Boarding in Black Water

The hull was a dark wall against the darker sea, and Brigid Fenwick swam toward it with the patience of a shark. New moon above meant no light on the water, no silhouette breaking the surface, just the cold salt taste and the steady pull of her arms through the black. She had been in the water long enough for her blood to thin and her fingers to prune, but her gift hummed in her bones like a second heartbeat. The tide moved through her teeth, through the soft meat behind her eyes. Every wave that slapped the hull of the ship ahead was a note in a song she had been born singing.

The Widow's Due. She had the name from a fisherman in Nassau who owed her brother a favor. A privateer out of the Carolinas, hunting under English letters of marque, but everyone knew what that meant. They took slavers when it suited them and merchants when it paid better. They flew whatever flag got them close. And their captain, this Ivo Draycott, had a reputation for coming back with prizes and losing very few men. That meant he was either lucky or smart, and Brigid did not believe in luck.

She took a breath and dove.

The water closed over her head and she let her gift spread out from her chest like ripples from a stone. The tide answered her. It was a small thing here, a gentle push and pull against the island chain, but she could work with small things. She had learned her gift on the rocks of the Irish coast, where the sea was a fist and you learned to read its mood or you drowned. Here in the warm Bahamian water it felt lazy, sleepy, but it still remembered how to obey.

She surfaced ten yards from the stern and let herself drift, eyes fixed on the ship's lanterns. A watchman on the quarterdeck, pipe glowing orange. Another at the bow, leaning on the rail, half asleep. She counted six more men visible on deck, and somewhere below there would be a crew of thirty or more. Not a slaver. Not tonight. But the governor's agent had been clear: Draycott's privateer was taking ships that should be flying Spanish colors, and the governor had a treaty to keep. So Brigid Fenwick, called Riptide by the men who feared her, was going to put this ship on the bottom.

She pulled the knife from her belt and bit down on the leather-wrapped hilt to keep it between her teeth. Then she swam for the anchor chain.

The iron was cold and rough with barnacles. She climbed hand over hand, feet finding purchase on the links, body streaming water. The barnacles cut her palms but she did not feel it. She never felt it. The gift burned too hot for small pains. She reached the hawsehole and squeezed through, dropping onto the deck in a crouch, and the ship breathed around her like a living thing.

She sensed it through her bare feet. The timber. The tide against the hull. The subtle flex of the mast as the wind caught the canvas. She pressed her palm to the deck and let the pulse of the sea travel up her arm, into her chest, into her throat. The ship was hers. She had only to ask.

The watchman on the quarterdeck turned.

She moved before he could open his mouth. Three strides, a leap, and the knife was at his throat before his pipe hit the deck. He made a wet sound and she lowered him to the planks, careful, quiet. The bow watch had not heard. The men below had not heard. She wiped the blade on his coat and stood, feeling the tide rise in her like a held breath.

Time to break the mast.

She walked to the mainmast and put both hands on the wood. The ship groaned around her, the rigging creaking, the hull shifting. She closed her eyes and reached for the tide. It was strong tonight, a deep pulse from the open Atlantic, and she pulled it toward her like drawing a thread through a needle. She felt it gather at her feet, felt the deck shudder, felt the mast begin to complain.

Then something cold touched her spine.

Not a blade. Not a hand. Something smaller, harder, pressed against the base of her skull, and the tide she had been pulling turned inside her like a snake biting its own tail.

"Don't."

The voice was low and calm, almost bored. She did not turn around. She could not turn around. The thing at her neck was singing, and the song was her own gift turned back on her, amplified, twisted into something she had never felt before. The tide she had summoned was still there, still answering, but now it was answering through that cold pressure, and every wave that lapped the hull was a wave of fire through her nerves.

She tried to pull away. Her knees buckled.

"I said don't."

The pressure increased and the sensation redoubled. She felt the ocean in her teeth, in her marrow, in the soft space behind her groin. Her breath came out in a shudder and she dropped the knife. It clattered on the deck and she followed it, hands hitting the planks, knees hitting the planks, the cold thing still pressed to the nape of her neck. The sensation spread downward, through her belly, between her thighs, a pulsing warmth that matched the rhythm of the waves against the hull. Her body flushed with it. She could feel herself growing wet, and not from the sea.

"That's better."

She heard boots approach. More than one set. The bow watch was coming, and the men below would be stirring soon, but she could not lift her head. The tide was inside her now, flooding every hollow space, and it felt like drowning from the inside out. Every pulse of the compass sent another wave through her, another throb of heat that pooled low in her belly and radiated outward. Her nipples hardened against the wet fabric of her shirt. She pressed her forehead to the deck and tried to breathe, but each breath only drew the sensation deeper.

The man behind her crouched. She caught a glimpse of sun-bleached hair, a captain's coat worn open over a linen shirt, a face that was more curious than angry. He held the cold thing in his palm. A compass. An old one, the brass tarnished, the glass cracked, but the needle was not pointing north. It was pointing at her.

"Do you know what this is?" he asked.

She tried to spit an answer. Her mouth would not form the words.

"It's a drowned saint's compass," he said, as if explaining a game to a child. "They made them in Lisbon, back when the Inquisition had better things to do than burn old women. It finds the tide in a person's blood and turns it into something else. Something useful."

He tilted the compass and the ship rolled. She felt the roll in her cunt, a deep pulsing wave that made her gasp and press her forehead to the deck. The wood was warm from the day's sun. She wanted to press her whole body against it. The sensation built like a tide coming in, each wave higher than the last, each pulse of the compass pushing her further from herself. She could feel her own heartbeat between her legs, thick and slow, matching the rhythm of the sea. Her thighs trembled. She bit down on nothing and tasted salt.

"Riptide," he said, tasting the name. "I heard about you. The governor's little sea-witch. They said you sank a Spanish brig off Andros with nothing but your hands and the tide."

She managed a sound. It was not a word.

"I've been waiting for you."

He stood and she felt the compass pull away, but the sensation did not stop. It ebbed, settled, but did not leave. It was in her blood now, a constant low hum like the sea in a shell. She stayed on her knees, breathing hard, and the crew gathered around her in a loose circle. She counted them. Twenty-three men, armed, watching her with the flat curiosity of men who had seen stranger things. None of them touched her. None of them needed to. The compass held her better than any rope.

Captain Draycott looked down at her. "You came alone."

It was not a question. She did not answer.

"Brave or stupid," he said. "I haven't decided which."

He held out his hand. The compass lay in his palm, the cracked glass catching the lantern light, the needle still tracking her. She stared at it. She could feel the pull, the promise, the threat. If she touched it, she knew, something would change. Something would break.

She did not touch it.

"Get her below," Draycott said. "Put her in my cabin. And someone find out where she left her boat."

Hands grabbed her arms. She let them. She was still trying to understand what had happened, still trying to find the edges of her gift, but it was like trying to grip water. Every time she reached for the tide it slipped away and came back as heat, as pressure, as a deep and terrible wanting that had no name. The men walked her across the deck, and each step sent a jolt through her, the compass still pointing at her through the timber, still humming in her blood. She could feel herself clenching and releasing with every wave that struck the hull, an involuntary rhythm that made her want to press her thighs together and scream.

They dragged her down the companionway. She did not fight. She could not fight. The compass was still in his hand, still pointing at her through the deck, and every step she took was a step through a current that pulled at her from the inside. By the time they reached the cabin door, her legs were shaking, and the wetness between her thighs had nothing to do with the sea.

The cabin was small and neat. A desk pushed against one wall, a cot built into the hull, a lantern swinging on its chain. They pushed her inside and the door closed behind her. She heard the lock turn.

She stood in the middle of the room, dripping salt water onto the planks, and waited for the tide to come back. It did not come back. It was still there, but it was waiting too, coiled in her belly like a rope pulled taut, and she did not know what would happen when it let go. The sensation had settled into a steady throb, low and insistent, pulsing through her with each sway of the lantern, each roll of the ship.

She pressed her hand to her stomach and felt the vibration. Low. Constant. The ship was moving now, catching the wind, and every shift of the hull was a shift inside her. She closed her eyes and saw the captain's face, the compass in his palm, the needle tracking her like she was the only north in the world.

"Fuck," she whispered.

The ship rolled and she bit her lip so hard she tasted blood. The motion sent another wave through her, stronger this time, and she stumbled to the cot and sat down hard. The wood creaked beneath her. She gripped the edge of the frame and felt the vibration travel up her arms, into her shoulders, down her spine, settling between her legs like a hand pressing against her. She squeezed her eyes shut. Her breath came in short, sharp gasps. The tide was still there, still hers, but it had turned into something else, something that wanted out, something that wanted release.

She did not sleep that night. She sat on the cot with her back to the wall and her knees drawn up, watching the lantern swing, feeling the sea move through her like a hand inside her chest. She had never been afraid of the water. She had been born in it, baptized in it, made by it. But this was different. This was the water turned against her, the tide become a leash, and she did not know how to fight something that lived in her own blood. Each wave that struck the hull sent a pulse through her that made her gasp, made her grip the cot frame until her knuckles went white, made her press her thighs together against the ache that built and built and never quite broke.

In the dark, she heard footsteps overhead. The captain's voice, low and calm, giving orders. The crew moving, the rigging creaking, the endless groan of the hull working against the sea. She was inside the ship now. The ship was inside her. And somewhere above, a drowned saint's compass was pointing at her heart.

She pressed her forehead to her knees and waited for dawn.

It did not come fast enough.