A lot had happened in what felt like two seconds.
Aix kept struggling to stay oriented in the Dreamscape; currently, he was trying to construct a safe place, a place that was his, so he could focus. Concentrating on a safe place from his memories, he found himself in a memory of his grandparents’ house, in the pool. His grandfather’s train, which had never worked in his lifetime, went by on the track around the low wall at the bottom of the steep slope that made up the back border of the backyard. The sun was blinding, and he heard the mourning dove. Unlike in real life, there was nobody here to watch him swim. Unlike in real life, the pool wasn’t burning his merrow-half, and was a lot bigger and deeper, though not deep enough that it scared him.
Someone should be here, someone to watch him swim; it wasn’t safe to swim alone.
‘Hiya, kiddo, get into any interesting trouble lately?’
The strange tabby-and-white cat that had lived in his grandparents’ yard, with her strange matted back fur that was like scaly armour, sat down at the edge of the pool. She hadn’t been missing an eye in real life, nor had her eyes been a sort of glowy blue. Two ravens landed on the wooden rails of the pergola above the brick patio, beyond the pool, closer to the house, so Aix knew who this was.
‘Interesting doesn’t begin to cover it. I’m trying to save… well, several people. I’m not even sure who or what the danger is, but I believe people when they tell me they’re in danger and reach out. And I don’t trust wizards.’ He didn’t need to add present company excluded, because Odin wouldn’t be offended—it was wise not to trust him entirely, he wasn’t a tame god, despite being a God Of Civilisation.
‘Lay it out in rows,’ Odin suggested, and Aix did what he’d often done, as a child, dipping his finger in the water and drawing on the concrete with it—only unlike reality, the marks didn’t immediately dry away.
‘First—I met Cthulhu, he’s at the bottom of the sea somewhere. I have notes but it’s hard to track down specific people with almost no word information. Two—René from Baltimore is in trouble, right now, like as we speak. He’s been abused for centuries by the Vampire Prince of Baltimore, who, Three—is currently, as we speak, trying to Summon… Cthulhu? Or possibly anyone in range. Unclear. Four—Pippin said she was going to get somebody she calls Big Mommy, who can only be Jocosa Themself. Unsure how that’s going. We’re at battle stations, the klaxons are going off, et cetera.’
‘You’re moving—your body is moving.’
‘Yes, Lady Sitrinne Averay is driving me to Baltimore.’
‘Lady Averay?’ Odin said, flicking a hoary ear; one of the ravens cawed, and flew away.
‘Oh—you know her?’
‘Everyone knows her, she’s a powerful seiðkonur. If she’s on your side, kid, you can kill gods.’
‘Odd, coming from you,’ Aix said, but was smiling. ‘What should I do?’
‘That really all depends on what you want to do.’
‘Fair enough. Okay… I want to stop this ritual. That’s triage. But I also need to get René safe.’
‘Those are two different steps, and you can’t do them both at the same time, I’ll tell you that much. One before the other.’
‘Right, right, priority squares.’ Aix drew the four-square grid his mom had taught him when he’d been a small child. ‘The ritual is both Urgent and Time Sensitive. Can I ask if René being safe is time-sensitive?’
‘He’s been surviving three hundred years under this guy’s thumb, he can survive three more years if you stop the ritual.’
‘Okay. And finding Cthulhu is only time-sensitive in the span of my lifetime, and only urgent because it might be connected to the ritual. So the ritual is first. Okay.’ He paused, looking at the square for a while. ‘…Can’t believe I used The Franklin-Covey System to figure out eldritch world-altering magic shit.’
‘Task management is important no matter what problem you’re solving,’ Odin pointed out.
‘It is really weird to hear you say words like “task management” Odin,’ Aix said, covering his face and trying not to laugh. ‘Anyway, anyway. Okay, I’m fine. Anyway!’ he said, the chatter helping him master the giggles, ‘Can I stop the ritual from the Dreamscape?’
‘You can ask someone to.’
‘Oh golly gee whillikers,’ Aix began, in a melodramatic lilt, ‘who could I possibly ask that likes to fuck shit up and piss on everything some random-ass Christian is doing just for shits and giggles—LOKI!’ he yelled, voice echoing in the fabric of Dreams, thickening his Southern California beach accent as he called out, ‘YA WANNA FUCKIN PARTY, DUDE?’
Odin laughed, as Loki—in the form of the Himalayan cat from the yard up the hill from Aix’s grandparents’ house—hopped up on the cinderblock wall dividing the yards and then into the pepper tree, and down to trot across the patio to the edge of the pool. ‘Thought you’d never ask. Where’s the party?’
‘Baltimore. Some Christian dude is trying to do magic, you wanna fuck that up for him, my dude?’
‘Ooooh, you’ve never brought me any flesh and bone…’
‘Dude doing the ritual? Sure, if you want. Live prey, even. Can I give you live prey?’
‘You can give me live offerings all you want,’ Loki said, grinning the way a cat could definitely not. It made Aix realise this… wasn’t, actually, the milieu where he’d felt safest at all—and the surroundings disappeared, becoming the one place he had always felt safest.
Wonderland—or, rather, an amalgamation of Wonderland, Fairyland, all the places those types of tales took place. The forest was tall and wide and sparkled impossibly with all kinds of animals and plants that never existed together in reality—or were that size, or that colour, or even that shape. Loki fit right in here, and Odin did too. Morpheus finally found them, appearing the way he was most commonly depicted in this modern day and age—an impossibly pale, impossibly thin man with wild black hair and black clothes, and eyes full of mostly void, and some stars.
‘Dreamweaver,’ Odin said respectfully.
Odin. Morpheus said, without words. Odin left, then, without saying goodbye—as Loki had in the moments the scene was changing, creature of flux that he was.
Oracle, Morpheus said to Aix, when they were alone in that glimmering wood.
‘You good?’ Aix said, because he didn’t know how to ask why Morpheus had arrived only now without seeming rude. And you were never rude to gods.
Repairing damage to my realm from many avenues.
Aix thought about that. ‘Are you saying this guy in Baltimore isn’t the only threat?’
Cthulhu was not a threat until he found you and learned from you where I was. Neither of you meant harm, and I am not cross with either of you. You must introduce him to Hermes upon your next meeting, so you can explain the rules to him.
‘Ah fuck,’ Aix said, covering his face in shame. ‘I didn’t think of asking Hermes… he’s always so busy and I don’t want to bother him,’ sounded like a thin excuse.
And you are not used to anyone helping you with anything. Morpheus put a gentle hand on Aix’s hunched shoulder. That is why I am telling you that he will. He little answers me when I call, he added, somewhat annoyed, …but he will always answer one of his favourite mortals, faithful these many years.
Aix felt more shame at the praise, though he could never identify why that was. Still, he had to put that aside for what needed doing, for people that were relying on him to help them, people who couldn’t help themselves. So, he coughed a little, and forced himself to say, ‘Hermes? Can you help me with something please?’
There was a playful breeze, and a blur of quicksilver, and there he stood, leaning on his silver staff, a perpetual youth with bronze skin and dark oiled ringlets, eyes like the blinding blue of the Southern California summer sky. And, despite his own youth being recently-gone, Aix still felt younger.
‘What do you need?’ Hermes said, with the casual support Aix had always dreamed of having from his imaginary friend, who was to him the form of an older brother.
Aix knew he would probably burst into tears later about this, but kept René in his thoughts and said, ‘I need your help communicating with an eldritch being imprisoned somewhere at the bottom of the sea; oh, and also, if you could help me learn where in the waking world he is?’
‘I can work on one of those at a time, if it is who I think it is. He’s been there a while; but actually doing either of those things with him has been like a shark trying to bite a giant peach.’
Aix appreciated the metaphor. ‘I can help with talking to him, so let’s work on that together. But later—right now, I need to get to Baltimore as quickly as possible, and I need to know what to say to get René free.’
‘That I can do,’ Hermes said, coming closer, ‘Turning lights green the whole way there, keeping the speed traps off you, consider it done; as for what to say, I know you get nervous talking to people, but for this, you’re going to be in your element for the first time; just remember what the stories said—everything you can remember, everything that touched the heart of you. People as things, selfishness the witch’s right, doing the job in front of you, kindness to strangers, and that you’re a loser and it’s okay to be, and the magic words referring to both “fuck you” and “please”.’
‘Everything clowns taught me, in other words,’ Aix said with a smile, thinking of Pippin.
‘Everything—and listen to Pippin, she knows a lot. She knows what you are.’
‘Does she? You mean an Oracle, or a Storyteller?’
‘Clowns don’t have a word that separates them,’ Hermes said. ‘Now, feel free to call me afterward, but it’s time to wake up.’ He snapped his fingers as he said the last words, and Aix woke up in the moving dark of a car, something heavy and warm on his lap. After a moment, he realised she was making sad clown noises. ‘Pippin, hey,’ he said, softly. Soft ‘hey’ was his script for when she was upset.
‘Big Mommy stuck!’ she said, her face full of tear-streaks in blue, her eyes outlined with red, brows uptilted.
‘We can help her, Duckie’s helping, he called his god friends to help. The bad man is gonna have a bad time, he’s having a bad time right now, I promise. Mr The Harlequin God is helping me, we call him Loki.’
‘Loki!’ Pippin did a sign that drew familiar curling horns from her brow, and turned her Mask and Flash green and gold.
‘That’s right, but the real one. The real Loki is a god. He has long red hair and he smiles like Harlequin does, he does Harlequin things all the time. He is doing Harlequin things to the Bad Man.’
Pippin brightened, but still looked worried. ‘Big Mommy stuck.’
‘Big Mommy is whom?’ Lady Sitrinne said, from beside him.
‘Jocosa,’ Aix said. ‘I mean, I can only imagine it would be Jocosa. Is it Jocosa, Pippin?’
‘Ye!’
‘What’s all this about you callin’ Loki to menace somebody?’ Michaela asked, from the back seat.
‘ “Menace”? “Menace”? But “menace” is such a strong word, such a—such a serious word…’ Aix immediately said, in a silly up-and-down sort of voice only a little scratchy from waking up, splaying a hand over his chest, Pippin in paroxysms of delight at this clownery from her Friend. ‘I only asked if he wanted to “fucking party” and whether he wanted to fuck with a Christian trying to do magic, that’s all….’
Lady Sitrinne’s laugh was worthy of an Oscar in its villainy, and Aix’s wasn’t far behind.
‘We called Victoria and she’s waking the family ghosts—all of them, including the family poltergeists,’ Lady Sitrinne said.
‘Oooh,’ Aix said, and used the scratch in his voice as he said, ‘It’s Showtime!’
‘Beebo!!’ Pippin said, gasping. ‘Beebo comin?’
‘Yeah, bean!—she loves Beetlejuice,’ Aix explained to the other humans in the car. ‘That’s her only context for poltergeist, we think,’ he added, remembering what Hermes said.
‘It is a very good context, all contexts considered. Have you seen the Broadway show? We should take you. Our Xander is still performing,’ Lady Sitrinne said with motherly approval that made Aix feel all tingly and glowy, and also…
‘Okay, just gonna put “The Averays know Xander Teague personally” away to freak out over later because it’s Save The World time. On that: Who is René? Who is this abuser doing the Summoning ritual?’
‘The abuser is likely the vampire prince of Baltimore,’ Michaela began to answer, ‘he goes by Diedrich these days. René is one of his vampires, all of whom are pirates Diedrich himself captured and burnt the ships of. Way I hear it, René was a way to break someone else—Roseblade.’
‘Not the Roseblade, as in Captain Roseblade, the Devil of the Doldrums?’
‘Ah, you had a pirate phase,’ Mike said, ‘good, because Baltimore’s vampires are all pirates.’
‘Vampirates, oh my gawd,’ Aix said, excited despite everything, and now curious. ‘I wonder who René is, if he’s anybody I’ve heard of….’
‘Not sure.’
‘What do you mean, “not sure”?’ Aix said. ‘Didn’t you say you knew everything about everyone?’
‘Not Baltimore,’ Mike said, apologetic and expecting the response, having talked to Aix for more than an hour before now, on the drive down to Sleepy Hollow.
‘Why?’
‘I told you about how most big cities have a Vampire Prince and a Hunter, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘And about how vampires all have what’s called a Bestiensklave, an animal they can control?’
‘Ah,’ Aix said, ‘so Diedrich’s animal must be like, a bear or something, and so nobody can stand against him, right? Because bears.’
Michaela knew he was fast, but this was scary fast. ‘…How did you know it was a bear?’
‘Elementary, my dear Watson!’ Aix said, in his most Holmesian accent, ‘there is no other animal that would be dangerous in groups, that is not, usually, in groups; that still thrives in all parts of this continent, that also existed, but no longer exists, in Europe. The Bestiensklave of the Prince of Baltimore is not only most likely to be, but can only be, a bear.’
‘You are going to be a menace.’ Michaela was delighted.
‘Thank you, I’m here all week. What’s the Hunter’s deal? They sleeping with him or something?’
‘No, worse; she’s a cop.’
‘Isn’t that, like, illegal? You said we don’t work with the cops except to impersonate them so they can be redirected away from stuff.’
‘It is, yeah.’ Michaela wondered if Aix would somehow divine why Heeren was so dangerous.
‘Do the cops… know about the Mummery, then?’
‘No, but they know she’s a necromancer, which isn’t somethin’ most people want to know, hence why nobody runs their mouth about it.’
‘Necromancer as in raising and controlling the dead only, or does she do what Victoria does also?’
‘The former.’
‘Ah, that’s why she can scare Diedrich into behaving; vampires are still corpses, after all. I’m guessing necromancers are rare, then?’
‘Necromancers powerful enough to control a vampire, yes.’
‘I see, I see. Well that explains why Diedrich is trying to gain more power by Summoning… something. Hm. Well, I’ve set a fox loose in the chicken house, so we’ll just have to see what all happened when we get there.’
‘I like your style,’ Lady Sitrinne said, a smile hovering on her lips, ‘it reminds me of my dear Gaspard.’
⁂
René found himself on a jolly boat, floating in a dark sea, when a monstrous tentacle coiled around him and pulled him out of the boat, plunging him into warm water and down, down, down…
And there was a boy’s face, so like an Ancient statue of Rome that René had thought it a sunken treasure, until he spoke, perfectly clearly, in French.
‘Hello, friend.’
‘Help me, please,’ fell out of René’s mouth without him meaning to say it; he was always doing that, in dreams. The boy immediately swam around him, revealing a long black fish-tail with translucent, diaphanous white fins, blue lights sparkling along his sides, shifting colour like a clown’s Flash. The boy wrapped soft arms around René, holding him tight and starting to swim up.
‘Don’t worry, I got you,’ he said, and René realised he sounded Quebecois, just a little, before they surfaced, ‘Where are you?’ the boy asked, ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I’m called René. I’m in Baltimore, Maryland. Underground, near the sea.’ René felt the dream slipping away, and talked faster. ‘He’s doing some kind of ritual, it opened the sky and—I think something was supposed to come through. Something terrible.’
The dream was already fading around them; the boy seemed to know, and said, blue eyes wide and urgent, ‘Remember that you get the emotions you give, and always be kind to strange beings.’
René woke up to a stranger’s screams of laughter, and the bellowing of bears over his master’s angry voice, shouting commands in Dutch.
His back was still broken, as he’d been starved of blood for a few nights; but even as he thought that, he realised he was sated, somehow, and healing rapidly. What had fed him? He shifted, and realised the strange feeling in his throat wasn’t from his injuries, but from something he’d swallowed, something strangely solid, still in there but well past his mouth. He swallowed, hard, and swallowed again, and it wriggled, moving itself the rest of the way into his stomach. Contrary to being disgusted, René was merely curious. What was that?
René didn’t dare move more than his head, as he turned it carefully, slowly, to see what he could of the room; he saw enough of the sandy floor of the cave to know the circle of symbols—that had been glowing a strange colour that was not violet—were mussed, and the glowing had changed colour to something that René could only describe—even to himself—as Foreboding.
Something had been moving in the corner of his vision, something above; and some low noise had been vibrating deep in his bones, and he did not want to look up, did not want to know what was up where the sky had been laid open by his master, but curiosity finally won out, and he looked—
And the sky wasn’t just open, anymore.
Filling what was once the void with a mass of white tentacles that writhed and constantly shifted between being very squid-like arms… and… he realised, staring up at them, perhaps it was the fact he’d been a sailor, and very large animals didn’t surprise him anymore; perhaps it was that he was trapped here, laying on his back, while nothing bad happened; perhaps it was something about what the merboy had said, echoing in his mind… you get the emotions you give… always be kind to strange beings….
‘Hello, friend,’ he said, to the monster, and one of the appendages extended toward him, thinning as it stretched, eyes blinking open around the tip of it as he watched, eyes of many colours. The tip was darker than the rest of the limb, and as it brushed René’s face, he felt the strangely familiar texture of… a nipple? He barely had time to register that, before the vibrations formed themselves into words—words in a language René hadn’t heard in centuries, a dialect of French that had been spoken when he’d been a boy.
Do you need a Mother’s help?
The question was given with a wealth of emotion—this colossal creature was Mother, and she didn’t know what was happening, but she had noticed he was Hungry and that he was Frightened, and Mother did not let anybody remain either. René didn’t know how to reply with the same form of communicating, but he tried, because he was too afraid to speak, too afraid to draw attention to himself when his master was in the room.
Mother saw all of this, and René watched as colourful eyes opened all over the whiteness of her flesh, and every pupil looked in different directions, until they all found René’s master, at which point they all looked in the same direction. There was a great intensifying of the shaking, and gravel shook loose from the rock all around, liquid of strange white, like the inside of a dandelion stalk, oozing down the rock in rivulets. Then, Mother seemed to slip further out into the void from whence she’d come, and everything went silent—everything, even the din of bear and man fighting all around them, even the sea.
Mother cannot come through.
This came with sorrow, and anger, and pain; but one of the appendages shot out to wrap around René’s master.
But Mother can pull the Bad Man back through with her.
René’s master still fought with a sword, and as Mother pulled herself back through the hole in the sky, he fought, despite the dizzying speed he was moving through the air, up and up, and despite the strength and size of the tentacle around him, he hacked and slashed and sawed at it with cool-headedness, ignoring the monstrous crow that shot up to harass him, ignoring everything, even having his entire arm degloved by Mother’s last attempt to keep him from getting free.
He landed heavily on the sand, and the monstrous crow immediately turned into a monstrous wolf, tearing the arm off and carrying it away. Even at this, René’s master didn’t cry out, though the pain was far beyond shame’s reproach.
Cold fear settled into René’s stomach; but something woke up inside him and yelled Run! You can run! Run now! and got him to his feet, and he ran, calling his own Bestiensklave to him, knowing it would call to all the alley cats, all the werecats, all the cats from everywhere in a mile radius to help him find a boat.
He didn’t dare go into the city, he kept to the shore, and an old shipscat came to meet him, a large grey tom that was sleek and well-fed.
‘Follow me.’
And he streaked off into the trees. René followed, climbing tree-to-tree at times, the cat leading from above, waiting when René had to find other routes over the marshy ground that could hold his much greater weight. The cat wasn’t in a hurry, and so he was patient, and soon they came to a suburb where the houses backed into the water, with little piers and little boats, mostly speedboats, but the cat led him away from that side, and to the street, a paved suburban road and up to one of the older houses fully hidden by decades of overgrowth. When the cat flowed into the front yard and toward the door and René hesitated, aware he looked not at all like the sort of person someone would want to help, the cat doubled back.
‘Follow me. Door.’
René had several centuries of talking to cats under his belt by now, and communicated that he would not be welcome, in a manner he knew the cat would understand fully.
‘Wrong. My Family is an old sailor, same as you. Follow me. Door.’
René trusted the cat—he knew cats well enough to know they were very trustworthy—and carefully opened the wooden gate, going inside the front yard to find it similarly overgrown, though there was a clear path cut through to the front stoop, the brick green with moss. As he calmed, René realised he could hear a Jimmy Buffett song nearby, outside, perhaps around the back of the house…
It’s those changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes
Nothing remains quite the same
With all of our running and all of our cunning
If we couldn’t laugh, we would all go insane…
He rang the bell, the cat having disappeared, but not far—René could still feel he was nearby. It took a few minutes, but the door eventually opened to a spry old white man with very familiar weathering on his face, even though the garments he wore were modern.
‘Your cat tells me I might find quarter here, as a fellow pirate,’ René said. The smile that spread over the man’s features was like the dawn breaking.
‘Well, my First Mate’s never wrong,’ he said with a laugh, opening the door to a small, jumbly house that was nevertheless indicative that her owner was a true sailor—everything was shipshape. ‘Come aboard, matey! Come aboard! I was just out on The Calypso Queen—you smoke?’ he asked.
‘If you’re offering,’ René said, never one to turn down any kind of offered hospitality—it was just something you learned, as a pirate and a whore both. He followed the man and his cat through the house to the back, and tried not to pause in wonder at seeing a proper boat for the first time in decades.
The Calypso Queen was a sloop; she was made of modern materials, but she was the right shape all right, with a sail and rigging and everything.
‘You ever been on one of these, boy?’
‘I have never been on anything else,’ René said, his voice soft as he followed the man down the pier and on board. The cat had his own little rope-bridge, streaking into the ship without waiting for them, meeting them as they stepped aboard with the first noise he’d actually made—an astonishingly pitch-perfect pipe aboard. René had not been in any kind of Navy before, but he recognised the call enough to laugh in admiration.
‘Thank you, Mr Silver! My kid taught ‘im that,’ the old sailor said proudly. ‘Merchant Captain, my boy is. I told ‘im don’t go into the navy, boy—you a navyman yourself?’
‘Mais non, I am but a pirate’s sawbones.’
‘Are you now! That’s okay then! You brought us a crewmate, Mr Silver! How do you feel about sailing with the tide, Bones?’
‘Aye Captain, I’d like that. I have friends can meet us up the coast in New York, if she’s provisioned to go that far. I’ve navigated these waters, and the coast, many times before—though you’d have to help me with the people.’
‘You’re a wonder—I won’t ask where you’ve come from, looks to me like you’ve been worse for wear. Why don’t you sit down with me for a bit, have a toke or two and take a rest—looks like you’ve swum most the way here!’
René could hardly believe it could be so simple, and he wouldn’t put his back to shore; still, he was only human, he knew he would relax a little the longer the hours went by and nothing happened and no one came. He’d crossed moving water, he reminded himself, and his master certainly had other things to take his attention until well after the next tide—and, by then, René could be gone.
Over the hours talking, and sharing marijuana-laced tobacco from a comfortingly-familiar shape of pipe (a churchwarden had been the kind René used many centuries ago), he found out that the man’s name was Captain Teague, and that he had a grandson he was equally proud of, who hadn’t gone into sailing at all, but had gone into theatre, and was currently starring in a Broadway show that had been up for a Tony. ‘Can’t remember… what’s the name of it… something about a ghost or a devil or some sorta spook—always loved my stories about that kinda thing. “Tell me another story about monsters, Captain, I wanna hear about monsters again” he was always sayin’ t’me.’
‘He calls you “Captain”?’ René said, for the man had not seemed so formal with his ways.
‘Well, that’s his dad’s fault, that is. My boy calls me “Captain” not “Dad”, always has. Was always very specific with the kids at school about what kind of captain, too. You know, he told me once that we must be related to old Blackbeard? I guess his real name was Teague.’
‘It was, yes,’ René said, ‘he wasn’t near so friendly as you have been.’
This made the old man laugh for quite some time; by and by, he coughed a bit, took another swig of his flask of gin, and he said,
‘The way you talk like you’ve met the fellow, that tickles me!’
René paused to consider, then decided to say, ‘I have,’ in a way that he knew was both too serious and with too much of a smile to seem a joke or a lie. As he’d hoped, it gave the old man pause, and he glanced at René askance, saw his small smile, and then looked out over the water.
‘Your friends up coast,’ he said, in a more sober voice. ‘They’re called Averay, ain’t they?’
‘They are.’
Captain Teague nodded. ‘I see, I see. And what you’re runnin’ from, its got a shotgun with silver bullets? No, wait, don’t tell me, gotta keep Plausible Deniability if the pigs show up,’ he said, before taking another toke from the small churchwarden pipe he’d been sharing with René. ‘You go on inside and wash, I’ll keep watch for you, Bones.’
René thanked him, and went back up the short pier to shore, the cat leading him to the bathroom inside the house, which had a washer and dryer in it; René turned on the hot water of the shower and, while he was waiting on it to heat, peeled off his clothes and put them in the machine to wash—with the hottest possible temperature, given he’d been forced to wear the same clothes for days.
Being naked helped, and so did getting clean. There was a bottle of conditioner, surprisingly, and it was a woman’s brand. Mrs Teague must have either died recently or the Captain had enough visitors that still used conditioner that he couldn’t justify throwing it out yet. It was a huge bottle, so it was anyone’s guess. It was… unlikely, but not impossible, that the wife had been a husband. René contemplated all of this in a curious but slightly detached way, as he saturated his black curls with it.
The washing machine wasn’t finished by the time he was done, though he was aware half an hour had passed by in the steam. He wound his hair up in a towel and looked through the cabinets in the bathroom to see if there was a new toothbrush anywhere; the whole place was organised enough that he suspected there would be, and was satisfied to know he was right when he found one—new in its package—and was relieved to finally be able to floss and brush his teeth after days in The Cage without even the most basic hygiene. Just because vampires didn’t eat didn’t mean they didn’t need to clean themselves, after all.
After he was done, his mouth tingling from the cinnamon toothpaste and floss, he stared in the mirror, and contemplated how he might change his appearance. At the very least, he might stop at a drug store and find a box of black dye to cover up the streaks of silver, just to obfuscate his apparent age; other than that, there was little he could do.
He’d crossed moving water, he reminded himself, he’d crossed moving water, that meant his Master couldn’t see him anymore, so long as he stayed on the water. And he could stay on the water easily, now, with the new ally he’d found. A good captain was worth his weight in gold, and from even the short conversation they’d had so far, René had learned enough to know the Captain of the Calypso Queen was a good captain—he was competent, and he was kindly.
There was little René could do until his clothes were dry, so he left the bathroom and went to see if there were books; he vaguely registered there had been a bookshelf somewhere—ah, there it was. He found it full of poetry collections, and one low shelf had an old edition of Tolkien’s books, as well as old children’s books by Dr Seuss, Roald Dahl, and others. René sat on the sofa covered in blue and green flowers, and read until he heard the washing machine’s buzz, then read some more until the dryer, also, buzzed. By then, dawn was due.
He went back outside, finding the old sailor just as he’d left him, still awake and sharp, nursing a cup of coffee now rather than a flask of gin.
‘Ahoy, there, Bones! Come aboard, son! You look better for a shower and clean clothes!’
‘I feel better too, Captain,’ René said. ‘Unfortunately, I cannot relieve you on watch.’
‘Oh, never mind about it, Mr Silver’s agreed to take next watch, and I don’t need much sleep.’
‘I am… allergic to sunlight, shall we say,’ René said delicately.
‘Go belowdecks then, no sleep like boat sleep, I always say.’
‘Thank you again, Captain.’
‘Thank you—haven’t been able to weigh anchor since my boys were here last summer, and never s’far as we’re headed. You sleep all day then? One of those sorts of spooks?’
‘Yes, I am,’ René said with a smile, ‘one of those sorts of spooks.’
Belowdecks had a better galley than René had ever seen, and many decorations that spoke of someone having quilting as a hobby, and a favourite colour of purple. There were more poetry books, but there were newer books too, and a set of well-used Dungeons and Dragons books as well as cheap spiral-bound notebooks.
René had never played Dungeons and Dragons, though he had heard of it. He took the one called Player’s Handbook with him into one of the cabins, finding there were two and taking the smaller bunkroom, curling up under the lovely quilt that was all whimsical Seussian colours and shapes, and reading until the dawn’s coming made him fall dead once more.