The river is wide and deep, running sluggishly around rocks in its path, the gentle trickling noise it makes is soothing. I’m grateful it isn’t a fast flowing river, and the current only tugs at my legs gently when I wade in. Ellie and I leave our clothes right on the edge of the bank, close enough so that we can jump out and grab them if we need to. It took several minutes of careful persuading to get Ellie to strip off her small clothes, but I finally convinced her that we were both girls, and no one else would see, and besides, the river would cover her once she got in.

            I suck air in sharply through my teeth as the cold water splashes up against my legs, and goose bumps ripple over my skin from head to toe. Behind me I hear a splash and then a squeal, Ellie is trying to make herself run in all at once.

            “It’s so cold!” She cries.

            I can’t help laughing at her dismay, “just dive in! You won’t feel it!”

            “Liar, look at yourself, you’re only in up to your knees and you’re already shivering.”

            I thumb my nose at her, and just to prove her wrong, take a deep breath and plunge forward, submerging myself in the river. The shock of the cold water hits me like a physical blow, momentarily stealing my breath from my lungs. I surface as fast as I can, my ears instantly ache from the cold, sputtering water as I cry,

            “Holy mother Mary!”

            Ellie says sweetly, “I didn’t know you were religious.”

            “Come here,” I growl, and swim towards her, intending to pull her and her smart mouth into the river with me. Ellie squeals with laughter and backs away, feet splashing up water in the shallows. We’re making so much noise that I barely hear it, a faint rustle in the bushes. At first my brain thinks automatically, that’s it’s some kind of danger, and I freeze in the water, ready to spring for my clothes, and the rusted knife that I’d stashed under my tunic. Ellie doesn’t notice that I’ve stopped moving, she keeps laughing, dipping her toe in, trying to force herself to go in. The rustling is behind her,

            “Ellie.”

            She looks up at me in surprise, obvious caught off guard by the sharp tone in my voice. The bushes rustle again, and this time she hears it. She gasps and rushes backwards, submerging herself up to her waist in the river, hands covering herself as much as she can. Her eyes are wide in the fading light.

            I don’t give a rat’s ass about modesty, and I stalk forward out of the river and dart for the knife under my clothes, feeling a surge of relief when my fingers close around the handle. The bushes rustle again, farther into the forest this time, and the movement draws my eye. There’s a flash of black and red amidst the green, and I recognize it as someone’s jacket or shirt.

            Someone is spying on us.

            I’m not particularly surprised, considering we arrived on a ship full of pirates, but I’m mad as hell, so I tear through the bushes and leap at the flash of color, plunging my hands and arms into the bush recklessly. Fiery pain shoots up both arms as the twigs and thorns scratch up my skin. Someone yells as my hands close around the fabric of the shirt, and I yank the offender backwards out of the bushes. A gawky, skinny form falls out onto the ground, thrashing against the grip I have on his shirt,

            “Owch!” he’s saying, “gerrof me, you crazy bitch!”

            “I”ll give you crazy, you sneaking little toad,” I scream at him, launching myself forward, pinning him to the ground as I lash out with my fists. He tries to shield himself, yelling at me, but I can feel my knuckles making contact with his face.

            His lip starts swelling almost immediately, and a thin trickle of blood drips down his chin, so I finally stop, breathing hard, examining him. I remember him now, the thin face and weak chin that holds the start of a beard. The boy that had been scrubbing the deck on board the ship. The ruddy cabin boy had been creeping around in the bushes spying on us.

            Ellie’s voice is panicked, “Molly? Are you alright?”

            “I’m fine,” I snarl back, still not taking my eyes off the groaning cabin boy beneath me, “but he’s not gonna be!”

            The cabin boy opens his mouth, about to say something, and I smack his cheek with an open palm, getting a satisfying “crack!”

            “You keep your gob shut.”

            More movement in the forest behind me suddenly, and I jerk upright, turning to see Jasper emerge from the bushes. It looks like he’s been running, because his brown hair is blown back and tangled, and his cheeks are just starting to flush. When he sees me his jaw drops open and his eyes bulge almost comically.

            I glance down at myself and realize what it must look like. I’m sitting astride his cabin boy, buck naked, one fist still up in the air. I snap at him, “what?”

            Jasper looks lost for words for a moment, and then he stutters, “I…heard yelling.” He glances down at his cabin boy, who is still groaning, eyes half shut.

            I say hastily, “he was spying.”

            “Ah,” Jasper bites his lower lip, and it looks like he’s trying to hide his amusement, “well, carry on then.” He turns back, glancing over his shoulder once more, and this time he’s not looking at the cabin boy. I turn away, cheeks flushing hotly, telling myself he can only see the back of me.

            Still. Not what I thought my first…encounter…with a man would be like.

            Once he’d vanished into the bushes I stood up, giving the cabin boy a sharp kick in the ribs,

            “That’ll teach you to creep about spying on girls when they’re trying to take a bath, huh?”

            I grab for my clothes, pulling my shirt over my head, listening as the cabin boy staggers to his feet, cursing me as he shuffles away. Ellie is still standing in the middle of the river hugging herself, eyes wide.

            “it’s okay now,” I tell her, “I’m pretty sure everyone is gone,” I glare at the bushes and say loudly, “at least, they better be.”

            No one responds, and the forest remains silent, so Ellie eventually wades back to the river bank, and I hand her her clothes, which she puts on as fast as possible,

            “That was rather frightening,” she admits.

            “Eh,” I wave one hands carelessly, “I think I beat some sense into him. Don’t think he’ll do it again.”

            Ellie snorts with laughter, and we walk back through the woods together, following the bright orange light that glimmers through the forest. The others have built a couple of campfires, and the deer is roasting over one of them. When we emerge through the trees the men glance up quickly, expectation clear on their dirty faces. When they see it’s us they glance away, or look at one another, expressions full of unspoken tension.

            “What?” I look around the campfire in confusion, catching sight of Jasper on the other side. He’s pacing back and forth, “What’s wrong?”

            Gus, who sits between the cabin boy (who’s holding a rag to his bloody lip) and a narrow faced pirate with a missing eye, speaks up, “the men we sent to burn the captain’s body, they aren’t back yet.”

            I glance back over the expanse of desert just beyond the shelter of the trees. They’d probably walked a while to make sure the stink of burning hair and flesh didn’t come back to camp, “maybe they’re just taking awhile to get back here. They must have set up the burning site a few miles from here, right?”

            There’s worry in Jasper’s light grey eyes, and he keeps running his fingers over the short stubble on his jaw, “they shouldn’t have been this long. It’s been nearly an hour since they set off. I should send a team out to see…”

            “It’s getting dark,” one of them men growls, and there’s a general murmur of agreement all around the fire.

            Jasper whirls in the direction of the speaker, “You’ll damn well obey your captain, William. Don’t think I don’t know the sound of your voice.”

            One of the crew, a grizzled old man sitting next to the cabin boy, ducks his head and mutters an apology.

            Jasper shakes his head, “But, I agree with you. I don’t like the idea of sending more men into a situation we know nothing about, in the dark. If they’re not back in the morning, we all go find out what’s happened,” his voice took on a low, savage quality, “and if any of my men have been killed or taken by desert nomads or thieves, we’ll sort them out properly.”

            There’s a rough grunt of agreement from all around, and one or two of the men pump their fists in the air.

            I flop down next to Gus, turning to the cabin boy, who‘s shooting me dark looks,

            “What, you want to go again?”
            He glances away quickly, and Gus looks incredulously from him, to me, “You did that?”

            “Damn right,”  I say shortly, and leave it at that.

            Ellie and I step into line to get a piece of venison, and for the next several minutes it’s pretty quiet. Only the deep murmur of the men talking to one another and the crack and pop of the twin campfires. The smell of the roasting meat is making my stomach rumble loudly, and my eyes are fixed on the person in front of me, so I’m not the first one to see the man stagger out of the bushes behind the campfire.

            Someone yells, and then it’s chaos. The men spring up around the campfire, pulling out pistols, and the metallic sound of swords ringing free from their scabbards fill the air. The man that staggers into the circle of firelight looks half dead. His face is unrecognizable, the skin black with rot, nearly hanging off his bones. Thick black veins twist up his bare arms, and each step he takes is laborious and jerky, like some kind of decaying marionette. His jaw is working constantly, opening and shutting with loud clicking noises, gnashing his teeth as he stares with glassy, blood shot eyes. He doesn’t even seem to register that he’s looking down the barrels of multiple guns. He takes another step forward, nearly impaling himself on the blade of the nearest pirate, who jumps back with a yell.

             “David? Davey? Is that you?”

            “’taint anyone we know,” another pirate protests, “he’s a monster.”

            “Look at his boots,” another voice cries out, “it’s Davey! It’s him!”

            I glanced down at the dying man’s boots. They’re tipped with silver caps.

            “It’s him,” the pirate with the missing eye steps forward, “Davey?”

            Davey – if that’s who it is – launches himself forward with a savage shriek, and the one-eyed pirate scrabbles backwards. Then there’s a lightening crack, a deafening boom that makes us all freeze, and the monstrous Davey pitches backwards with all the grace of a felled tree, a gaping black hole in the middle of his forehead.

            When I look up, Jasper is standing in the middle of the circle, between the two fires, a smoking pistol in one hand. His face is grim and he’s looking right at me,

            “I think you’ve started something here, and it’s going to be a very big problem, very fast.”