"This ain't right," I said. "Nobody dancing."
Naji glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. His brow was furrowed up like he'd been thinking real hard about something, and I hoped it was me but knew it probably wasn't.
I jumped up and bounded back into the light. It took me a few seconds to remember the steps: a lot of kicks and jumps and twirls, but once I got it down the crew started hooting and hollering and clapping out the rhythm. Then this big burly fellow got up and started following along, and damn if he wasn't lighter on his feet than me. And the next sea-dance started up, asking for victory in battle, and I was laughing and spinning and any darkness Naji might've slipped into me disappeared – at least for a time.
Things fell into a routine quick enough; they always do, once you're out at sea and the novelty of departure wears off. I got all caught up in the routine, though, cause it'd been so long since I'd been on the open ocean – the movement of the boat beneath my feet, and the smell of rotted wood and old seawater and sweet rum. You don't realize how much you miss something till it comes back to you, and then you wonder how you went so long without it.
I tried not to think on Naji's curse too much. Didn't want to remind myself of the overwhelming possibility that it really was just impossible and my time on the Revenge would be my last time on a ship at all.
Captain put me on rigging duty cause I could scamper up the ropes easier than a lot of the men, even though by lady standards I ain't exactly small. By the end of the first week my palms had their calluses back, and I'd gotten to know some of the crew. I liked 'em well enough, even though they teased me and tried to embarrass me with crude stories and the like. Course, I had a few stories up my sleeve that made them blush.
One afternoon, when we'd been out on the water for about a week and some days, a couple of the crew told me about Marjani.
"Some big-shot noble's daughter down in Jokja," Chari said. He was old and weathered and knew the ropes. "Ran off when her father wanted her to marry some second-rate Qilari courtier. Went to university, too."
It was noon and we were eating lunch up in the rigging, some hardboiled eggs and goat's milk cheese and honey bread, all the fresh stuff that only lasts a few weeks.
"She don't like people to know," Chari went on. "Afraid they'll hold it against her, or somebody'll find out and send her back."
I didn't say nothing, cause I figured it's none of my business what parts of their past people want to leave behind.
"Nah, she just don't want people thinking she's a stuck-up bitch. Too bad it didn't work none," said Ataño, who wasn't much younger than me and always out to prove something. Chari threw a handful of crushed-up eggshells at him and told him to shut up. That set me to laughing, and Ataño gave me a look that might have melted glass had I not gotten used to Naji's constant scowling.
"What about you, sweetheart?" Chari asked. "You got a story?"
I knew he really wanted to hear Naji's story. I wasn't giving it to him, not the fake one and sure as hell not the real one.
"Born under deck and grew up like you'd expect," I said. "Don't need a story to know that."
Chari leaned back thoughtfully while Ataño glowered and picked eggshells out of his hair.
"Ananna!"
It was a woman's voice, and there was only one other woman on board that boat. Marjani.
"What we get for talking about her," Chari muttered.
I leaned over the rigging and waved, wondering what she wanted with me.
"I need to speak with you!" she called out.
Ataño made this kind of grunting noise under his breath. I ignored him and swung down, going through the possibilities in my head: Naji had screwed something up. Marjani was gonna blackmail us. The captain was gonna toss us in the open ocean.
"You said you'd done some navigation before?" she asked soon as my feet landed on the deck.
I stared at her. "A little." It was the truth: Mama'd showed me once or twice, but Papa liked to do most of the navigation himself. He kept saying he'd teach me once I was older, but then they tried to marry me off.
"Good enough. Come on."
I followed her down below, even though I still wondered why she needed my help.
We passed some crewmen sitting around telling fortunes with the coffee dregs. Marjani kept her head up high, the way Mama used to, and nobody said nothing to her. She had that same don't-mess-with-me expression Mama used to take on, the one I practiced in the mirror when I was younger and sure I'd get a ship of my own someday.
The captain's quarters on the Ayel's Revenge were nicer than what I was used to, brocades and silks hanging from the ceiling, with big glass windows that let in streams of sunlight. Flecks of dust drifted in the air, glinting gold. Marjani walked right through them.
"I'm having some trouble with a rough patch on the map," she said, stopping in front of a table. The map showed the whole world, the ocean parts criss-crossed with lines and measurements. Marjani pointed to a little brooch pin stuck in a patch of ocean right where we needed to go. The jewels glittered in the sunlight.
"Sirens," she said. "They move around, but I threw some divinations last night and it looks like they're staying put for the time being."
She looked up at me expectantly.
"Sirens?" I blinked. "You mean this really is just about the navigation?"
She stared at me for a moment before collapsing into laughter. "What, did you think I was dragging you down here to chase rats?" She laughed again.
"I thought you'd told on me and Naji."
Her face turned serious. She shook her head. "I told you I wouldn't. No, I just…" She looked down at the map. "Nobody on this ship knows anything. Well, the captain does, but he spends all his time on deck swapping rum with the crew." She rubbed at her forehead. "I feel like a wife."