Rough Magic by Caryl Cude Mullin

Author:Caryl Cude Mullin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, JUV037000
Publisher: Second Story Press
Published: 2009-08-12T04:00:00+00:00

Act Four

The Night Sea Journey

IV.i.

It looked like it had been burned and broken by some careless giant. Where there had once been groves of trees, there were now charred skeletal spears jabbing at the pale sky. The ground was blackened, the rocks split and cracked. The only sign of life was a dismal raven sitting on a twisted branch. It croaked when it saw them and flapped away, disappearing with dull wing claps into the mist. The air that wafted from the shore was sour.

“We’ve come to the wrong place,” Chiara said. She looked at Caliban anxiously. This was clearly not the island of sweet airy breezes her mother and Caliban had always spoken of.

Caliban looked as tortured as the land. “It’s the right place,” he said, dully. “It’s just all wrong.”

“What could have happened, Caliban? A fire of some sort?”

He shifted his shoulders wordlessly. His face was pinched, his birthmarks purple against the ashy pallor of the rest of his skin. She turned her gaze back to the shore.

“Should we…” Her voice trailed off. What choice did they have now? The spell had been cast, the path had been chosen. Had she really expected to walk away from her life so easily? She stared at the wasted shore. They’d been prepared for hardship, but this was a land of death. She glanced at Caliban once again. He seemed shrunken, old. It’s hurting him, she thought.

“We have to make it better, somehow. We have to make it right.” She wasn’t sure exactly what she meant, only that she would do anything to take away Caliban’s pain. She tucked her hands inside her cloak. They were cold, but she knew that wasn’t why they had begun to shake. “How do we get there?” she asked. She tried to make her voice casual, carefree.

Caliban pointed toward the ship’s boat, lashed to the deck, upside down. “In that,” he said.

The boat was made of oak boards, built to carry twenty men. Chiara doubted that she and Caliban would be able to budge it, let alone lower it into the water. That meant swimming to the shore. Chiara glanced at the dark waves of the deep harbor. The water looked cold and dangerous. Probably shark infested, too, she thought. She could hear it lapping at the sides of the ship, hungry for her life. The very thought of going into it choked the breath in her. She gripped the rail, her knuckles turning white. Resolutely, she held her voice steady and said, “We’ll never move that boat, Caliban. We have to swim.”

Caliban turned to her. It was clear that he saw through her mask of bravado.

She tried to smile, but found it impossible. She resorted to reason, convincing herself more than Caliban. “Besides, what will we do with the boat once we get to the shore? The captain will know someone deserted the ship. They’ll come after us.”

“They’ll have to swim,” Caliban said. “No sailor swims. And we could hide the boat, pull it up on shore and…” He stopped, his argument obviously pointless.

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