“Hey,” Theo said, taking her arm. “Calm down—it was just a story I told her. You said not to tell her about Shadrack. I thought it was a pretty good way to distract her.”
“Were you lying? About all of it?”
“Of course I was lying—that’s what you said to do.”
“I didn’t tell you to lie. I just said not to tell her anything. How am I supposed to know when you’re telling the truth?”
“Sophia, what I told her didn’t mean anything. Trust me.”
She gave a short laugh and looked away. “Right. Trust you.” She realized that new passengers were boarding. “We have to go,” she said tersely, turning on her heel to leave. Theo shook his head, then followed her.
Sophia stalked off the train and saw Calixta at the far end of the platform, directing the porters as they tied her trunks to the top of a coach. As Sophia started to walk toward her, she heard a sudden shout. She wheeled around and saw them instantly: three—no, four—men with identically scarred faces running along the platform. For a moment she stood frozen. Then she gripped her pack and burst into a run, her feet pounding against the wooden floorboards.
Theo soon reached and then passed her. It took Calixta, whose trunks were now securely tied to the roof of the coach, only a moment to grasp the situation. With one easy motion she threw open the door and drew her revolver. “Get in!” she shouted. Theo dove in first and Sophia scrambled after him. Calixta put her foot on the step of the open coach and grabbed the luggage rack with her free hand. “Drive!” she cried.
The horses sprang into motion and they jerked forward as Calixta leaned gracefully out and fired a single shot at the platform. Sophia watched as the men changed direction and scrambled toward the line of coaches; the horses were rearing in confusion, panicked by the pistol shot. Calixta ducked into the coach and closed the door. “Help me with my hat again, darling, would you?” she asked.
Sophia put her pack aside and tried, with trembling fingers, to pull the pins from Calixta’s hat while the coach jolted madly along the road. “They’re out,” she finally said, tucking them into the hat ribbon.
Calixta shook out her hair and leaned through the window. “Driver,” she called. “Triple the fare if you get us safely to the end of the dock. The ship with the red and white sails.” She pulled her head back in. “They’ll have gotten into a coach by now.”
The streets of New Orleans rushed past. The driver had taken them along the edge of the city, but there was still a fair amount of traffic, and the shouts of people dodging the racing coach could be heard clearly. Sophia glimpsed a fruit stand toppling unceremoniously to the ground as the horses sped by, and a number of yapping dogs set upon them in pursuit.
“Only another minute,” Calixta said, peeking out through the window. “When we get there, leave the coach at once and find the ship with red and white sails.” They nodded. “And watch my hat,” she told Sophia. “Don’t look so grim, sweetheart.” She smiled. “I’m an excellent shot.”
The coach jolted and then jumped as it suddenly reached the dock. “Get out of the way,” the driver shouted. The horses swerved around an upturned cart and a pile of crates collapsed behind it.
Suddenly a loud crack exploded at the rear of the coach, just between Sophia’s head and Calixta’s shoulder. “That’s them,” Calixta said. “Keep your heads down.” She leaned out the window and fired two careful shots. Then they came to a clattering halt. Calixta threw the door open. “Come on then,” she called. “The red and white sails. Tell Burr to come himself, because I’m certainly not leaving my trunks behind.” She stood with her feet planted firmly apart and her eye on their pursuers.
Sophia stumbled out carrying Calixta’s hat and looked anxiously for the sails. Where were they? Where was Theo, for that matter? He had vanished. There were crates everywhere, sailors, a horse with a gleaming black saddle pulling agitatedly on his reins, and two barking dogs with long red tongues. Was Theo hiding somewhere? Sophia crouched behind a pile of wooden crates and glanced down: sawdust and half of a dead fish. For some reason, the air smelled of rum: as if it had rained rum. She looked up; where was the ship with red and white sails? The sails were all red and white—and blue, and green, and yellow.
Then she saw a number of deckhands running toward Calixta; they had to be coming from her ship. A shot and then another rang out behind her, and she peeked out from behind the crates to see the pirate standing calmly, defending the coach with precise shots while the deckhands slid the trunks off the roof. Sophia stood and prepared to run after them.
But as she turned, she saw Theo some distance away, gesturing urgently to her with one hand; he held a pistol in the other and was walking backward, firing steadily, while a heavyset man beside him carried one of the trunks. Theo could shoot?
Then, suddenly, Calixta was no longer by the coach. In fact, Sophia realized with horror, the dock was nearly deserted. And there the pirate stood, on the deck of a ship with red and white sails. The ship had been anchored only a stone’s throw away, its sails tightly furled. Now they were catching the wind, fluttering like ribbons. Theo stood beside Calixta on the deck, pointing. He was pointing at Sophia, who was separated from the ship by a line of Sandmen.
I lost track of time! Sophia realized, aghast. Worse still, she noticed with agitation, she didn’t have her pack. She still held Calixta’s hat, but the precious pack was nowhere to be seen. I must have left it in the carriage, she thought frantically. The Sandmen fired toward the ship; they had not yet seen her. With the hat balanced on her head, Sophia began crawling on hands and knees back toward the coach. Theo, Calixta, and two other pirates were still exchanging volleys with the Sandmen, one of whom was readying his grappling hook.
To Sophia’s relief and surprise, she saw one of the pirates wearing her pack securely on his shoulders. Calixta must have found it. Now if I can only get to the ship. She could see the gangway. Five quick dashes would take her to it.
She stood up to run, burst forward, and collided with a tall, slim man wearing a hat even wider than Calixta’s. He held a revolver in one hand and a long sword in the other. With the tip of the revolver he pushed his hat back, revealing a handsome, bearded face and a wide grin. He looked Sophia over appraisingly. “When my sister said to keep her hat safe,” he said, “you really took her at her word.”
“I—I’m sorry,” Sophia stammered.
“Wisest thing you could have done,” he said cheerfully. He tucked the sword into its sheath, took Sophia’s hand, and led her, running, to the gangway of the ship with red and white sails. As they ran, the Sandmen sighted them and immediately changed course. Sophia heard footsteps pounding on the wooden dock, then a spattering of sharp cracks as something splintered. There was silence and then shouts from all sides. A grappling hook bit into the wooden board just beside her foot. Sophia found herself stumbling across the gangplank and onto the deck.
She turned, breathlessly, as the ship pulled away. The dock was abandoned apart from four strange figures: the Sandmen, mired in a thick, black syrup that had trapped them like flies in honey. Sophia squinted, not comprehending. Then a wave of violent dizziness washed over her. She reached for the deck rail and found it had vanished. She sank to her knees. Then her cheek lay against the polished wooden deck, and the whole world had tipped on its side.