Page 6 of Shiver Me Satyr

“Not yet,” he says, nodding. “Every captain has a moment where they must make the unpopular choice because it’s what’s best for the boat or themselves. Teeth jumping overboard with your sister was his moment.”

“Well, no handsome kraken is coming to drag me overboard anytime soon—”

“Here I thought humans were more your type.”

“Avast ye, that’s why I married a boat. I gave up on both humans andOthers—”

“Teeth knew what he was doing when he made you our captain,” Chub says, tapping his temple as if we both don’t know Teeth gave me the boat on a whim.

While Chub laughs at his own joke, I ponder what Teeth would do. Teeth wouldn’t have been propositioned and then triggered by the infuriating satyr for starters. Teeth’s skirt-chasing and loose morals would have delighted our new sailor, making him one of the boys. Once again, I’m the problem. But was I a problem before Pastor Richard used me while his wife was away? If I had kept away from him or had a man like Chub to look out for me, so I didn’t fall prey to a man like him…that’s it!

“You’re right,” I say, sitting up straighter. “The captain always knows best or, at the very least, pretends to know best so the crew believes it. This idiot believes he was sent aboard for an apprenticeship. You believe he needs hard labor to leave me alone and learn some manners. Well, as your captain, I hereby order you to take him under your wing. Work him to the bone and see if there’s a shipshape pirate underneath his finery and fancy hairstyle.”

“Wait, what? Now, Captain—”

“Don’t younow, Captain, me. You wouldn’t second-guess Magda, would you?”

“Not if I liked the blood in my veins—”

“Then don’t question me either,” I reply. The smirk on my lips gives away how clever I believe I am. Working on a fierceexpression is something I practice in the mirror, but never use on Chub. He would just laugh at me. “Hybris is yours to order around as you see fit.”

“Would you consider taking him on as crew and kin if he shapes up?”

Hybris’s horrid words ring in my ears. I’ll never forget how he put down my legitimate problem with him to my needing sex. Women are toys to men like him, and I’ll never be someone’s toy again. I may not have my soulbeak, virginity, or heart after what the reverend did to me, but I won’t let another man break what’s left of me—especially a scoundrel like Hybris.

“Never,” I whisper. “Even if we maroon him on some tropical island where he can seduce the natives, I’ll never see him as me hearty.”

“Then it’s settled,” Chub says, gathering the small wooden ships and putting them into my hands. “I’ll treat him as a greenhorn until you decide to kick him off the boat—be it in a port or into Davey Jones’s locker. Since you are a fierce Captain, you might be interested in knowing that a prize is on the horizon. She’s not a treasure galleon, but I don’t think you’re ready to take one of those yet. This is a man-of-war like us, but of the French variety. She’s our size but half our speed—sitting low in the water, too.”

This would be my first time taking a boat’s cargo as captain. My insides bubble like a soup caldron with a mixture of excitement, anxiety, and terror. I’ve participated in only one boat takeover in my life—and none in my short time as an official member of the sweet trade.

That day, I was so sick with fear over my sister’s capture that I threw myself at the mercy of the then-Captain Teeth. He made me wait to rescue her until he took over a merchant ship,where I made my first kills. A trio of soldiers were poised to attack my person when I beheaded them with a cat-o’-nine’s tail as if it were one of my tentacles—tentacles I no longer have, thanks to Richard. We haven’t taken another boat since, probably because I was finding my footing as their new captain.

Sigh. It always boils down to my fault, doesn’t it? Probably another reason Genius Chub never stepped into the role.

“Don’t look so green. Or if you must, head to the poopdeck before you cast up your accounts,” Chub says, rubbing my shoulder. “You’ve studied Magda’s logs, right? She wrote everything in detail while waiting for the sun to set.”

“I’ve read them several times.” The problem is, I couldn’t visualize what she meant half the time. Between her European spellings, pirate lingo, and dithering about how pissed she was at Branko, the logs aren’t an easy read. I’m used to reading children’s stories and the bible to orphans, not technical plans filled with nautical terms I never learned. My schooling happened under the sea, where weather, boats, pirates, and treasure are myths, and monsters are real.

“Good,” he says, placing the black pawn that representsPatricia’s Wishon the map. He places a brown pawn with a French flag in another position before leaning back in his chair. “What’s the plan, Captain?”

“Well—” I pause to clear my throat and scoot my chair closer, “—if we come at it from the west and zigzag to this position, we can blow out her sails with grapeshot—”

“Let me stop you—”

“I just sunk our boat, didn’t I?”

He sighs as he studies his toes. Yeah, I killed us at least once in my instructions.

“The wind is moving north with a strong gale. It’ll blow rain the next two days. We have that time to decide—”

“What did I do wrong, and what would you do? Chub, let’s not kid ourselves. I’m rubbish at navigation and need you to feed me the answers until I gain more experience.”

“Which you’ll only get if you take a few turns at the helm,” he says with a wagging finger. “Our boat drifts east when the wind blows north, so coming from the west would capsize us in larger swells. You must learn how the boat behaves in different winds, how tightly she turns, and whetherzigzagis in her range of abilities—which it’s not. I’ll give you that one for free.”

“I promise to double my shifts at the helm.”

“And I will correct your course no matter what you do,” he says, nodding. “Just act like you know what you’re doing and don’t sink us. That was the third problem with your fledgling plan. Grapeshot is wild. It takes out sails when aimed high and blows holes in the hull when aimed low. Can clear the deck in between, too. While you are flinging grapeshot everywhere, they’ll puncture your hull with one round of cannonballs. We will sink while they lick their wounds.”

---