and my breaths hissed wetly past my clenched teeth, each exhale riding on the lamenting sounds of my cries.
Through the haze, a final wish rose to the surface. A wish I’d carried with me since the day I found my father hanging on the gallows.
Before I died, I had to see inside his compass. I desperately needed to hold and smell and read whatever he’d left for me.
Flemming squeezed a water-soaked cloth over my mouth, offering fluids. Then he padded away, disappearing below deck with his chest of supplies and flanked by two pirates. Madwulf moved in, taking his place.
Refusing to be goaded, I pressed my lips together and glared mutely up at him.
“It’s all good, lass.” He touched a jagged fingernail against my cheek and softly cleared wet locks of curls from my face. Then he set the compass on the deck beside me, his eyes hard, intent, determined. “Unlock it, and all the pain goes away.”
“Aye.” My teeth chattered, slicing up my tongue as I tried to roll into a sitting position. “Can…y-you…help…?”
He gripped my good arm and hauled me up. The sudden movement hurled me into a spinning, blinding vortex of queasiness. I dry heaved through the misery until my back settled against the foremast.
Weakness, pain, and fatigue plagued my body, pushing me down into an awkward, uncomfortable slump. I couldn’t straighten or move without blacking out, so I remained where he left me, dragged the compass closer to my hip by the chain, and threw every ounce of concentration into solving the puzzle.
Hours passed, and night fell too soon. I lost precious time during bouts of unconsciousness, but I was getting closer to remembering the song my father had taught me. It was the only rhyme I knew that mentioned navigational points of direction. But no matter how many times I turned the instrument along with the chant, nothing happened.
The darkness didn’t help. A thick black blanket of dreary fog hung over the ship, snuffing out the moonlight, the lantern light, and everything around me. I couldn’t see the dial on the compass, and with every passing minute, my body began to give up.
Morning arrived with a horrifying awakening. I’d evaded sleep, but my mind wasn’t working right. There were moments when I remembered the entire song, but the compass didn’t respond to the combination of steps. I was doing something wrong.
I was out of time.
Amid the damp, dense mist, Madwulf’s silhouette appeared.
Right on cue, someone struck the ship’s bell. Once… Twice… Between each of the eight resonant rings, I swore I heard the squawking of nesting birds. My heart jolted.
Madwulf nodded at something behind me. I didn’t see it coming, but I heard the swing of the plank whistling through the air before it collided with the side of my face.
The force of it sent me flying sideways, rupturing my ear and jaw in a jarring clap of thunder. I collapsed on the deck, clutching the compass and swimming in a smothering, crippling pool of pain.
Blood spurted past my lips. My mouth gaped open, and my throat burned raw with my screams. The vibration of my shrilling voice battled the explosion of anguish in my skull. But I couldn’t hear it. I couldn’t detect a single sound.
Swallowed whole by the agony, I wept in the startling silence. The deck was hard and sticky beneath my cheek, the constant punch of pain swarming from every direction, tearing through my ribs, chewing at my arm, and piercing my head like the tireless stabbing of a sword.
Sanguine droplets spluttered from my mouth and stained the deck. All I could do was stare at those red beads of blood, and in that moment of noiseless clarity, I mentally hummed.
Oh, poor fellow, your life will end
And I say so, and I know so
Oh, sad fellow, by the thrust of my blade
North to south, click, click
South to east, one tick
I’ll cut you thrice, east to west
I’ll spear you once, west to north
Say I, dead man, you met your end
I’ll drop you down to the depths of the sea
Where the sharks’ll have your body
And the devil’ll have your soul
The clicking, ticking, once, thrice verbiage hadn’t made sense before, so I’d ignored those parts. Perhaps that was where I’d gone wrong.
Determination took over.
Sprawled on my side with my weight on my uninjured shoulder, I exerted more energy than I thought capable as I dragged my hand—which still held the compass—toward my face.
A smear of something thick and dark blurred my right eye. Swollen