The Ship Beyond Time (The Girl from Everywhere #2)(16)

“You’re not going to find it making a mess!”

His chest heaved; he gripped my arms. He looked so incredibly lost. “Nixie . . . Nixie . . .”

“It’s okay, Dad. I’ll find it. Just sit!” I pushed him back toward his bunk; his knees bent and he sank down. “Stay there.” I took a deep breath. Both Kashmir and Blake were staring in through the doorway. “Blake, bring some water. Kash, can you . . . ?”

Kashmir came to the captain’s side, putting his hand on Slate’s shoulder to keep him in his bunk while I picked up the maps and set the room back in order. By the time Blake returned and put a cup into Slate’s shaking hands, I hadn’t discovered anything else missing—including maps that were far more valuable.

Had Slate only mislaid the map and forgotten? I shooed the boys out and knelt next to my father to ask, but he shook his head vehemently. “No. No, Nixie. How could I forget something like that? That map is everything to me.”

The reminder stung more than it should have. I clenched my fists. “Everything?”

He bridled. “Don’t take that tone. I’m still here, aren’t I?”

“Barely. But why did you have the map out of the cupboard, Slate?” I made a face; he didn’t answer, but of course I already knew. “You tried to use it.”

“Maybe I thought about it,” he said, pugnacious. Then he grimaced. “But I was . . . afraid.”

“Afraid?” I laughed a little, bitter. “Afraid to die?”

“No,” he said scornfully, like the very question was a foolish one. “Afraid to lose you.”

“Well, I’m not going back with you to 1868, to watch you overdose. I couldn’t, even if I wanted to, but frankly—”

“That’s not what I meant!” Slate clenched his jaw, scrubbing his hand through his blond hair. When he spoke again, his voice was soft. “That’s not what I meant. I mean . . . Joss told me something else once.”

I stared at him warily. “Do I want to know?”

“I don’t know. Do you?”

Inside, I struggled—knowledge was power, ignorance bliss. “What was it?”

“She told me . . . she told me that it’s possible. To change things.”

I stared at him, unmoored; the world swirled around me and I felt like small craft tossed on a wild sea—lost, lost, but strangely free. “How?”

He gave me a half shrug. “With enormous effort and great sacrifice. Even then, nothing’s for sure.”

“Fine,” I said, breathless. “But how? Does it take a special map? Or—or is it just a matter of finding the right time and making a different choice? How do you—”

“She never said more than that,” he interrupted. “Maybe it’s best I never figured it out.”

The words made no sense at first, not from him. “But . . . why?”

“Someday, Nixie.” My father peered at me, his blue eyes bleary, but on his lips—a dreamy smile. “Someday when I’m old and nearly gone, we’ll sail together for the last time. We’ll go together to the edge of the world. I’ll give you the helm, and you’ll give me the lifeboat. And I’ll take the map of Honolulu and sail to Byzantium like an old man should. You’ll be captain then. Captain of your own fate. And I’ll be ready to let go. But if I went now . . .” He shook his head. “What would I give to have her back, Nixie? What would I have to sacrifice?”

Though he’d only asked a question, I knew the answer: me. He would have lost me, as I was, here and now, trading a daughter who loved the sea for one born and raised on a golden shore. But that understanding did not chill me, not today. I was already numb. The words echoed in my head: enormous effort. Great sacrifice.

But change was possible. And looking at Slate, his bent shoulders, his hollow eyes—I knew I could not let it happen to me. I would not end up like my father.

What must I do? What must I sacrifice? How would I stave off my fate? I needed answers—answers my father had never been able to discover, in all his years searching. But Slate was erratic, an addict, driven by demons, pulled along on his whims. I was more methodical. I had to be.

So where to start? Where did people go to seek knowledge?

Ideas bubbled up in my mind: all over the world and throughout history, every culture had a way of divination. Tarot cards and tasseography, dream interpreters . . . and fortune-tellers, of course. But those jobs were like chum for charlatans, as my trip to Chinatown had shown.

Maybe I should go back to the source of the prophecy—to Joss herself. I went to the cupboard, still open, and pulled out the maps of Honolulu that my father had collected over the years. Here, one from 1895. But it was useless; she was dead by then.

What about an older map? After all, Joss had known my fate by the time she’d tattooed it on my father’s back. But how had she learned it? My stomach dropped at the next thought: what if by going back to see her in a past Honolulu, I would trigger Kashmir’s loss? Could she learn my fortune from my own lips?

Better instead to meet her on my own timeline—after she’d already given my father the tattoo. I’d have to wait till the Royal Hawaiian Navy gave up the search for our ship, of course. Six months? A year? All I had to do was keep Kashmir safe until then. Maybe a stint in a landlocked country would be a good idea after all. Central Europe . . . perhaps Lichtenstein . . .