The Girl from Everywhere (The Girl from Everywhere #1)(19)

He seemed suspicious at first when Bee hailed him from the captain’s place at the wheel. Was it her skin color he questioned, or her sex? Then again, it could have been the ship herself; it wouldn’t be the first time the Temptation had raised eyebrows.

Whatever Colonel Iaukea thought, it didn’t matter much; he was nothing like the New York Coast Guard. I introduced us as a survey ship commissioned by a company in San Francisco. Then Kashmir brushed by the man; he half turned, and I raised my voice to regain his attention. “Uh, interested in building a fish cannery along the eastern side of Oahu! Or, ah, possibly the western side,” I extemporized. Kashmir moved away, and I relaxed. “Depending, of course, on local conditions.”

The colonel took my claim at face value. In fact, after Kashmir palmed the silver he’d taken from the colonel’s coin purse and gave him a hearty handshake, the harbor master was quite diplomatic, claiming it was in the interest of beating the setting sun that he didn’t bother making even a cursory search.

We were greeted by a small crowd at the dock; Chinese porters with tonsured heads, graceful native women with baskets of tropical fruit and shining masses of black hair, a wrinkled man bent under a huge piece of coral. Almost everyone—young, old, local, or foreign—was bedecked with blossoms, strung in leis thrown around their necks or tucked behind one ear.

One particular young man—my age, with blond hair and bright spots of pink on his pale cheeks—stood squinting at the ship and writing furiously in a booklet. But why? He was too young to be a reporter. Then his eyes, roving over the ship, met mine, and he grinned. I lifted the corners of my lips tentatively, and he tipped his straw cap in my direction. Suddenly shy, I went to help roll the sails. What was it like, on the other side? Watching the ships come and go, instead of watching the ports appear and recede?

When they saw our ship lacked interesting news or cargo—or more likely, lacked hordes of sailors willing to spend their pay on trinkets—the impromptu dockside market dispersed, the boy along with them, as the sun set and the gas lamps in the streets of Honolulu began to shine. Before they went, Kash bought a dozen ripe mangoes—his favorite—and a copy of the Evening Bulletin for me, which gave us the exact date: October 24, 1884, even later than I’d thought. In fact, this was the time and place I’d be living, had Slate never stolen me away.

The harbor had become a winter forest of bare masts, lit by smoky torches that made the water sparkle like a scattering of black diamonds. The sounds of drunken laughter and someone pounding a piano out of tune drifted from the sandy town road to the dock. Sailors made their way toward the watering holes downtown; later that night, they’d stumble back, singing off-color shanties off-key.

The crew of the Temptation stayed aboard and made a simple meal out of Rotgut’s catch, a couple of snapper, and our bottomless pitcher of wine, taken from a mythical map of Greece. I’d brought my paper to the table. The headline—MOURNING CONTINUES FOR PRINCESS PAUAHI!—explained the half-mast flags, and the article described the start of the second week of lamentation for the princess. Victorians were so in love with the rituals of death. Apparently, she’d left “a large estate earmarked to support the declining population of native children. The untimely death of the princess is another blow to the royal lineage, which has not been spared the high mortality afflicting their race—”

“So. 1884,” Rotgut said. “At first I thought he’d done it.”

“So did he,” I said under my breath.

“Do you know what went wrong?” Bee asked

“Well, I do have some theories,” I said, putting my finger on the page to keep my place. “I could test them out if you’d let me take the helm.”

“Ask your father,” Bee said, flashing her teeth.

“Come on, Bee. What’s the worst that could happen?”

Bee laughed then, a sound like a rasp. “I have some theories. Let’s not test them.”

Her answer wasn’t unexpected; this wasn’t the first time we’d had this exchange. I went back to my paper. “Mortality afflicting their race . . .” Ah, here. “The princess lies in state under black feather kahilis made from the glossy plumage of the o’o bird—”

“Nixiiiieeeee!”

The captain’s voice was harsh and braying. We all froze, Kashmir with a piece of fish halfway to his mouth.

“Nix!” The slurred voice was muffled behind the thick mahogany of the door.

I stood, but Bee raised her hand. “Let me.” She walked over to the closed door and knocked. “Captain?”

Only silence. Rotgut took another swig of wine. She knocked again, louder. “Captain, are you all right?”

“Where’s my daughter?” came the shout, but the door didn’t open. Another silence, Several ships away, someone was playing the harmonica with more bravery than skill.

“Nix?” His voice came again, soft, pleading. I strode over, my feet landing hard on the decking. Kash tried to grab my arm, but I shrugged him off.

“What do you want?” I shouted through the door.

There was a long pause. “I see her.”

“Who?”

Silence.

“Captain?” I knocked with my fist. “Captain!”

Nothing.

Fine. Fine. I kicked the door; thinking it was still locked. But it flew open, and there was Slate, staring up at me from the floor. Lank hair was plastered to his forehead; his eyes were rimmed in red, and the blue of the iris was a slim halo around the black holes of his pupils. The heavy odor of sweat crawled into my nostrils. Beside him on the floor was the box. My fingers itched to grab the whole mess, to hurl it into the sea: the things he loved best, gone in an instant. Instead I tightened my grip on the doorknob. “Go to sleep, Slate.”