The Grimm Chronicles, Vol. 2 (24 page)

“What happened?”

“Oh, nothing. I just made the mistake of trying to talk to Chase before the game started. Apparently that’s, like, really bad luck. If you ask me, they should be thanking me given how he played.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“He batted four times. He hit four home runs. I’m not sure how up-to-date you are on sports, but four home runs in one game is pretty ridiculous awesome.”

“His wish came true,” I whispered.

“Huh?”

“Nothing. Thanks for trying, Seth. I’ll call you soon.”

I hung up, anxious for once to get to bed. I needed answers. I needed more
details
. I couldn’t get the image from last night out of my head: Chase, walking down the pier … and collapsing.

Chapter 6

When I finally drifted off to sleep—after about two hours of tossing and turning—I found myself once again at the docks in Milwaukee. I floated south, moving through each of the warehouse buildings along the lake. Small waves lapped at them and splashed water upward in a wide arc. I tried to will my feet to touch the ground but they refused, and I found myself floating toward the very same old wooden pier at the south end.

Chase was there again.

“Fish!” he called out, clutching the last support beam of the dock. He was still wearing his baseball jersey. His number—12—was cut in half by a streak of dirt.

“Chase,” I whispered. “Don’t do it. Something’s not right about all this!”

This time, he didn’t turn around. “Fish!” he called out again.

A little glowing head popped out of the dark water in front of the pier. It was the fish, all right, but something was different—not only did his head look waaaay too big to fit in the little bowl in my closet, it look misshapen, too, as if he’d been made out of clay and then dropped onto a tile floor.

“Now what is it, boy?” he asked.

“I want to be the best baseball player in the entire state,” Chase said.

“Oh really?” the fish asked. “Why stop there, boy? Why not be the best baseball player in the
world
? Oh, but then of course there’s always the chance of some other planet’s team to threaten your superiority, no? So why not be the best baseball player in the
universe
?”

“Just do it,” Chase said in a low growl. “And remember who freed you.”

“I remember,” the fish said, nodding his misshapen head so that it bobbed in the water. A big wave rolled over him, hitting the end of the dock with a frightening
clack
. A terrible wind was blowing in from the east. “How can I forget? You pester me so. Very well, boy. Your wish is granted. Will you be able to find peace now?”

Chase turned away from the end of the pier, walking past me with that same terrible smile on his face.

“Will you be satisfied now?” the fish called out. “With all that you have? Or will you desire more and more until your selfish desires consume all that you’ve stood for?”

Chase stopped. His knee buckled and he nearly fell again. The evil smile melted away and, for just a moment, he looked terribly afraid.

I tried to moved closer but my body refused, lifting me high into the air. I began floating quickly over the water, leaving behind the eastern shoreline of Milwaukee. In just moments, I was alone again with nothing but the lake in every direction. The cool wind rushed across my face.

I was alone. Again. Boy, if ever there was a metaphor that fit my life at that exact moment …

“Can’t I at least have the moon?” I called out breathlessly, searching the dark water below for the reflection of moonlight. Just a hint that there was something else. Because that’s what we need. We need hope. Hope can give us strength even when we’re surrounded by dark water.

It was another handful of tense, solitary moments before something popped up on the horizon. A light. Then another. Then more. I felt myself slowing down as I flew closer and closer. I could make out a dark object in the water, and its shape was recognizable enough.

The
Leviathan
.

Her—ships are always girls, right?—bowsprit was pointed at me like an accusing finger. On one side were two smaller boats, hitched to the ship. The two tall masts jutted up to the sky. One was slightly crooked, as if it had been damaged at some point and then repaired in a hurry.

The ship was “parked” at a dock that ran parallel with the shore. Lights hanging from the exterior of the large warehouses beside the docks bathed the ship in a yellowish glow. So the
Leviathan
docked somewhere. But where?

I landed on the deck of the ship. Hard. I used the railing of the bulwark to pull myself to my feet, then immediately stepped aside as one of the shadowy sailors walked past. He narrowed his pitch-black eyes at me, skulking toward the hold.

The sails were tied tight to the masts. Long, thick ropes were tied around the bulwarks, tied down to the pier below. A wooden plank connected the deck of the ship to the pier, and a section of the bulwark had been removed so the shadowy men could step off the ship.

They walked quickly. I stood beside the plank, watching them take turns grabbing wet, woolen sacks of fish that were pulled up from the open hatch in the deck. The iron winch had been pulled away from the port side of the ship and was now beside the hatch, pulling up each sack of fish. The shadowy figures took turns grabbing a sack, hefting it over their shoulders, then walking down the plank onto the pier. When they moved past me, I could hear the fish shifting inside the sack. More than a little foul-smelling water leaked out from the bottom, running down each sailor’s back.

“Make way!” one of the sailors called out from atop the captain’s cabin.

I turned back to the pier. A middle-aged man smoking a cigarette stepped onto the wooden plank, walking cautiously up to the deck. The pier looked new, made of smooth concrete that was soaked wet in a few places by the sacks of fish that were being carried ashore and into a well-lit warehouse with the number “7” painted above its loading doors in bright red paint. Floodlights illuminated the warehouse’s exterior, but the port looked otherwise deserted.

It wasn’t Milwaukee’s port. Some of the warehouses had lots of glass windows, and all the piers were made of concrete and shaped like a “T.” Farther down the shoreline were a few docks with older buildings, and two tall cranes towering up into the night sky, little red lights blinking at the very tips.

“Here’s where you see old Ishmael earn his worth.”

I turned, surprised to see my sailor friend, not quite so surprised to see he was sticking with the wet, stringy hair look. The shadows seemed to have retreated for the time being, revealing an aged, pale face with long lines around his mouth. My mom called those “laugh lines.” I wondered just how long ago it had been since Ishmael had really laughed, much less had a genuine smile to share.

“Them fish aren’t so good,” said the merchant as he stepped onto the deck of the ship.

“Stop there,” Ishmael ordered, holding up one wrinkled hand. “Keep one foot on the plank if you know what’s good for you.”

The man frowned but kept his left foot on the plank.

The other shadowy sailors resumed unloading the sacks of fish, keeping their heads bent low as they passed the merchant.

“As for the fish … they’re good enough,” Ishmael said. “The captain isn’t picky about price.”

“I know that,” the merchant snapped. He tossed his cigarette overboard and rubbed his protruding belly. He looked like the father of any high school kid, with heavy whiskers and slightly unkempt hair that moved out of place in the breeze. “If he was picky about price, I wouldn’t risk my neck doing business with him. What do ya want for them?”

“Good timber, nails, some oil for the winch, and as much nylon as you can spare so we can repair our fishing nets.”

The merchant said nothing for a moment, then burst out laughing. “I knew I was going to like doing business with ya. It’s a deal.” He narrowed an eye. “You’re not messing with me, are ya?”

Ishmael shook his head slowly. “The captain has no interest in trivialities.”

“I’d like to meet him,” the merchant said, glancing at the captain’s cabin. He looked a bit uneasy—one of his feet kept tapping on the deck. “You know, just to make sure we’re straight. Not that I don’t trust you or nothing, but it’s not every day a stranger seeks me out in the middle of the night offering to sell me an illegal shipment of fish.”

The shadows returned to Ishmael’s face. “The captain sees no one.”

“See, that’s the thing that’s kinda creeping me out a bit.”

Ishmael stared at the man, saying nothing. His dark eyes seemed as if they were fathoms deep, the full meaning of his gaze unreadable. But the set of his jaw indicated that there would be no more discussion on the matter.  

“Fine, fine,” the merchant said, taking a step back. “I have everything you need in my warehouse. Get those fish to my truck, and tell your boys to do it quick-like. I want out of here as soon as I can.”

“As you wish.” Ishmael watched the man walk down the plank, hopping back onto the concrete dock. He sighed. “He’ll get a good deal on those fish. Somehow. He’ll find someone willing to buy them all up, and for a pretty penny.”

“Who are you?” I asked.

Ishmael shook his head, watching another shadowy sailor walk by with a sack full of fish. This sailor’s features were nearly nonexistent, as if the shadows had soaked into his skin and begun to wash away his mouth and nose and wrinkles, like a river smoothing out and polishing a stone.

“I was once a callous fisherman,” Ishmael said. He pulled his wet hair back behind his small ears. “I took of the oceans whatever I could. Every fresh haul brought into port got me more money. I knew little of the consequences of what I was doing. I wanted only more and more and more.

“But soon our catches shrank. So we spent more and more time at sea, filling our holds with as much as we could. What once took a day took three days, and then a week. Soon, no matter how much we fished, we couldn’t catch enough to fill our holds. Still, we continued, taking whatever we could pull from the sea.

“Then one day I crossed paths with a shadowy man who promised me even more. More riches than I could ever hope to spend. And all we had to do was find a special fish. A species that only the captain of the
Leviathan
had seen before.”

“The magic fish,” I finished.

Ishmael nodded. “But I knew nothing about that back then. Not until I came aboard this ship and met the captain did I learn the horrible truth of it. And by then, it was too late. The captain’s curse had already infected me. Now, shadows cling to me like a jealous lover … and I am in thrall to the captain’s undying obsession.”

“Stations, boys!” called the helmsman from atop the captain’s cabin. The last of the sailors made their way back onto the deck with armfuls of wood and heavy cardboard boxes, and the last one aboard—a big, burly man with a brown bandana over his head and white eyes that contrasted with his thickly shadowed face—pulled back the plank.

The men began working the sails, running from place to place, untying ropes that made the area around the masts of the ship look like an unfinished spider web. In just moments, the unfurled sails grabbed the wind and the ship began to slowly move, cutting through the dark water. Something caught my eye: a blue sign hanging over the large windows of a building just beyond the northernmost dock, illuminated by a single yellow light bulb. I leaned on the wooden bulwark as we moved closer.

Ludington Harbor.

“We’re getting closer,” Ishmael said in a low voice. His hands wrapped around the bulwark’s wooden railing, squeezing so tight that the wood creaked and popped. “The captain can hear the fish’s music. He’s connected to that fish somehow.”

“But
what
music?” I whispered. The ship was pulling away from the shoreline now. The lights from the nearby city reached into the dark sky, blotting out the stars. Ishmael followed my gaze and grunted.

“It’s easy to take the stars for granted when you’re traveling the oceans. Out there, surrounded by water, the stars burn so bright I swear you have to shield your eyes. Sometimes, it’s beautiful enough to forget about our curse. For a moment or two.”

He began walking toward the captain’s cabin. He was staring at something. I followed, curious. Clouds passed over the moon, blanketing the ship in darkness. I stepped closer to the cabin, careful of my steps on the creaking, rotted deck. Whatever Ishmael was looking at … it was hanging over the captain’s door. Both windows on either side of the door were pitch-black, no lights on inside the cabin. What kind of evil Corrupted lurked inside?

Ishmael stopped, staring at the small circular object above the door. He sighed. “The captain has made some 
peculiar
friends around the world. Some of them I swear aren’t human at all. Some
are
human, and those are the ones I fear the most. The ones who would willingly do business with a creature such as the captain.
Are
they willing participants, or are they under the very same spell that curses me to this ship?”

I looked down at the deck. There was a soft, barely visible gold trail running along the wooden boards into the captain’s cabin. He’d been out recently. Very recently. Had he been watching the men unload the fish? Had he been watching
me
?

“Once,” Ishmael said, “not long ago, we were traveling north, up the eastern coast of the continent. We stopped at a small port in New York in the dead of night. Strange men wearing long black robes boarded. They kept their hoods up to hide their features, and their presence made even the oldest sailors uneasy.”

“The captain emerged from his cabin and bid the mysterious figures a good evening. One of the hooded men stepped forward. I had a terrible feeling about him. Somehow, he was not like the others. He spoke to the captain without fear. He told the captain that
The Order
had only servants. No masters but one:
the dragon
.”