. Lot of blood.’

  ‘Stitches.’

  ‘Pass me that drink.’

  ‘AGH! I’M DYING! WALLOW! WALLOW!’

  ‘Shut him up, will you, I’m trying to get out this damn rock!’

  And then I see it. A mist. A white smog. Pouring. Drifting. Flooding over the sky. I can hear the Cavities still fighting. The fiasco and drama of the lost limb is sending shivers down my spine. I hate them all. I HATE them all. I want them all to die. Still the mist swamps us. Covering me. The boat. The Cavities are clumsy. They are laughable. Ridiculous. Pathetic. I don’t even respect them as villains.

  ‘Have you fixed it, you numpty?’

  ‘Trying, aren’t I?’

  ‘Try harder! Fog coming!’

  ‘What is going on today?’

  ‘Must be them Mer. They knows we gotta treat for ’em brewin’!’

  ‘I need a professional! AHHHH! I need a doctor!’

  ‘Wallow is a professional, calm down!’

  ‘I can’t see! I can’t see!’

  Neither can I. I can’t see anything except mist. Underneath the distorted cries of the Cavities I can’t h
ear anything other than the rushes of the seawater beneath me, the sea, who in this instance is my only ally. All I have. The sea I know. I am not afraid.

  And then out of the fog. The strangest thing. The sound of music. Music I do not know. Music I have not heard. And then coming through the fog, what looks like a house. An old house. An old-timey house like Opal has shown me. But floating. On the water. How strange and unreal. And it’s coming closer and closer.

  ‘FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!’ shout the Cavities and I can hear them leaving the bleeding man and running to the big cannons they talk about. Blindly. I am tied. I cannot move. Only hope. The ship comes closer and closer. The music plays louder. It is happy music. Grand music. Great big grand music. Here it comes and that is when I see people. Strange-looking males. I see them. Poachers, no doubt. Coming for the sound of the knell. I hope they don’t have cannons to blow me up too. They must have seen the Cetus all broken down and want to steal. Want tapestries. Me. Well, I have nothing for these men. As they get closer. They don’t look too bothered. They don’t look angry. Or upset. Can’t they hear the cannons? Are they not going to fight back? Are they not going to protect themselves, these young new men? And that is when I see him. Not in those clothes. His hair! Can it be him? Really?

  Rory.

  My love.

  And that is when he sees me.

  BATTLE

  I do like the music. It’s good to make an entrance. Don’t you agree? Jasper and Momo naturally make the jump first, eager for the battle. They launch onto the deck of the Cetus with swords upright. Jasper grits his teeth, with eyes that could gut fish. Momo laughs. Like it’s a game. The fog, miraculously, soon starts to lift.

  They fight with the Cavities; Jasper is quick and brutal, slicing nippy and to the point. His blade sharp. He likes this painful. Light-footed he shifts, left foot, right foot, his sword cutting through the air at speed, whipping, making no mess as he steals the limbs, hair, fingers and organs of the Cavities.

  But the Cavities aren’t slow. They are deadly and there are lots of them. They set bloodthirsty snakes out on the deck, hypnotised to despise and crave all the Cavities’ enemies. They wind straight towards the dancing feet of Momo. Momo, hot-stepping, is a rapid fighter too, but messy. Likes the theatre of battle. Enjoys the sight of blood. Cuts deep. Weapons as a last resort.

  ‘This is what I call a last resort!’ he shouts up to Egor, who has just landed on the Cetus. His nimble fingers are best to untie Lorali. Oska with his older brother steers Liberty closer. Rory is there too. Losing his breath to his beating heart.

  ‘Lorali!’ he shouts. ‘LORALI! LORALI! I’m here!’

  And she, the girl, bursts into tears. She is free. Her wrists are sore but she doesn’t care about that. Hugging Egor as he picks her up, cradling her. She does not know him but anything is better than the arms of the Cavities. Anything. He carries her away, back onto the breast of Liberty if he can.

  The Cavities send their women first to fight their battle. Minions. Replaceable, they think. Momo is sliced in the chest. A fanged snake is already whipping up his body to suck the blood of the open slit. A flap of skin. He laughs. Another scratch. His blood dots the boards.

  ‘I hate beating women!’ Momo coos. ‘Why don’t you try to brush your hair once in a while?’

  This makes the female Cavity cross, and she swipes more. Anarchic grotty growls seem to scream from their wombs. They use carving knives, butcher hackers, nailed planks – anything with a sharp edge. Jasper is picking off the Cavities like he is cutting the heads of flowers; they almost seem to be appearing from nowhere. More blood oozes into the sewage spillage on the deck.

  Cannons continue to fire at Liberty. She takes blows, big ones. Her body whines. The boy Rory is brave. He is scared but his eyes remain on Lorali, his eyes ushering Egor to move quicker. She is over his shoulder. Her hair flowing like music.

  ‘Oska, go in. Kill the rest. I’ll drive Mama,’ Otto instructs.

  ‘Yes, boss,’ says Oska, his pigtails bouncing as he leaps into the air, fag in mouth. ‘Come, we go!’ He scales the mast of Liberty and, using the sails like vines, swings his way to the top of the Cetus. From here he shoots with a pistol. His aim is good.

  Egor is close to the edge but one of the Cavities, a big one, wrestles with him, dragging the girl out of his hands and playing with her like a floppy doll. Lorali kicks and punches. Egor headbutts the Cavity woman, cracks her skull and snatches an eye with his nimble fingers.

  Egor looks over to Momo. ‘What? Still no weapon!’ He winks and dashes the eye to one of the squirming snakes who swallows it down. More cannonballs fall and crash, some biting the heart of Liberty.

  ‘Rory, you have to jump. You have to get onto the Cetus,’ Otto says sternly as they watch on.

  ‘I can’t. I’m not leaving you.’

  ‘Go.’

  ‘I can’t. I can’t fight. I’m useless.’

  ‘Who told you you were useless?’

  ‘I’m not like you lot!’

  ‘Us lot! Listen, we were told we were useless. Every day by everybody. Jasper, my baby twin brother, he had enough of that one day.’ He thinks about crying, that Otto, but he does not. ‘He murdered our own mother for calling us useless. That’s how strongly we feel about it. You are not useless. Go get your princess!’

  ‘I’m not leaving you, Otto.’

  ‘Do you know why we saved you, Rory?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’re just good.’ Otto smiles. ‘You’re just a good boy who is going to grow into a good man. And we are not. We are horrible. It’s too late for us to be good men, but you, Rory, you have a shot at it. We saw how your snide little weasel of a friend dicked you over, we felt for you, we took you under our wing and nurtured you and, well, actually, in truth I suppose we do also quite like an adventure. We never were ones to leave the party early. So, oh, go on, please, Rory. Make me a bit of a better man by making yourself one. You’re so close. It’s just a jump. Here, take this!’

  Otto gives Rory his sword. The Ablegare crest is on the handle. A carving of a little house, engraved into the metal. It is heavy for Rory but he is honoured.

  ‘If I take this, what will you have?’

  Otto puts on his sunglasses and says nothing, steering his ship.

  Rory sees the edge, the lip of Liberty. And he jumps. Sword in hand. Lorali sees him jump. Gestures him away. Egor is fending off more Cavities now – men too, although it’s hard to tell – the entire crew, it seems, who are grappling with him for the girl. He tries to fight them off.

  Lorali is screaming his name so hard – ‘RORY, RORY!’ – her throat scratches.

  Rory has never properly held a sword before. It only seems to be getting heavier. It is. He lifts it in the air. Egor shakes his head. ‘Don’t use it,’ he advises. ‘Use your head!’

  Use your head? Rory really feels he should at least be swinging this heavy blade about a bit rather than just standing here, but then he sees it in the reflection of the sword: a rowing boat. A small cockboat tied on for emergencies. They could sail away in it. Freedom. Escape. He nods at Egor, who winks back, tipping his head. ‘You got it!’

  Rory makes his way to the boat and climbs in. Not knowing how to lower it properly, he begins to gently cut the strands of the rope with the sword. Gently, gently, gently. Focus. Work. Work. The boat jolts. Sudden. Has he cut too much thread? Sweat trickles out of his forehead. Then it loosens. The boat slides towards me. Egor, grimacing, screaming, takes a punt, bravely throwing Lorali across the air and landing her in the boat. Perfectly. Next to Rory.

  He laughs. So does she, but not for long. He still has to slice the ties of the rope.

  The remaining Cavities lunge at them. Pulling at the rope. Screaming, wrestling. The ties are thinning now, the stiff salt-drenched rope beginning to untwine. I make it an easy landing. I don’t have to.

  ‘Rory!’ she cries. ‘You did it!’

  They hold each other. Hard. But it isn’t o
ver yet.

  LITTLE BOAT, I LOVE YOU

  I can’t believe it. She is in my boat. OK, not my boat, but now it is, kind of.

  ‘I’m not a strong swimmer!’ I suddenly, inappropriately throw out there. ‘So in case I’m nervous, it’s, like, not cos of you or anything …’ It is true; I’m not a strong swimmer, but my chest is squeezing just being close to her.

  I let out a deep sigh. ‘OK, OK, oars … paddles … whatever …’ I am shaking but I find them. ‘I can’t even unclip them.’ I panic. Lorali helps and manages to unhook them straight away, even with sore wrists.

  The water is choppy and there isn’t even time to think; I just know we have to get away, but I don’t know where to or how long we’ll have to row for. I am so terrified even the backs of my eyeballs are pulsating. I can still hear the noises around, the grunts and groans and screams and explosions behind us.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ I ask her as I begin to paddle.

  ‘No, not really, are you?’

  ‘No. I’m so happy to see you, I really am.’

  ‘Me too. I thought I’d never see you again.’

  The clang of swords, of metal and slicing, is still so loud, and the water so heavy, so difficult to paddle in. I look up and see Egor fighting and Momo too, and Oska shooting and, in the madness of it all, Jasper surprisingly looks down to me and screams, ‘Rory, don’t look back, don’t look back! Go far! Go far!’ And I nod as it’s the first time Jasper has spoken to me, and I paddle harder and faster with this new strength and encouragement and bombs and explosives are still happening and I am happy because they are all alive.