“Quite alright,” she snapped before closing the door firmly in our faces.
Captain escorted me back to his house as if nothing had happened. However, I was fed up, frustrated, tired, and angry. We’d been fighting for our lives and those around us, ever since leaving Crestfallen. It seemed like every other person we met wanted to kill us. Yes, it was all at the direction of the Young Mage, but that made little difference. My patience and temper were on edge, and if Captain slowed us in any way, I’d find another boat to carry us.
I’d also do it without begging or explaining. As we reached his home, there were small clusters of people talking. Captain’s two sons were getting the boats ready to sail to go fishing, one tied to either side of the dock. Captain went back to the dock to talk to them. Within the space of a few words, his arms were flung wide and his voice grew sharper. While the words were hard to make out, he clearly was arguing. Demanding them to do as he directed.
The idea of taking another boat filled my mind as a good idea as he trudged back up the hillside to his house. Without addressing anyone in particular, he called to all to gather in front of him. “I will take them to Fairbanks and then on to Lander. Me. Nobody else. My sons will remain here and take the boats out fishing as usual. Nobody will know we have gone.”
Coffin said, “My boys can go with you. They will be a help.”
“No,” Captain said. “I want all of you to stay here. If spies of the Council of Nine arrive, we are fishing as always. You have come to join us and give us extra hands. They will not know of the third boat we’ll take, and any neighbors with loose tongues will not notice or they will answer to me.”
I glanced down to the edge of the water where the third boat lay upside down and wondered where he’d get another.
He noticed my look and grinned. “Do not worry. It’s now in better condition than the other two. After dark, we’ll set the mast and rig it. In the morning, a canvas sheet will cover where it used to be. Nobody will miss it.”
Captain ordered all of us going with him, which was the five of us, to go to sleep for the rest of the afternoon. He said it would be a long night and hard work. My belly was full, my body worn out, and the small house felt stuffy and overcrowded. I found a nice spot outside, out of the way, comfortably in the afternoon shade, and went into a deep sleep on the soft sand as soon as my eyes were closed.
I woke to the touch of Kendra’s hand and a whisper. “Time to go to work. Do you trust these people?”
My sleepy voice replied as my fuzzy mind grasped the question, “I trust you and Elizabeth. Will reports to the king and I trust him to do as the king says. Anna is a puzzle. After the Emma incident, I have reservations, but I can tell you that when she is inside my head, there is no deception.”
“So, she is either totally trustworthy or better at using her mind for magic than you.”
That’s my sister. She has a way with words. Insights I never see.
I sat up and got my feet under me. Kendra was waiting for my answer. “I will say two things. First, I believe her when she is talking to me but admit she might be more proficient and therefore can hide things. Second, I’ll try to be watchful for any deception.”
“Good enough,” Kendra said as she turned away.
There was only a little daylight left, the shadows were long, the worst of the heat already dissipating as well as my grogginess from sleeping. I rushed to her side and said, “Listen, that last took me by surprise because I was half asleep. Here is the rest, some of which you do not know. Anna offered, no insisted, I look into her mind. At everything. Her deepest darkest secrets. She removed her defenses and told me to enter.”
Kendra pulled to a stop and took me by my shoulders and stared into my eyes, a look of distaste on her face. “Did you? It sounds disgusting.”
“No.”
She smiled. “Good for you. There were probably things in there you should never know. Not that she is a bad person, but we all have secrets and rather than bringing the two of you closer, it would have forever put a wedge between you. You cannot unlearn anything.”
That’s what I meant about Kendra having a way with words. While I knew going deep inside Anna’s mind was wrong, I couldn’t have explained it. Without having the ability, Kendra instinctively knew why it should never happen. She also appreciated that Anna had offered.
We paused at the makeshift table and grabbed bread and slices of cheese on our way to where the others were gathered on the pier. Captain emerged from the cabin of the fishing boat on the right and when he saw us, nodded.
He took a position on the stern of the boat where he was a little higher up than us and talked to perhaps nine or ten of us. “The provisions are here, ready to load on the boat,” his arm waved to a pile of goods and barrels on the dock.
There were coils of rope in several sizes, folded sheets of canvas, tools of one sort or another, sacks of food, kegs of hooks, floats, small handlines, fishing nets, and a hundred other things. Even a stack of straw hats sat beside the long pole that would become the mast.
He continued, “To save time and confusion and to do what we need in secret from others in the village, we will work in darkness. It’ll be harder. First, all of us will gather around the boat on the shore. We will lift one side and roll it until it is upright on the keel. There are boards in place to hold it secure, and then we will push it into the water and float it to the end of the dock where my boys and I will stand and rig the mast.”
He paused and let everyone picture that. “My sons will put the mast up, and while they do that, the rest of us will stay out of the way and tie a line from the end of the dock to a tree on shore. We’ll place some old canvas over it, like a tent covering the boat we’ve been working on. With luck, anyone in the village looking this way will assume the boat is still under it.”
Elizabeth said with a note of scorn, “Do you really think it will fool them?”
He turned to her. “It only has to give them a credible excuse, if any outsider asks. They’ll say they thought I’d covered it to work in the shade but didn’t look so closely they noticed the boat was gone. Who can fault them, or disprove what they say?”
“How long will all this take?” Coffin asked. “To get the one ashore rigged and ready?”
“Not as long as you think,” Captain said. “By the time you set the tent, the mast will be in place. We’ll load the supplies next and be off before the moon rises. Again, no candles or lanterns, no shouting. I trust my neighbors more if they do not know what is happening.”
The last of the light had faded while he talked. One of his sons called softly, “The boat first.”
We gathered around it, or better said, all on one side. Everyone placed two hands against the hull. On Captain’s order, we lifted and walked forward a couple of steps as the boat rose higher. It felt lighter, balanced for a moment, then rolled. We scattered. The soft sand cushioned the hull as it finally settled almost upright. Heavy boards were placed between the hull and water, and as most of us pushed, Captain guided the bow between the greased boards.
The more we pushed, the easier the boat moved. Once it started, assisted by the slope of the ground and the slippery boards, the hull moved steadily until the bow splashed into the water. It almost went the rest of the way without our help.
Captain held fast to a rope he’d tied before we started, and he quickly ran up onto the dock as we gave the hull a final push. He used the momentum of the boat to guide the hull to the near side of the dock, and then to the end where he tied it and he started the work of setting the mast in place. We stayed out of his way. His boys had obviously raised a mast many times, and while they did that, we gathered on the beach.