Esek gestured to Proctor to step aside. “A word between men,” he said.
“Please feel free,” Deborah said. “I know how men can be… delicate sometimes.”
Proctor stepped aside with the privateer. “Distract Every for me if you can,” Esek said in a hushed tone. “I want to explore that larger island. We need a boat, and there may be one hidden on the far side.”
“I can do that,” Proctor said.
“Here we go,” the madman announced cheerfully. Proctor turned to see him grinning as he held up a wooden plate.
They gathered around the fire.
“I don’t often acquire fresh tea leaves here, so I have to dry them,” the madman said, scraping them off into the boiling water. “We better let it steep a while.”
Deborah sat on a nearby rock. When Proctor chose his own seat among the weathered stones, he made sure to choose one so that if the madman were looking at him, his eyes would be turned away from the marble palace.
“Are you?” Deborah asked.
“Am I?” the madman said.
“Are you who he said you are? Henry Every, the pirate captain.”
He shook his head. “I’m just a poor sinner. A man who’s had a long time to regret a few… rash actions.”
“Is your ship the one that’s been spotted around the Thimble Islands of late?” Proctor said. “Can it sail us back there again?”
“If it could sail anywhere else, do you think I’d still be here?” Every fidgeted, frequently stirring the leaves in the pot and looking everywhere but never making eye contact.
“A sinner might still be here, a man with something to repent,” Deborah said.
“I said I was a sinner, not a saint.” Every stood abruptly and entered his shack. He came back with a tall pipe of the sort that Proctor had sometimes seen used to smoke tobacco. Every sucked at a mouthpiece and then threw it down on the rocks, where it hit with a sharp crack. “Useless. Since the opium has gone, it’s been useless.”
His voice trembled.
Proctor was putting all the pieces together. Every wasn’t a wizard: he was cursed, cursed for his piracy and the evil deeds he had done. He could sail his ship back to the other world, but only to taunt him with the things he had lost. “You can sail your ship back to the real world, to our world,” Proctor said. “That’s why we’ve seen your ship so frequently of late, lurking among the islands. But you can’t stay there. You’re drawn back here, the same way our little boat was drawn through the fog. That’s why they can never find you.”
“Perhaps,” Every said quietly. With that one word, he seemed to Proctor to become both sad and even worthy of pity. He had four chipped cups, which he dipped into his pitcher of steeping water. “Would you care for some tea? I’m afraid I can offer you neither cream nor sugar.”
Proctor accepted a cup and tried not to wince when he sipped. The tea was so weak and dirty it tasted like dishwater. Deborah saw his reaction and set her cup down without tasting it. “What happened to you?” Proctor asked.
“I overheard your friend. He had much of it right. My ship and crew attacked a musselman off the coast of Malabar. It was the moghul’s ship, headed for Mecca, carrying his gift to the imans and his wife and all his concubines on holy pilgrimage. The hold was filled with treasure — chest after chest of gold coins and cut jewels, bolts of silk, blocks of pure opium.” He licked his lips nervously. “But it wasn’t enough. When greed takes a man — when it takes a crew of men — no glut of prizes is ever enough. We tortured the crew members and wom—” He glanced at Deborah. “We tortured the crew members. One by one in search of more treasure. For thirteen days, we made sport of them, forcing them to reveal their secrets, little treasures they may have hidden, on their person or aboard the ship. And on the thirteenth day, we found the greatest treasure of alclass="underline" the moghul’s sorcerer.” He paused. “He gave up his secrets, but the secrets came with a curse.” He held out his hands. “And now here I am. Have you ever heard the expression ‘to grab a tiger by the tail’? Once you grab hold, you can never let go or they will — hey, your friend really shouldn’t venture over there.”
He jumped to his feet. Esek dangled from the ropes midway between Every’s island and the island with the palace.
“He’s our companion, but not our friend,” Proctor said.
Every didn’t hear a word that Proctor said. He was already running down to shore to shout at Esek.
Deborah came to Proctor’s side. “Every is an evil man who has done evil things,” Proctor said. “There’s much he’s not telling us, particularly about the emperor’s wives.”
“I know,” Deborah said. “But his judgment will be up to God, not us.”
Proctor had a terrible realization. “Unless Esek was right and this is hell.”
“Don’t think that thought hasn’t crossed my mind,” Deborah said.
“If this is hell, or even if it isn’t… ” Proctor said. He regretted the words as soon as they escaped his mouth. Not knowing how to pull them back in, he opened the stall doors and chased the rest of them out. “I need to know whether… ” Whether you love me. He couldn’t make himself say it aloud. “Whether you still have feelings for me.”
Deborah took a step away from him, her face revealing and then masking a whole book full of emotions he wasn’t literate enough to read. Having grown up as a witch, in a country that killed witches, she was used to keeping her talents secret, a skill that extended to her thoughts. And he couldn’t blame her. But he wanted to know.
She could tell. She looked up at his face and knew he needed something from her. A word. A sign. She reached out and brushed her fingers against the back of his hand.
“Ask me again once we’ve escaped this place, wherever it is,” she said. “Until we escape, it doesn’t matter.”
Every, ragged and miserable, stretched beyond the normal span of days, stood at the edge of the island and raged at Esek.
“I don’t know,” Proctor said. “If we don’t escape, it may matter even more. Esek told me he would search the big island for a boat.”
Deborah pointed at the Fancy. “We have a boat. Or rather a ship. Maybe it’s Every who’s drawn back here and not the vessel. If we were aboard it without Every, would you know how to get it under sail?”
“I might be able to figure it out, given time,” Proctor said. “But even then, I don’t know that I could steer it through these treacherous channels. How would we break the spell that smashes everything on the rocks? How would we open the door back into our world?”
“I am already thinking of a focus and a spell,” Deborah said.
He nodded, mind racing, eager to help. “What verse will you use? There’s Job. The gates of death have been opened unto thee. Thou hast seen the doors of the shadow of death.”
“You’re too fond of the Old Testament,” she said.
“What do you expect?” he said. “I was raised by Puritans.”
“I believe this is not hell and we are not yet dead,” she said. “I was thinking about something from Acts: The angel of the Lord by night opened the prison doors and brought them forth.”
“What can I do to help?”
The voices of argument rose to a new pitch. “This is the last time I’ll warn you,” Every screamed, froth flying from his lips like spume from the tip of a wave. “If you don’t come back now, I’ll chase you down and cut out your bloody heart.”
Esek stood on the other island, dripping to the waist. His pistol pointed across the water at Every. “Try it and I’ll finish the job that time did not. You’ve got no claim on a treasure you have not spent in a hundred years, dead man.”