“Oh, Elaina, it’s you. Up you come.” Her mother’s voice was soft and caring and full of warmth.
“I’m not sure I’m allowed,” Elaina said, staring pointedly at the monkey blocking her way.
“Zsheizshei,” Oljanka said firmly. “Come away from there. That’s my daughter.”
The little monkey bolted at its name, and only a second later was up Oljanka’s leg and disappearing into the voluminous folds of her patchwork dress.
“How long has it been, Elaina?”
“Too long, Mother.” Elaina pulled herself into the tree house and stood up, rolling a kink out of her shoulder. “Long enough not to have met that one before.”
Looking around, Elaina now saw more monkeys – many more. She gave up counting at twenty. Some of them lounged around, sunning themselves in patches of light. Others cleaned themselves or their comrades, and others watched the intruder with cruel, beady eyes. Elaina felt very vulnerable with so many sets of little teeth and hands close by.
“You won’t have met Zsheizshei then. He’s a little protective of me.” Oljanka Black stopped nibbling on the nuts long enough to embrace her daughter, and was then away into the room that served as a kitchen. “Doesn’t yet have the teeth or stones to be very formidable though.”
One of the monkeys let loose a mournful wail.
“Don’t argue with me,” Oljanka reprimanded the little beast. “Come. Sit down, Elaina. Tell me how you’re doing.”
With exaggerated care Oljanka began to sweep debris from the table in the centre of the room. Much of it was monkey hair, but there were also a number of wooden carvings that made Elaina’s eyes itch just from looking at them. Each one was placed in its own spot, no matter how insignificant it looked. Elaina couldn’t help but laugh. She’d grown up here in this house; for the first few years of her life it was all she’d known. She’d missed how meticulous her mother could be about even the smallest of things.
“I’ve missed you, Mother.” Elaina pulled out a rickety stool that was likely older than she was and sat down.
“Well, of course,” Oljanka said as she moved about the room, putting trinkets and tools away or moving them into new positions. “You wouldn’t be a very dutiful daughter if you didn’t. Have you seen the kettle?”
Elaina was about to ask why she would have seen it, when one of the monkeys let out a low noise that almost sounded like a husky whistle.
“You’re right. The fireplace does seem like the most likely spot for it, and – oh, look, you’re right.” Oljanka stopped next to Elaina for a moment. “You remember Rolo, always has to be right even when he’s wrong. Tea?”
“Aye.”
“And this time he’s right.” Oljanka walked to the fireplace, a reinforced stone monstrosity common in many houses on the Isle of Goats.
Elaina felt something tug on her britches and looked down to find a tiny, grey, bent-backed monkey staring up at her through milky eyes. She didn’t need her mother’s prompting to recognise Tchewie. The old female had been ancient even when Elaina was a child, and now she looked even more frail. Carefully, Elaina reached down, picked the little beast up, and set it on her lap, where it curled into a ball and promptly fell asleep.
“How many of these little monsters do you have these days, Mother?” The woman was pottering about by the fireplace, dropping all manner of crushed leaves into two cups.
Oljanka laughed merrily. “You know I can’t count past my fingers, Elaina.”
One of the monkeys hooted a few times. “Ptiti says there’s fifty-four of them, however many that is, but I wouldn’t take her word for it. I found her eating her own dung just this morning.”
Elaina’s mother returned to the table with two mugs of steaming broth, and set them down before moving away to find some other small task. The woman was incapable of staying still, and it was something that had driven Elaina near to madness as a child. It was having a similar effect now, but she knew there was nothing she could do to stop her.
“So, how is the world?” Oljanka said. “How are you? Still at daggers with little Blu?”
Elaina grimaced. “Blu ain’t so little no more, Mother. He’s pretty big now, in fact, and the spitting image of Father. Only he dyes his stupid beard blue.”
“Oh, I don’t remember him having a beard.” Her mother sounded sad. “I suppose it’s been a while since he came to see me.”
Elaina blew on her tea before taking a sip. She grimaced at the bitter taste. “I’m good, and the world is dangerous as always. Maybe a little more so these days.”
“Tanner came by the other day,” Oljanka said happily. “He said he would be gone for a while. I wish you would all just come back to me here. It’s so much safer in the forest.”
Elaina laughed. Most folk who set foot on the Isle of Goats were of the exact opposite opinion. Oljanka turned at the sound of her daughter’s amusement and crossed the room, cupping Elaina’s chin in her puffy hand and smiling down at her.
“Oh, my daughter. The dead are only dead until they’re not, and kings and queens are made of lust before love. The heart is black now, the light forgotten, but not all fortunes are made of gold. Winter wilts even the darkest of flowers. Walls. Where did I put the walls?” Then she was off into another room, cleaning, rearranging, and talking to her monkeys as though she hadn’t just said something utterly crazy.
Elaina sipped at her tea for a while, mulling over her mother’s words. The woman had been launching into such outbursts for years now, and Elaina had always wondered whether she even knew what she was saying. She looked down at the sleeping monkey in her lap and let out a long sigh. It wouldn’t be long before her mother fell into a shaking fit; they always followed the outbursts, and Elaina hated the thought of the woman being here alone when she collapsed.
It was hours later, and quickly approaching dark, when Elaina sauntered out of the jungle and into Fango. Some folk might find it hard to navigate in the dim light, but she knew her way around the Isle of Goats better than most men knew their way around their own bodies, and definitely better than any man knew his way around a woman’s.
An elderly seaman, long past retired, was sitting on a withered old stump and smoking a pipe. He squinted at her curiously for a few moments before cracking a rotten-toothed smile and greeting her by name. There weren’t many residents of Fango who didn’t know Elaina Black, and those that didn’t had, at the very least, damned well heard of her.
Elaina had put off going to see her father for long enough. Her visit to her mother had been a calculated delay, and she would need to present herself before the day was out or earn yet more of his disapproval. That was not something she could bear. She also needed to speak to him before Ocean Deep arrived and Blu got his say, or her idiot brother would no doubt poison their father against her.
Tanner Black always kept court at the same place whenever he set foot in Fango, and his choice wasn’t random. The Nymph was the town’s only brothel – and Tanner had seen to it that it remained that way. Nearly every pirate who set foot in Fango would frequent The Nymph, or at the very least pay a fleeting visit, and Tanner had eyes and ears in every nook, cranny, and whore. It was all part of his iron-clad control over the island and its people. And it worked.
The brothel was in the centre of town, a monster of a building spreading out across three of the largest trees in Fango. There were multiple entrances, all complete with ropes, ladders, and even donkey-powered cages for those that couldn’t manage – or couldn’t be arsed with – the climb. There were, however, far more exits from The Nymph than entrances, and many a drunken sailor had stumbled to find themselves on the fast track to the ground.