My Diary from the Edge of the World (24 page)

“Mermaids?” I asked, clutching the rail, giddy. I'd never seen one in real life.

A cry came across the water, and a few distant shapes surfaced in the ship's wake and went under again.

The captain nodded. “We're crossing over a well-established mermaid city,” he said. “They're just waking
up, like we are. They follow the ship because we churn up fish they like to eat.” Seagulls did the same, swooping down to stab the water with their beaks and then sailing upward again.

I sucked in my breath as a handful of mermaids surfaced again: smelly, slimy things with pale white faces and hair stuck to the sides of their cheeks, their eyes glittery and flat. I'd seen them on TV, but I'd never realized they were quite so nasty looking.

“Are they ever friendly?” I asked as one by one they dove again, their tails rising into the air before disappearing.

“A few've gotten used to humans and become more tame,” the captain said. “But mostly, they're hungry creatures. They'd drown me as soon as look at me if I fell overboard, and then happily eat me. Or you. Still, they're civilized. They've built beautiful things under the sea, which a few hardy scuba divers have lived to tell about. Stone houses, towers, sculptures . . . maybe you've seen documentaries.” He surveyed the wake of the ship. “We'll leave them behind once we get to the really cold sea. The arctic waters have gotten too frigid even for them.”

It was such a sublime, fluttery, but also peaceful moment, with just the three of us awake (besides the
crew, who were up near the front of the ship busy with their morning chores) and the mermaids dipping and rising in our wake, that I wished it could last all day. The crisp air felt nice as it gently blew through my hair, and the sun warmed my face.

“Captain,” Oliver said quietly, “why do you keep sailing, when the sea's so dangerous?” I'd actually been wondering the same thing.

Captain Bill looked thoughtful and rubbed his dark beard. “I can't imagine life without it. The ocean's always a mystery. There are fish deep down in the dark, so delicate that if you brought them into the light they'd disintegrate. There are depths we'll never reach, hidden valleys and mountain ranges right beneath us that we'll never see. To me, the ocean is a never-ending surprise. I only feel alive when I'm drifting along with her.”

He glanced in the direction we'd come. The Cloud was in the distance behind us, keeping a steady pace.

“It's the sea ghosts that scare me. They're mostly victims of krakens—poor drowned sailors who never had a chance. They're the most vicious ghosts on earth, I'd wager, intent on dragging sailors into the Underworld with them. I had an encounter with them on my first voyage that I'll never forget. It nearly turned me off to
the sea forever.” He stared into the distance, his focus growing hazy.

“What happened?” I asked.

The captain looked at me, smiled, and rubbed my head as if I were still a little girl. “Let's just say, I was lucky to make it home, Gracie.” Seeing our faces, he looked like he regretted bringing it up. “The ocean is a big place,” he rushed on, “and the chances of running across a phantom ship are very small. Anyway, I know what to do should we ever come across one. I'm prepared for anything.” He smiled confidently. He was just taking in a big, happy lungful of air when my dad emerged from a door behind us. His glasses glinted in the sun, and he tripped over a rope as he walked in our direction, gazing up at the thin layer of clouds. He was clutching an anemometer in his hands—one of the instruments Prospero gave him for the trip. (It's a small metal post with three twirling cups on top that are supposed to measure the wind.)

“G-good morning,” he stuttered, trying to get his sea legs. (I've finally adjusted, but Dad hasn't taken to the ocean very well, and spends a fair amount of each day looking like he might be sick.) I said a distant “good morning” back, Oliver gave a sheepish wave, and the captain nodded politely. Sometimes my dad
looks so small and lost and befuddled by ship life, and the burly men around us, that I want to forgive him (just because I agreed to this voyage doesn't mean I've forgotten what he did), but this morning wasn't one of those times.

“I wonder if you could tell me which is the poop deck?” he asked Captain Bill, squinting up at the clouds. “I'd like to set this up and do some calculations . . . figure out how fast we're traveling and start getting used to the instrument. It might come in handy when we're in the Southern Sea.”

Captain Bill looked skeptical, but nodded, giving us a sideways wink that seemed to hint at my dad's silliness. “Yes, sir. I'll take you up.” And the two disappeared up the deck, the captain striding ahead while my dad tripped along behind him. Oliver turned to me. “Ghosts ships,” he said, and gave a jokey frown, like could anything be scarier?

“Yeah. I know.”

We looked out at the water. The sun had risen high enough that the glow of dawn was gone.

“When do you think you'll forgive your dad?” he asked.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” I replied.

“I'd forgive him really soon, if I were you,” he said. “If he were my dad.”

I looked down at the rail, feeling guilty. I knew what he meant; I know that if he could have his parents back, he'd forgive them for
anything
. But how can you
make
yourself forgive someone? It's like making yourself like ravioli—it's not something you can really force.

“I wish he were more like Captain Bill,” I said. “Captain Bill is really
aware
 . . . or
alive
, or something.”

Oliver shrugged and looked away. “I bet he has his faults too. He seems a little dramatic to me.”

“Well, he does seem passionate,” I offered. But I'm not sure that's exactly what Oliver meant.

*  *  *

I've just put down this diary to have an interesting conversation with Virgil. He came out on the quarterdeck with some sort of glowing ball of light in his hand, walked to the rail without me noticing it, and let it go. It fluttered out of his hands like a dove and flew off north. As he turned, he saw me, floated back a little in surprise, and adjusted his bowler hat. “Hi, Gracie,” he said.

“Hi.” I'm trying to be nicer to him these days, since we're stuck with him and he's stuck with us. “What was that?”

Virgil looked in the direction of the little ball of light, getting farther and farther away. “Oh, not much. Just a letter to my supervisor. We have to check in and report our progress when we're on a job.”

“Who's your supervisor?” I asked.

“Oh.” Virgil floated up beside me and then settled in to sit a couple feet away. “I have tons of them. There's a lot of hierarchy in the angel word. Everybody has a boss.”

I waited, curious, hoping he'd explain. Virgil seemed pleased that I was interested.

“There are three spheres. In the top sphere are heavenly counselors. Those are the cherubim, the seraphs, the elders. The bigwigs. Very high up, old, and powerful. Then there's the second sphere. There are the dominions, who are kind of like middle managers. They're in charge of us third-sphere angels. They're all very beautiful. I think if Millie ever met a dominion, she'd . . .” His voice trailed off, and I felt a sudden pity for him. “Then come the virtues. They control the motions of the stars and the cosmos. They keep things moving.” He looked at me. “Is this boring?” I shook my head.

“There are the powers after that, they're like the
angel warriors. And then, you get to angels like me, down on the third sphere. We're the ones who interact with people the most. I guess you could say we're, like, the front line. We're the messengers, the protectors.” He blushed.

“And we all love to sing. That's the big thing about angels. We're all in the choir—every last one of us. We used to gather so high above the clouds to do that, nobody on earth could hear us. But since the rebellion, we just kind of sing among ourselves, quietly.”

“Have you ever been anyone else's guardian angel, besides ours?”

Virgil looked down at the fish netting near his feet. “This is my first job,” he said. “I'm afraid I'm not doing all that great. I'm not”—he hesitated—“all that courageous, to be honest.”

“You're doing fine, Virgil,” I said. “I'm sure if we were really in danger, you'd do a great job saving us.” I was just saying it to be nice, though. Still, it seemed to cheer Virgil up.

I know I'm always bringing up my dead dog, but I have to say that Virgil reminds me a bit of her. She used to sit at the window to guard the house, but then run and cower when she saw a squirrel out the window. I don't
want to think about what would happen if our lives were ever really in Virgil's hands. I'm pretty sure we wouldn't make it out alive.

“Thanks, Gracie,” Virgil said, adjusting his bowler. “It means a lot that you believe in me.”

“Of course I do, Virgil,” I lied.

In my bed a little
after midnight, under the covers, rocking along with the sea, which is especially choppy tonight. Mom has been playing the violin. It's an eerie sound—the notes drifting back to us from the foredeck, where she's been standing for over an hour.

This evening we came within view of the first land we've seen since we peeled away from Mexico: a group of islands called the Galapagos. It's one of the places where dragons spend the winter. I've never seen so many of them in one place, circling above the rocky islands and clustering together like crows on every surface! We were probably a mile away, but it was easy to make out their dark silhouettes. We all gathered to watch the scene go past, even Dad.

“Oh, isn't it beautiful?” Mom said, coming to stand
next to Captain Bill, her long red skirt and her dark hair fluttering in the wind like ribbons behind her. The captain nodded agreement.

“It's one of my favorite sights coming and going,” he said. “Seeing those islands always means either I'm off for an adventure, or I'm almost home. Both are nice in their own way.”

Mom turned to look at him. “The voyages must feel long.” She rubbed her bare arms in the cool breeze.

“Long and lonely,” the captain agreed, but still he was smiling faintly as he watched the dragons swoop and pirouette. He took a long, deep breath. “And not much to come home to. But back in Nova Scotia, where I'm from, I've got a warm house that looks at the ocean. I get there maybe once every year or two. It's got all my favorite things: most of my books, an old piano I can barely play . . . Halifax is a beautiful seaside town, remote but lively. Ships in the harbor and pubs where you can hear live Irish music all night, mountains and beaches to explore nearby. You'd like it there.”

He rubbed his hands together vigorously. “We can't stop in these islands for supplies this time of year, for obvious reasons. But San Cristobal, a couple of days up ahead, is dragon-free. They've been really
successful with an antidragon initiative they started back in the seventies—all sorts of reflective surfaces posted in the water around them to keep dragons away. We'll lay over there for a couple of nights and load up.” With that, he disappeared belowdecks. We thought he'd gone for good, when he returned carrying a rough wool blanket, which he handed to Mom. She looked at him gratefully and pulled it around her shoulders.

Dad was standing just to her left with a manometer, another one of the many instruments he'd brought aboard, this one a palm-size gauge to measure the air pressure, or something like that. Mom's eyes went to him for a moment, almost as if she wished
he'd
handed her a warm blanket (even though she ignores him at meals and goes to bed to read when the sun sets, while he stays out and examines the stars from the ship's telescope and takes notes). I wonder if he's even picked up on the fact that it's chilly out. Dad is much better at measuring life than at noticing it.

“It seems,” Dad said, glancing down at his manometer, “as if a storm may be blowing up from the east.”

The captain peered into the eastern sky, then glanced toward our Cloud following behind to the north and shook his head. “Nope. It's going to be a fine evening.”

Dad followed his gaze, squinted, then looked back at
his instrument. “But it says here that . . .” He trailed off a little.

The captain interrupted him. “Well,” he said, stretching into a big yawn. “It's getting dark, and I have a little something set up for you all in the galley. How about we head indoors?”

*  *  *

We entered the galley to a surprising and cheerful sight—a table full of noisemakers and paper hats and bottles of champagne in rusty buckets. The radio sat on a shelf, blaring staticky oldies. (It's recently been picking up an English-language station from Ecuador, though we've noticed that sometimes it's mixed with a station playing salsa music.)

Anyway, it's been such a wonderful night! We gathered around the table and played cards, and danced (me with Captain Bill and Millie with Oliver, and then Captain Bill with Mom while Millie and Oliver and I danced with Sam), and talked and laughed, and forgot about the hours flying by. Mom even let Millie have a full glass of champagne (and me half a glass!). She beat all of us at cards, and Dad disappeared sometime during a game of spades that went on forever.

At some point Ronald and Troy (the friendliest
shipmates) came in to join us. They said they'd invited Virgil but that he wouldn't leave his post (he's appointed himself lookout from the topmast), and that he wanted us to know he'd spotted a whale about an hour ago. He did fly down a little before midnight to visit, and at twelve on the dot (Captain Bill has a Timex watch he's had since the eighties, which he says is indestructible and keeps perfect time) we all cheered and kissed each other. Virgil got to kiss Millie on her hand (though an angel kiss is like brushing air), and Mom kissed Captain Bill on both cheeks and blushed, and I kissed everyone except for Oliver—who very awkwardly planted a kiss on my chin that maybe he was aiming for my cheek. We all showered Sam with dozens of kisses, waking him up, since he'd fallen asleep on one of the benches. Captain Bill turned the music up after that, and we all danced in a circle to “The Twist,” and “Boogie Shoes,” and “The Locomotion.”