Nailer shivered at the sight of the broken rich girl. There were lessons there, as powerful as the ones Pima’s mother taught when she explained how they were to survive into adulthood. Pride and death came just as fast whether you were Bapi thinking you were the boss of the light crew forever, or whether you were this shattered girl with her fine toys and fine clothes and pretty gold and jewels.
They crouched beside the body. “At least there’s no crabs,” Pima muttered. She took the girl’s necklace and yanked. The girl’s head jerked back like a marionette’s and the chain parted. The golden pendant swung before them, mesmerizing wealth in Pima’s fist. One quick grab and they were richer than anyone except maybe Lucky Strike. They both started working on the dead girl’s rings, tugging them from the cool flesh, trying to get them off.
“Damn,” Nailer muttered, tugging harder. “Her fingers got all stiff.”
“Yours stuck too?” Pima asked.
“They’re all fat and waterlogged. None of the rings come off.”
Pima drew her work knife. “Here.”
Nailer made a face of disgust. “You just going to chop her fingers off?”
“No worse than cutting the head off a chicken. And at least she’s not gonna squawk and flap around.” Pima set the knife against the girl’s finger. “Do it with me?”
“Where do I cut?”
“On the joint,” Pima indicated. “You can’t cut through the bone. This way, they pop right off.”
Nailer shrugged and got out his own knife. He set it against the joint where it would part easily. He pressed his blade into the girl’s flesh. Blood welled up as he cut.
The girl’s black eyes blinked.
9
“BLOOD AND RUST!” Nailer leaped back. “She’s not a deader! She’s alive!”
“What?” Pima scrambled away from the girl.
“Her eyes moved! I saw them!” Nailer’s heart hammered in his chest. He fought the urge to bolt from the cabin. The girl lay still now, but his skin was crawling. “I cut her and she moved.”
“I didn’t see-” Pima stopped midsentence.
The drowned girl’s dark eyes focused on her. They went from Pima to Nailer, and back to Pima.
“Fates,” Nailer whispered. Cold fingers ran up his spine, raising hackles. It was like their knives had summoned her ghost back into her body. The dead girl’s lips started to move. No words came out. Just a barely audible hiss.
“That’s some creepy shit,” Pima murmured.
The girl continued whispering, a steady stream of sibilants, a chant, a plea, all so low they could barely make out the words. Against his better judgment, Nailer crept forward, drawn by her eyes and desperation. The girl’s gold-decorated fingers twitched, reached for him.
Pima came up behind. The girl strained toward them, but they both stayed out of her grasp. More whispered words: prayer sounds, begging, an exhalation of storm and salt terror. Her eyes searched the cabin, widened in fear, terrified by something only she could see. Her gaze locked on Nailer again, desperate, pleading. Still she whispered. He leaned closer, straining to understand her words. The girl’s hands fluttered weakly against his arms, reached up to touch his face, a movement light as butterflies as she tried to pull him close. He leaned in, letting the drowned girl’s fingers clutch at him.
Her whispering lips brushed his ear.
She was praying. Soft begging words to Ganesha and the Buddha, to Kali-Mary Mercy and the Christian God… she was praying to anything at all, begging the Fates to let her walk from the shadow of death. Pleas spilled from her lips, a desperate trickle. She was broken, soon to die, but still the words slipped out in a steady whisper. Tum karuna ke saagar Tum palankarta hail Mary full of grace Ajahn Chan Bodhisattva, release me from suffering…
He drew away. Her fingers slipped from his cheek like orchid petals falling.
“She’s dying,” Pima said.
The girl’s eyes had become unfocused. Her lips still moved but she seemed to be losing energy now, losing her will to pray. The words were a quiet punctuation to the larger sounds of the ocean and coast outside: gulls calling, the surf, the creak and shift of the wrecked ship.
Gradually the words stopped. Her body stilled.
Pima and Nailer exchanged glances.
The gold on the girl’s fingers glittered.
Pima lifted her knife. “Fates, that’s creepy. Let’s get the gold and get the hell out of here.”
“You gonna cut her fingers off while she’s still breathing?”
“She’s not breathing for long.” Pima pointed at the bed and sea chests and debris piled on top of her. “She’s a goner. If I slit her throat, I’m doing her a favor.” She crept close and prodded the girl’s hand. The drowned girl didn’t respond. “She’s dead now, anyway.” Pima pressed the knife to the girl’s finger again.
The girl’s eyes snapped open.
“Please,” she whispered.
Pima pressed her lips together, ignoring the words. The girl’s free hand brushed at Pima’s face and Pima swatted it away. Pima leaned on the knife and blood welled up. The girl didn’t flinch. Didn’t pull away, just watched, black eyes begging as the knife cut into her brown skin.
“Please,” she said again.
Nailer’s skin crawled. “Don’t do it, Pima.”
Pima glanced up at him. “You going to get squeamish on me? You think you’re going to save her? Be her white knight like in Mom’s kiddie stories? You’re just a beach rat and she’s a swank. She gets out of here, this ship’s hers and we lose everything.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Don’t be stupid. This is only scavenge if she’s not standing on it saying it’s hers. All that silver we found? All this gold on her fingers? You know this boat’s hers. You know it. Look at the room she’s in.” Pima waved a hand at the wreckage around them. “She’s no servant, that’s for sure. She’s a damn swank. We let her out, we lose everything.”
She looked at the girl. “Sorry, swank. You’re worth more dead than alive.” She glanced at Nailer. “If it makes you feel better, I’ll put her down first.” She moved the knife to the girl’s smooth brown throat.
The girl’s eyes went to him, starving for salvation, but she didn’t speak again. Only stared.
“Don’t cut her,” Nailer said. “We can’t make a Lucky Strike like this… It would be like Sloth was with me.”
“It’s not the same at all. Sloth was crew. She swore blood oath with you. She didn’t have morals. But this swank?” Pima tapped the drowned girl with her knife. “She’s not crew. She’s just a boss girl with a lot of gold.” She made a face. “If we pigstick her, we’re rich. No more crew for life, right?”
The gold glittered on the girl’s fingers. Nailer struggled with his conflicting emotions. It was more wealth than he had ever seen. More wealth than most of the crews collected in years off the ships, and yet it decorated this girl’s fingers as casually as Moon Girl pierced her lip with steel.
Pima pressed her case. “This is once in a lifetime, Nailer. We play it smart, or we’re screwed for life.” She was shaking and a glitter of tears showed in her eyes. “I don’t like it either.” She looked down at the girl. “It’s not personal. It’s just her or us.”
“Maybe she’ll give us a reward for saving her,” he said.
“We both know that’s not the way it works.” Pima looked at him sadly. “That’s for fairy tales and Pearly’s mom’s stories about the rajah who falls in love with his servant girl. We either get rich, or we die on heavy crew-if we’re lucky. Maybe we walk oil scavenge until our legs get sores and your dad beats your head in. What else? The Harvesters? The nailsheds? We can always run red rippers and crystal slide out to the wrecks until Lawson & Carlson string us up. That’s what we get. And swanky here? She goes right back to her rich girl life.”
Pima paused. “Or we get out. With this gold, we get out for good.”