The Girl from Everywhere (3 page)

“Oi!”

Startled by Rotgut’s shout from the crow’s nest, I followed his skinny finger to the lights in the distance; a sleek white boat on the water, far off, but coming toward us.

“What is it?” I called up.

“Coast Guard!”

I stared at the boat for a long moment, trying to convince myself it wasn’t headed our way—until another roar echoed in the hold. Then I ran to knock on the captain’s door, hard, though I counted to ten before opening it.

Even so, Slate looked surprised to see me. I met his eyes, deliberately not glancing at the box in his hands, the box he normally kept under his bed. It wasn’t worth telling him to hide it; if we were boarded, it would be harder to explain the tigers than to explain his stash of opium. “We need you on the radio,” I told him.

His fingers tightened on the box. “It might help the map to work.”

“
Now
, captain.” I shut the door behind me, harder than I had to.

Back on deck, Bee was taking the ship around while Kash raised the sails. We were moving again, plowing the waves, heading east along the southern coast of Long Island. I grabbed the halyard, helping Kash with the sail as I watched the lights of the boat off our stern, closer now and gaining.

According to Slate, the Coast Guard in New York had always been a pain, but much worse, of course, since 2001, far nosier and almost impossible to bribe. Nothing like the eighties, in the uncivilized city of my father’s youth. To make
it worse, the Coast Guard was full of people who loved boats, and they couldn’t keep their hands off the
Temptation
.

She was a striking caravel, her black hull copper clad below the waterline to keep out worms (and worse, depending on what waters we traveled). She rode on a keel fashioned from what looked like the rib of a leviathan, carved with labyrinthine runes from stem to stern, and at the prow, a red-haired mermaid bared her breasts to calm the sea.

Even if the Coast Guard wasn’t inclined to search us, they would take any chance to stand on the deck and spin the wheel and tell Slate how they played pirates when they were children. Of course, once on deck they were bound to hear the tigers roaring. I gritted my teeth and waited for the captain as below, our illicit cargo growled in their rickety cages.

Just as I was about to knock again, Slate emerged from his cabin with the radio hissing, but he stared at the Coast Guard ship for a long time, blinking slowly in the fading glow of sunset. My heart sank; his pupils were the size of dimes. “Captain?”

My voice startled him to action. He lifted the microphone. “New York Coast Guard, New York Coast Guard, New York Coast Guard, this is the ship
Temptation
,
Temptation
,
Temptation
, over.”

A brief crackle of static, and then a hiss as we waited. Bee gnawed her finger. “Did he find another map?”

I shook my head. “He can’t Navigate now, not with them watching.”

“Can’t or won’t?” Bee said.

“Shouldn’t,” I said. “People will report it. Or film it and put it on YouTube.”

“Privacy is important,” Bee said. “You get little of it in prison.”

“New York Coast Guard, New York Coast Guard.” Slate bounced the microphone impatiently in his hand. “This is the ship
Temptation
, over.”

The lights off the stern were getting closer; another roar reverberated through my feet. “What do we do if they don’t answer?”

Kashmir made a face. “We could throw them overboard.”

“The drugs?”

“The tigers.”

“New York Coast Guard,” Slate repeated. His brow shone with sweat. “This is the ship
Temptation
, over.”

No answer, and the lights grew closer still. “Captain—”

Slate swore and dropped the radio to the deck, striding toward the helm. “Bring me a map, Nix!”

“What map?”

“Any map!”

“But—”

“Nix!”

The speaker crackled then; we both froze. “The
Temptation
, this is the New York Coast Guard, please switch to channel sixty-six, over.”

Kashmir scooped the radio off the deck and handed it to the captain. “New York Coast Guard, this is the
Temptation
, switching to channel sixty-six, over.” Slate did so, the speaker still hissing softly.

“The
Temptation
, this is the New York Coast Guard.” The accent was pure Brooklyn. “Slate?”

“Yes.” It was almost a sigh of relief. “This is Slate. Is this Bruce? Over.”

“This is Bruce. We got a call reporting suspicious activity.” Bruce gave a bark of a laugh, making the speaker crackle. “Thought it might be you, over.”

“A black pirate ship always scares the yachters, Bruce. Never thought she’d worry the Coast Guard.”

“Worried? Nah, they just want to visit with you,” Bruce said. “The
Eagle
’s got our newest cadet on board. My nephew. Never been on a tall ship. Would you mind showing him the ropes?”

“Ah.” Slate took a breath, his eyes roaming across the
deck, over the sea, to the boat approaching. “I’d love to, Bruce, but, uh—” His eyes fell on me. “But we’re a little busy. It’s my daughter’s birthday. We’re having a party and everything. Over.”

My eyebrows went up. “My birthday?”

“Oh, man, your daughter? What is she now, fourteen?”

I shook my head, but he wasn’t paying attention.

Slate’s brow furrowed. “Yeah . . . ?”

“Dangerous age, Captain.” Kashmir snorted.

“Hey, don’t let me interrupt the festivities,” Bruce continued. “Say happy birthday for me. I’ll tell the boy he’s gotta wait. Probably for the best, he’s a handsome kid. Welcome home, over.”

“Bruce, thanks, over and out.”

“Yeah, thanks, Bruce,” I said under my breath.

Slate shut off the radio. It was only another few seconds before the ship behind us slowed and changed course. I pushed my hair out of my face and watched their lights fade. Slate dropped the radio on the deck and dragged his hands down his jaw.

“Finally a bit of luck,
amira
,” Kashmir said with a half grin.

I grimaced. “Only a bit, though.”

“Yes, too bad about the handsome nephew.”

“Why?” I said. “You were hoping for a pretty niece?”

He winked at me, but not even teasing Kashmir could lift my mood. We were nearing the Hamptons now, and no closer to our destination. In fact, the tigers prevented us from getting into the harbor at all; Bruce, who Slate never failed to bribe with good liquor when he got the chance, might be able to call off the Coast Guard, but the harbormasters would notice the roaring as soon as we tied up to the dock.

“Nixie.”

I turned. Slate had retaken the wheel, and he hadn’t relaxed. “What?” I said, although I knew what he was going to say.

“I need you.” His voice was soft, pleading. “I need your help. I can’t miss that auction. I have to have that map. Please.”

I kept my face stony, but the guilt in me was rising like a tide. I’d chosen the wrong map, I’d plotted the wrong course: mistake after mistake after mistake, all the way back to the start. “I’ll check again. Maybe there’s something I missed the first time.”

“Not likely,” Kashmir said, winding his pocket watch.

“I appreciate your confidence,” I said in a flat tone. “Wait a minute.” I grabbed for the watch and missed. He
was much quicker than I. “Let me see that.”

Once I asked, he handed it over without a fuss. The watch was three inches across, a triple-case gold repoussé design of Adam and Eve in paradise, and it was heavier than it looked. On the back there was the signature, even a serial number—and of course, it was in exceptional condition for its age, in spite of its dunking. I pressed my lips together. After scolding him for taking it, the hypocrisy stung . . . but it was worth twice what I would have gotten for the tigers.

Kashmir inclined his head; he understood. “What’s mine is yours,
amira
.”

I leaned into him, resting my temple on his shoulder in a gesture of thanks. Then I straightened. “Captain?”

“What?”

I tossed the watch to Slate, who caught it and held it up to the light. “I’m sixteen.”

“Right,” he said absently, studying the watch. Then his eyes widened. “Oh!” He closed his fingers around the watch and kissed it. His knees sagged and he leaned against the wheel, laughing.

“Easy come, easy go,” Kashmir said. Another indignant roar drifted up from below; he rolled his eyes. “Well, most
of the time.”

“Why are the tigers so restless?” I nodded toward the captain, who was opening and closing the watch case, delighted. “I know for a fact we’re not out of opium.”

“No,
amira
, but we’re out of meat. I’ve fed them every last scrap on the ship.”

Rotgut’s head whipped around, the thin braid of his beard flying in the wind. “You gave them everything in the galley?”

“
And
the bag of jerky from under your mattress.”

“Thief!” Rotgut scowled.

Kashmir grinned at him. “Glutton.”

Rotgut swore in Chinese. Kash responded in Farsi—and Bee interrupted with a jangle of the bell she wore. “Settle down,” she said in her quiet whisper, her brown eyes sparkling. “You’re both right.”

“So,” Kash said to me. “Where can we leave the tigers?”

“Leave them?” Rotgut straightened up. “Why leave them?”

I cocked my head. “What else do you want to do with them?”

“Kash just said we’re out of meat.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at his joke. At least, I hoped it was a joke.

“We’re not eating them,” Slate said. “Christ.” He turned
the wheel and pointed us toward the dark shoreline. “We’ll drop them off ashore.”

“What? Just—just drop them off? Where?”

He grinned at me. “That is an excellent question!”

“Fine.” I stared upward, trying to think. No stars here; the sky was the flat navy of a city night. “Okay. Just a minute.” I jogged below to my cabin. My cell phone was still in the back pocket of the jeans I’d worn the last time we were in New York. I’d prepaid for twenty dollars’ worth of data then, definitely enough for a few Google searches. I powered it on as I returned topside. “Rotgut?”

“Eh?”

“Can you get a line in the water? And Kash, we should run dark for this. Will you take in the lanterns?”

“And what will you be doing?” Kashmir nudged me as he sauntered past, toward the bow.

“I’m looking up the local donor list for the Friends of the Bronx Zoo.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

W
e left the tigers in the Hamptons an hour past midnight, on a private dock behind a hulking mansion belonging to a philanthropic wildlife lover. Rotgut had landed a few bluefish and released them reluctantly to Kashmir, who used them to slip the tigers enough opium to calm them. Then we sailed away at speed. About an hour later, helicopters flew over us as we were passing Fire Island, but they didn’t stop.

The next morning began blue and clear, and we sailed into the harbor with a day to spare before the auction. Slate watched the approaching shore with a look on his face like he had never known disappointment, nor ever would. He kept grinning at me, giving me credit for his joy—better, at least, than taking responsibility for his sorrow.

My own mood had improved as well. Part of it was the
season; when Slate had told Bruce it was my birthday, it was only partially a lie. I was sixteen or so, that much was true, although no one knew exactly. Not Bee nor Rotgut, who had been on the
Temptation
longer than I had, and certainly not Kashmir, who’d only come to the ship a couple of years ago. You’d think the captain would know—when he bothered to think about anything but himself—but it was a mystery to him as well. After all, he was away at sea when I was born, and my mother was gone when he returned, although to a very different place.

I’d spent the first months of my life in the opium den where my parents had met, cared for by the proprietor, a woman named Auntie Joss. After he had mourned the only way he knew how, Slate had barged in, wrapped me in a quilt, and taken me away. He hadn’t bothered asking Joss for details, so my birth date was hard to pinpoint. Instead, the crew generally celebrated my theft day sometime in early summer, whenever we spent a few days in a place where it was early summer. Though there were no signs pointing to an actual party, my father’s mention of one had lifted my spirits. He didn’t always remember.

The bigger part of it was that the captain had waved me over to the helm for the last leg up the Hudson, through
the Narrows. He stood over my shoulder, and my route was bounded on all sides by banks and buoys, but my heart beat faster as the ship surged forward under my watchful eyes, the brass wheel warming to my steady hands. For a moment, I could pretend I was captain of my own fate.

The city unfurled to port and starboard: busy, crowded, full of strange people and stranger sights. Nowhere else in modern-day America was so much variety crammed into so little space. People from all over the world lived side by side—and stacked atop—each other, like the maps in our collection. Libraries and museums displayed the debris and plunder of kingdoms long gone and times far past. Being in New York was like being able to Navigate on dry land.